The DYOJO Podcast

Pro vs. Joe 011 LIVE, the podcast within The DYOJO Podcast - recorded Saturday, March 13, 2021.   Hosted by Jon Isaacson "The Pro" and Bryan Close "The Joe", the dynamic duo discusses the ups and downs of transitioning your company into property insurance damage repairs. These discussion are both casual, often conducted while the hosts enjoy a nice cigar, whiskey and/or a local craft brew; as well as deeper dives into topics with guests who are subject matter experts. If you are considering starting a water or fire damage restoration company, you will find a lot of value in this "podcast within the [DYOJO] podcast."     GUEST:   Chris Panagiotu  Host of CAPitalize: The Podcast for Intelligent Investors   Personal and business financial strategies - making your money make money the smart way  Current financial influencers - strengths/weaknesses   What are 3 financial quips that you hate?   What are some of the lingering perspectives and habits that savvy investors should leave for dead?   The DYOJO Podcast airs LIVE Thursdays 9am PST on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Audio is distributed through platforms such as Apple, Spotify, Google, etc.  

The DYOJO Podcast LIVE Episode 52 from Thursday, March 11, 2021 at 9am PST The DYOJO Podcast is sponsored by iRestore Restoration Management Software - Powering Your Vision, Values, and Leadership. It's time to calm the chaos, get your team organized, and focus on your efforts for growing your business. iRestore offers all Job Management, Relationship Management (CRM), Equipment Management, Vehicle Management, Human Resources, and Scheduling all in one portal. GUEST 1: Joyce Gabriel, Senior Project Manager (Puyallup, WA) Joyce discusses the two books from The DYOJO as well as some great perspective on learning how to interact with your co-workers to achieve shared objectives. GUEST 2: Mark Springer, CEO of Dayspring Restoration President of Restoration Industry Association (RIA) TOPIC: Property Restoration Trends: Mergers and Acquisitions What is private equity’s (PE) role in property restoration acquisitions? What is the significance of fragmentation in restoration acquisitions? The Big M&A Deals, the package deals, and teaming up within the industry The impacts of consolidation How do you build a company that is sell-able even if you don't plan to "sell-out" ​ We broke for a note from our sponsor iRestore and a special treat from the marketing powerhouse duo of Born to Repair and GMS Distribution. Mark Springer shared some valuable perspectives for the everyday restorer: Build a strong foundation starting with clearly identifying your organizational OBJECTIVES. Know your numbers and develop your exit strategy long before you ever plan to leave. READING LIST: Mark recommended the book Scaling Up by Vern Harnish who will also be the keynote speaker at the RIA Convention 2021. Mark discussed various investment strategies including De Novo (organic) and Arbitrage (bundling) and his process for deciding to team up with Trinity Hunt. Mr. Springer shared some additional insight to how their team operates, in particular how they use resources such as SWOT to determine whether to push through with an idea that doesn't appear to be working as well as when to scrap an effort. The DYOJO Podcast - the weekly podcast for Intentional Restorers. Every Thursday at 9am PST on YouTube, Apple, and Spotify. Sharing The DYOJO WAY to shorten your DANG learning curve for professional development. www.thedyojo.com/listen

When you first start a business, it's survival mode. As an entrepreneur you do whatever you need to do to get the phone ringing, taking any project you can get, and generating revenue. Life is about opportunities not convenience, and you can quote me on that. Many of your opportunities will not arrive in majestic packages or sums that will make you rich quickly. In property restoration and other service-based industries, opportunities often come at all of the oddest hours of the day or night, testing your commitment to the cause. Identify the opportunities that are best for you and your team. Structure yourself and your team to see, understand and meet the needs, values and opportunities that the market presents. Growing beyond survival through soft skills training Larry Wilberton and Eric Sprague were able to build their property restoration business with a carpet cleaning truck that they didn't even know how to start into an entity that they were able to sell at a profit. They shared portions of their story on The DYOJO Podcast Episode 50. As college friends, they had no idea that water damage restoration would be their life's work, but they discovered ways to develop themselves and their team to thrive in the competitive world of the skilled trades. Core to their success was a daily investment in soft skills training for their technicians, many of whom had no prior work experience or examples to learn from. Initially they disagreed about how consistently they needed to make time for short interval training on items such as life skills development, customer service, and upselling without being a salesperson. Cleanfax Magazine conducted a benchmarking survey in 2020 which accumulates input from restoration contractors throughout the United States and Canada. Owners in this service based industry have stated that recruiting and retaining quality staff has been their number one challenge, with over 80% consensus dating back to 2018 (see infographic on their website): Recruiting and retaining quality staff Maintaining margins and profitability Cash flow Differentiating your company Increasing cost of doing business Thriving as a business from the ROI of soft skills training Eric and Larry learned, at first by trial and error, that the return on investment (ROI) for soft skills training in particular was exponential. The team came to expect these educational sessions and there was a clear negative impact on their morale and production whenever the owners were tempted to scale back on their commitments. After they sold the business, they proved these principles were universal as they consulted with skilled trades businesses throughout the country. They continue to share these gems with entrepreneurs and growth minded managers through the Blue Collar Nation Podcast as well as their coaching business Morning Tech Meeting. Learning from the successes and failures of others is core to The DYOJO way of the intentional restorer; shorten your DANG learning curve.

The DYOJO Podcast LIVE Episode 51 with David Olson - Can old dogs (like you) learn new tricks? The DYOJO Podcast is sponsored by Be Intentional: Estimating, written by Jon Isaacson, The Intentional Restorer, to help teams develop the right mindset and habits for documenting, estimating, and producing consistent outcomes for insurance claims projects. Available in Kindle and paperback  OPEN    Ryan Strickland, Franchise Owner, Fayetville, North Carolina   Cooking gators and celebrating your crew    GUEST   David Olson, General Manager, Seattle, Washington    You talked about getting into the industry with your Dad on GMS Podcast Episode 32. Your dad made you start from the bottom and work you way up. When did you “take over” for dad and what did that transfer of power teach you about what you thought you knew but didn’t? In 1988 you acquired your CE accreditation, this was still early in that process. What do modern restorers need to understand about the evolution of internal training as well as utilizing training for outreach? In 2000 you became a state director. Is this when ServPro started developing their national response teams? Is this associated but separate? What are your thoughts on the role of certification and training for the industry? How does a person in a position of leadership maximize the efficacy of these resources? It’s interesting having just read The ServiceMaster Story by Al Erisman and the impact of the tension between people and profit and how, from his perspective, this impacted their trajectory. As a personal question, in my limited view, when I started with ServiceMaster in 2002 they were still “top of the heap” and had a primary contract with the largest insurance carrier in the country. What do you recall of the strategy and execution for SP becoming “king of the hill”? How did what the brand was doing at a national level evolve to help the local regions and individual offices? The larger franchise organizations have a perception of not only competing with your competitors from other brands, but with the tight distribution of zip codes, you may be competing with your own brand. How did you work to help individuals achieve their goals while being a part of something much larger than themselves? (the CORE of collaboration) By 2010, when SP invested heavily in becoming a recognized brand by advertising EVERYWHERE, you were transitioning out. When you changed “teams” what principles did you learn were universal and which ones didn’t translate as well? You’re back in the mix, managing an office in Seattle. How do you adapt as an “old dog” with 40 years experience? The DYOJO Podcast - the weekly podcast for Intentional Restorers. Every Thursday at 9am PST on YouTube, Apple, and Spotify. Sharing The DYOJO WAY to shorten your DANG learning curve for professional development.    

The DYOJO Podcast was recorded LIVE Episode 50   The DYOJO Podcast is sponsored by Be Intentional: Culture, written by a collaboration of talented authors from various service based industries. This book discusses real world examples of how the small things either enhance or undermine your efforts to develop a thriving workplace culture. Available in Kindle and paperback - thedyojo.com/book2    OPEN:   Robert More - Mitigation Manager/Estimator in Boonsboro, MD   Mr. More is a newly awarded IICRC triple master for water, fire, and textile cleaning discusses the process of pursuing continuous improvement for yourself and the return on investment for your team members.    GUEST 1:  Eric "The Tech Whisperer" Sprague and Larry "Pineapple Man" Wilberton co-hosts of Blue Collar Nation podcast and owners of MorningTechMeeting.com   TOPIC: The arc of return on investment for developing your team   Leading by example, always learning as a PIAPOL   The fear of training team members so that they can get paid more by a competitor  Weeding through the BS when seeking a consultant    Cleanfax Magazine conducted a benchmarking survey in 2020 which accumulates input from restoration contractors throughout the United States and Canada. Owners in this service based industry have stated that recruiting and retaining quality staff has been their number one challenge, over 80% consensus, dating back to 2018 (see infographic on their website):   Recruiting and retaining quality staff   Maintaining margins and profitability   Cash flow  Differentiating your company  Increasing cost of doing business   GUEST 2: Katie Smith, restoration owner in Raleigh, NC and president elect for the Restoration Industry Association (RIA) discusses the upcoming IN PERSON RIA Convention 2021   The DYOJO Podcast - the weekly podcast for Intentional Restorers. Every Thursday at 9am PST on YouTube, Apple, and Spotify.  Sharing The DYOJO WAY to shorten your DANG learning curve for professional development.    www.thedyojo.com/listen

Water damage restoration industry specialist and author Ken Larsen joins The DYOJO Podcast to discuss two questions:   Is the Restoration Industry Association (RIA) a "Good Ol' Boys" club, or is that even a negative thing?    Is Ken Larsen's book, Leadership in Restorative Drying, really worth $1000?    If you would like to hear more, listen to the whole interview with Ken Larsen of www.drystandard.org on The DYOJO Podcast Episode 46 - available as a video on YouTube.com/thedyojo or as audio via Apple and Spotify podcasting platforms.    The DYOJO Podcast   Weekly podcast of The DYOJO Way for Intentional Restorers. Helping property restoration professionals to shorten their DANG learning curve by developing the mindset and habits for achieving their goals.  ​  New episodes are broadcast LIVE every Thursday at 9am PST via YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook.  Recorded audio content airs on multiple podcast platforms including Spotify and Apple.   For 2021 the majority of our podcast will be recorded LIVE so that our audience can interact with the show, tune in LIVE via YouTube, LinkedIn, and/or Facebook.   www.thedyojo.com/listen

The DYOJO Podcast LIVE Episode 49   The DYOJO Podcast is sponsored by Be Intentional: Culture, written by a collaboration of talented authors from various service based industries. This book discusses real world examples of how the small things either enhance or undermine your efforts to develop a thriving workplace culture. Available in Kindle and paperback - thedyojo.com/book2    OPEN: Randy Carley, Ridgefield, WA  Growing your career in property restoration   GUEST 1:  Al Erisman Author The ServiceMaster Story  Co Chairman, Theology of Work  Project Executive in Residence, Seattle Pacific University  www.Ethix.org   TOPIC:  We will be discussing Al’s book, The ServiceMaster Story - Navigating the Tension Between People and Profit.    The Shingle Principle of leadership   The practice of managers first working 6 weeks in the field   The transition to leaders from outside “the fold”    The DYOJO Podcast - the weekly podcast for Intentional Restorers. Every Thursday at 9am PST on YouTube, Apple, and Spotify. Sharing The DYOJO WAY to shorten your DANG learning curve for professional development.     www.thedyojo.com/listen

Guest: Bill Wilson  Founder and CEO at InsuranceCommentary.com  Author of When Words Collide (and many more)   Co-Host: David Princeton  Former guest of TDP & Pro vs Joe  Principal Consultant, AdvocateClaimService.com   We will be discussing Bill's phenomenal book, When Words Collide: Resolving Insurance Coverage and Claims Disputes, with an emphasis on property claims.    RTFP  The role of the agent and the adjuster in insurance claims disputes  Educating insured's on the process of insurance claims disputes and denials  * The role of the restorer in insurance claims disputes    The DYOJO Podcast - the INFOtainment podcast for the skilled trades, helping you shorten your DANG learning curve for professional development.    New intro and outro featuring "Get Lifted" by Suganuts from his album Mr. Inappropriate and clips of the original TDP opening created by Ed "The Restoration Lawyer" Cross   thedyojo.com/listen

PART 1 Friday, January 29, 2021 we awoke to news that one of our posts was tagged as "partly false" by the crack team of "independent fact checkers" at FB. Clearly Kevin has something to hide...thankfully FB acted swiftly in the best interest of the most vulnerable among us to notify the public of this errant material aimed at infecting the unsuspecting minds of the fragile public. I’m glad filth and deception such as that purported by The DYOJO as “info-tainment” will no longer be tolerated. I’m viewing this as a sign that FB is committed to really rooting out the content that is most likely to negatively impact our restoration ecosystem and the world at large. Public statement: I want to apologize to my tens of listeners for disseminating “partly-false” information on FB. I’m ashamed. Actually, I’m relieved. I’ve always been a fraud and now I’ve been outed by an “independent fact checker”. We are here to get to the bottom of this important issue with the perpetrator of deception... Kevin Hussey PART 2 Early Air Mover Wars - Claude Blackburn's Dri Eaz vs. Lloyd Weaver's Porta Dryer As a carpet cleaner in the 1970’s, Claude Blackburn noticed a negative trend with his fellow professionals, “Twenty percent of our industry is going out of business every year.” He wanted to find a way to help entrepreneurs like himself to keep themselves working in the slow season. Claude’s first invention was the foam EZ Block which he mailed from his operations center (his garage) for $27 a sheet to cleaners replacing the wood blocks that were common in the industry. Claude Blackburn attended a water damage seminar taught by the second face on “Mount Restoration”, Lloyd Weaver. The “Industry Watchdog” Pete Consigli writing for C&R Magazine in 2007 noted, “Lloyd introduced the first specialty designed Porta Dryer for on-location wet carpet drying. While that might not seem like much in today’s sophisticated world, 35 years ago Lloyd’s methodology challenged the rug cleaning establishment and its in-plant wet carpet service.” Shortly afterwards Claude experimented with his own metal carpet dryer and eventually produced ten units, sent out 24,000 expensive mailers to advertise the product, and only sold four. He was contemplating abandoning the idea. Claude shares an interesting story about the device that would become the flagship of his company and an interaction with Mr. Weaver. At an industry trade show in Vancouver, Washington, Lloyd didn’t take kindly to Claude’s creations and publicly challenged him. While he physically shook the meek mannered innovator from Mt. Vernon, he also rattled his entrepreneurial spirit and only deepened Claude’s commitment to making his then fledgling invention work. With the arrival of an unlikely partner, Harlan Wright, Mr. Blackburn developed the first fiberglass molded air mover for the carpet cleaning and water damage restoration industry in the early 1980’s. When Claude sold Dri-Eaz in 2006 it had: 200 employees 150 distributors Sales of 50 million Hear the rest of Claude Blackburn on The DYOJO Podcast Episode 47 “The Found of Dri Eaz Life Before, During, and After Property Restoration.”

The term “Founding Father” comes from the March 2007 cover of Cleaning & Restoration Magazine. Pete Consigli wrote an article titled The Four Faces on Mount Restoration wherein he said this about Claude’s entrance into the carpet cleaning profession,    “In the mid to late 1970s, Claude was a struggling young father and carpet cleaner with two little mouths to feed. With only $35 dollars in the bank, he moved his family to Skagit County, Wash., about 60 miles north of Seattle. He had no choice but to get out and knock on some doors; he needed money and he got it by cleaning carpets.”    His story reinforces the truth that there are no substitutes for hard work in this industry which has been built up by people both willing to try something new and willing to share what they have learned by trial and error. Mr. Blackburn’s first invention, a high density foam block that he would mail to cleaners nationwide and thereby founding Dri Eaz from his basement. Out of fear of being copied by others he set out to create his first air mover.      Claude shares an interesting story about the device that would become the flagship of his company that would grow into the industry leader for water damage restoration equipment. The man credited with creating the first air mover, Lloyd Weaver, publicly challenged Mr. Blackburn which only deepened his commitment to making his then fledgling invention work.      Pete writes of Lloyd, the first face on Mount Restoration, “Lloyd introduced the first specialty designed Porta Dryer for on-location wet carpet drying. While that might not seem like much in today’s sophisticated world, 35 years ago Lloyd’s methodology challenged the rug cleaning establishment and its in-plant wet carpet service.” With the help of Harlan Wright their plastic mold prototype was developed in the early 80’s.      Claude noticed a negative trend with carpet cleaners, “Twenty percent of our industry is going out of business every year,” and wanted to find a way to keep entrepreneurs like himself working in the slow season. As he innovated products, he also developed methods for training contractors to utilize the tools in a manner that could be repeated. Consigli notes, “Claude was sometimes mocked for pricing his seminars under $100. But he knew exactly what he was doing; he consistently played to packed rooms, while the attendance of others’ seminars dropped off.” Claude wanted to help his fellow professionals to shorten their DANG learning curve.      In addition to providing greater details about his journey in water damage restoration, Claude shared some interesting principles that transformed his business while a guest on IAQ Radio (Episode 473). Mr. Blackburn and a third member of the Founding Fathers Quartet, Cliff “The Z Man” Zlotnik discuss the evolution of the industry. Claude discussed the benefits of profit sharing, “That decision made me the most money of anything I ever did. Most other business owners are afraid to share the financials, I made more money in the five years after implementation than in all the years before.”     When Claude sold Dri-Eaz in 2006 it had:   200 employees   150 distributors    Sales of 50 million    The opening segment of The DYOJO Podcast goes into some depth regarding Claude’s post retirement activities which include efforts to elevate pickleball to an Olympic sport. A local paper dubbed him The Pickleball Philanthropist.    The DYOJO Podcast - www.thedyojo.com/listen   The DYOJO Podcast - Helping growth minded professionals in the skilled trades to shorten your DANG learning curve. WATCH on The DYOJO Youtube or LISTEN on Apple and/or Spotify. Please subscribe, like and share with your network.