Speaker 1: Everybody. It's Bill Courtney was shop Talk shop Talk number
Speaker 1: twenty seven, Vita Scott. I'd be ringing the bell that
Speaker 1: you sent, which we really appreciate it, but Alex left
Speaker 1: it at home, so I can't even ring your bell.
Speaker 1: So you know, we got a shop Talk, we got
Speaker 1: a bell. We should be ringing it now. We even
Speaker 1: had a listener sent us a bell to ring the
Speaker 1: bell to alert to shop Talk, and Alex couldn't remember
Speaker 1: to bring it. Nice shop Alex. The reason is actually
Speaker 1: I was cleaning my car for our guest I'm picking
Speaker 1: up tomorrow, so I took it out of my car
Speaker 1: to clean the car, and I forgot to put it
Speaker 1: back in. Was the bell going to upset the guest?
Speaker 1: I took everything out of the seats so that I
Speaker 1: could clean up the carbo hash Like you know, Shop
Speaker 1: Talk number twenty seven should be on forgetfulness, but it's not.
Speaker 1: Shop Talk number twenty seven today is on building your bench.
Speaker 1: We got to build a bench, everybody, so we'll do
Speaker 1: that right after these brief messages from our and our sponsors.
Speaker 1: Welcome back everybody's shop Talk number twenty seven novel Building
Speaker 1: your Bench. I was sent an email from Keith Balliquette.
Speaker 1: You think it's Valaquette or Baliquette Blaquette Blaquette. I think
Speaker 1: you just covered both options. That's right, Keith, thanks for
Speaker 1: sending it to us. You sent it to us on
Speaker 1: November two, and he said, Bill, I really love shop talk.
Speaker 1: As I've mentioned before, I have a few topics for consideration.
Speaker 1: Large companies are disappearing from our communities or are owned
Speaker 1: by out of state country firms. Out of state out
Speaker 1: of country firms, more and more are owned by private equity.
Speaker 1: Also seeing people so busy that they are inwardly focused
Speaker 1: or focused on getting kids here and there. Those situations
Speaker 1: are creating more and more challenges for nonprofits in terms
Speaker 1: of financial support, but also may be more importantly volunteer support.
Speaker 1: It's getting harder and harder to find volunteers, while more
Speaker 1: expensive to run our nonprofits. Take insurance as an example,
Speaker 1: our rage just doubled and may not want to take
Speaker 1: on the risk of children and drivers to pick come
Speaker 1: up so that we can maintain attendance above ninety percent,
Speaker 1: much better than the schools. We can control some costs
Speaker 1: by being leaner, but volunteers drive down the cost of staff,
Speaker 1: which is huge and hard to get funding for. So
Speaker 1: what do we do about getting more volunteers? And when
Speaker 1: do you know when it's time, when it's time to
Speaker 1: step aside and allow the next generation of leaders in
Speaker 1: our companies in nonprofits takeover. My brother in law once
Speaker 1: told me, you may be standing in the way of
Speaker 1: someone God is trying to develop, and bluss, I'd love
Speaker 1: to hear your thoughts. So I thought about that, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't even know if I have much
Speaker 1: to offer there. And then I went to an ole
Speaker 1: Miss football game and it dawned on me, I do
Speaker 1: have something to offer on this. See here's the thing.
Speaker 1: I've been a lifeline ole Miss fan, which is, over
Speaker 1: the last four decades basically been an exercise in lost dreams,
Speaker 1: broken hopes, and sometimes futility. Frankly, and here's here's why.
Speaker 1: Ole Miss almost always had eleven starters that were just
Speaker 1: as good as Alabama's and Georgia's and the other teams.
Speaker 1: And likewise, we always played even with the national prominent
Speaker 1: programs in the first quarter and even maybe in the
Speaker 1: second quarter, and maybe even in the third quarter. But
Speaker 1: football is a game of attrition. Football is a game
Speaker 1: of exhaustion. And what really separates the top ten blue
Speaker 1: chip premium football teams every year from the other teams
Speaker 1: that are scraping and dragging and trying to get up
Speaker 1: to that level of competition is their bench. If you
Speaker 1: don't if you don't have to play your very best
Speaker 1: players on special teams, and if during the game you
Speaker 1: can take out your starters to get a quick breather
Speaker 1: at certain points in the first, second, third quarter, then
Speaker 1: by the fourth quarter, when you're really ready to win
Speaker 1: the game, your best players are fresh. Your best players
Speaker 1: don't get hurt as much because they're getting proper rest,
Speaker 1: they're not having to play special teams. And it's in
Speaker 1: the later in the games where the lack of having
Speaker 1: a deep bench actually wins the game. It's not that
Speaker 1: Ole Miss didn't have eleven great players to match up
Speaker 1: against the first team of eleven great players, But then
Speaker 1: as a game we're on Georgia and Alabama would roll
Speaker 1: in their second team players, and their second team players
Speaker 1: were almost as good as our first team players. And
Speaker 1: when Alabama did that and Ole Miss was rolling in
Speaker 1: their second team players and they were freshmen and not
Speaker 1: up to the standard of the second team, it's the
Speaker 1: bench that actually won the game. And this year, for
Speaker 1: the first time, the depth of the talent at Ole
Speaker 1: Miss allows when our first teamers need a break or
Speaker 1: to come out, that our second teamers are really very talented,
Speaker 1: almost and good. And here we are beaten teams like
Speaker 1: Georgia and raising up the ranks to possibly be in
Speaker 1: the college football Playoff. And I have a chance at
Speaker 1: really being among the blue chip programs in the country.
Speaker 1: And it's not because we have better coaches, and it's
Speaker 1: not because we have better first teams. It's because we
Speaker 1: got a better bench. In my business, ten years ago,
Speaker 1: I would have said our business was kind of a
Speaker 1: young company. I was in my mid forties, and all
Speaker 1: the key people around my company we're also in their
Speaker 1: mid forties. Well here we are ten years later, and
Speaker 1: I'm fifty six, and all my key people are in
Speaker 1: their fifties and some in their sixties. And all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, we've gone from a really young company to
Speaker 1: one that's looking at aging out over the next ten years.
Speaker 1: And it dawned on me. I got to start hiring
Speaker 1: some young talent. I got to start bringing in some
Speaker 1: recent college grides and some thirty somethings that have got
Speaker 1: just a little bit of experience somewhere to build my bench.
Speaker 1: Because as I get older and my key people start
Speaker 1: getting older, and we start nearing retirement and it's time
Speaker 1: to start evolving out of the business, we need those
Speaker 1: young guys to come in to have some time to
Speaker 1: tutor them and teach them so that when they get
Speaker 1: into their forties, they've got the requisite experience and knowledge
Speaker 1: that we've passed on to them, and then we get
Speaker 1: out of the way. Now the company has another two
Speaker 1: decade of quality people to run it, but we're not
Speaker 1: going to have those people if we don't hire them
Speaker 1: now and teach them and mentor them and foster them
Speaker 1: and bring them along. So what we're doing is we're
Speaker 1: building our bench. We're building the second team to become
Speaker 1: the first team. I think when I think about Keith's email,
Speaker 1: he asks, how do you know when it's time? When
Speaker 1: is it time to step aside and allow the next
Speaker 1: generation of leaders and companies and nonprofits take over. My
Speaker 1: brother in law once told me you may be staying
Speaker 1: in the way of someone God is trying to develop
Speaker 1: and bless. And before that, he also asks about what
Speaker 1: do we do about the increased expenses on nonprofits and
Speaker 1: increased expenses on these things we're trying to do among
Speaker 1: the army of normal folks all over our country to
Speaker 1: make life better. When we're having fewer and fewer volunteers
Speaker 1: come along and I think that's it. I think we
Speaker 1: got to build our bench. So building the bench is this,
Speaker 1: grow the army of normal folks. Find more people that
Speaker 1: care about what's going on society, Encourage them to volunteer,
Speaker 1: bring them in and teach them the ropes so that
Speaker 1: when it is time to step away, your nonprofit actually
Speaker 1: becomes better and stronger. We got to build our bench,
Speaker 1: and candidly, the army of normal folks is the bench.
Speaker 1: If you're listening to me today and you're not involved
Speaker 1: in a nonprofit, or you have time to involve yourself
Speaker 1: in another profit, or you have friends and family that
Speaker 1: have big hearts and have passions and have abilities but
Speaker 1: aren't employing them in areas of need, encourage them, recruit them,
Speaker 1: build the bench because candidly, we all have a shelf life.
Speaker 1: We all have a shelf life of effectiveness. We all
Speaker 1: are going to get older, we are all going to
Speaker 1: eventually rotate out, and if we haven't done a good
Speaker 1: enough job building our bench and mentoring and fostering and
Speaker 1: passing on our wisdom and our experience so that when
Speaker 1: we do rotate out, they're ready to rotate in, well,
Speaker 1: then whatever we're involved in is only going to be
Speaker 1: as good as we are able to work, and that's
Speaker 1: not leaving much of a legacy. Build your bench, because
Speaker 1: from one ole miss Fan who suffered three decades of
Speaker 1: broken hearts and letdowns and miseries, I am seeing the
Speaker 1: value of what a bench does. It brings you from
Speaker 1: anonymity to prominence, and I think that could happen in
Speaker 1: our businesses and our nonprofits and our lives. We have
Speaker 1: to encourage an army of normal folks across this country
Speaker 1: to continue to get involved. Build the bench, grow the numbers,
Speaker 1: and then imagine what kind of impact we can have.
Speaker 1: And we can go from toiling and frustration and constant
Speaker 1: letdowns to success across the face of our entire nation
Speaker 1: by building our bench of an army in normal folks,
Speaker 1: of volunteers, using their passions and their disciplines, and employing
Speaker 1: those disciplines where they see an area need the bench.
Speaker 1: The army of normal folks. That's shop talk to day.
Speaker 1: Build the bench thanks to our producer, Iron Night Labs.
Speaker 1: We'll see you next week.