How ‘Company Culture’ Became Overused written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing
The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with Brian Gottlieb
In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interviewed Brian Gottlieb, founder of Tundraland Home Improvements and author of ‘Beyond the Hammer.’
He transformed a $3,000 investment into a multi-state enterprise with nearly $1 billion in lifetime sales. Gottlieb, an inspirational business leader, and Harvard Business School executive education alumnus, champions a leadership philosophy centered on strategy, empowerment, and consistent execution while founding charitable initiatives like “Windows for a Cause” and “Baths for the Brave.”
We discuss Brian’s journey in building a successful business from the ground up, emphasizing the importance of belief in leadership, creating a positive company culture, and the impact of community initiatives. Brian shares insights on effective feedback techniques, the significance of employee engagement, and how to align a team around a common mission. The conversation highlights the role of training and development in fostering a motivated workforce and the importance of understanding employee perspectives through stay interviews.
Key Takeaways
Chapters:
More About Brian Gottlieb:
- Check out Brian’s website
- Follow Brian on Linkedin
- Grab a copy of Beyond the Hammer: A Fresh Approach to Leadership, Culture, and Building High Performance Teams
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Brian Gottlieb (00:00): Back in the early days. I think the only rule of business is simply to stay in business. Sometimes it's the rules that we create in our own mind that limit us. It's my belief. If you're a business owner, one thing's for sure. If people love what they do, they tend to do it a whole lot better.
John Jantsch (00:14): Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Brian Gottlieb. He is the founder of Tundra Land Home Improvements and author of the upcoming book we're going to talk about today Beyond the Hammer, a Fresh Approach to Leadership, culture and Building High Performance Team. So Brian, welcome to the show.
Brian Gottlieb (00:35): John. Thanks so much for having me. Appreciate it. Let's have a good chat today.
John Jantsch (00:39): Yeah. So is there Tundra Land? Is there some story behind the name there? I find myself tripping over it every time. I want to say Thunder Land or something like that.
Brian Gottlieb (00:47): Yeah, people did mistake it for that at that time. First of all, I wanted to find a name that didn't exist on from a URL standpoint. So the business was Wisconsin based, which is the frozen tundra. So I thought, why not Tundra Land? And it seemed to work real well. And then of course I dialed one 800 Tundra Land to see who would answer in some plumbing company, somewhere answered. And I said, Hey, can I buy your phone number? And they said, sure. So I had the domain and I had the one 800 number. So he was a happy guy.
John Jantsch (01:16): They probably didn't even know what you were buying, right? I mean, they weren't using it for that. It just happened to add up.
Brian Gottlieb (01:21): Right, right.
John Jantsch (01:22): So in the bio, I didn't read this part, but to you talk about starting your business with $3,000. So I'm not going to ask you what challenges you face because it's obvious, right? But talk a little bit about the early days and really was there a pivotal moment, because you've obviously grown it to quite an enterprise now.
Brian Gottlieb (01:43): Yeah, right. 2009 in the back of a friend's warehouse on a plastic folding table with $3,000 in cash. I thought it was a great time to start a business. So look, there were a lot of people that in 2007 and eight lost their jobs, which also meant there was an opportunity there, some great talent out there, and it was to me, a great time to start a business. But sure, in the early days, everything was a challenge. I mean, everything was a challenge. $3,000 doesn't go very far. So this is Duct Tape Marketing. You have to go out and you have to make a lead, and you have to make a lead, and you have to sell a lead, and you have to install a lead, and you have to do all those things just to stay in business another day. Back in the early days, I think the only rule of business is simply to stay in business. But over time, we started to grow and grow. And when I sold all the businesses that original business, tand spawned into a couple of other businesses that covered multiple states in the United States. We had 600 employees and doing about 150 million in revenue when I finally sold all the businesses a couple of years ago. It was quite a fun ride. A lot of learning along the way though.
John Jantsch (02:47): Well, your book is essentially a, I dunno, would you call it a leader? Yeah, you'd call it a leadership book, I suppose. And I think somebody who's at some level managed 600 employees can actually call themselves a leader. A lot of your book is pegged to the word belief and this idea that it really starts with that. And I'm a fan of the idea of the power of the universe delivering if you have beliefs. So unpack kind of that idea and what it means to this entire book, or really even to your entire thinking about leading.
Brian Gottlieb (03:22): Yeah, so what it all really came from is that when you think about back in 2009 when I started the business, if you've asked me what my business was, I would've said, well, we're a construction company.
Testimonial (03:31): Maybe
Brian Gottlieb (03:31): Fast forward six years later, when I had 30, 40, 50 employees, I might've said, well, we're a sales and marketing company that happens to be in home improvements. But what really allowed us to grow was when we said, what are we really? Well, we're a training organization. Let's just be a training and development company, and what does that mean? And part of that process is believing in people and helping and getting people to believe in themselves. And the more people believe in themselves, the more they're willing to grow. Sometimes it's the rules that we create in our own mind that limit us. So can a leader change that perspective? And how do you influence the mindset of people on your team? John, when I first started the business, the success of the business depended upon how well I personally executed. But as you start hiring people and building a team, now the business' success depends on how well teams execute. And by the way, that's both in the leader's presence and in their absence. So getting people to believe in themselves, but also getting them aligned around a certain set of beliefs around a mission and a vision and things that really matter. And these are all the necessary ingredients to build an aligned team and aligned teams perform well in any market regardless of competition.
John Jantsch (04:42): So how do you get, you're in one of those industries where, I mean, there are a lot of businesses that knowledge workers are brought in and they're told the mission and we got to believe and we're all on the same team. And sometimes you feel like, I could be wrong, I am wrong. But sometimes the feeling is that, well, those people naturally get it, but okay, you hire a carpenter and they just want to go out and build the mantle on the job that they're working on and not really think of themselves as a training company. How do you kind of deal with that mindset? Or did you,
Brian Gottlieb (05:11): Yeah, that's a great question, John. So first of all, it's true. There are a lot of mission statements that are either, in some cases they're businesses, and other times it's just maybe a poster on the wall somewhere.
(05:22): And the question is, how do you bring it to life? How do you weave it into the fabric of your organization? And how do you make it so that everybody, whether they're swinging a hammer out in the field, just a carpenter or somebody that's working in the mall trying to schedule an appointment for a bathroom model, how do they understand what is their role in the mission and vision? How do you bring it to life? I'll give you an example of one way we did that if I could. So we would install replacement windows in people's homes. Well, when you put new windows in people's homes, you typically take the old windows out and you throw 'em in the trash, which normally that's okay, but our mission statement was to do well and do good. And what that meant for us is the purpose of business is to make a decent profit decently.
(06:03): So we always looked for opportunities where we could do just that and how can we involve others in the organization In doing so, one way was with these old windows. We would take these old windows out of people's homes, and instead of throwing 'em away, we would turn them into really cool art pieces by giving these sashes to local artists and community members and the high schools, and they would turn these windows into art pieces. And then once a year, all these windows would get auctioned off and the money raised would go to make a positive impact. Then the life of another individual. If the installer wasn't careful taking those windows out, we wouldn't have windows to auction. If the marketer didn't set an appointment, we wouldn't have windows to auction. So that's just one example of how you can take a mission statement and just really weave it into the business. And people then feel like their job is more than just a job. It feels like they have purpose, and that's really important. They also understand that their work is impactful.
John Jantsch (06:58): And there's countless, especially when we were going through after the pandemic and there was this quiet quitting and all whatever terms people wanted to call it. Really the bottom line came down to people saying, I, I'm not tired of working. I'm just tired of working here. I'm just tired of working for you. I want to work somewhere
Brian Gottlieb (07:15): Where I feel valued. I write about that in my book that there was a study upwards of 60% of people in the United States have left a job simply by the way, just to get away from a manager. So there are a lot of reasons why you write people quite quit after the pandemic, but then still there are a lot of unhappy people. And that's such a shame because look, it's my belief, if you're a business owner, one thing's for sure, if people love what they do, they tend to do it a whole lot better. So how do we get people just to love what they do? Because the customer journey really starts with the employee journey
John Jantsch (07:46): A hundred percent. I mean, I've said it a hundred times any way, shape and form that your business comes into contact with a customer, that person is performing a marketing function regardless of what their job title
Brian Gottlieb (07:57): Is. It certainly is. And it's interesting because when you think about scripting inside of an organization, it's quite common in the home improvement business where maybe the sales reps are scripted, but really the installers need to be also taught how to communicate with a customer. How do you ask for check? How do you make sure the customer is happy and all these sort of things? Because you're right. The thing about the home improvement industry, unlike many businesses, is 99.9% of every employee is customer facing, whether it's over the phone or face to face. And you're right, and everything represents your brand, and you just want to make sure that you're aware of that.
John Jantsch (08:34): Well look no further than the reviews, the five star reviews in the home service industry, and they don't often mention the company. They mention Rusty who fixed my boiler.
Brian Gottlieb (08:44): That's right. We had a couple of our installers. What they would do is while they were in the home doing whether a bath project or window project, they kept some nine volt batteries in their toolkit and they would say, Hey, Mrs. Jones, when's the last time you changed your smoke detector batteries? I'm here. I'm happy to do it for you. I'll tell you what, look, we always installed a great shower and a great window for people, but customers love that little 2% shift. It was a big deal for them.
John Jantsch (09:09): Well, a lot of it's because they're not getting that in a lot of places in their life. And so I think that it, I don't want to say it's easy, but it kind of lowers the bar, doesn't it?
Brian Gottlieb (09:18): Well, people deserve, customers deserve to have a great experience, especially when they're investing their money in something. Likewise, employees deserve to have a great experience. They're giving up a portion of their life inside of an organization. They should be happy doing so it shouldn't be a miserable experience. It doesn't. There might be some other
John Jantsch (09:38): Stuff they'd rather do. So let's get down to some brass tacks here, some in the weeds stuff. You introduce an approach to feedback that you call the center and sphere. You want to break that down.
Brian Gottlieb (09:51): So what happens when you tend to give feedback to people, even when it's just a little bit constructive, they tend to kind of shut down and people tend to remember the negative more than the positive. So when we give feedback to people, we want to transfer belief whenever possible, and we do that through the center of the sphere. We explained to them that A, we believe in them and we believe in them because, John, I believe in you because I've seen you do X, Y, and Z before, and I know you can continue to do well at that. What I'd like you to work on is fill in the blank, some sort of actionable feedback, but then you surrounded again with the sphere of encouragement because remember, the purpose of a one-on-one conversation when you're coaching isn't necessarily to terminate somebody. It's to coach them up. And to be a great coach, you have to be effective. And how do you be effective? Well, you have to connect with people and get people to really want it. Take advantage of whatever advice you're giving them and not look like they, you're beating up on them either.
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Brian Gottlieb (12:18): Yeah. What's interesting is some of the best processes came from employees that weren't necessarily satisfied, by the way, this whole thing that when an employee leaves, you're supposed to do an exit survey and an exit survey. Well, okay, that's great. It's an autopsy is what, let's call it an autopsy. Okay, but you mine so much valuable information. We started to do something called stay interviews. Instead of waiting for somebody to leave, let's interview them while they're actually working with us. Let's ask them four questions. The first question is, what makes you want to come to work every day? The second question is, what would one day make you want to leave? The third question is, what is one thing the company is doing wrong today? And the fourth question is, what is something you're not getting out of your leader that you really need? Mining for those things really tells us where we need to take the organization, because what happens is when a business grows, and with 600 people, you could imagine the org chart is growing and I'm getting further and further away from the customer and really away from the customer facing people.
(13:20): So stay interviews really connects the leader of the business to what the mindset of the team is, the true culture of the organization, how are people thinking? Because how they think affects how they act and how they act is how they behave, which is how the organization performs
John Jantsch (13:37): Well. And those are some pretty tough questions, and I think that somebody who has asked those questions is going to feel heard. It's like, oh, you care what I think?
Brian Gottlieb (13:45): And isn't that what people want? But we all want to feel heard, valued, and appreciated. More so than a paycheck, by the way.
John Jantsch (13:52): Yeah, yeah. No, it shows up all the time when people are surveyed. So how much of this, the word culture has certainly been pretty popular the last 10 years. How much of this really, the problem I have with the word culture is a lot of times people, this is what it should be. This is what it ought to be, as opposed to, this is what it is, because that's really what culture is. I mean, there's things you can do intentionally. So how much of this would you say is culture and how much of it is just figuring out who you are and being it?
Brian Gottlieb (14:19): Well, I think, look, let's talk about what culture is right there. I think the word is overused. Every business has a culture, whether you want it or not, you've got a culture. Now we can talk about what that culture is, but I believe culture is what do people think about the organization? What do they think about their, how do they think and feel about the business itself, and how does that affect organizational performance? We had a saying in our business that if you wanted to copy our performance, you first had to copy our culture, which means you had to copy what goes on inside of our people's heads. And that's a lot to me. If you have the right culture, and you can always inspect your culture, look at any organization. I visited plenty of companies. I know you have too, John, and if you look at how a company hires, how they terminate people, what does that process look like? How they promote, how they reward and compensate. That'll tell you a lot about the culture because it'll tell you what the priorities are inside of the organization, which also tells you how people think and feel about the business.
John Jantsch (15:22): So there's a line, I think it's directly from the book. Company culture is shaped by the lowest level of acceptable behavior in an, that's a pretty bold statement, Mr. Gotlieb.
Brian Gottlieb (15:35): Yeah. Well, what happens? It's a very important statement. It's easy. It's the manager that creates a toxic environment, shapes the culture of the organization, the high performer, low culture fit, the person that really gets results, but they're not good around the rest of the team that you try to isolate shapes the culture of the organization, the low performer, high culture fit, the person you in sales, it's like the person you love, but they can't even close a car door, but you keep them around because you love them. All of these things shape the culture of an organization. This is why it can't be ignored. One of the pillars in the book is that leaders are aware of the echo of their voice, and the idea is that you can't ignore these sort of things because you're right. The culture is shaped by the lowest level of acceptable behavior.
John Jantsch (16:22): I mean, it really kind of disempowers the people that say, Hey, I'm doing this and doing that, and look what they're getting away with. I guess they don't care.
Brian Gottlieb (16:31): It sends a wild ripple effect through the entire organization.
John Jantsch (16:35): Yeah, yeah. So you briefly mentioned Windows for a cause. You had another one, baths for the Brave or for the Brave. Talk a little bit about, you started talking about where they came from. What impact did they have really on your business to the point where you probably sought out my next business, we're going to do X, right?
Brian Gottlieb (16:54): Yeah, yeah. It's interesting because the thing about Windows for cause is as it makes an employee, a co-producer in the mission statement, it also makes the customer a co-producer. And that's really powerful when you can create a co-producing customer. IKEA does that really well. If you buy anything from ikea, everything comes in a little skinny box and you got to put it together. You know that going into ikea, but IKEA customers are co-producers. Keeping the costs of Ikea down Bath for the Brave was another example. It's so sad. The thing about the Bath business is it's very joyful, but there's a lot of sadness too. There are people that have, there are a lot of veterans, in fact, that have served our country proudly, but they have a shower because of mobility issues that they're petrified of. They can't step over their bathtub safely. They can't take a shower safely in their own home, and they don't necessarily have the financial means to do anything about it.
(17:45): Bath For the Brave was an initiative that we started where we surprised free veterans. We surprised veterans with free showers just in time for Veterans Day. And in fact, it wasn't just myself. It became a movement with 30 40 other home improvement companies across the country, all surprising veterans with free shower projects. When you talk about how do you involve an installer in your mission, I will share with you, John, the installers would fight with each other. They wanted to be the one to install the free shower for the veteran that served our country. And again, we can't do free showers for veterans if customers don't first buy showers from us. I think a tangible mission that creates a co-producing customer and involves your team in the process is really something
John Jantsch (18:32): Special. And that's why I love, from a marketing standpoint, and the home improvement business was probably as bad as any, it got really tough to find skilled labor there for a long time, especially as demand was skyrocketing. And I found that companies that did a great job with their employees and were actually able to promote how happy their employees were and what a great place this was to work. That became a tremendous brand, didn't it?
Brian Gottlieb (18:56): Yeah, that's right. That's right. Because word does get around, doesn't it? Word does get around. It's interesting. When I sold one of my businesses in 2022, and again, it was coming off of there's no labor shortage. We received 9,000 job applications the last year I had my business 9,000 applications that people that wanted to come. And by the way, this isn't Wisconsin where there are more cows than people, just to be clear. So that's a lot of applications, but people want be part of something really cool. And again, because really when you think about even recruitment is marketing as well. It's all marketing, isn't it?
John Jantsch (19:34): Yeah. A lot of people just think it's lead generation or something. It's like you run an ad and people show up, and it's really, if we're talking about all the things being true, people want to work a place with purpose. I guarantee you some percentage of a performers that you want, they're looking for that first.
Brian Gottlieb (19:52): That's right. And then if an organization can also create upward mobility, because as long as I've been in this industry, there's been a labor shortage, and so let's not even worry about that. Let's just be a training organization where we can take people right out of high school that didn't want to go to college, and let's teach them a skill where they can do quite well and have a wonderful life with great benefits and raise a family, and all those things that are really cool in life. But you have to believe in people to do that,
John Jantsch (20:21): Get good at their craft. Did you start apprentice programs? Was that part of your
Brian Gottlieb (20:25): We did, yeah. We were able to bring anybody in and just if they were willing, if they had the right mindset, if they were hungry and trainable and all those sort of things, yeah, we can put 'em on a path of success and didn't mean just because we hired them for this role, that's where they ended up. Sometimes we move 'em into another role inside of the business. Again, it really does come down to just taking a moment and trying to find the best fit for somebody and not just kicking 'em to the curb in the role they're in. It's not working out.
John Jantsch (20:51): Yeah. Awesome. Well, Brian, I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. You want to tell people where they might connect with you and find more about Beyond the Hammer?
Brian Gottlieb (21:02): Yeah. You can always connect with me on my website, which is brian gottlieb.com and beyond. The Hammers available on Amazon, the audio version, Kindle, and of course the hardcover book. It's a great read. I think you really enjoyed it. It's a fun story. It's a parable, and it's also actionable, so you can plug it into your business very quickly.
John Jantsch (21:20): Awesome. Well, again, I appreciate you stopping by, and hopefully we'll run into you one of these days out there on the road.
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