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May 10, 2024 13 mins

In this episode of The TradeMarke podcast, join us as we talk to Mary Brewington, the Operations Manager at Calloway & Sons. Broadcasting live from the ServiceTitan Marketing for the Trades Summit, Mary shares her insights on running operations at a trade company in New Orleans.

Mary discusses the significant challenges and successes she's encountered in her role, particularly when it comes to building a supportive and effective company culture. She shares the importance of fostering trust within the team, adapting to cultural differences, and implementing processes that promote productivity and growth. Mary further highlights the lessons she's learned in her journey, from the need for regular meetings and effective communication channels to the ongoing efforts in refining processes and roles within the company.

Providing a fascinating perspective, Mary also explores the relation between operations and marketing within a company. She sheds light on her observations regarding marketing trends and their effect on revenues, underscoring the need to diligently monitor these movements. She shares her experience attending a trade event and how it has helped her understand what to look for in assessing marketing strategies. The conversation offers valuable tips and strategies for other professionals in the field.

Join us for this engaging episode and discover how Mary's experience can help your own professional journey in the trades and marketing. Don't forget to leave a review, share the episode, and stay connected with us on social media for more discussions like these!

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Step into The Trademark, your go-to podcast for everything marketing in the trades.
Hosted by award-winning industry marketing experts, Sarah Girardo from Remarketable
and Eric Thomas from Rival Digital.
Together, we're here to unite the worlds of trades and marketing,
bringing you insights, stories, and strategies from the heart of the industry.

(00:21):
Whether you're a trade professional, a marketing expert, or somewhere in between,
this is the place for you.
Listen in as we're here for the big ideas, the game changers,
and the everyday successes.
Because at The Trademark, we're with the trades and for the trades.
What's going on, everyone? Welcome back to another episode of The Trademark.

(00:43):
Super excited to have you all here listening again today. We are live still
at the Service Titan Marketing for the Trade Summit in sunny New Orleans, Louisiana.
Yeah, I'm super excited. And today we have Mary Brewington.
Did I say that right? You did. Okay, perfect. And what company do you work for, Mary?
Callaway & Sons. Callaway & Sons. Callaway & Sons. And where's Callaway & Sons

(01:06):
based out of? New Orleans. New Orleans. Okay, awesome.
So I know that we're going to be kind of rapid fire round here, short and sweet.
So we want to just dive right in. And you're the operations manager at Callaway & Sons. I am.
So really, I think what we wanted to first hit on was just what's kind of the
most impactful thing from an operational standpoint that you have implemented

(01:29):
or seen be implemented during your time there that's made the biggest difference?
Building culture, building the culture, coming from processes,
making the processes and making sure that the culture is where it needs to be.
And not just that they trust me, but they trust everybody so that they can,
they know that they can go to everyone with questions.
Yeah. That's been super important. Yeah.

(01:51):
What does that look like? I know building a good company culture is so strong for you.
What did that look like as far as how long it took to build up that good company culture?
Certainly, it wasn't like an overnight kind of switch. Oh, we're still working on it. Yeah.
And here in New Orleans, they're a little bit different. So the culture is a
little bit different than North Carolina.
So we're all family. We're all super close.

(02:15):
So here's a little bit different. And so building that culture so that they
know that everyone is a team member. We're not in this by ourselves.
It's been a little bit difficult. I've been back and forth here since November.
So I actually got here to stay here for the year in February.
And so it's been a month and a half of processes.

(02:35):
You know, they're not loving it, but they're following them.
And it's our numbers are showing.
So we are we are triple where we were starting in February.
Yeah. But they're seeing that
the culture and counting on one another is what's getting us to that spot.
And what does it feel like to leave them for two days knowing that you're just starting culture?

(02:58):
Well, you just sent me a video that says sometimes you just have to let it burn.
It's been very hard. It's been extremely hard knowing that there's so much going on.
And if you're not there, for me, kind of micromanage maybe a little bit.
But for me, knowing that I'm not there and I can't be hands on with them right
now, it's been it's a little it's a little nerve wracking. Yeah.

(03:19):
So but they're still all calling me. They're still, hey, this is what's happening.
This is what's happening. And so that's the good thing. The what I'm what I'm
coming up against now is they're only calling me.
How can I get them to call on one another? How can I get them to call on the
other leads in the company, the other people?
How can I get them to trust them? Yeah. And I'm just not there yet, but we're working on it.

(03:41):
Yeah, that's really good. I'm actually, I'm glad we're talking about this because
this is something when Evan was presenting earlier, he had mentioned like everyone
that was in that room probably had 30 different fires to put out and everyone
kind of chuckled because it's so true.
Like when you truly step away from the operation for two days to what,
you know, obviously the goal is to come here and learn something to be able
to help the operation and help the business, but you still like,

(04:02):
it's still running in the background. ground.
So outside of making sure, trying to get them to call the correct team leads
and managers and whatnot, what are some other forms of communication that you
all have either put in place or have to test it out to improve that?
Meetings, meetings, role-playing meetings, role-playing meetings,
role-playing. And we come from, the business has been 15 years.

(04:23):
We come from no meetings, no meetings whatsoever.
And so it's been a challenge, but we are doing meetings every Monday with the
technicians, every Thursday with all the staff.
And we are starting to implement meetings with the installers now.
So meetings, that's huge.
We have group chats now. They never really had any of that. So it was just kind

(04:45):
of do for yourself, do what you want to do.
I'm not going to say do what you want to do, but they kind of got away with a whole lot.
And so meetings, group chats, lots of phone conversations, lots of 12 p.m.
Phone calls for me, lots of 4 a.m. phone calls for me.
But eventually we will have someone else put into place so that they can take
those phone calls. We just have to make them trust them.

(05:07):
Yeah, and so why don't they trust them? What happened in the company where maybe
the trust was lost or how does that happen in culture? Sure.
Well, if you kind of fend for yourself, you really don't have if there's not
rules, if there's not processes, you fend for yourself.
Right. And it's it's tunnel vision. So we focus on one thing and we're going to complete that thing.
And now we're adding in, hey, in order to do this step, in order to get to the

(05:34):
next step, we have to follow the first step. Right.
The first step is, hey, if you have a problem, let's call our dispatch.
If the call isn't it's not set up right, let's call our dispatcher.
Let's see why the call isn't set up.
Right before it was, I'm just going to run the call.
Now it's, Hey, did you ask the proper questions? And of course,
again, maybe a little bit of micromanagement, but I'm on the dispatch board

(05:57):
and I'm looking and I'm like, Hey, why was this question not asked?
I see that you asked the question.
You may have asked it, but I had to listen to the phone call to know I needed
to call the homeowner 30 minutes in advance before I got there.
Why wasn't it in the notes?
Why wasn't in the notes that I needed knee pads because I was going in a crawl space.
I wasn't in the notes that I needed a tall ladder because I needed to access the roof.

(06:19):
And so maybe they're asking the questions, but there's been no form of communication up until now.
And so now it's, okay, I don't, I see that I need a ladder, but how,
how tall of a ladder do I need?
And so now they're calling to ask the questions, but they're calling me. Yeah.
Got it. Yeah. Got it. So now they just need more of a process of like, this is who you call.

(06:41):
This is how I'm going to delegate this because as an operations manager,
yes, it's a lot of handholding, right?
And no matter how much delegation you have, they're still going to be holding hands.
But there's also the point where, you know, you can let go and not get that
midnight phone call where you're just like in panic or they're in panic. And yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

(07:02):
Something I learned when I was out on for paternity leave, which I'm sure every
business owner that's ever had a baby while running a business can probably
relate that it did not last long.
We were in the hospital the day he was born and I was on my laptop having to fix something.
So I was like, I got to be able to unplug for a couple of weeks, truly.

(07:23):
And just like you were saying, just let it burn. Eventually that was my mindset
because I was like, there's There's so much I need to do at home right now.
I was just like, if it burns, it burns. And what I did was I set up a Google
form that was creatively named Questions for Eric.
And I set up a zap so that the responses from that would get...
A Slack message would automatically send to me at like 4 p.m.

(07:45):
On like Thursday so that I only got notified once a week for those two or three
weeks I was out of questions.
And what I found was one, it didn't burn. The team's actually,
you know, when I just said, go figure it out, they did.
But what was nice about that form was it all the responses I collected,
I noticed a theme and there was a pattern with a lot of those questions.
You know, I didn't have a tall enough ladder. I needed this.

(08:07):
I needed that. And you'll see it's like, oh, that was that question was on here four times.
That's what the like that was like immediately i was like this is my first thing
to fix i like that yeah make yourself a form
yeah yeah okay yeah i really like
that and then slack and then have chat gbt respond so then you're never there
yeah right and then and then we'll sail away bermuda bahama come on pretty mama

(08:31):
and just yeah where are we going next right we've automated made it her job,
we're done. Yeah. Great podcast. We're done.
We've solved your solution. We have all your problems for you. Yeah.
That's awesome. One other thing I wanted to hit on, I know we're going to keep
this short and sweet, is the role of how marketing and operations work together.

(08:52):
I know it's hugely important for those two to be dialed in.
So as an operations manager, what are you seeing from the different locations
as far as effectiveness with your marketing and the operations being in sync?
So we're just diving into that. And I was just going over some numbers from 2023.
And I was noticing that there was a lot of money dumped in certain months for marketing.

(09:17):
And I was looking and I was like, we are probably 40% under where we were this
month for October of 22 than we were for 23.
And so the numbers drastically showed that. So I'm taking it to the owner.
I'm like, hey, Phillip, look, look at the numbers here. And October just stood

(09:37):
out because it was such a drastic decrease.
And I was like, what happened?
And so then I go diving into the back end of it. And I realized that he spent.
40 to 50% less in marketing. And I was like, why did we spend less in marketing
this year, 2023 than in 2022?
And he was like, I have zero idea.

(09:59):
Well, that's a marketing thing, right? Why did your marketing do that?
And so then now I'm on the phone with the marketing guy and I'm telling him
like, I know you guys hate it, but I'm like, Hey, I'm watching trends and I'm
watching, I'm watching the numbers.
What are you doing here? Well, I put more money into it this month than I did this month.
So I didn't put as much into it that month, but why?

(10:21):
So if you're paying attention as marketing, you know, this is the months that you need to do it.
And so I think that it was, they did $300,000 less in 2023 than they did in
2022 in the month of October.
And so it's showing, hey, this is why.
And then the marketing just saying, I've got everything under control.

(10:45):
And then instead of saying, okay, I'll let you have everything under control.
I'm actually diving in and I'm like, Hey, but this is what we have to do.
And events like this are teaching me because I'm not marketing,
right? I'm good at branding myself.
I'm good at branding a company, but I'm not good at marketing.
And so you pay someone to do it, right?
And I'm noticing that we have, there's a lot that we have to follow up on because

(11:05):
of events like this that I would never have known had I not come to an event
like this, because I don't know what to look for. Yeah.
Yeah. Most definitely. Like you can ask all the questions, right?
You have asked all the questions to your vendors.
And if you don't know something, it's okay to not know.
But if you don't come to an event, then you don't know the questions to ask. Yeah, that's true.

(11:27):
Yeah. And honestly, like for me, you know, as a as a marketing vendor for a lot of folks,
we we love it when when folks come to us with those questions,
because then it opens up a conversation for us to, you know,
work together on on collaborate and see what they're seeing and share what we're seeing.
Sometimes, obviously, though, that's not always the case with marketing.

(11:48):
They can be like, well, I made this change without telling anyone.
But it is nice to have that working relationship, too. So that's really good. Yeah, definitely.
I think it's a relationship, right? Like, I don't want someone to speak at me.
Speak with me. Yes. Right? And there are some agencies out there that will speak at you.
And they'll just give you all of this information really quickly.

(12:11):
And then it's like, what, like, what did you say to me?
You know, so, so like my biggest piece of advice just for people is to just
speak like a human, like anyone would understand instead of speaking over people or.
But yeah, so you go ask your questions. Oh, I'm go dig into those numbers.

(12:34):
And if you need help, you just let us know. We will help you. Yeah.
Well, Mary, thank you so much for joining us on The Trademark.
And yeah, everyone, thanks for tuning in to another short episode.
We look forward to seeing you all next time. Thank you. And that wraps up another

(12:55):
episode of The Trademark, where
we bridge the worlds of the trades and marketing one story at a time.
We can't wait to see you next time. Thank you to The Trades for giving back
big, loving big, and taking massive action.
Don't forget to join us next time for more engaging conversations and innovative ideas.
If you enjoyed today's episode, please leave us a review and share it with your

(13:19):
colleagues and friends in the trades and marketing.
Your support means the world to us.
Stay connected with us off the air by following us on social media.
We'd love to hear your thoughts and get your feedback. back.
Until next time, keep making your mark in the trades.
Thank you for listening to The Trademark. Goodbye for now. And remember,

(13:39):
we're with the trades for the trades.
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