Speaker 1: Are you a people person? If you want to succeed,
Speaker 1: you might just have to be one of those. This
Speaker 1: has certainly proven true for Brian Scrutemor, the CEO of
Speaker 1: one eight hundred got Chunk, a half billion dollar US company.
Speaker 1: Everything comes down to people. For Brian, hiring the right
Speaker 1: team and making sure that people work well together is
Speaker 1: the work that determines how smoothly all the other work
Speaker 1: will go. So how does a people person operate when
Speaker 1: he is not allowed to actually be physically present with
Speaker 1: other people? How does someone who prides himself on spending
Speaker 1: one on one time at the desk of every new
Speaker 1: employee welcome people to the company when they live in
Speaker 1: a different country. And how have the working hacks and
Speaker 1: habits of one of the more eccentric How I Work
Speaker 1: guests changed since we last spoke pre pandemic. My name
Speaker 1: is doctor amanthe Immer. I'm an organizational psychologist and the
Speaker 1: founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium, and this is How
Speaker 1: I Work, a show about how to help you do
Speaker 1: your best work. When I last had Brian on How
Speaker 1: I Work, one of the things that stuck with me
Speaker 1: was his strategy for having efficient and effective meetings, which
Speaker 1: he calls PAYOT. This stands for purpose, agenda and outcome,
Speaker 1: and Brian doesn't accept a meeting or set a meeting
Speaker 1: that doesn't have a PAYOT. Now, Brian is also a
Speaker 1: fan of the daily huddle, and I was keen to
Speaker 1: know how his approach to these daily huddles had changed
Speaker 1: now that his staff all over the world are embracing
Speaker 1: hybrid work.
Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting when the world was hit with this
Speaker 2: crazy change and the pandemic and how we had to
Speaker 2: reinvent work. We of course were all working from home,
Speaker 2: and instead of having a daily huddle where the hire office,
Speaker 2: there'd be a few hundred of us in one room,
Speaker 2: high energy, a different person each day leading the huddle,
Speaker 2: standing on stage, and then you'd have a few hundred
Speaker 2: people all contributing good news, what's working, what's not, for
Speaker 2: seven minutes in a big stand up. And I thought,
Speaker 2: this is never going to work from home. No one
Speaker 2: is going to be able to make this work through video,
Speaker 2: and when the pandemic's over, we'll go back to doing
Speaker 2: it in person. Well, quite the opposite. I was wrong.
Speaker 2: About two weeks to three weeks into doing huddle, the
Speaker 2: new way I realized it was actually better and better
Speaker 2: for a couple of reasons. One is, instead of being
Speaker 2: in a big room seeing everybody's backs on Zoom, you're
Speaker 2: seeing everyone's smiley, friendly faces. Instead of having the extroverts
Speaker 2: do all the talking in a zoom world, you have
Speaker 2: the chat being lit up by the introverts who might
Speaker 2: not want to speak up in person in a room.
Speaker 2: So I found that the huddle virtually has actually become
Speaker 2: much better. And depending on who's running it, so three
Speaker 2: hundred and sixty five days a year, well not weekends.
Speaker 2: Whoever's running it chooses to run it their own way,
Speaker 2: and they'll often produce it a little bit. They'll have
Speaker 2: a DJ start the meeting, whatever the case of what
Speaker 2: they're bringing personally. And it's been unreal I mean, you
Speaker 2: just never want to miss huddle. It's engaging, it's fun,
Speaker 2: it's fast, and it can access as an entire company.
Speaker 2: If people are traveling and they're on the road, they're
Speaker 2: still able to show up at huddle, So we would
Speaker 2: miss all those people who are out of the office.
Speaker 2: But now in a virtual world, it actually works better.
Speaker 1: What have been some of the highlight huddles from the
Speaker 1: last couple of years.
Speaker 2: One of the highlights for me was the bring your
Speaker 2: kids to Work day. So we were all quarantined and
Speaker 2: stuck at home, and so we knew people had their
Speaker 2: kids and their pets and everything with them, but we said,
Speaker 2: let's actually have them show up on camera. And it
Speaker 2: made me realize, Wow, look at the impact that we've
Speaker 2: got as a company. Any company has on people. It's
Speaker 2: not just the people you hire, but they're families and
Speaker 2: the ones that you know, the people they live with,
Speaker 2: and so it was quite exciting to see on this
Speaker 2: big zoom screen little kids, grown kids, pets, the whole bit,
Speaker 2: and it was quite emotional. It was a really nice feeling.
Speaker 2: So that would have been the highlight for me.
Speaker 1: Oh that's beautiful. Now in terms of the huddle itself,
Speaker 1: how long does it go for? Like, how is it structured?
Speaker 2: It's a seven minute again daily stand up, but now
Speaker 2: Ruin's sitting down it is. It's on YouTube. We often
Speaker 2: get people to google O two E brands or one
Speaker 2: eight hundred Got junk and they can find one of
Speaker 2: our huddles. The old school way, the New school way.
Speaker 2: It's still the same format. We open with good news
Speaker 2: on any given day, there's a whole bunch of good
Speaker 2: news to share, so let's talk about it, and we
Speaker 2: get a bunch of people blurting out different good news.
Speaker 2: We then go into the numbers, what does it all mean?
Speaker 2: What do our growth numbers or what do our key
Speaker 2: metrics mean for the growth of our business? And then
Speaker 2: we go into a ninety second in the news we
Speaker 2: call it, which is tell us about your department, your
Speaker 2: area that you're speaking up about different person every day.
Speaker 2: What's going on and what are you doing to drive
Speaker 2: the business forward? Where are you stuck?
Speaker 3: And you might need help?
Speaker 2: And so it might be financed one day, it might
Speaker 2: be pr another day, but it's a window into the
Speaker 2: operations of that part of the company. It gives us
Speaker 2: a bigger and better sort of feeling of how we're
Speaker 2: all working together towards a common vision. Then we end
Speaker 2: with missing systems, just to quick is there anything broken
Speaker 2: not working that we need to improve on? And then
Speaker 2: a cheer And I remember when we first started huddle
Speaker 2: twenty some odd years ago. One of the leaders that
Speaker 2: ran Huddle that day said let's bring it in for
Speaker 2: a cheer, and it became very much like a football
Speaker 2: huddle or some sort of scrum we're fist in and
Speaker 2: something to cheer about. Were we on Oprah Winfrey that day?
Speaker 2: Did we have a revenue goal that we exceeded? What
Speaker 2: something's happened that day that's worth cheering about, and we
Speaker 2: always cheer at the very end. So seven minutes. We
Speaker 2: were much more structured with it pre pandemic, and it
Speaker 2: would always end on time. We are giving it a
Speaker 2: little bit of buffer. And I'd say that the virtual huddles,
Speaker 2: there's so much going on that it often will go
Speaker 2: up to about ten minutes at the peak.
Speaker 1: They sound amazing. I don't even work for you, and
Speaker 1: I want to attend.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, Well we'll have you as a guest someday.
Speaker 1: I'd love to. Now what else are you doing differently
Speaker 1: when it comes to meetings? And I might add that
Speaker 1: I was saying to you before we started recording. Something
Speaker 1: new that I'm doing with my how I work interviews
Speaker 1: is that I've got video, Oh, and I don't record
Speaker 1: the video, And you've got this gorgeous backdrop of kind
Speaker 1: of like it's like a picture of a gorgeous like
Speaker 1: snowy mountain, and you've got a couple of quotes it
Speaker 1: says it's kind of fun to do the impossible. And
Speaker 1: so the advenure begins and you're wearing a hat that
Speaker 1: says it's all about people. Can you like let's start
Speaker 1: with that, because I feel like meeting so much these
Speaker 1: days around what you see tell me about how you've
Speaker 1: curated and why you've curated this background.
Speaker 2: Well, at our head office, the Junction, which is our
Speaker 2: head office for one eight hundred, God, Junk, WOWE Day
Speaker 2: and Shackshine, all three brands, and we are big individual storytelling.
Speaker 3: So all the.
Speaker 2: Walls have these big decals all over them that tell
Speaker 2: stories of key moments and milestones from the business, key people,
Speaker 2: and it's a great way to have people immerse into
Speaker 2: those stories, motivational quotes from us and so on. And
Speaker 2: so when we got into the at home world and
Speaker 2: I'm in my basement in Vancouver, and yes, I do
Speaker 2: spend time back at the offices at well as well,
Speaker 2: but I found that how do we bring the Junction
Speaker 2: into our homes? And so I got our company that
Speaker 2: does our decals to do one in my basement. So
Speaker 2: where I'm sitting right now, where you know I've hit
Speaker 2: you with a few messages, some quotes. My hat is
Speaker 2: a I've got probably I don't know a dozen different
Speaker 2: hats that I wear with the brands with different quotes,
Speaker 2: things I believe in, depending on what Zoom I'm on.
Speaker 2: In person, I'm always always be branded type of person.
Speaker 2: So when I drive my truck, it's all wrapped with
Speaker 2: all the brands. When I'm in the office, I'm wearing
Speaker 2: my Converse sneakers that have the brands on them, and
Speaker 2: in a virtual world on Zoom, you can't see my feet.
Speaker 2: So I started getting hats with the different brands, and
Speaker 2: I might wear Wow one day one day, or the
Speaker 2: one I'm wearing today. It's all about people, as a
Speaker 2: reminder that every thing we do in our business starts
Speaker 2: and ends with people. When we take care of our people,
Speaker 2: it takes care of the magic of the entire business.
Speaker 1: That's so great. I love that. It reminds me of
Speaker 1: something Tim Kendall told me on the show many years ago.
Speaker 1: So he used to be the president of Pinterest, and
Speaker 1: he's now the CEO of Moment, which is an app
Speaker 1: that helps people curb their mobile phone behavior. And he
Speaker 1: was telling me when he I think he started as
Speaker 1: the president of Pinterest. They had a very big goal
Speaker 1: in terms of user growth, and it was all about
Speaker 1: focus and not trying to do everything, just trying to
Speaker 1: do a few things really well. And he said, you know,
Speaker 1: until we reach I think it was several million yearsers
Speaker 1: they were trying to grow to from sort of tens
Speaker 1: of millions. He said, I'm going to wear a T
Speaker 1: shirt that says focus, and I'm not going to take
Speaker 1: it off until we've hit this goal. He had several
Speaker 1: T shirts. He wasn't like filthy, but I just thought,
Speaker 1: you know, it's the communication channels that we can use
Speaker 1: as leaders are really few and far between. So I
Speaker 1: love that you're using your hat to do that. What
Speaker 1: are some other ways that you communicate with people in
Speaker 1: a way that does help the message cut through?
Speaker 2: I think in this ever changing world that we're in
Speaker 2: right now, we don't meet all of our new employees
Speaker 2: in person anymore, and so I use vigyard, which there's
Speaker 2: many platforms, but it's a video platform that I send
Speaker 2: out personal messages to every new employee.
Speaker 1: And hang on, how do you spell that?
Speaker 2: Vigid v I D Y A R D vigyard dot
Speaker 2: com And there's a bunch, there's Loom, there's a bunch
Speaker 2: of competitors. But I love the Vigyard platform. It's easy.
Speaker 2: I can either do it on my desktop or from
Speaker 2: the space, or I can do it on my phone
Speaker 2: and I will go through and just record a one
Speaker 2: take sixty second welcome message to that. So my people
Speaker 2: team will give me a spreadsheet of the new employees
Speaker 2: and they'll tell me a little something about them that
Speaker 2: they happen to be into football, or they happen to
Speaker 2: be into skiing or cooking, and I'll just share a
Speaker 2: personal story or a welcome message that's specially made for them.
Speaker 2: And it's awesome because in my own business, pre pandemic,
Speaker 2: you'd walk around and you'd go to someone's desk and
Speaker 2: say hello, but it wasn't as connecting, I think as
Speaker 2: the videos can be, because you have to think through
Speaker 2: and have some prep as to who is this person
Speaker 2: and find out a little something about them. And while
Speaker 2: it's one way, I often get videos back from people
Speaker 2: as an appreciated message back, but I find that people
Speaker 2: comment on it all the time when I do meet
Speaker 2: them in person.
Speaker 3: They're like, oh, you sent me a video. When I started, it.
Speaker 2: Meant so much that the CEO took some time and
Speaker 2: I'd batch them. And so if we've got eight new
Speaker 2: employees that week, I'm doing eight minutes worth of it.
Speaker 2: D It's no big deal, but it means a lot
Speaker 2: to people. So it's finding as you've sort of alluded
Speaker 2: to different ways to connect with people and get the
Speaker 2: message out. And I think people follow leaders that they
Speaker 2: can connect with. So as a CEO who will never
Speaker 2: perhaps work with some of these people in my company
Speaker 2: just because we've gotten so big, it's still setting the
Speaker 2: stage for how they might go treat others and how
Speaker 2: they might welcome their new employees or show that we
Speaker 2: are really working hard to make a connection with our people.
Speaker 1: I've heard that you're also big on video feedback. Can
Speaker 1: you tell me about like your method of giving people
Speaker 1: feedback on their work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'll use the same tool, videyard, which allows
Speaker 2: you to record your screen So if someone sends me
Speaker 2: an email and a PowerPoint deck or a slide deck
Speaker 2: to look at, I find rather than just typing a
Speaker 2: message back to them, I can screen share and I
Speaker 2: can move my mouse and point to things and annotate
Speaker 2: on it or talk through what I love about the
Speaker 2: deck that they've shared, or some opportunity that maybe they
Speaker 2: haven't thought about. Ask them a question, give them some feedback.
Speaker 2: And I find that it's a way to have an
Speaker 2: asynchronous meeting At times. You know, we're all so busy
Speaker 2: at the end of my day when I'm catching up
Speaker 2: on emails, these people might have already signed off and
Speaker 2: they're offline, and so I don't want to send them
Speaker 2: an email that they're going to get a little bit
Speaker 2: later and feel obliged to have to respond.
Speaker 3: To the CEO.
Speaker 2: So video is a great way for them to watch
Speaker 2: and respond back if they like when they like. And
Speaker 2: you know, someone in my companies said that I started
Speaker 2: a vigyard movement because it started to spread because people
Speaker 2: have realized that you can communicate more effectively. It can
Speaker 2: take me two minutes on commenting on something that might
Speaker 2: have taken me a lot longer to write out. It
Speaker 2: might even be fifteen seconds. But they're still getting a
Speaker 2: from Brian's mouth. I hear his words, I see his face.
Speaker 2: It's not just typed out and is Brian mad? He
Speaker 2: was so brief? Is there's some issue? And it works
Speaker 2: very very well. I also like selfishly for me. When
Speaker 2: I do get a video, I can speed it up
Speaker 2: on double speed. We all talk relatively slow, so you
Speaker 2: speed it up to twice the speed. It's like great,
Speaker 2: you still get the entire message in half the time.
Speaker 1: Now, what are the things that There's many things I
Speaker 1: admire about you as a leader, but one of the
Speaker 1: things that I feel like you're particularly good at is
Speaker 1: communicating the vision for your group of brands in such
Speaker 1: a compelling and inspiring way. What are the things that
Speaker 1: you're consciously doing or the tools that you're using to
Speaker 1: be able to do.
Speaker 2: That, Just consistently sharing the same messages but in different ways.
Speaker 2: So when I share, everything's all linked in my mind.
Speaker 2: So it starts with the painted picture, here's the vision
Speaker 2: of what we're building, what it looks like, why we're
Speaker 2: building what we're building, and then going out to people
Speaker 2: in consistent sort of. It's almost like a radio ad.
Speaker 2: You know, nobody puts a radio ad out there and
Speaker 2: runs it once and expects results. You've got to have
Speaker 2: it played over and over and over so that you
Speaker 2: hear it in different ways at different times in the
Speaker 2: car at home, and you don't forget it. And I
Speaker 2: think that our messages growing a company are no different.
Speaker 2: So the starting video to someone welcoming a new employee
Speaker 2: into the company, you know, thank you for being a
Speaker 2: part of the OTWE family, and I've got an opportunity
Speaker 2: to communicate why I believe it's important that they've joined.
Speaker 2: Then at Huddle, the constant sharing of good news. It's
Speaker 2: clear we're an optimistic business and how we do things
Speaker 2: because people can hear every single day there's good news
Speaker 2: and we end in a cheer. And then the storytelling
Speaker 2: on the walls, both at the head office or in
Speaker 2: my home office. It's then things like the pr stories,
Speaker 2: the social media, everything we do, the hats I wear,
Speaker 2: the hats other people wear.
Speaker 3: It's just a.
Speaker 2: Constant sort of repeating, if you will, of the important messages,
Speaker 2: but at different times in different ways, to make sure
Speaker 2: we're all aligned. I think one of the things we
Speaker 2: do really well as a company. We've got plenty of
Speaker 2: things that we're not good at, but I think we're
Speaker 2: very consistent. When people come in looking to be involved
Speaker 2: in owning a franchise with any one of our brands,
Speaker 2: they always tell us that no matter who I meet with,
Speaker 2: they're all saying the same things. Like people are just
Speaker 2: really focused and aligned in our messaging.
Speaker 1: Now, you said that that starts with painted picture, which
Speaker 1: is a tool or a strategy. I guess that I
Speaker 1: know that you've been using for gosh like many years.
Speaker 1: Can you share how that works? The kind of picture?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so maybe I'll tell the story of how it started.
Speaker 2: But I was about seven or eight years into my business.
Speaker 2: I'd created a million dollar junk removal business. It was
Speaker 2: called the Rubbish Boys at the time, and I wanted
Speaker 2: to grow it into something bigger, and I joined the
Speaker 2: Entrepreneur Organization and I started comparing myself to others, which
Speaker 2: was a terrible thing to do. And I saw these
Speaker 2: people had much bigger, better businesses than I did. And
Speaker 2: I hadn't finished high school, hadn't finished college. And I thought, oh,
Speaker 2: can I actually do this? Can I build this business?
Speaker 2: Do I want to do? I have the money? And
Speaker 2: do I even have a good idea? So I was
Speaker 2: in a negative space, and I went and sat on
Speaker 2: my parents' dock at their summer cottage, and I pulled
Speaker 2: out a sheet of paper and I started writing out
Speaker 2: feverishly what my future would look like, and just dreaming
Speaker 2: up possibilities I said, we'd be in the top thirty
Speaker 2: metros in North America by the end of two thousand
Speaker 2: and three, we'd be the FedEx A Junker Moval, We'd
Speaker 2: be on the Oprah Winfrey Show. And I started writing
Speaker 2: out this vision of what the future would look like
Speaker 2: five years down the road in two thousand and three.
Speaker 2: And when I took that sheet of paper and read
Speaker 2: it over at the end, I was like, Wow. I
Speaker 2: went from absolute depression to feeling excited and energized about
Speaker 2: a future that I could see in my brain that
Speaker 2: I decided to put into writing to share with others.
Speaker 2: And when I got out and started to share it
Speaker 2: with others, that was the key point. That was where
Speaker 2: the real power behind this painted picture visioning process started
Speaker 2: for me. Was I realized there were people in one
Speaker 2: of two camps. You know, Brian's nuts, he's smoking some
Speaker 2: hope dope. There's no way he can be on Oprah
Speaker 2: and grow this thirty city business, or the rest of
Speaker 2: the people who said, Wow, this is compelling and exciting.
Speaker 2: I don't know how we're going to get there, but
Speaker 2: I want to be a part of it. And they
Speaker 2: stuck around and you know, some of those people are
Speaker 2: still here today and we've built an incredible We've got
Speaker 2: a six hundred million dollar business, which back then was
Speaker 2: a million dollar business and was just an idea of
Speaker 2: something bigger and better that we could build together. So
Speaker 2: it's really just imagining the future, putting it and writing,
Speaker 2: and off we go to share it with people. And
Speaker 2: you know, if any of your listeners want a painted
Speaker 2: picture to get a sense of what it's like, they
Speaker 2: can go to my Instagram or LinkedIn and message me
Speaker 2: and just say can I see your painted picture?
Speaker 3: And I'll send one over as an example.
Speaker 2: But it's been a powerful, powerful process, and we do
Speaker 2: it with every brand. Every five years we've got a
Speaker 2: new painted picture, and it never tells us how to
Speaker 2: get where we're going. It just says, here's what it
Speaker 2: looks like, here's why we're doing what we're doing, and
Speaker 2: what the whole picture. It's like someone envisioning going on
Speaker 2: a trip. You know, if I asked you where would
Speaker 2: you go tomorrow? If money wasn't an object, you'd probably
Speaker 2: have some pretty cool vacation that you'd read out to
Speaker 2: me of what you have that you could see in
Speaker 2: your mind, and who would be there and what you're
Speaker 2: drinking and all that sort of stuff, and it's that
Speaker 2: same process, but doing it with your business or doing
Speaker 2: it with your life.
Speaker 1: We will be back with Brian shortly where he tells
Speaker 1: me about how he removes the natural barriers and roadblocks
Speaker 1: that our brains want to put up when we try
Speaker 1: to dream big and imagine what we would love to
Speaker 1: achieve in the far off future. If you're looking for
Speaker 1: more tips to improve the way that you work, I
Speaker 1: write a short fortnightly newsletter that contains three cool things
Speaker 1: that I've discovered that helped me work better, ranging from
Speaker 1: software and gadgets that I'm loving through to interesting research findings.
Speaker 1: You can sign up for that at Howiwork dot cod
Speaker 1: That's how I work dot co. How do you remove
Speaker 1: like just the natural obstacles and fears and barriers that
Speaker 1: your brain wants to put up, Like when you you know,
Speaker 1: when you ask yourself where do I want to ban
Speaker 1: in five years? Like what are the questions that you're
Speaker 1: asking yourself to get over the part of your brain
Speaker 1: that's like, well, that's ridiculous. I'm not going to be
Speaker 1: on OPRAH, that's crazy.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean a couple of things. One is I
Speaker 2: believe if your idea isn't a little bit ridiculous and
Speaker 2: doesn't make you a little nervous, you're you're not dreaming
Speaker 2: big enough. If you can get your life's work done
Speaker 2: in a lifetime, you're not dreaming big enough.
Speaker 3: And so I think it's.
Speaker 2: Got to be a little bit edgy and a little bit.
Speaker 3: Kind of out there.
Speaker 2: And you know, mine was Oprah because I thought Oprah
Speaker 2: was one of the most amazing leaders and visionaries in
Speaker 2: the world and having a great impact on the world.
Speaker 2: And I wanted to meet her and give her a
Speaker 2: big hug, which I got to do. And it wasn't
Speaker 2: as much being on the show as it was meeting
Speaker 2: her and getting to connect with her and spend some time.
Speaker 2: So everyone has a gift, and everyone comes to this
Speaker 2: world with some possibility that they might not have tapped
Speaker 2: into yet. And I think it's just dreaming big but knowing.
Speaker 2: You know, for me, it's getting rid of the fear
Speaker 2: of well, what if I fail to me? It's I
Speaker 2: don't think about how to get there. I just think
Speaker 2: about where do I Where am I going to go?
Speaker 2: And then I start to figure out the how after
Speaker 2: I've written it down after I've committed to something. You know,
Speaker 2: we wanted to be on The Ellen Degenerous Show, and
Speaker 2: you know we made that happen twice and it wasn't easy,
Speaker 2: but I remember it was. You write it down, it
Speaker 2: creates some fear. It makes you feel a little sick
Speaker 2: because you're like, how are you going to make that happen?
Speaker 2: We failed the first you know, twenty or thirty times
Speaker 2: we tried to make it happen. But eventually, if it's important,
Speaker 2: you follow through and you find a way, and you
Speaker 2: find someone that can connect you and make it happen.
Speaker 2: And it doesn't have to be something big. It can
Speaker 2: just be big to you, but dreaming big and committing
Speaker 2: to it and then not worrying about the how until
Speaker 2: you've written it down.
Speaker 1: So the Ellen Degenerous example came from an exercise that
Speaker 1: is called can you imagine? How does that work?
Speaker 3: Well, we've got a.
Speaker 2: Big wall in the office that I had a coo
Speaker 2: that wasn't able to envision anything. Cameron Harold used to
Speaker 2: say to me, you know, I'm not the vision guy.
Speaker 3: That's you.
Speaker 2: I can't envision the future. And I said, well, of
Speaker 2: course you can. So I actually ran him through the
Speaker 2: vacation example. I said, if you can go anywhere tomorrow,
Speaker 2: money is not an object, where would you go? And
Speaker 2: he listed out what it would look like, who was
Speaker 2: with him, what he was drinking, what the temperature was,
Speaker 2: why he was there. I mean, he had the whole
Speaker 2: picture in his mind, right off the top of his head.
Speaker 2: So it's someone to ask you the right questions. What
Speaker 2: can you imagine? What could you imagine for your business?
Speaker 2: What could you imagine for your podcast? You know, who's
Speaker 2: someone If you could have anybody in the world be
Speaker 2: on your podcast, who would it be? And you ask
Speaker 2: people question and you dig and dig and dig until
Speaker 2: they find that those magical possibilities and you write them down.
Speaker 2: And so can you imagine wall Is putting big things
Speaker 2: up on that wall, like imagine being on Oprah. Imagine
Speaker 2: being on the Oprah Winfrey Show, I'm sorry, the Dell
Speaker 2: and Degeneral Show. Imagine being in the Third Country. We
Speaker 2: were in Canada and the United States and we envisioned
Speaker 2: being in Australia and we made it happen. Can you
Speaker 2: imagine being on the side of a Starbucks cup. They
Speaker 2: used to have this campaign on the side called the
Speaker 2: Way I see it, and there were authors and actresses
Speaker 2: and actors and all sorts of people, and we had
Speaker 2: a quote that was on the side for one eight
Speaker 2: hunder god junk you are you can't let go of
Speaker 2: and so imagining big possibilities, putting them out there to
Speaker 2: the world and putting them up on the wall, and
Speaker 2: you never know some of them might actually happen.
Speaker 1: So you did get on I think it was ten
Speaker 1: million Starbucks cup.
Speaker 3: That's great, Yeah, yeah, one.
Speaker 1: Quote like how did you actually might that happen?
Speaker 2: So there was a woman Andrea in our marketing department.
Speaker 2: Can you imagine wall is about teaching people to envision
Speaker 2: big things that could happen for the benefit of the
Speaker 2: company and themselves, And she came up with one and said,
Speaker 2: I've seen these quotes on the side of Starbucks cups.
Speaker 2: Imagine if we had one. And I said, well, you know,
Speaker 2: five or six dollars latte with a one eight hundergot
Speaker 2: junk quote. I can't imagine it's going to happen. And
Speaker 2: it was actually a terrible leadership move on my part
Speaker 2: because I was trying to squash her idea. But she said, no, no, no, Brian,
Speaker 2: you've told us to dream big.
Speaker 3: I can see it.
Speaker 2: And when she said she could see it, I was like, Okay,
Speaker 2: we got to get that up on the wall because
Speaker 2: that's important. And we reached out through our contacts, through
Speaker 2: our franchise owners. Does anyone know anyone that works at
Speaker 2: Starbucks at the head office a higher level. We had
Speaker 2: a guy in la who used to actually work for
Speaker 2: Starbucks and he connected us to some of the market
Speaker 2: people and you know, conversation after conversation. It actually didn't
Speaker 2: take much. We got introduced to the right people and
Speaker 2: they like the idea of a quote from an entrepreneur.
Speaker 2: They hadn't had entrepreneurs on the cups. It was again
Speaker 2: people more Hollywood based, and they took our quote, helped
Speaker 2: actually helped me write it, and it ended up on
Speaker 2: ten million cops.
Speaker 3: It was unbelievable.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. I feel like something that you're very good
Speaker 1: at is kind of identifying someone that you want to
Speaker 1: meet or connect with and making it happen. Like there's
Speaker 1: a story in your latest book byob where you connect
Speaker 1: with Michael Gerber, who is I guess infamous because of
Speaker 1: the e Myth Books, which is like a classic book
Speaker 1: for business owners and you talk about how, like you,
Speaker 1: you tried to get hold of him many times before
Speaker 1: it actually happened. But I'd love to know, like, what
Speaker 1: is your approach in general to reaching out to people
Speaker 1: that seem untouchable and actually making a real connection with them.
Speaker 2: I think that you know, in this world of people
Speaker 2: having fame, so you take someone who's an author who's
Speaker 2: written a legendary bestseller like Michael Gerber, or you take
Speaker 2: a famous entrepreneur or sports celebrity Shaquille O'Neill who played
Speaker 2: for the Lakers and you know, world famous, you can
Speaker 2: still reach out and connect with these people because they
Speaker 2: are people, and they've got their own insecurities, and they've
Speaker 2: got their own need for recognition and wanting to help
Speaker 2: others and so on. It's just reaching out and asking
Speaker 2: for help or asking them if you can ask a question.
Speaker 2: There has to be a connection.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: A lot of people go, you know, hey, Brian, you
Speaker 2: know you've gotten to meet some pretty amazing people, which
Speaker 2: I have. It's because you're Brian Scidmore and you're the
Speaker 2: founder of one eight hunder God Junk. Well, no, before
Speaker 2: you know half the mentors I've met, who would be
Speaker 2: some big names were before anyone who one eight hunder
Speaker 2: got Junk was and certainly didn't know who Brian Scudamore was.
Speaker 2: But I reached out as someone with passion and optimism
Speaker 2: and the willingness to task for help. So fred De Luca,
Speaker 2: who is the late founder of Subway, and he was
Speaker 2: an incredible mentor of mine. He's you know, I think
Speaker 2: he built a nine billion dollar business before he passed.
Speaker 2: And I met him at a franchise convention. I was
Speaker 2: walking the halls and I happened to literally.
Speaker 3: Bump into him.
Speaker 2: I noticed his name tag and I didn't know what
Speaker 2: he looked like. I just knew the name, and I.
Speaker 3: Said, oh, you're fred De Luca. You started Subway.
Speaker 2: And he was in a rush somewhere and we had
Speaker 2: a like thirty second chat, and I said, could I
Speaker 2: reach out and ask you some questions? Sometime he gave
Speaker 2: me his card, and over the years, I mean, he
Speaker 2: came to visit me at my office in Vancouver. He
Speaker 2: would call me from his car phone back in the
Speaker 2: day when they had car phones, and you know, he
Speaker 2: would ring me up and say, hey, I'm driving between
Speaker 2: a meeting. I know you had a question and we'd
Speaker 2: spend some time chatting through. So I think that a
Speaker 2: lot of people out there who might seem unapproachable, people
Speaker 2: don't generally approach them. And it's not you know, in
Speaker 2: a world today with email, it's pretty easy to guess
Speaker 2: someone's email address. You know, Michael Dell, who started Dell Computers,
Speaker 2: we had some Dell challenges years and years ago, and
Speaker 2: so I went to the top and I figured out
Speaker 2: that it was I don't remember the exact format, but
Speaker 2: I think it was Mike Atdell dot com. And forty
Speaker 2: five minutes later, I'm not kidding, the CEO and founder
Speaker 2: of a multi billion dollar company got in touch, sent
Speaker 2: the note to someone else in the business and said,
Speaker 2: could you please help Brian with this? And you know,
Speaker 2: it's just it's reaching out and asking the question. I
Speaker 2: think people are so fearful of failure and rejection that
Speaker 2: they're not even willing to try.
Speaker 1: But ask the question when you're writing that initial reach
Speaker 1: out email, is there almost like a format that you
Speaker 1: would use that you found to be effective in grabbing
Speaker 1: someone's attention and communicating what you've talked about.
Speaker 2: I don't know if there's a format as much as
Speaker 2: what would be my format, which would you know, I
Speaker 2: don't want to make it sound formulaic, but it's who
Speaker 2: I am. I would find something to compliment them on
Speaker 2: because I you know, I'm reaching out to them for
Speaker 2: a reason and looking for help. They're probably pretty good
Speaker 2: at something recognizing that and then just asking for help.
Speaker 3: I have a question.
Speaker 2: I wonder if you have a moment to respond through
Speaker 2: email or maybe we can get on the zoom And
Speaker 2: I mean, it's incredible, it happens all the time. Where Again,
Speaker 2: it's easier as a six hundred million dollar company to
Speaker 2: connect with people today, but back in the day, it
Speaker 2: was easy for me to reach out and just ask
Speaker 2: people questions and ask for help. Everyone that's been successful
Speaker 2: in this world, my mind, has had help getting there.
Speaker 2: If they're honest, they don't do it alone, and they
Speaker 2: remember what it was like to have been helped, and
Speaker 2: so why not help someone else along the way.
Speaker 1: I imagine with all the mentors that you've had in
Speaker 1: your career, you must have received some amazing career advice.
Speaker 1: What have been some of the standout pieces of advice
Speaker 1: you've got?
Speaker 2: But I tried to franchise my business, I was always
Speaker 2: impressed by the Ray Kroc, founder of McDonald's, of the
Speaker 2: franchise model. I loved what he did and how he
Speaker 2: built his business, and I thought, I want a franchise
Speaker 2: one eight hunder got junk, and of course we did
Speaker 2: the same with our other brands in the beginning. I
Speaker 2: went out and I thought, who can I learn from?
Speaker 2: And I started approaching all these franchise mentors and some
Speaker 2: of them were people from McDonald's. And I reached out
Speaker 2: and connected and almost a dozen people and they all
Speaker 2: told me, Brian, this isn't franchisable.
Speaker 3: You can't do that.
Speaker 2: And it was incredible feedback. But I didn't let it
Speaker 2: go just to a oh it can't be done. My
Speaker 2: question and my notes were why not? What's missing? What
Speaker 2: would make it franchiseable? Yeah, So I went back to
Speaker 2: all these mentors after I went back to the drawing
Speaker 2: board and sort of refined my model and presented back.
Speaker 2: I didn't go meet them all but a few of them,
Speaker 2: and I said what about now? And they said, yeah,
Speaker 2: I think you've got something. And so what was missing
Speaker 2: was in the junker moval business, having a beat up,
Speaker 2: old pickup truck model. Everybody said, well, what's stopping anyone
Speaker 2: from just buying their own truck and starting Dave's hauling.
Speaker 3: And so on, And I said, wow.
Speaker 2: So we added a national brand which was one eight
Speaker 2: hundred got Junk. We created a look and a feel
Speaker 2: that looked like a national brand, and we created a
Speaker 2: call center where we would do all the booking and
Speaker 2: dispatch for all of our franchise owners so they could
Speaker 2: pound the pavement and drive sales, built up their team
Speaker 2: of people, build up the business, and market it while
Speaker 2: we ran the back end operations. And it worked and
Speaker 2: it's still working. And so it's when we get feedback
Speaker 2: from people. It's being willing to ask for the feedback
Speaker 2: and then listening. One other thing I've written about in
Speaker 2: one of the books that I've written, I can't remember
Speaker 2: which one is. I talk about the press taught me
Speaker 2: how to pitch the press. So if I think of
Speaker 2: pitching a story to the New York Times, it might
Speaker 2: have been that I failed pitching the story to the
Speaker 2: USA Today, or I failed pitching to a big local newspaper.
Speaker 2: But I ask that journalist, why don't you like it?
Speaker 2: What's missing? Not trying to convince them, but trying to
Speaker 2: understand from a journalistic perspective, why isn't it a story?
Speaker 2: And they give you the answers and you take that
Speaker 2: and you just and then you go to the New
Speaker 2: York Times and then you're successful.
Speaker 1: Your latest book is called b Yov and I cannot
Speaker 1: recommend it highly enough. I think when it comes to
Speaker 1: business books, a lot of them like there's fuller stuff
Speaker 1: in them, but I would say with yours, there's none
Speaker 1: of that. And it's like it's a shortish read. It
Speaker 1: takes I think you say it takes about ninety minutes,
Speaker 1: and I did check the time and it's about that.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's just like it's it's full of
Speaker 1: just great advice and it's very practical and it's very inspiring.
Speaker 1: So for people that want to get their hands on
Speaker 1: the book and also like connect with you in some way,
Speaker 1: what is the best way for.
Speaker 3: Listeners to do that?
Speaker 2: Go to the world's largest bookstore, Amazon. I mean that's
Speaker 2: where I found your book, or at least I'm on
Speaker 2: the pre order, so I can't.
Speaker 3: Wait, thank you.
Speaker 2: But yeah, they can go to Amazon. And you know,
Speaker 2: we tried to make a couple of things with the book.
Speaker 2: One was make it readable. The Wizard of Ads.
Speaker 1: Roy H.
Speaker 2: Williams, who's my co author, who does the Olive radio advertising.
Speaker 2: We wrote this book together and it's the second book
Speaker 2: we did together. And I remember when we wrote WTF
Speaker 2: Willing to Fail. At the end, I was just like Roy,
Speaker 2: this is too short, and he's like, no, Roy's written
Speaker 2: a ton of books. He goes, Brian, do you want
Speaker 2: it sitting on the bedside table unread or do you
Speaker 2: want people to actually read it and have it make
Speaker 2: an impact? And I said, well, of course the latter.
Speaker 2: He said, then don't make it too long. And knowing
Speaker 2: that entrepreneurs or want to be entrepreneurs, are often very
Speaker 2: add make it readable. It's a ninety minute read, maybe
Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty minutes if you're a slower reader
Speaker 2: like me.
Speaker 3: But that was the deal.
Speaker 2: And the second thing we did is we made the
Speaker 2: kindle ninety nine cents, not just as a promo but
Speaker 2: as something to go. Let's make it approachable. Anybody can
Speaker 2: read it and download it for a book. And my
Speaker 2: whole purpose is trying to inspire people to become entrepreneurs. Now,
Speaker 2: it could be that they end up starting a franchise
Speaker 2: with another franchise organization. They might start a franchise with us,
Speaker 2: they might go the path I did and completely start
Speaker 2: from scratch. It doesn't matter to me what someone chooses,
Speaker 2: but that if they want that dream of business ownership
Speaker 2: for themselves, that they do something about it. And so
Speaker 2: it's meant to be a conversation to inspire some action.
Speaker 1: That's awesome, Brian. It's been so good having you back on.
Speaker 1: I loved our first chat and I've loved this one,
Speaker 1: so thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 2: Awesome, thank you, Martha. I mean time is something we
Speaker 2: both hold near and dear to our heart because you're
Speaker 2: all about efficiency and tips and hacks and a whole bit,
Speaker 2: and so it's great time spent together because I always
Speaker 2: learn things when I do these podcasts and get interviewed
Speaker 2: and some great questions.
Speaker 3: So thank you so much.
Speaker 1: I just love talking to Brian again, and I loved
Speaker 1: his process for creating personal videos for new status. It's
Speaker 1: such a quick thing to do time, but just so impactful.
Speaker 1: And if you're looking for more tips from Brian, I
Speaker 1: will link to the first time I had him on
Speaker 1: the show in the show notes, and also a couple
Speaker 1: of his tips made it into my new book, time Wise,
Speaker 1: which contains nearly one hundred different tips, habits, and hacks
Speaker 1: from the world's most successful people on how they use
Speaker 1: their time more wisely to get more done and have
Speaker 1: more joy in their lives. Time Wise is available now
Speaker 1: wherever you get books from How I Work is produced
Speaker 1: by Inventium with production support from Dead Set Studios. The
Speaker 1: producer for this episode was Liam Riordan, and thank you
Speaker 1: to Matt Nimba who does the audio mix for every
Speaker 1: episode and makes everything sound so much better than it
Speaker 1: would have otherwise. See you next time.