Blue Collar Culture

Business Results the Old Fashioned Way

Vinnie Fisher | Why Culture Matters

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In today’s episode of Blue Collar Culture, we sit down with Vinnie Fisher– businessman, author, entrepreneur, husband, and father. Vinnie’s journey hasn’t been easy, coming from a family where he was the first to graduate college, “let alone secondary school,” says Vinnie. His story truly shows that perseverance and dedication can bring you great things.

Before focusing on his business and family, Vinnie was a lawyer in the corporate branch of his firm, handling M&A deals. Then, Vinnie was coaxed out of the legal services world and ended up in building internet companies for over 10 years, the last of which was sold off in 2014. Now, Vinnie runs Fully Accountable– a complete back-office solution. 

“I was so excited when I got the idea of talking about blue-collar culture because we live the idea of culture every day and in what we do,” says Vinnie on why he’s appearing on the show. 

We’ll talk to Vinnie about how he defines culture, how he’d describe the culture at Fully Accountable, as well as…

  • How his employees helped shape his culture
  • What he thinks of when he thinks of his company’s values
  • Why values aren’t just words– they’re the foundation of your business
  • How demonstrating your company values provides actual value to your clients
  • Why fostering honesty and open communication is important, and
  • How vulnerability within the office environment allows for growth

Listen now…

Mentioned in this episode:

Transcript

Jeremy Macliver: Alright, well, welcome back to another episode of Blue Collar Culture. Today we have as our guest we have Vinnie Fisher. And Vinny is a businessman, an entrepreneur and author, husband and a father. So married over 20 years to his wife, Debbie, and he has four wonderful children. That leaves a couple others out there, doesn't it? Just kidding. Welcome to the podcast. Vinnie, we're happy to have you here.

Vinnie Fisher: Thanks for having me.

Jeremy: And go ahead, Ryan.

Ryan Englin: I was just gonna say one of the first questions I like to ask with new guests. So I don't know a lot about you, I did a little bit of cyberstalking, so learned a little bit. But tell us your story. Share with us your story, like how did you get into business? How did you get here? Feel free to share any of the things you learned along the way as well. But just love to hear your story.

Vinnie’s Entrepreneurial Journey

Vinnie: Yeah, so, you know, I'm a, actually, this is our 25th year. So a little shout out to Debbie for enduring the years of marriage. And we're in the four teenagers part of our life. So we have four teenagers in our home. And so a little shout out to all that. So I'm actually really busy being a dad, active dad of four teenagers. My side hustle is our company. And so, just kind of an interesting time in our life. But looking back, Ryan, you know, you're like the kind of the Genesis story of Vinnie.

You know, I come from a really broken environment. I'm the first guy in my family that actually graduated college, let alone a secondary school beyond that. Became a lawyer. I was joined a big fancy firm where I was the grinder. I was putting in all the hours, filing all the paperwork, became a corporate m&a guy in the corporate department. Had no idea what that meant. Kind of got a specialty in tax. And I learned that if I worked really hard in that environment, I could actually pick up a bunch of work.

And so we grew up a big law firm, met a whiz-bang internet guy in the process, who kind of coaxed me out of the legal services world. And we went on this run for the next 10 years building out some sizable internet companies and I had large staffs there. In 2014, I sold off the last one of those and we opened up what today is Fully Accountable. And it's a full-service company with 75 people on our team. We have a corporate office that, you know, it's Friday around here so there's noise and stuff, and hopefully, Ryan, you're not hearing too much of that.

But in addition to that, we have homeys that are stretched out around the country. And so I was excited when I got the idea of talking about blue collar culture because we live the idea of culture every day in what we do. And so I'm looking forward to getting under the hood on that. But we do the hard work of all of the reconciliation accounting every day. So we don't get away from the privilege of doing that work. And so we felt like we resonated with your community real quick when we saw that.

Ryan: That's awesome. So how do you guys define culture over there at Fully Accountable? Like, how would you describe it?

Vinnie: Yeah. So you know, I wrote a book called The CEO's Mindset, and in there, I talked about this concept of what's the real heartbeat of a company. And I think that a real heartbeat of the company is me and you. I'm it. I define our culture. And so as my personality develops and grows and builds out, so does the cultural DNA of the company. So if you look at our website, and you see caring, competent and committed, and you look at the sub descriptions of each of those values, you've now just got a glimpse of me.

And so we use that as a way to actually hire and defend what our DNA of our company looks like. So you'll hear very often go, oh my gosh, your people are so much like you. Thankfully, they're kinder, and they're more compassionate because that healthy side of me plays out nicely when it could. But we defend that. So culture looks like our heartbeat. Our heartbeat looks like the creator of the DNA in our environment.

Jeremy: Very cool. I love the values. You know, too often companies, when they hear about core values, they feel like they're just this warm, fuzzy feeling stuff. And I'd be interested to hear some of the stories that you have around how these have helped shape your culture, how you use them in hiring, and how you use them even and developing your current employees.

Vinnie: Yeah, so as we got a little bit more, you know, as I continue to get more self-aware, I can understand the things that make me tick. So a motto around here is, you know, who do you give the most benefit of the doubt to. I'll answer. You, right? And so since you get most of the benefit of the doubt, what parts of the quality of your personality, would you end up giving the benefit of the doubt to other people in your organization?

So if they, if it quacks like a duck, it's going to act like a duck. And so we always will say that kind of first and foremost. So what are some examples we use in our hiring process? We think of it as a defense mechanism. So we'll ask, one of our things around here is we're caring. So we will never, we do not like to be yelled at. So we're not going to yell. And so what does that mean? I didn't like to be yelled at ever. I was raised in an environment where I was yelled at.

So I'll ask, I've been a little bit removed from hiring now, but our team who does will say, hey, tell us a time, the last time you got into a yelling match at the office, and how did that, how are you able to stand up for yourself? We're not asking you have you ever yelled. We want to know when you did so we can understand it a little bit. Another core part of caring is we tell you the truth regardless of the result because we need you to know what really matters.

And that was because I was raised in a world where posing was important. So we kind of, I showed you whatever example of me you needed to know. So in our environment, this idea of lying is a trigger to some other big things. So we'll say, tell us the last time you lied in the office, and what was the reason you thought that was, okay? We want to hear about these things. Not because we're saying you can't lie or you can't yell, but we start to learn things about you as a person. So that, for example, a core thing around here is we don't believe in finger-pointing. So the first move to do is, you know, we believe in like, hurting people hurt people.

So they have a thorn in their paw. And so they're upset about something, well you did something not to meet their expectations. So let's not be quick to go but it's not my fault. And so we start learning about you. And our culture looks a lot like me because those are triggers that matter a lot in the way that I would want to do business with people. And so we live on the front lines because of that stuff. And that's really the way we use those things, and so commit it, You know, I was raised in a corporate environment where you had to be in your office certain times.

It didn't make sense to me, to me what made sense, if you're going to work hard and you promise, you're gonna get something done and let's say you're promised it by the end of the day, well, if your end of the day is five o'clock, and it's not done, it better occur to you to call that person. You promised something and explain why it didn't happen. Not just wait until sometime down the road when they're really honked off mad at you that it doesn't get done. So that's our culture. That's who we are. It's because we live those things out. They're not just downloaded off of Apple because it looks cute.

Ryan: Now, I love that. We've got a, we're actually working on a book right now. We're actually gonna be publishing a book later on this year. And one of the things we talk about is that idea of core values aren't just, it's not just a word. It's actually the core. It's the foundation of who you are as an organization.

And if you can nail that and know exactly what you mean when you say committed, when you say caring, and you can show people how to demonstrate it, now that can show up in your entire hiring process, your onboarding process, the way you retain employees, even the way you go get customers. And I think that's something that a lot of people miss out on. Those core values are so critical to the success of an organization. Would you agree with that?

Vinnie: Totally. Like, you know, one of ours is competence. So we're, we have financial experts. They do a great job at what they do. But one of the things that's funny in providing a service, you're good at something, and you will, you can hear in some organizations where people might complain about their clients. And I'll say, Whoa, we make money off of ignorance and incompetence.

And we've got to be very careful where we complain about things. Our competence is what gives us the privilege to make money. I don't care what service provider you are, whatever category that is, and so I'm very, very protective of the competence category because, you know, my grandpa would say, don't poop where you eat.

And so like, words matter, words matter a lot. And it speaks to your culture. So we, Ryan, we're fighting it all the time, in a good way. You get a couple one bite rules on certain things and certain things or capital punishment things. But, you know, like, a good one will be gossip. Not tolerable around here. Once we've educated you through it, we don't do it again.

Ryan: Yeah, we talk, that comes up a lot is what do I do about the water cooler talk. And one of the things that I coach people on is don't ignore it. You can't do that. But realize that that conversation is happening either around the water cooler, out at the happy hour, or whatever. It's happening, so be a part of it. And then you can start to control it, then you can start to eventually get it to go away because people start learning Hey, I can be open and honest and not get in trouble around here.

Resolve Any and All Internal Issues

Vinnie: Here's a great hack if you want one. So the we the way we deal with it, at least at my level, and it's translated through is if someone's like, Hey, you know, let's say Kevin is mad at Chris. And Kevin said, Hey, I got this problem with Chris. I'll say, Alright. Cool. Have you talked to him about it? No. Alright, let's call him in. What's your sense right up to your brother right now. Let's bring it up. Let's deal with it. Because we can't let the sun set on this. We got to deal with it. And so everyone knows that now. One.

I know what people are thinking, Oh, Vinnie, no one talks to you in your company about stuff. then. No, sometimes I'm just helping them bridge the gap of their insecurity to have that conversation. Other times, they've got courage in an organization that promotes people dealing with their offenses, that that allows them to go do that on their own. And so we have less festering bitterness when there's a culture of being able to deal with your offenses.

Ryan: I think one of the things that comes out of that, though, is that you have to really establish trust with your team. I was just watching a video that Simon Sinek did and he talked about the way that the navy seals, they measure performance against trust. And, you know, performance is are you good in the field? Do I trust you with my life? And the trust part is, is I do I trust you with my money and my wife? That's the saying the seals use and I think when you can establish that kind of trust, like what you're talking about, they will come to you and say, Hey, I know he's going to help me through this, not make me feel bad for complaining or whining or whatever.

Vinnie: Absolutely. I tell you, you know the whack a mole game when you go to the fair? I think often like about that. I watch fellow leaders, when they like emasculate or completely embarrass someone on their team And they kind of ride them for something that maybe they went too far on. I'm like, that's a whack a mole. Why would they ever stick their head back up and want to do anything ever again?

Like, we got to be real careful. And I look at times where I didn't have my best days and I did stuff like that. And hopefully I've less days like that than I do more and really try to build people up. Because our asset and our corporate in our company, you know, the ability to grow beyond my shadow and all of our clients, thankfully, the number one thing we have is a team that really puts our clients first and I think it's because we put each other first.

Ryan: So could you elaborate on that a little bit more? Like, how do you move towards that? I think a lot of our listeners are going to be like, Oh, that's great. That's one of those pie in the sky things about being able to put others first and being able to support each other. Can you talk about some real practical things that you've seen work to help you get towards that?

Vinnie: Right. So we deal with finances, right? So we're an outsourced fractional accounting and finance company where you basically hire us because we win back time at a fraction of the cost and we have a lot more resources. So time, money and resources. So we're always dealing with businesses that have either cash constraints or will have or do have cash constraints, and we're always dealing with cash flow. So we always say, when someone's got tough, tight money, we got to be able to love them through that. They're upset about a situation. Well, we try to love our clients through that. But if the attacking of someone who's really angry starts attacking one of our people, well, we call me grandpa around here.

Grandpa, we'll get on the phone. I have a conversation with the client like, we don't treat our people like that. Do you treat your people like that? And sometimes you hit a client like hey man sorry. I went too far. Here's why we learned this story. We're all good. Sometimes we're like, that's exactly how I treat my people. Well, I'm helping them have that be their last month with us.

Ryan: Wow. So you use it not just with your team, but with clients and everybody.

Vinnie: My team's first. And because my team's first, they're dedicated harder for our clients. Our team's first. I actually had that wrong for so long, guys. I actually put clients first and then teams suffer. And I went through a journey of realizing I had to be honest about that. And what I really battled to put team first, even when they're wrong, I'll walk them through how we deal with the client because they know they can come to me and we work through it.

And so we do truly believe in a culture of team first. You know, I know the famous entrepreneur Richard Branson says put your team first, well, I think we do our, we do at least a good job of trying to live that every day around here.

Jeremy: Very cool. Yeah, I was, you know, growing some body shops, like I said, we come from blue collar environments ourselves. So I was growing some body shops, and we had the motto if you make a decision whether we think it's right or wrong, we will back you as long as you can tell us how it lived up to our values.

Vinnie: Yeah. Or I will help walk you in the middle of street and shoot you if it doesn't.

Jeremy: Yeah. So sometimes they explain how it lived up to our value and you're like, No, that's not it. But you could tell that there was sincerity in it. It was a great training opportunity to get them to live our values. And after time, you know, they got it and like if you had the gossip question. When I say after time, I mean, a very short time. This is what this value means. We are articulating it very clearly. They began to understand how to make those decisions in that format and, you know, the customer isn't always right.

Vinnie: That's right. And I'll tell you, if I find that living out those values, why would I expect my people to? So if I'm not like doing those things, I can get a lot of friction when I watch our fellow leaders, like say one thing with words and do another thing with their actions. And I think we need some humble pie and be like, Alright, where's the blind spots? Where am I not living out these things that I claim are our culture? And when I hear someone struggling with culture, I say, let's take a look at what part of the mirror you're looking at. Are you really living out those things? Why would you expect your people to if you're not?

Jeremy: Yeah, in our book, we're using a phrase called calling out the ugly. And it's basically that concept that, you know, sometimes when we start, when we take a step back and we look at the kind of company we've built and we're like, I need to change this. I need to add these values. I need to start doing something different.

That first moment is rough because they're like, well, you haven't done that in the past. And so just call it out. It's ugly. It's not something we're proud of, but call it out. Let's work together. We're striving to be committed, committed to you committed to our client. That accountability. I know you haven't seen it in the past. But here we go.

Vinnie: I like what you said there, Jeremy. Like, it's funny, you know, we have a model that we date divorced people. And what I mean by that is that, you know, in our service sector, like a lot of service sectors, people over promise and under deliver. So as a new client comes in, we always say, Hey, listen, I get it. We're coming into a divorce situation. That's also true with team members.

Like, we can find out their story. Someone on our sales team came out of this awful toxic environment. And the things we were saying to him he didn't believe. So we've kind of had to keep walking him through it. Hey bud, we're on your side. If Chad's listening he'll go, Yeah, that was me. He's right. This story we had to walk through. And you know, I love him to pieces, but it took a while of him kind of, you know, like healing through an awful toxic situation.

Generally, we do better with a farm system than we do free agency but we'll both work, right? Both work, they each require that, one requires training out of the egg, the other one kind of requires counsel. They both require effort. And so we don't necessarily exclusively do one versus other. But we tend to do better in training than we do in counseling, I think. But we do both.

Ryan: So that brings up something that got me thinking about this idea of vulnerability inside of the office. How do you work towards getting people to trust you? I know it was a process. But I could hear a lot of people listening to this going yeah, but they're just hourly employees. I got 200% turnover, they're not going to be here that long. So why invest the time? Why should I be vulnerable to them just so that I can eventually nurture this person to being an effective team member?

Vulnerability as Strength

Vinnie: I'll answer that question. First off, as I continue to get older as a dad and a leader of a large organization, the one thing I can tell you is my vulnerability impacts the quality of our organization. So let me break that down for you a little bit. If I'm willing to be honest, like I am on this show about things that happen around here or getting fired or things we didn't do right or where I let the team down, they're quick to come in and defend and do it because they love us. But I also would say that I'm a dad, I've got kids. So they asked me a question, Tell us the craziest thing you did in college?

Well, there's a maturity factor. Sometimes you talk to someone on your team at the level that they're ready to hear it. So maybe this hourly employee needs to hear some encouragement, hear when you were back there walking through where you screwed up, but at certain points you can junk dump and you can give too much, and you shut them down. So as a leader, you got to find some maturity with being open and honest. If I'm dealing with someone in my office and they're having a problem in their marriage, I'll share a part where Deb and I work through that.

Now, I might not let, I might not dishonor my marriage with Debbie by going over a certain line and having an inappropriate discussion about what were certain things, but I'll bring them up to that line. I think, sadly, I think what's being taught in the world is that you're separate. Your life at home is different from your life in the office, and I think the leader of a business, they all go together. And I think the more authentic I can be, I just give room for other people to be at. And I think it starts with you. Like you say, oh, everyone should talk to each other.

Well, do you? You know, do I? You know, if I don't, then why should I expect them to? So for me, I always have to go first and I'll dive in. Because I give a crap. I'll say, Hey, I noticed you were kind of a jerk off the other day. What's going on? You okay? What's up? Like you wouldn't normally respond that way. Why are you responding that way? And then, you know, maybe tears start and maybe I have a tissue box in the office because things happen. And, you know, like, we talk and life's hard, right? I mean, it's not a guy or girl thing. It's everybody.

Jeremy: You know, I was working with a team, and we got to the end of the year, they had really worked pretty hard at this vulnerability thing. And, you know, it starts with the leader, but then it's kind of the leadership team as I started to transfer down. And they had doubled net profit from 5.3 to 11.9 in one year.

Vinnie: I actually 100,000% believe that. Like, I can tell you numbers of clients and people in our ecosystem that can say that. I can speak to that, the more, I love that Jeremy. I feel like I can give you like a little star shout out with my heart, that is spot on. We don't have to have a completely open books management system, but we can be open with our hearts. And like, where I like let the team in and we have that then translated in. You know, where they really gets hard is when you allow that to happen. And then people in a loving way openly criticize, you're dense.

So around here the joke is make sure Vinnie doesn't carry the ball because he might not take it all the way. Let's make sure someone else is doing it. He's too busy. Now in my early days are where I'm tired and offensive I hear that all wrong, right? I hear that as an attack. But if I'm like, wait a minute, I'm the one who said, Be careful about giving it to me. I'm a great starter. I'm an awful finisher. They know that. So they feel comfortable around me to be able to say that. They're not just trying to call me bald and fat. They're trying to say, hey, careful, you know, he's willing to joke about it. So why don't we bring it up and make sure that doesn't?

That kind of stuff is what you're talking about Jeremy, right? Like making sure we can have open debate. I think, I really think leaders need to be able to in the leadership team, there has to be open, healthy conflict. I'm always worried when it's like everyone's getting around and there's a campfire and there's not some healthy conflict. If Chris, Rachel and I, which are the three executive owners of the company, if we haven't had a tussle or two in a while, to me, I feel like we're disconnected.

Jeremy: Absolutely. Yeah. And so with that, I was gonna say, you know, as we're wrapping up the year and looking back at the success, you know, doubling that profit is a great thing, you know? Who doesn't want to do that? And where they're picking the thing that was the biggest thing that they moved their company forward that year, that was not what they picked. One leader teared up and said, you know, we used to fight each other. Now we fight shoulder to shoulder. Take on the world together. That net profit thing was just a bystand.

Vinnie: Yeah, I mean, really, profits are a result of something. They aren't the target. I love that. I love that.

Jeremy: You mentioned you had some experiences with seeing this and, you know, you're going through numbers and accounting. Give us some, I'd love to hear a story of a company that you wish you could have just stepped into like, Look, owner, if I could just get you to look at your people a little bit different this number would be different.

Vinnie: You know, you run into it and I'm not here to say that we have 100%, like amazing clients. There are ones that it's the same indicator where the leader looks at his people as worse than a widget. You ever hear like destructive language or like well a monkey could do that. In cultures that act like that, where they're like, you know, there isn't an extreme appreciation for, you know, if you're a bookkeeper on our team, you aren't the leader or the CEO. You have a real defined role you like to do.

But that man or woman takes great joy in doing that job. And her or his job is to reconcile something. Well, I don't ever want to do that. But I'm so thankful that, just pick on one, Emily on our team wants to do that for our clients. It's so amazing. Well, I hear people talk like, Oh, well, that work's kind of beneath me. You know, and a good friend of mine says, If servanthood is beneath you, then leadership is always going to be above you.

And I think that rings true in like this stop of destructiveness. So when I think of a client, I could mean, sadly, too many, where they rule from this, like top, do it, it's all my way. Well, those businesses, they don't outgrow his shadow, and they aren't going to last very long. And then when he burns out that business is broken. And even more tragic than that, when that business owner turns around to see what the line looks like behind him, only the people who are standing there to fear are going to be standing.

Jeremy: So true. Actually, just this morning, I had a call with one of my clients who's taking over one of their biggest competitors and the owner of their competitors said, Yeah, I just really, I don't know. I just didn't connect to these guys. I really have trouble connecting to them. And the owner is filing bankruptcy.

Vinnie: Yeah, not surprised. We just, you know, we're in, we have a season where we're in like this tuck in aqua growth. We're gonna go out and acquire some firms and kind of tuck them underneath us and grow that way. And we got to look under the hood of a firm in a southern eastern state and the numbers look good, the clientele look good. We started talking to their people, we find out every one of them didn't like the owner.

There was like this underground toxicity in their own business. We passed because we could have done it, but that would have been a lot of counseling. And so just careful about when you merge in DNAs like, you know, which one takes? There's a scriptural reference that I love that says, you know, you don't stick new wine in an old skin, it's gonna burst. And like I just I'm always careful about that. That's a dangerous thing.

Ryan: I was gonna say one of the things we talked about in the book is really about creating this dynamic workplace, creating a healthy culture. And a lot of times what we've seen is in the work that I do, I'll go in and meet a new client, and we'll start looking at their people. And I'll say, Who do you want to keep? And they don't want to keep anybody because they've been hiring wrong this whole time. Or we'll figure out who they really want to be as an organization.

Identify their culture, and they'll be like, nobody here aligns that because we've never been hiring against that. So we talk a lot about how do you continue to build a team by hiring people? So I know you said you don't do a lot of hiring anymore but I'm sure at one point in time you did. What are some things that you see happen now in, we're at what 3.4% unemployment now, lowest in history, and people are getting harder to find.

And one of the things I talk about these serial interviewers. Like they're masters at acing the interview and acing these questions because there's a Pinterest board or a website where they can just learn how to answer these questions. These very traditional interview Questions, where do you want to be in five years? What are your goals? What are some things that you've seen help to make sure that you're actually qualifying and hiring the right people to join your team so you don't create that toxicity?

A Different Approach to Interviewing

Vinnie: Well, we love what you guys are doing. So we created a gift page for you guys at fullyaccountable.com/blue-dash-collar-culture where they can go get our books, resources, and in there you'll get one CEO's mindset. What I want to talk about there is I give you very practical, go do these things and you can be like a ninja interviewer.

And the thing I give you the most is how earlier we use the things that matter to us about our core values as the ninja way to ask questions. So we'll say stuff like, Hey, who is your supervisor at your last job? And they'll say, oh, Carol. Okay, cool. If I were to call Carol, what would she describe is the worst part of, what's the worst part of you when you were working?

Like I no longer made it about, Hey, tell me about you. Like, now I've made it about what is Carol going to say about you? Because they're like, hold on a second, wait a minute, if you're going to call Carol, she's not going to line up with what I'm going to say to you. I'm actually going to be closer to answering that question. And then we go down that vein we don't say, Hey, you know, how do you feel about being honest? Who isn't gonna say, you know, honesty is the core of my heart.

I want to make sure I'm really honest. Well, we'll get into the opposite of that because everybody lies unless they just lied a lie. And now they just lied. So everyone has, so let's talk about when you did. Let's talk about when you did, when you actually did your worst thing at work, the meanest thing you said to somebody. We reverse our values on their head to find out the person who's posing in the interview. Now, hey, we believe in a motto because we get this wrong.

We're not, there are very good interviewers out there. Like we're going to put some benefit of the doubt. So in underemployment, like we are right now, we believe you got to be quick to fire. Which means you also if you're going to be quick to hire you, once you know they gotta go. There's only been one successful resurrection. Everyone else has been a copycat ever since. And I bite on it every time.

There is no such thing. And like if you know they gotta go, everyone's like crap he's right. I have tried so many times with her or him and it doesn't work. You just got, we have to have a thing around here that once you know they really do have to go. And I know that's tough with underemployment. You're like, Hey, man, that sounds like a luxury saved for like when there was a lot of people to hire. Well, you know what, our culture is always better when we get rid of the toxic.

The people who are there rise up. It gets figured out every time. And so we give people chances. We believe in walking two miles and they go a mile. I'm not saying don't do that. What I'm saying is even if they slip through the cracks and you do all these great interviewing things that your tips had, we can give your people. Please take advantage of those. Then just be quick to let them go and start again. Like, you're not a loser, you just missed that one. Get right back in and try again.

Ryan: Yeah, I had a client that for about eight months, they had a horrible turnover in their service department and they could not figure out what it was. They thought it was the low unemployment, it was a lack of options. And when it came out, the operations manager was actually the problem. There was something that came up, he got caught, they let him go.

And all of a sudden, it was like the fog had lifted from the service department. People were happy again. And they're like, finally, the owner has seen it. Like, this is not, you know, this is what was causing this problem was this one toxic individual. And now, you know, four months later, five months later, things are just humming. People are happy. Profits are up. Business is up. I mean, everything's going really well. And it's just

Vinnie: You know what the tough one is, Ryan? The tough one, because the world we live in services, it seems like services always have a family member as well, right? So I sought to go home and spend Thanksgiving with that person, or I have to go see them at Susie's wedding. That dynamic, that's a whole other show. Now that one's tough, but I think it should be the same thing. I think families don't do a good job of actually having an honest business discussion. It creates this dissension in the workplace. And if you have one of those situations, ah,

Ryan: Yeah, firing your brother in law is never fun. So, but, you know, one of the things that I see when they struggle with that because especially as businesses are growing, they're bringing in family members, when you get really clear and really objective about what their responsibility is and what their roles are, it's no longer I use screwed up. It's like, here's what you agreed you would do, and you didn't do it. So now let's look at the problem is the lack of results. The problem is not you're a horrible person.

The Often Overlooked Importance of Role Clarity

Vinnie: It was also the lack of clarity of the role coming in. So you actually put them in a position not to win, right? And so I can't believe there's like this inordinate amount of family or close friends that fall into that quarter. Hey bro just come work with me. It's gonna be great. And whenever you for part of the family or friend relationship doesn't translate into the job I need you to do. I love that clarity of role. Sometimes we hire because we like somebody and we don't have a clear role and we almost make him or her dead man walking.

Jeremy: Yeah, clear role and clear defined success. Success, you know, there's a lot of, there's just a lot, I can lead a lot better when I'm very clear on what I supposed to lead you to. But you can do your job a lot better when you know exactly what the success in that job looks like.

Vinnie: A number of years ago, I read a good book called like, Measure What Matters. And in there what he kind of led me down a roll is, and Harvard did a gigantic study that he kind of lays out in the book and the number one reason today that people leave their job is they don't have have a clear, objective way to measure whether they're doing a good job.

And so his suggestion, which we do in our company, which I highly recommend, is every person should have one objective indicator to be able to measure performance in their own job. You know, and that separate apart from hearing Good job from Vinnie, do they have a clear indicator to be able to measure their job? 60% of people will leave their job without that indicator. And that's a big deal.

Jeremy: It's absolutely huge. You know, I remember the first time that an employee called me and said, We nailed it out of the park this week. And they were actually right. You know, because too often they're coming up, Boss, I'm doing so good. I've crashed bang, boom. Did you hear all the noise going on? And you're like, yeah, we're not getting very far.

About ready to fire you. But I can't tell you that right now. So we use a scorecard making sure that everybody has at least one number that they can drive forward. You know, I used to worry because I came from a corporation where my number was 5202. It's tattooed. And I'm just joking about that part of it. But you know, it was like you were in there and they didn't care that I was Jeremy, they cared that I was 5202. And so I always, when I first started out and wanting to create this great culture and all this stuff, I didn't want to give people numbers because I didn't want to make them a number.

What I learned was you have to give them a number to make them a winner. You don't win in a game you're not keeping score at. And so are your teams playing to win? Do they know what success looks like? Can they knock it out of the park for you? Can they be proud of what they did when they go home? And if we don't provide that clarity, they can't.

Vinnie: Yeah, and we also use it as make sure they understand their job. So for example, if you say to your CFO, hey, what's your number one indicator? And if he doesn't say profit margin, that he doesn't understand his primary job, right? So take that though anything. You talk to a customer service person, if their number one indicator isn't call time on hold for the client, then they missed what their actual indicator was.

So each job has one. Sometimes, you know, let's you go back to the CFO, you say, Hey, what's the number one indicator? You know, we want to make sure that people show up to work on time. Alright, hold on a second. Wait a minute. Yeah, that's good. But you don't actually, you're not focused on your job. So we use it that way, too.

Jeremy: Absolutely. And not too many numbers, either. You know, he gave you that specific number and that's what they're driving for. You know, see some people I got 15 numbers that they're accountable for. Well, of course, I'm gonna forget something. I can't manage that.

Ryan: Alright. Well, hey, Vinnie, we're almost at time. And so I want to thank you for joining us here today. I've really enjoyed the conversation. I've learned some great things about culture and just the different ways to approach values and how you think about it and how you can really make sure that you're qualifying people the right way. So it's been fantastic. How do our listeners get a hold of you if they want to learn more about Fully Accountable?

Vinnie: Yeah, so I'm very accessible socially. So vinniefisher.com. On all the social media prints you can find me. You can also just go to fullyaccountable.com. But even better than that, it forward slash blue hyphen, dash color dash culture, we created a page just for your people. Please take advantage of those things. They are free. There's no bait and switch. They're all yours. We would love to send them to you, but they can get us there.

They once they land on our homepage, they can hit contact us. Our team makes me accessible. And so we would, we, I really want more of us winning at kind of leading well. And the last little bit I'd like to leave someone with is like, if there's a dip, if there's a separation between you and them, it isn't healthy, I actually think you're the problem. Not them.

Ryan: Deep thoughts right at the end there. Thank you so much, Vinny. Really enjoyed it. Yeah. And I look forward to getting some feedback on, you know what people have to say about some of the books and some of the other handouts that you guys have available for them. Sounds like a great valuable offer. Thank you for that.

Vinnie: Thanks for having me guys. Really appreciate it.

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