October 11, 2024 • 13 mins
Ever wonder why your business starts strong but slows down mid-year? In this video, Jim Johnson reveals the 'Fourth Quarter Rush' strategy that helped his team outperform expectations. By turning the end of the year into a competitive game with incentives, Jim's team stayed motivated, crushed their targets, and had fun doing it.
In this video, learn how to:
• Keep your team engaged during slow periods
• Use competition to boost performance
• Finish the year stronger than you started
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jim Johnson (00:00):
As, as business owners and sales leaders and
things like that, we are alwayslooking for ways to kind of move
the needle a little bit.
And one of the things I noticed,um, that was happening in my
business is we had a really goodstart to our years.
Like we would crush it.
We'd come out of the winter, wehad a great kickoff party.
Everybody's all excited.
(00:20):
They're all broke.
And so they go hard at thingsand they're out there doing what
they're supposed to do.
We're staying with our vision,helping them.
Achieve what it was that theywere about and we would far
surpass our goals.
And I think that goes for a lotof us that if we're pretty
intense, we're competitive, butwe're also putting others first.
(00:42):
Um, it's surprising what can getaccomplished.
And so we have these targetswe're trying to hit and they're
each trying to hit their targetsbecause they want to change
their lives and help the companyachieve what they're after as
well as the.
outcome of helping them getwhere they want to be.
But we noticed a problem.
There was this problem that washappening that as the summer
(01:05):
would come in, uh, we wouldstill maintain pretty good
action through the end of June,but about the time July 4th
would hit, um, things would slowdown.
And you may have experiencedthis as well as a contractor
that there's a 4th of July timethat people kind of go on
vacation mode and then ourcustomers are in their back to
(01:26):
school phase or vacation phaseand things kind of slow down.
And then we kind of pick up alittle bit after that going into
September, October, November,that type of thing.
But it's almost, it's like wehave this real high arc and then
it kind of dips a little bit andthen we kind of come back up a
little and just tail out towardsthe end of the year.
And I was looking at my numbersand going, why is this
(01:49):
happening?
It's the same thing every year.
We kill it and then kind of takea dip and then come back a
little bit.
And I always wondered, why inthe world could the end of our
year not be like the beginningof our year?
And so we sat down as a group,uh, the owners and some of our
key leaders, and we startedtalking about it, like, why is
this happening?
And it could be one of twothings.
(02:10):
One is what we call Fat WalletSyndrome.
We helped everybody get to wherethey wanted to be, and now they
are where they need to be, andthere's no more push, no more
challenge, no more thing gettingus to do and go.
And so that could be oneproblem.
The other problem could be thatwe didn't get to where we want
to, and everybody's kind of downa little bit.
(02:31):
And because they're down,they're not putting in the
effort that we want, and they'rekind of almost chalking it up to
a lost season.
Think of it kind of a little bitlike football.
You know, if you start off 0 and4, like Do the players play as
hard or if you start off, um,eight, no, Hey man, we're way up
and you kind of get complacentand all of a sudden the bottom
(02:51):
dueler comes up and takes it outfrom underneath you.
And I always love this footballanalogy because it's almost like
quarters in a football game.
We got our first quarter, secondquarter, third quarter, fourth
quarter.
And if we take off in the fourthquarter, how many times have you
seen the other team come backand win?
Like this idea of like, Hey man,we're up 14 going into the
(03:12):
fourth quarter and we startplaying prevent defense and just
kind of tailing out trying tomake it through to the end so
that we win in the end and allof a sudden do kicks the last
second field going you lose.
Well, we looked at it the verymuch the same way we're like,
what can we do to get as muchout of the back end of the year
(03:33):
as we did in the front end ofthe year, knowing that summer
was going to be summer betweenMemorial Day and Labor Day.
There were certain things wecould do to move the needle a
little.
But after everybody went back toschool.
What could we do to change thegame?
So we started to think about,well, what are the pinch points?
What are the pain points?
What are the things that makepeople start to make decisions?
(03:55):
Well, winter's coming was one ofthose things.
You're starting to get into somedifferent weather.
You're trying to get thingsdone.
People put off things.
So they want to get those thingsdone before the end of the year.
We started to tailor what wewere doing around that.
And we actually put a name towhat it was that we were doing.
We call it the fourth quarterrush.
This put the nail in the coffin,this idea of never letting
(04:18):
somebody come back and defeat usbecause at the end we wanted to
have the championship.
We wanted the super bowl.
And if we start to think aboutour businesses that way, we can
do some things that allow us toachieve even bigger and better
numbers at the end of the year,which is actually the better
time of the year than thebeginning of the year.
You think about the beginning ofthe year, people are excited
(04:39):
about getting their projectsdone and stuff like that, but
there's no real pressure onthem.
They're kind of like, Hey, Idon't have to do it right now.
I can do it later and later andlater.
But at the end of the year,there's pressure.
There's like, Hey, winter'scoming and all that other good
stuff.
I need to get this project done.
And you can start to apply alittle bit of that, but you also
have to apply some incentive toyour team, especially if they
(05:00):
have fat wallet syndrome, ifthey've got the money, their
incentive is now gone.
So their effort doesn't quitemeet what it is that we're
looking for.
So, um, I'll never forget this,uh, time.
We're all sitting there togetherand we're like, Hey, what can we
do to kind of spark things alittle bit?
And we all know that the onlyreason anybody does anything is
(05:21):
because of incentive.
And so what kind of incentivecan we do at the end of the year
to get the same or betterresults that we did at the
beginning of the year?
Well, we took into considerationwhat was going on at that time.
Everybody likes this time ofyear.
We're here right now.
It's kind of the beginning offootball season.
(05:42):
Every single, every single teamis going to win the Super Bowl
right now, unless you've got hadthe first week and your
quarterback got hurt.
Now you're like, Hey, maybewe're not.
So we, how can we kind of tailorthis around the football idea?
We've trained everybody.
We've gone through ourpractices.
We've gone through our gameplayplan.
Like we know all that stuff.
We're good at what we do.
(06:03):
How do we get a little bit moreout of all this and make it fun?
And so what we ended up doing iswe created the fantasy roofing
league.
And what we did is we took eachof our guys and we said, Hey
guys, You are your ownindividual teams.
Now we add about a hundredpeople in our company, but we
section them up into divisionsand stuff like that.
(06:24):
You could do it with a smallteam.
Usually you have to have four ormore to do this, but they can
have their own team and so theycan name it whatever they want.
Depending on your culture, youcan get some pretty fun names
and things.
And so they are going to play agame.
But against another individualor team for that week, and we
set up a whole schedule 14 weekschedule that was after the end
(06:49):
of summer going into winter andnow they were playing for
points.
They weren't playing for money.
They weren't playing for, nowthere was bonuses and all that
fun stuff, but they weren'tplaying, they were playing for
winning.
They were playing forachievement.
They are playing forcompetition.
And so each week they got apoint for the number of
inspections.
They got, they got three pointsfor the agreements.
(07:10):
They got, they got five pointsfor a contract.
They got, uh, another threepoints for a build that week
that went without a problem.
And so we put this point system.
To their results for the week,and they could do them any way
they wanted to.
They could play the game any waythey wanted.
If they wanted to run somenumbers up, they could go out
and get a whole bunch ofinspections.
(07:30):
But they were only worth onepoint.
I mean, if they wanted to getsome big points, they could go
after getting some of theirdeals closed.
And so each week they wouldplay, there'd be a winner and a
loser.
And then next week, hey, newwinner and loser.
So it always had incentive everysingle week.
Nobody ever.
Took a day off or a week off.
They went hard at it, trying toget to the playoffs.
(07:52):
And so at the end of the year,we would tally up all the wins.
We had a quarterfinals,semifinals, and then a super
bowl where it came down to thelast two guys playing each of
the guys that were out at thatpoint were rooting for the other
ones and we had the best.
End of the year we've ever had.
We actually outperformed thebeginning of our year.
(08:13):
The beginning of our year, wedid about 7 million from January
1st to June, um, to June 30thfrom August.
The end of August or September1st to the end of November, we
did 10 million.
So imagine in four months, wedid what we did in six months
(08:35):
and it was totally because theywere playing a game.
Their purpose had changed.
Their mind had shifted from thisis about me making money to get
this thing.
I want to, Hey, I want to win.
So they had new incentive.
And so you need to really thinkabout in your own business, As a
business owner, how do you getthe most out of your team
(08:57):
without making it a burden andalways feeling like you're
pushing on somebody becausepeople burn out that way.
That's not fun.
That's not enjoyable.
We want to do something that'sincentive.
That's enjoyable.
It was an absolute blast.
Whoever finished last always hadto do something silly.
We played it just like you wouldplay a fantasy football league.
Now, that's just one example.
(09:17):
There's a million different waysthat you could do something
similar, but you are going tohave to shift your mind from the
cracking the whip on peoplethinking that more money is
going to solve their problem andlooking at what is it that they
really want or need dependingupon your culture that you can
create competition or purposeover so that they finish the
(09:39):
year strong.
You come out on top and you'rethe Super Bowl winner in your
market.
This is the way that you make ashift in your mind to make it
more about what it is thatsomebody else wants based on
incentive.
Cause it's the only reason thatwe do anything.
And once we understand that,what can I put in place that
(10:01):
fits my company's culture togive the people that work for
me, The incentive to dosomething that isn't always
about the money.
I get asked an awful lot, like,and this was one of the reasons
I actually became a coach.
Like this is maybe the numberone reason I became a coach.
Um, I used to sell software fora company called Acculinks.
(10:22):
You may have heard of it.
I was the director of sales andpart of my job was to make
Acculinks a thing.
But once we had was to go in andmeet contractors and talk with
them about their business.
And, uh, it'd take about an hourto sell Immaculinks, but then
there was all these questions,there were questions on like,
how did you grow your team theway you did?
(10:42):
Uh, what was your culture like?
How did you be as profitable asyou were?
How did you have multiplelocations?
How did you pay people?
How did you, like all thesequestions.
And I started to realize thatpeople are out there doing what
it is that they think is bestinstead of doing what they know
is best.
And it shifted the way I lookedat this industry going, Hey,
(11:05):
everybody's still kind of doingit that way of achievement, this
hitting a dollar figure, this,all that stuff.
That everybody gets wrapped upin which causes them to make
mistakes They make thesemistakes To do the right thing
at the wrong time because theythink they're trying to hit
their achievement Instead oftrying to serve their people and
(11:28):
whenever we do that, we mess upour priorities.
We start to make it about moneyWe start to make it about this
number this profit this stuffinstead of making it about our
people Well, these five mindshifts that I just shared with
you were radical changes fromabout me and myself and my
numbers and my achievements andall of that stuff to about my
(11:50):
people.
When I started to make it aboutmy people and focused on them
achieving their goals, themhaving fun doing what they were
doing, them putting the clientfirst because I had put them
first.
These mind shifts were the solebiggest difference between me
being a 5 million company and mebeing a 25 million company.
(12:13):
Which could have been evenbigger if I wanted it to be.
The only reason it wasn't biggerBecause I had already done that,
41 million with the othercompany.
I knew that I wanted to live acertain type of lifestyle.
I knew what sacrifice meant inmoney and time.
And was I willing to give up thetime with those I love and care
(12:35):
for to just be a bigger companymaking more money?
Not necessarily for me.
Now, that was something that Ihad to have a really good talk
with, with my wife and thosethat I love, about where do we
actually want to be.
And once I figured out what thatwas, it allowed those mind
shifts to actually come to playto say, Hey, I want to help
(12:56):
people achieve amazing things,but I also want to live a
lifestyle that's enjoyable.
Those five mindsets allow me tolive a lifestyle that allows me
to be prosperous and enjoy whatit is that I do and feel
fulfilled every day.
I hope they help you as well.
As, as business owners and sales leaders and
things like that, we are alwayslooking for ways to kind of move
the needle a little bit.
And one of the things I noticed,um, that was happening in my
business is we had a really goodstart to our years.
Like we would crush it.
We'd come out of the winter, wehad a great kickoff party.
Everybody's all excited.
(00:20):
They're all broke.
And so they go hard at thingsand they're out there doing what
they're supposed to do.
We're staying with our vision,helping them.
Achieve what it was that theywere about and we would far
surpass our goals.
And I think that goes for a lotof us that if we're pretty
intense, we're competitive, butwe're also putting others first.
(00:42):
Um, it's surprising what can getaccomplished.
And so we have these targetswe're trying to hit and they're
each trying to hit their targetsbecause they want to change
their lives and help the companyachieve what they're after as
well as the.
outcome of helping them getwhere they want to be.
But we noticed a problem.
There was this problem that washappening that as the summer
(01:05):
would come in, uh, we wouldstill maintain pretty good
action through the end of June,but about the time July 4th
would hit, um, things would slowdown.
And you may have experiencedthis as well as a contractor
that there's a 4th of July timethat people kind of go on
vacation mode and then ourcustomers are in their back to
(01:26):
school phase or vacation phaseand things kind of slow down.
And then we kind of pick up alittle bit after that going into
September, October, November,that type of thing.
But it's almost, it's like wehave this real high arc and then
it kind of dips a little bit andthen we kind of come back up a
little and just tail out towardsthe end of the year.
And I was looking at my numbersand going, why is this
(01:49):
happening?
It's the same thing every year.
We kill it and then kind of takea dip and then come back a
little bit.
And I always wondered, why inthe world could the end of our
year not be like the beginningof our year?
And so we sat down as a group,uh, the owners and some of our
key leaders, and we startedtalking about it, like, why is
this happening?
And it could be one of twothings.
(02:10):
One is what we call Fat WalletSyndrome.
We helped everybody get to wherethey wanted to be, and now they
are where they need to be, andthere's no more push, no more
challenge, no more thing gettingus to do and go.
And so that could be oneproblem.
The other problem could be thatwe didn't get to where we want
to, and everybody's kind of downa little bit.
(02:31):
And because they're down,they're not putting in the
effort that we want, and they'rekind of almost chalking it up to
a lost season.
Think of it kind of a little bitlike football.
You know, if you start off 0 and4, like Do the players play as
hard or if you start off, um,eight, no, Hey man, we're way up
and you kind of get complacentand all of a sudden the bottom
(02:51):
dueler comes up and takes it outfrom underneath you.
And I always love this footballanalogy because it's almost like
quarters in a football game.
We got our first quarter, secondquarter, third quarter, fourth
quarter.
And if we take off in the fourthquarter, how many times have you
seen the other team come backand win?
Like this idea of like, Hey man,we're up 14 going into the
(03:12):
fourth quarter and we startplaying prevent defense and just
kind of tailing out trying tomake it through to the end so
that we win in the end and allof a sudden do kicks the last
second field going you lose.
Well, we looked at it the verymuch the same way we're like,
what can we do to get as muchout of the back end of the year
(03:33):
as we did in the front end ofthe year, knowing that summer
was going to be summer betweenMemorial Day and Labor Day.
There were certain things wecould do to move the needle a
little.
But after everybody went back toschool.
What could we do to change thegame?
So we started to think about,well, what are the pinch points?
What are the pain points?
What are the things that makepeople start to make decisions?
(03:55):
Well, winter's coming was one ofthose things.
You're starting to get into somedifferent weather.
You're trying to get thingsdone.
People put off things.
So they want to get those thingsdone before the end of the year.
We started to tailor what wewere doing around that.
And we actually put a name towhat it was that we were doing.
We call it the fourth quarterrush.
This put the nail in the coffin,this idea of never letting
(04:18):
somebody come back and defeat usbecause at the end we wanted to
have the championship.
We wanted the super bowl.
And if we start to think aboutour businesses that way, we can
do some things that allow us toachieve even bigger and better
numbers at the end of the year,which is actually the better
time of the year than thebeginning of the year.
You think about the beginning ofthe year, people are excited
(04:39):
about getting their projectsdone and stuff like that, but
there's no real pressure onthem.
They're kind of like, Hey, Idon't have to do it right now.
I can do it later and later andlater.
But at the end of the year,there's pressure.
There's like, Hey, winter'scoming and all that other good
stuff.
I need to get this project done.
And you can start to apply alittle bit of that, but you also
have to apply some incentive toyour team, especially if they
(05:00):
have fat wallet syndrome, ifthey've got the money, their
incentive is now gone.
So their effort doesn't quitemeet what it is that we're
looking for.
So, um, I'll never forget this,uh, time.
We're all sitting there togetherand we're like, Hey, what can we
do to kind of spark things alittle bit?
And we all know that the onlyreason anybody does anything is
(05:21):
because of incentive.
And so what kind of incentivecan we do at the end of the year
to get the same or betterresults that we did at the
beginning of the year?
Well, we took into considerationwhat was going on at that time.
Everybody likes this time ofyear.
We're here right now.
It's kind of the beginning offootball season.
(05:42):
Every single, every single teamis going to win the Super Bowl
right now, unless you've got hadthe first week and your
quarterback got hurt.
Now you're like, Hey, maybewe're not.
So we, how can we kind of tailorthis around the football idea?
We've trained everybody.
We've gone through ourpractices.
We've gone through our gameplayplan.
Like we know all that stuff.
We're good at what we do.
(06:03):
How do we get a little bit moreout of all this and make it fun?
And so what we ended up doing iswe created the fantasy roofing
league.
And what we did is we took eachof our guys and we said, Hey
guys, You are your ownindividual teams.
Now we add about a hundredpeople in our company, but we
section them up into divisionsand stuff like that.
(06:24):
You could do it with a smallteam.
Usually you have to have four ormore to do this, but they can
have their own team and so theycan name it whatever they want.
Depending on your culture, youcan get some pretty fun names
and things.
And so they are going to play agame.
But against another individualor team for that week, and we
set up a whole schedule 14 weekschedule that was after the end
(06:49):
of summer going into winter andnow they were playing for
points.
They weren't playing for money.
They weren't playing for, nowthere was bonuses and all that
fun stuff, but they weren'tplaying, they were playing for
winning.
They were playing forachievement.
They are playing forcompetition.
And so each week they got apoint for the number of
inspections.
They got, they got three pointsfor the agreements.
(07:10):
They got, they got five pointsfor a contract.
They got, uh, another threepoints for a build that week
that went without a problem.
And so we put this point system.
To their results for the week,and they could do them any way
they wanted to.
They could play the game any waythey wanted.
If they wanted to run somenumbers up, they could go out
and get a whole bunch ofinspections.
(07:30):
But they were only worth onepoint.
I mean, if they wanted to getsome big points, they could go
after getting some of theirdeals closed.
And so each week they wouldplay, there'd be a winner and a
loser.
And then next week, hey, newwinner and loser.
So it always had incentive everysingle week.
Nobody ever.
Took a day off or a week off.
They went hard at it, trying toget to the playoffs.
(07:52):
And so at the end of the year,we would tally up all the wins.
We had a quarterfinals,semifinals, and then a super
bowl where it came down to thelast two guys playing each of
the guys that were out at thatpoint were rooting for the other
ones and we had the best.
End of the year we've ever had.
We actually outperformed thebeginning of our year.
(08:13):
The beginning of our year, wedid about 7 million from January
1st to June, um, to June 30thfrom August.
The end of August or September1st to the end of November, we
did 10 million.
So imagine in four months, wedid what we did in six months
(08:35):
and it was totally because theywere playing a game.
Their purpose had changed.
Their mind had shifted from thisis about me making money to get
this thing.
I want to, Hey, I want to win.
So they had new incentive.
And so you need to really thinkabout in your own business, As a
business owner, how do you getthe most out of your team
(08:57):
without making it a burden andalways feeling like you're
pushing on somebody becausepeople burn out that way.
That's not fun.
That's not enjoyable.
We want to do something that'sincentive.
That's enjoyable.
It was an absolute blast.
Whoever finished last always hadto do something silly.
We played it just like you wouldplay a fantasy football league.
Now, that's just one example.
(09:17):
There's a million different waysthat you could do something
similar, but you are going tohave to shift your mind from the
cracking the whip on peoplethinking that more money is
going to solve their problem andlooking at what is it that they
really want or need dependingupon your culture that you can
create competition or purposeover so that they finish the
(09:39):
year strong.
You come out on top and you'rethe Super Bowl winner in your
market.
This is the way that you make ashift in your mind to make it
more about what it is thatsomebody else wants based on
incentive.
Cause it's the only reason thatwe do anything.
And once we understand that,what can I put in place that
(10:01):
fits my company's culture togive the people that work for
me, The incentive to dosomething that isn't always
about the money.
I get asked an awful lot, like,and this was one of the reasons
I actually became a coach.
Like this is maybe the numberone reason I became a coach.
Um, I used to sell software fora company called Acculinks.
(10:22):
You may have heard of it.
I was the director of sales andpart of my job was to make
Acculinks a thing.
But once we had was to go in andmeet contractors and talk with
them about their business.
And, uh, it'd take about an hourto sell Immaculinks, but then
there was all these questions,there were questions on like,
how did you grow your team theway you did?
(10:42):
Uh, what was your culture like?
How did you be as profitable asyou were?
How did you have multiplelocations?
How did you pay people?
How did you, like all thesequestions.
And I started to realize thatpeople are out there doing what
it is that they think is bestinstead of doing what they know
is best.
And it shifted the way I lookedat this industry going, Hey,
(11:05):
everybody's still kind of doingit that way of achievement, this
hitting a dollar figure, this,all that stuff.
That everybody gets wrapped upin which causes them to make
mistakes They make thesemistakes To do the right thing
at the wrong time because theythink they're trying to hit
their achievement Instead oftrying to serve their people and
(11:28):
whenever we do that, we mess upour priorities.
We start to make it about moneyWe start to make it about this
number this profit this stuffinstead of making it about our
people Well, these five mindshifts that I just shared with
you were radical changes fromabout me and myself and my
numbers and my achievements andall of that stuff to about my
(11:50):
people.
When I started to make it aboutmy people and focused on them
achieving their goals, themhaving fun doing what they were
doing, them putting the clientfirst because I had put them
first.
These mind shifts were the solebiggest difference between me
being a 5 million company and mebeing a 25 million company.
(12:13):
Which could have been evenbigger if I wanted it to be.
The only reason it wasn't biggerBecause I had already done that,
41 million with the othercompany.
I knew that I wanted to live acertain type of lifestyle.
I knew what sacrifice meant inmoney and time.
And was I willing to give up thetime with those I love and care
(12:35):
for to just be a bigger companymaking more money?
Not necessarily for me.
Now, that was something that Ihad to have a really good talk
with, with my wife and thosethat I love, about where do we
actually want to be.
And once I figured out what thatwas, it allowed those mind
shifts to actually come to playto say, Hey, I want to help
(12:56):
people achieve amazing things,but I also want to live a
lifestyle that's enjoyable.
Those five mindsets allow me tolive a lifestyle that allows me
to be prosperous and enjoy whatit is that I do and feel
fulfilled every day.
I hope they help you as well.
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Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!