Jerry, Sheryl, and Brandi

CVC Success Group coaches Jerry & Sheryl Isenhour & Brandi Biswell

Join us on this week’s episode of The Chimney & Fireplace Success Network as Brandi Biswell, Sheryl Isenhour and Jerry Isenhour dive into and discuss the business challenges of 2021. You won’t want to miss this episode!

The Chimney and Fireplace Success Network is a weekly podcast brought to you by the CVC Success Group and hosted by industry expert, Jerry Isenhour. Each week you will find new presentations to assist business owners and managers in turning their business dreams into their business realities.

Video Transcript

Jerry I.: Good afternoon on a Friday before a Memorial Day weekend. And on behalf of the CVC success group team, which we’ve got a couple of members on the call with us today. We want to welcome you to joining us today.

Because we got a real important message for you today that we want to share with you, and that is the business challenges of 2021. And how it’s affecting so many people, and it’s overwhelming at times. And this is what we spend our time with.

So, Brandi, I’m going to start with you. What is your thoughts of what is the most overwhelming thing right now?

 

Brandi: Well, Jerry, the great thing about CVC, as you and I have talked about, is we are the only coaching company, if you will, in the industry that we have specialists in every area. So nobody can be an expert in all areas. So my specialty is the office.

And so, the biggest challenge I see for the office right now is just systems and processes. I go into offices, and there’s no formal training, there’s no formal onboarding. There’s no formal continuing education that is specific to the office.

There’s not good communication between the offices and the techs, and even just within the office. I see technology that’s not being utilized and then just a lack of defined tasks and roles within the office.

 

Jerry I.: That’s fantastic. And Brandi, let me ask you this. How did you figure out these are the overwhelming things that people are facing each and every day out there in the real world of business? How did you come to these conclusions?

 

Brandi: So just through working with, we do private coaching, and we have group coaching, and just through working with our clients and talking with them, you see the same consistencies.

 

Jerry I.: Okay, so what you’re seeing is pretty consistent. So your area of specialty within our coaching group is the office, the systems for the office, how to make everything come together.

So with that, Sheryl, I’m going to switch over to you, and you deal with another segment of your specialty. So what are you seeing is the overwhelming challenges that people are facing in business today?

 

Sheryl: Well, for me and the position that I’m in more than anything else, it’s in the hiring position. People now are having so much trouble finding employees. It’s daunting to the companies; they’re spending hours and hours.

So that is what I do a lot of; I take on the hiring and taking it all the way through the interview until they need to find out if that’s the person they want. And then also, I am a disk assessor and a color code accessor; these are behavioral assessments.

And we can give these to the employees. So we can understand how to talk to them, how they can talk to us. What we need to do, as Brandi said before, have the communication. So if you hire them, then how to talk to them, and then Brandi can take it from there and work within that.

 

Jerry I.: Okay. So we’re going to talk about this a little bit today, but see the neat thing is, and the neat thing about this is that people, that we listen. Brandi, that’s a lot of how you’ve learned; you listen. Sheryl, you interview people, and one of the things you’re doing is you are collecting a significant amount of data, which that data is telling us how to construct plans for success.

And Brandi, you’re doing the same exact thing. You are collecting significant data, and from this, we’re seeing what the overall failures are in putting programs together. From my aspect, what do I see and what do I work with is the operation sides of business. In other words, when things go wrong.

One of my key phrases I say is that there are three reasons for any mistake in the business every time there’s a problem. And those three things are number one; we don’t have a system or an SOP or a standard operating procedure or guideline, whatever you want to call it. Number two, often, the guidelines we have the SOPs are in error.

They just are not worded properly to correct the situation. And the third item that we get into and we see is that the system is wrong, or someone didn’t follow the system. And when they don’t follow the system, it’s not necessarily that they didn’t know how to follow it or they did it on purpose. It could be a lack of training; it could be a lack of comprehension of the way the SOP is written.

But again, would both of you agree that hiring is probably our number one challenge if we look at our entire customer base and those that we survey and get the data on? Sheryl, do you see that as a leading issue?

 

Sheryl: I do. And the thing is, that’s the question we asked in our coaching groups. What is the most problem that you have, and everybody that was the first one that came up was the hiring? So we take this really serious; this isn’t a game.

We’re going after these people to find the right people, to put them in the right seats. And yes, I agree, this is where you’ve got to start, because without the employee, and even if you’ve got the work, you can’t get it done.

 

Jerry I.: Yes, you’re exactly right. You’re dead on the money of what’s going on here and what’s happening out here. In the very real world, these day and times, and we have to be able to come up with systems to combat this type of stuff when it comes along.

So Brandi, what’s your aspect on the? I’m going to call it the hiring challenge. Where do you see the answer is for this hiring challenge that we’re facing in our country? It’s not just your business; it’s across the country. What’s your input into this?

 

Brandi: It definitely is across the country. But I think what we’re seeing the most at least in our industry, in our business is people are using old methods. They’re using what worked five years ago, and what worked five years ago doesn’t work now.

And so one of the great things about us at CVC is we stay up on what is the latest research, what’s working in business, what’s working in HR. And then we try to work with our clients and give them those tools and those tips so that they can be successful.

 

Jerry I.: Right. And one of the things we’re learning is, in today’s world and Sheryl, you’ve worked with this a lot is, you’ve got to put together the message, and then you got to tell the message, and you’ve got to get the message in front of the prospects.

What we are commonly referring to as the bait. So you want to talk a little bit about the bait, and the tight bait that today’s new hire is looking for, if you’re going to win in this hiring challenge of 2021?

 

Sheryl: The bait now, as you call it, is, okay, weekly pay. The hourly, do you care about me? Do you care about the family situation? Do you realize that I’m human? That I’m not just a number? Do you know my name? I found that to be a very significant thing; that sounds terrible. I mean, it’s almost like Cheers, do you know my name?

But with that being said, the bait is anything that you provide within your company the benefits, but above all of that is the culture that’s in your company. And that’s the bait that you want to put out there because you go after a fish with what’s important to that particular fish. [Inaudible 00:08:33.20] in the area of fish, but if we’re talking about bait, that makes them fish.

 

Jerry I.: Right. And I think it was really interesting in our coaching group this week, when we had some younger generations there, of younger mindsets. And they were really amazed when we asked for their opinion.

Did you guys pick up on this in the coaching call that one of the members even said that he was shocked that we wanted to know more about people in his age group?

And see, that’s what you got to do. Whenever you set the demographics of who you’re wanting to hire, you’ve got to be able to understand that. And to be able to understand Brandi, do you have to listen?

 

Brandi: Absolutely. We used the term this week in group coaching market research. So that’s what we’re doing when we’re talking to these younger people, is we’re doing market research. And their answers were really in line with what we see in the research abroad.

One of the things that I guess kind of drives me a little bit crazy is people. If they’re in HVAC, they’re only looking at other HVAC businesses. Or if they’re in plumbing, they’re only looking at other plumbing businesses. And I see that in our industry all the time with chimneys. And the great thing, and I know I just keep talking about how great we are, but really it’s you guys, it’s you two because you’re really the leaders of this will.

Is Jerry, you have for our clients once a month a private group, where you bring in people, and these people are from outside, they’re not from within our industry. They’re from within other industries. And they help teach us the things that are working for them. And I think that’s so important to not get boxed in, and not just look to the people in your industry, but to look outside of that box.

 

Jerry I.: Right. And this past week, we had our monthly presentation of what we call an outside subject matter expert. And the gentleman that presented to us this week brought some really new ideas to the group.

And it relayed both in the message and how to present the message. In fact, one of the things is if you look at our broadcast today, you’ll notice that it had a yellow background. Because what he shared with us was, is the color of the post was all-important, as you’re scrolling through it.

So you got to have that message, you got to speak that message to where people can understand it and comprehend it. And then, from that point, you go further. But I think it’s a real interesting comment that Bruce Mills just posted on our broadcast; appreciation is a lot more powerful than pay. Sheryl, when you see that, what do you think was the thought process there?

 

Sheryl: I see that a lot because I always ask the people that I interviewed, it’s what brought you to the ad? What do you want? One important question in there is okay, I’m interviewing you, but what do you want for the company? And I see that quite a bit; I see it more than the pay by far.

 

Jerry I.: Yes. And Brandi, one of your interesting comments in the group call this week was that many times in today’s world, you’re no longer interviewing the applicant; the applicant is interviewing you. Were you the one that made that comment this week, Brandi?

 

Brandi: Absolutely. The world has turned, and I say my generation, we went work, and we were there to impress the potential employer and give it our best, and then we were going to be there for probably the next 20 years.

And that world has changed. Bruce had brought up artificial intelligence has broken into the hiring process that is so very true as employers are looking for new ways to screen candidates. And I can’t tell you how many times a week when we’re hiring, the phone rings, and they want to interview us.

So we’re not interviewing them; they want to interview us. And they want to make sure that before they jump ship at their current job, that this is going to be a good fit for them.

 

Jerry I.: Right. And also, I compared often to the real estate market. And then the real estate market today, when you look at it, it is a seller’s market right now. When we look at real estate and Brandi, I know you and Jeremy even recently looked at a piece of real estate. And you could not stomach how much you were going to have to pay above the list cost for that property.

 

Brandi: Don’t bring it up; I’m still sad, Jerry.

 

Jerry I.: I’m a fan, so I didn’t want to bring a tear. But at the same time, we’ve got to look at it that the person who’s applying, they are selling their services. And in today’s world, we got to come up. And this is the amazing thing, as I work with companies over a period of time from a coaching aspect.

And Brandi, Sheryl, a lot of these are companies you deal with. We’re seeing a change in the culture. And I think one of the biggest things was, I did two swap meetings this past week at two separate companies, and this was a statement that they said. This is the least stressful job I have ever had in my life.

Now, I will be honest with you; I would not have gotten that answer a couple of years ago. But what’s happening is management is making a dedicated change to adapt to the workforce that’s available today. So you’ve got to adapt to these people.

Sheryl, when we talk about adapting. How do you suggest a person adapt to the new workforce? I mean, let’s face it, you and I are both baby boomers, and we’re approaching the end of baby boomer. Maybe there’s another generation that we’re getting ready to fit into; I don’t know. But how do we adapt to this new person?

 

Sheryl: Oh, that generation is called really old. But the thing about it is you have a more appealing effect to the people. When you and I started working, you went to work. You were told what to do, when to do it and how to do it.

The people nowadays, like a little bit of a reason of how to do it. You have to adapt, and be more fluent at how you react to them, and let them have a voice. I mean yours many years ago, employees didn’t have any voice in the company.

Now, that’s one of the things that we’ve had to adapt to. And I think it’s an extremely important thing that’s going to keep the generation we’re talking about now intact with the company, is can I talk to my managers. Can I talk freely? And I think that’s where it’s going to come around.

We have to adapt; I mean, we’re on the way out. And so we’ve got to adapt to make sure that Brandi’s generation can carry on with the next generation.

 

Jerry I.: And one of our clients earlier today published the video, and Brandi I sent you and said I hope you can watch this. But what it was, this almost brought a tear to my eye. Because as he talked, he talked about his family.

And how his family was behind him. And as you went through this, let me ask you a question, Brandi. As you watch that, could you get a feeling for the culture of that employer and working in that company?

Did that give you an idea because he told his story, and he told it in a way that people could understand it? And really, it just kind of pinged at me. What was your thoughts when you watched that video?

 

Brandi: It was like watching a Hallmark movie or a hallmark commercial. At Christmas time, they have the hallmark commercials; that’s what it was like. It brought out that emotion which is what we know that younger people are wanting. In our group coaching this week, the younger people that we were asking.

They talked about how they don’t want to come to work nine to five and punch the time clock; they want to work somewhere that has a purpose that has a greater mission. They don’t want to work somewhere that they’re on a point system, and they feel like they’re in kindergarten, and you get a checkmark next to your name every time you do something bad.

They want to work somewhere where the employer they know cares about them, and wants to work with them, and wants to understand their situation.

 

Jerry I.: Okay. So Sheryl, let me ask you this. Next week we’re going to be all of us, all members of our teams in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania next week, at the CCP, NCSG, a show and trade show there.

We’re going to have a booth there, a couple of us are doing presentations. And this will be would this be a great time for people to talk with you about their hiring challenges?

 

Sheryl: I think it would, because when you can do a one-on-one with someone, which finally we can do that again. You can have the questions and the answers. And you can find out their challenges.

I mean, it’s easier to hire for someone when I know their exact challenges. And so if I can tell them what I do, and they can ask the questions if that’s what I provide. And hopefully, we can mesh it together and start working on their employees.

 

Jerry I.: Okay. Now, Brandi, you’re doing a presentation on Friday of next week. And I’m telling people you really need to get into this if you want to grow your office systems and conquer your problems. So what would you say about people coming to your seminar and talking with you face to face in valley forge next week? What’s the key thing here?

 

Brandi: Yes. I’m sorry, I just caught Bruce’s comment that said punitive systems are the dinosaurs change last week or be left in the dust, and I love that. You’re exactly right Bruce, I don’t know you, Bruce, but I think we should meet because you seem very smart.

So I would tell people I’m speaking Friday night, but I’m going to be there all week. I’ll probably be spending some time in the CVC booth, so catch me anytime; I would love to sit down and chat with you and discuss what your current office system is like and get you to where you want it to be. And then yes, definitely come to my class, and I hope that you take what you like and leave the rest.

 

Jerry I.: Right. And for my part, again, I’d love to speak to you next week, and I’m going to be on the program on Saturday morning, along with Donovan, another member of our team. Who actually, we’re doing two presentations at the same time.

Donovan’s presentation is going to be on the million-dollar truck, in other words, how to increase your sales. And that’s going to be a great course for any technician to be in that room with Donovan. Because he’s going to talk about how to make your sales, not through selling, rather through the service to your customers, building trust, building a relationship.

My program is going to be based on the book I released earlier this year, entitled step up to success. Now both Brandi and Sheryl worked in that book with me, and part of the editing and their input. But this is a book that I’m going to tell you the highlights of, that takes you through the recruitment process, the interview process, the assessment process, and all the things.

And then from this point, the most important day of their career which is their first day at work. And from that point, we’re going to go into the training they’re going to do initially, the curriculum you set up, the ongoing training, and the way you track, you measure, and you access all of this information.

Because that’s where it’s at. Brandi, do you often see that employers simply blow it because they don’t put them through all the steps of success, starting all the way through the process, and my own target with this.

 

Brandi: Very much so. That first day is make it or break it. And so many times I see employers make the mistake of here’s your desk, here’s the phone, I assume you know how to answer it, here’s the computer and best of luck to you and that’s going to send somebody running.

 

Jerry I.: Right. Not only that, now you’re hitting it on the office side, I’ll hit it on the technician side. Hey, go get in the truck. Hey Joe, show Jim everything you do get him trained. And Jim doesn’t know how to train anybody; he doesn’t know how to assess the skills.

Now you’ve heard me say the word assessment. Now, Sheryl, that’s an area of your expertise of assessing behavior patterns and way people perform and coming up with answers.

So when we say assessing, tell me what that means from the hiring process. How do they assess a prospect skills to be effective and productive in this new position?

 

Sheryl: Well, with knowing their behavior patterns, it’s not something you want to base your decision on. But it’s more an added quirk that takes you to whether they’re going to fit into your culture, whether they’re going to be able to communicate with you.

I mean, I can basically tell if they’re a hothead, and they’re not going to conform; that’s the easiest one to pick out. That some of them are a little more not quite that easy, but yes, you get a feel for what this person is. You understand the behavior patterns. Once you understand the behavior patterns, then you know what you’ve got to deal with.

That’s not saying that any of them are bad. It is saying that some of them might not fit right exactly in your wheelhouse. But this is the way the person is, and can you and he or she come to a medium where it works out for both of you. And I use the assessments on employee’s employers, especially in husband and wife teams. It’s become extremely important there.

I’ve been told they found out thing about things about their spouses; they never knew not the bad things, the good stuff that they never knew. And it just makes for better communication. And I think both of you will agree with me. Everything out there that’s done today, 98% of it sits on communication.

 

Jerry I.: That’s very true. Now one thing I forgot to mention we’re going to be carrying something with us and I want to give you this. If you’re in my class, I’m going to have a limited number of these. But I’ve got several cases of my book step up to success.

So what you got to do is just let us know, we’re going to have these in the booth, and we’ll have them in the seminar. And I would love to give you one of these as long as the supply lasts, and if you would like me to autograph it, hey, that’s one heck of a compliment to an author. But we’ll have those there, and we’d love to share that with you.

Because in mine and Sheryl’s careers of writing books, in fact, the next book, we’ve got another book and Brandi’s involved in the next one called our CVC success journal. And we don’t write books for a return as far as monetary value; we write books in order to share concepts and ideas with those that can help them get to the next level.

To hopefully provide them some answers. So before we end this, Sheryl, is there anything else you’d like to say to our people listening in today?

 

Sheryl: I just want to wish them all a good memorial day. But above that, take as Brandi said, take what you can take away from this and use it. And feel free, we’d love to see you at the convention. I think that to me, that’s the most important.

We’re all craving that face-to-face talking again. And I think it’s going to be a super time; I know everyone listening can’t be there. But I just want you to know any time that you need either one of the three of us; we’re all very accessible and ready to meet with you.

 

Jerry I.: Right. And I know that young lady that’s on here with us is looking forward to being able to meet face to face with people again. And so anybody knows that comes in all three of us have been vaccinated, so hopefully, this will help out and reassure for people that may have an uneasiness about the pandemic that’s been going on.

So feel free to look us up. So Brandi, what about your parting words. What would you say that could possibly give somebody some real hope heading into this Memorial Day weekend, to come out of the holiday weekend charged and ready to rock and roll?

 

Brandi: Well, I know you can still sign up for the chimney expo. I know that they will still take last-minute registration, so if you’re able to sign up, I think that it’s going to be very valuable. I haven’t traveled in over a year; in fact, I was kind of getting anxious the other day thinking, now do I leave my keys in the car, or do I give them to the parking person?

What do I do at the airport? Because I feel like it’s so foreign because I haven’t done it in so long. So I’m definitely excited to see everybody again in person and give hugs. As you said, we’re fully vaccinated. But just kind of piggybacking on what Sheryl said to you, we’re always accessible.

We have emails; we have text. We’re accessible anytime; you don’t have to be a current client. If you have a question, if you have a conundrum, whatever it may be. Just reach out to us; we’d love to talk to you.

 

Jerry I.: Okay, so let’s add one more thing in; I knew I said we were going to leave. But we recently started group coaching, and our first group filled completely up, and we closed the membership. But this is such a popular thing, we’ve already had interest to start the second group.

So we’re building our second group coaching program, and that’s facilitated by Sheryl, by Brandi, and myself. Which means that when Sheryl’s running the meet in H, Brandi and I have to stifle it down, which is very difficult for the two of us. We sit here choking ourselves like don’t say that, just stay away from and all that.

But if you’re interested in group coaching, like I said, this gives you two calls a month. One is going to be our group coaching call that you get to interact with the other members; think of it like an electronic mix group. And then you also get to attend my invitation-only call that goes on once a month, where we bring an outside subject matter presenter in like the guy we had this week.

I mean, when you look at the people that have been on our private invitation-only call, they include people like Larry Winget, Randy Pennington, Scott McCain, Tom Ziglar, Austin Smith, who was on this week. We’ve had Tommy Mellow on there.

So Brandi, what’s it like to be able to attend these monthly calls, where we’ve got an outside subject matter expert bringing us new ideas and new processes? Has it been a good thing for you and your business?

 

Brandi: So Jerry, I mean we all know I am lazy after work. When I clock out, I don’t want to do anything but go home, put on my pajamas and watch Netflix. That being said, I make these calls a priority, and every month it’s funny because I’ll think I don’t know if I really want to get on the call; I’m tired.

I’d rather watch criminal minds or something. And then every time I get on the call, and I’m so happy I did, and I’m writing furiously, taking notes and going back and watching the recordings. As I said, it’s just been incredible and valuable. I love hearing from those speakers coming from the outside of our industry.

And they just bring us such knowledge, and I guess the incredible part to me is they always have an offer for us, and they’re always just giving so freely of their expertise. They don’t hold anything back with us, and no question is off the table. And it’s just always so incredible to me how giving they are during those presentations.

 

Jerry I.: Right. So keep it in mind, what’s our mission here at CVC success group? Our mission is to help you turn your business dreams into your realities. And I want to reinforce that is your dreams; it’s not what we conceive of where you want to go.

That’s how we start out; we start out with where do you want to go to in life. What’s the dreams you hold sacred, that you hold dear? What do you want to do with your business? Once we know that, then what we do is we start mapping a strategy out for you in order to make this road less rocky and to be able to travel it more successfully.

So with that, we want to thank you for joining us today. If any of us at the CVC success group can help you in any way, it’s real simple. Just reach out to us with an email. It’s Brandi@CVCsuccessgroup.com, that’s with an I on the end. And it’s Sheryl@CVCsuccessgroup.com with an S is how you spell Sheryl. I’m the only name that you actually should know how to spell, even though some people do spell Jerry differently. But it’s Jerry@CVCsuccessgroup.com

So if we can help you reach out to it, let’s have a call. And I think the team that we have assembled here, which is more than just three of us. I think we can help you get to that path of success that you’re looking for. And with that, we appreciate you joining us, and we’ll see you in the future on another live broadcast here on the CVC success group broadcast channel.