My biggest Lessons and Mistakes from 26 Years in Design Remodeling

Logan Shinholser
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Contractor Growth Network. I’m Logan Shinholser, and today I am joined by Jef Forward, who is the founder and owner of Forward Design, Build and Remodel. So, Jef, thank you so much for joining me today. How are you doing?

Jef Forward
I’m doing great. I’m doing great. Logan, how are you?

Logan Shinholser
I’m doing well, thank you. I appreciate you joining and what I would love to do, just to give the audience a bit of an overview. Can you start off by just giving us an overview of who. Who is Jef and then what is for Design, Build and Remodel all about?

Jef Forward
Yes. So my name is Jef Forward. I have a background in architecture. I’ve got my master’s degree from the University of Michigan. But fun little note about that is I paid my way through school by being a carpenter, and I could never really get that out of my system, which ultimately was a good thing. And I’m currently leading a company of a little over 40 folks. I like to call their curious, engaged, and dedicated to the craft that they’re practicing. And I like to see myself where I would describe myself as the head coach of the team. I no longer necessarily play in the game, but I coach all of my people to do the best that they can.

Logan Shinholser
Love it. And with. You have 40 people, you’ve been in business now for 26 years, correct?

Jef Forward
Correct, yes.

Logan Shinholser
26 Years ago, did you think that you would be looking at 20, 23 and imagine that you would be in the exact position that you’re in right now?

Jef Forward
No, not at all. I really did not have the vision at that time to look that far ahead. I was looking maybe five years ahead at that time.

Logan Shinholser
What made you want to start the business? I mean, you come out, you have an architecture degree, you’re doing some, you know, carpentry during college to pay your way. What made you decide to jump into running your own company?

Jef Forward
So I was working and I was really enjoying the people that I was working with, but I had. And I was enjoying the work as well. But I had a hard time seeing myself, you know, in the future with how I was seeing people evolve in the industry. I saw a lot of people would have to leave one company to get a leg up to get a promotion into a different position. And so I, I constantly witnessed a lot of leapfrogging and not that was a bad thing for them, but it just didn’t feel like me. And I was. I was just growing discontent with kind of where I was going with life. And I Eventually started doing residential design on the side. And one of my first clients was the daughter of the principal architect I was working for.

Jef Forward
And I had just a fantastic experience with them. I designed two projects. Both of them were built, and they were fantastic learning experiences for me. And then one day in the architectural office I was working, there was a magazine that was delivered called Remodeling. And it kind of surprised me because remodeling was really focused on obviously the residential market. And the firm I was working at was really focused on obviously commercial, but more retail and restaurants. So there was a lot of fun in that. But I read that magazine, had an article, I think it was on the COVID with Walt Stupleworth talking about the design build model. And I read that article over lunch, and I read it so many more times and really started to dive into some research on it. And this was at the beginning of the Internet.

Jef Forward
So roughly three months later, I had started my own company and a project that I was currently designing on the side. I was able to convince them, sell them on hiring me, who’s never done a remodeling project in the past, but I considered myself a halfway decent carpenter, and they said yes. So that was the start of. The start of it. And there’s a. There’s a. Definitely a road to follow down there.

Logan Shinholser
What were the first, let’s say, five years like, for you? I know you said that when you started it, you were thinking maybe five years ahead. What were those first five years like?

Jef Forward
They were horrible. They were absolutely horrible. But at the same time, I was in control of my destiny. And all the decisions that I made led me down a pretty bad path. It was. It was full of. The first two and a half years were full of failure. The first job I took ended horribly in that the project got finished and. But got finished, I would say, nine months late. I was way over budget. I had to put my own money out of my own savings into that I project. And then I. I signed on another project in hopes of, you know, seeing a profit with that to help buoy where I was at. And that also was not the case. And so my. My first two clients, I provided a very. A very bad experience.

Jef Forward
And I. I hate to say that I added to the stereotype of a bad contractor, so. But I was really still liking what I was doing. I just realized I gotta figure something else out. So to help offset that, I started working for other remodelers. I would do designs for other remodelers. I did. I also did all the drafting for another custom home builder. And I was working all sorts of crazy hours to get their work done after I was done with my workday. And that really helped me kind of build out of it. So by the time I hit my third project, which was the start of my fourth year, things really, I’m sorry, the start of my, like, three years in three and a half. That project was a success.

Jef Forward
The client had good experience, and I made, you know, a modest amount of money on it. And it started to propel me that I, I, I feel like I want to keep going, even though, like, I, I really hit some low points in my first five years.

Logan Shinholser
And during those first five years, were you married at the time?

Jef Forward
No, I was single, no children. It’s just I was, you know, at that point in life where I, I really wanted to make sure I was doing something I enjoyed before really trying to commit to being in a relationship. And I, I was dating and I was, you know, in some relationships, but just nothing ever really worked out, which was, I, I think, for the best at that time.

Logan Shinholser
And, and during that time that you’re, I mean, struggling like you’re now essentially working extra hours to pay back everything that you’re doing. What kept you going?

Jef Forward
So part of the reason why I decided to go into. Into this was the people. So working for homeowners who could afford to hire a remodeler, really, it felt like an opportunity for me to be in front of people that both had a successful relationship and also were successful in their careers. And that was a very broad assumption that I made. But ultimately that has turned out to be true over the years. So that was really my first initial draw. And secondly, with my background in design, I did have a lot of confidence that I knew about the structure and that I could really help people make decisions to improve how they lived in their home.

Jef Forward
And ultimately that has beared out, but that was really the drive that I knew that I could help people, that I could impact how they lived in their homes.

Logan Shinholser
If you had to put, like, a label, let’s say it’s like part of a book on those first five years. What would like the title of that chapter be called?

Jef Forward
Some you Got to Walk through the Valley to get to the hills. You know, it was. I really went through. There were some great experiences there, and I met. Met some great people, but it certainly had. Had I not. I was lucky, I should say that I failed early, that I was still able to. To get up from it, dust myself off and keep going.

Logan Shinholser
So, okay, so I love it. So you failed early because you’re going to fail at some point. It’s just. When’s that going to happen? You get out of that first five years. Walk me through from there. Like, was that like an inflection point in the business realizing, like, okay, I’ve learned a lot, but now it’s time to do things differently. Like, I guess what happens after that point.

Jef Forward
So I had been approached by a couple of remodelers to join their team, you know, to become an employee. And I really respected those companies and, you know, I really enjoyed doing, you know, working with them when I was helping them. But I realized I wanted more. So that was an inflection point. I also realized that I kind of embraced my ambition, that I wanted to be successful and I wanted to go out on my terms versus other terms. And I really started to embrace reading David Gerstel’s book Shoot, I cannot remember his very first book about running a successful construction company. I read that book probably seven or eight times within a year. And it really helped me gain some knowledge. And I, you know, I had come into this with the education of an architect.

Jef Forward
So a part of that is an arrogance that I know everything or I can figure everything out. And so I, I came right down into, you know, it was very humbling. And so I, and I quickly learned how many other people that are involved, that need to be involved in this business and doing a successful remodel and also learning how many people were smarter than me at that trade or craft and you know, and simply better. So that’s, that also helped me learn how to delegate and appreciate it. But I think the real inflection point for me was the remodeling show came to Detroit. And it was some. Somewhere in that early 2000s, and I met Linda Case and Victoria Downing with Remodelers Advantage. And it was.

Jef Forward
And at that time I was dating my now wife and it was kind of a moment of, I think I want to join this group. I think I want to really learn what I don’t know. And you know, maybe they can help me, maybe they won’t. But, you know, let’s. Let’s give it a try. So we did. And from there, that’s. That was my moment of. I feel like I really committed emotionally, just like with setting a vision for myself, all of that. That’s at my first meeting where I’m around peers and there’s a lot of great peer groups out There, but there wasn’t at that time, I think There was builder 20 and remodelers advantage, and I decided to go with remodelers advantage at that time.

Logan Shinholser
Go ahead. So when you first joined ra, did it feel like you had transitioned from like the contractor into now, like the businessman, or was there a, like a grace period of that transition happening while in remodeler’s advantage?

Jef Forward
That transition happened when I was in ra, when I was in the peer group. I really came in, you know, thinking I was on the path, but I was really still wet behind the ears and didn’t know what I didn’t know. And I eventually, you know, within my first meeting, really began to understand the depth of the debt I was in. I learned, you know, so part of their onboarding is, you know, you’re learning about your financials, your profit and loss statement, what a WIP is, your balance sheet. And within the balance sheet, there’s information that you get from it. It’s called the current ratio, and it’s analysis between equity and liabilities. And I realized that I had 16 cents for every dollar I owed. I had 16 cents to pay those people back.

Jef Forward
And a minimum baseline you want to be at is roughly a dollar. You know, for every dollar you owe, you have a dollar to pay back. And it’s a measure of the financial success. When you get to $2 or $3 and you get up to three or four, you need to start doing other things with your money in terms of, you know, investing it someplace. But. So that was. That was my moment. And again, to answer your question, I’m sorry, I’m rambling a little bit. It was.

Logan Shinholser
This is great.

Jef Forward
It was probably over a course of three meetings that, you know, really learning about what I didn’t know. And then it took me another, you know, just to get back to that dollar ratio. It took me another three and a half years, four years. So learning how to sell properly, to get the right clients in, learning how to price my work appropriately. So I’m paying everyone, and I’m paying everyone soon and, you know, measuring the net profit on a per job basis and ultimately relating it back to a budget.

Logan Shinholser
So during that time period, the three and a half years to pay off, I mean, to go from like 16 cents for every dollar that you owe, I mean, that’s. That’s pretty sizable amount.

Jef Forward
Yes.

Logan Shinholser
What was it? Just getting the right clients in or was there like other sacrifices, other things that you had to do to get back to that, you know, square one Starting point.

Jef Forward
Yes, there was quite a bit. The first thing is I had to really, I mean that was a, a low point. I mean that was a really tough meeting for me. And you know, that led to like, just going through some serious doubt. Like I’ve, you know, I, I really saw the path ahead, the mountain ahead, so to speak, that I had to get through just to get back to a dollar. So I had to really emotionally commit to that. I had to share all of this with my then girlfriend and. Sorry. I can get, just thinking about this stuff, I can get emotional and it’s something most of my friends know that I’m an emotional guy. So I can break up from time to time. I realize that’s my. So. But that was a really tough conversation.

Jef Forward
It was really, you know, she knew what I was about. She, she knew what I wanted to do. So she jumped in, you know, and helped whenever she could. She was fantastic. And so I started down that path. So the things that I had to do with, you know, learning how to sell, learning how to price was I had to stop performing some tasks and hand those tasks over. So, you know, it. And that all started with knowing who I was going to hire first. And that started off with, you know, I think one of my first hires were a designer so I could focus more on the business. I could still have an impact on design, but somebody else was doing all the drawings. I was still doing the estimating and then hiring a field crew. That was also instrumental for me.

Jef Forward
And then further down the line once I stopped estimating and that, because when I was estimating, I was always looking, okay, what I need to estimate it for what I feel I can sell this for versus estimate it in terms of what it’s going to actually produce in terms of our people with material costs, subcontractor costs, our labor costs, and actually getting multiple feedback points from both our team, our subcontractors and our suppliers on what actual costs were. And that was a big game changer for us too. So starting to charge appropriately was what. That’s what it ultimately came down to.

Logan Shinholser
So when you first joined Remodelers Advantage, I know now it may be a little bit different than it was back then, but like, you know, you have to be at, you know, a business of doing at least a million dollars in revenue when you join.

Jef Forward
Were you.

Logan Shinholser
Is it just you and you were subbing everything out up until that point?

Jef Forward
Yes. So were, I think when we joined, were right around 750 and I had a designer with me at that time. I had an office manager basically answering the phone and doing a lot of qualifying for me. And I believe I had two carpenters in the field, so. But were subbing out a lot and I was still putting out a lot of fires. Just that the setup of the team wasn’t ideal.

Logan Shinholser
What do you mean?

Jef Forward
Meaning I didn’t have enough people for what I was selling. So I would have a project manager and they’re trying to manage, you know, four projects, but they’re also trying to do the demolition or set up the protection, you know, the dust walls. They were wearing their hammer or wearing their tool belts too much, doing too much work. So I, I didn’t have the job responsibilities spread out appropriately and I was trying to push too much work, you know, down the funnel, so to speak.

Logan Shinholser
So, so we’re at this stage where we’re doing a lot of work and it sounds like we’re undercharging, which is, you know, probably why we’re jamming the work down. You know, let’s get this thing happening. What was it like for you to then build the team? Was it fun? Was it stressful? Was it a combination of the two? Like, walk me through that.

Jef Forward
So I look at how we’ve built our team through two stages. So the first stage was pre recession and I did not really enjoy hiring and trying to manage a team and frankly, I wasn’t very good at it. I would hire people based on talent and a recommendation from somebody versus really venting or really vetting people and knowing what was important to us. So I would say that my, the first team had a lot of talented people and you know, we had good relationships, but we just never really quite clicked. And then during the recession we, I went to all. We went down to one other person besides myself and that she was a part time, I’m sorry, one other person who was a designer.

Jef Forward
And then we had a part time bookkeeper who would come in and I went to all trades and I did that for two and a half years and that was really stressful. Could not get the quality. The communication was really tough. But all the clients got to work directly with me. So my client satisfaction was high. But behind the curtain it was not very fun. But at that point I made a commitment to myself that I have to get better at managing people and learning how to hire, learning about culture. So pre or pre recession it was, I did not enjoy it. It was, it was difficult. We had a high turnover rate. After the recession, we, I think we quickly got back up to like eight people. And over the years we’ve grown and I would say it’s been fun.

Jef Forward
It’s been very, it has its challenges, but man, to see people go through growth with their mindset, their how they’re learning, going through different responsibilities within the company and in some cases, you know, people starting their own businesses. I love it. I just think that’s fantastic. So I really enjoyed it since the recession.

Logan Shinholser
And did. Oh wait, I mean, so I’m, I grew up in the D.C. area and I know with. So my dad was a contractor, pond and water feature guy and 07-0809, he grew and part of it was, you know, he was working with higher end homeowners. But at the same time were kind of in this quote unquote government bubble that, you know, because we have the federal government right there, the government still gets paid, so those people still have some money. Was Ann Arbor, was it hit pretty hard during 08, even with the university there?

Jef Forward
So Ann Arbor is a little unique. It was somewhat isolated. I have a, a friend that runs a remodeling business down in Detroit and he’s a real. Their community is heavily in the automobile industry and 08 was just a cliff for them. It didn’t really hit Ann arbor until the mid-2009 in that range. So, and so it wasn’t quite as bad as it was for other folks, but it slowed way down. And some of the bigger companies. Oh, I’m sorry, some of the bigger companies that I knew they had a tougher transition with it. And I think I was at that right size that, you know, with the team that I had, it was, you know, a conversation of, hey, we, we can’t keep going. I have to let everyone go. That, that was hard.

Jef Forward
But you know, the phone did keep ringing and just. So went down in size in terms of the volume were doing. But over the years, those two years we actually made more money because obviously were much more lean and we did less. But people were still calling.

Logan Shinholser
So. And for you, I mean, you go through the first five years of business where you’re having a tough time financially, you then get in the early 2000s, you join RA, you’re getting everything together and then, oh, wait, hits. Does it feel like, oh man, here we go again when 08 hits, or are you going into it like knowing this is a different scenario than the first five years.

Jef Forward
Yes. I went in knowing it was going to be a different scenario and I had a lot more confidence. You know the biggest part that I learned was to make decisions early. There’s a, one of the things that I learned from being in the peer group is you can see how people would just procrastinate on a decision and then basically the decision makes itself because you know the situation just got so bad. So I, I really learned that I had to watch certain numbers and make decisions when I did and I felt more confident going into it and I also knew that a recession is going to end and it’s going to come out. So this was about how are we going to position ourselves to come out of this in a strong way.

Jef Forward
And, and I knew I had to change because I pre recession we had gotten back into that dollar current ratio but we weren’t delivering the consistency within our financials, you know from project to project and ultimately from year to year. And weren’t quite hitting, not weren’t quite, were not hitting our budget goals for the year. So you know, it just happened but with the recession. So I look back on it and it was tough at the time but it’s one of those things I’m glad went through because if there’s another recession that eventually comes and you know, economies go up and down. So it’s not if, it’s just when. And I don’t worry about the when but I know when it comes we’re going to be ready and I have that much more confidence even now.

Logan Shinholser
Love it. And then let’s say post recession now, you know we talked about like growing the team because it really seems like with you and just you knowing a little bit about the backstory, it’s almost like a three act phase of the first you know, five to eight years is right figuring it out. Then it’s growing the team and then know I know like the last step and this is it seems like we’re at now where it’s you know, allowing the team to run the company more without us being involved. Before we get into that what was it like post recession with growing back up, hiring more people on. I mean it must have been a cool feeling to a certain extent of knowing that you’re actually making more money with less people.

Logan Shinholser
Like that’s got to be a lesson in itself coming out of 08. But maybe I’m off.

Jef Forward
No, it certainly was. But I also knew That I could not maintain that trajectory with the amount of work that I was doing. I was not leading a balanced life. It was. Some weeks were bad weeks and I would be working a lot. Other weeks were better. But I came out of that really wanting to grow in terms of grow my mindset about how to be a better leader, how to find people that would bring value to our clients and to our team and that are happy people. That’s. That’s kind of a bigger aspect of, you know, having a good culture. But I equate it to. There’s Judith Miller wrote an article, I don’t know how many years ago, four or five years ago that I think encapsulated, encapsulates what we’ve been going through very well.

Jef Forward
It’s five stages of the growth of a remodeling company. And, you know, the first one is owner does it all. The second one, the owner delegates. And I, pre recession, I was in that stage. And the third stage is the sweet spot where the owner is still selling, but you’re, you’re financially successful consistently. And then the fourth one was complexity grows. And then the fifth one is the end game. But something that I had in my head because I did get started a little later with this career, was that everyone’s going to go through an end game. And no matter what, even if you always stay in stage one, the owner does it all, you’re eventually going to get in, get to the end game. And how well will that business model support your retirement?

Jef Forward
That was a big motivator for me and because I had seen some companies throughout the years that they were really good at what they did, but they just could not do it consistently where they were financially successful. And the end of the, you know, they get into the end game and it becomes a very different focus. So post recession, I really wanted to get to that sweet spot. And so that was really the idea of having a sales team, building the sales team and, you know, growing the people, surrounding myself with people better than me in those positions.

Logan Shinholser
So how did you build the sales team? Because that’s something that a lot of owners struggle with because it’s, you know, hey, it’s remodeling. You got to know a lot about all the nuances of remodeling, plus you got to know how to sell. So it’s almost like a unique skill set. What did you do to.

Jef Forward
To go about growing is a unique skill set for sure. So the first thing I, I realized that I needed to do was get sales training myself if I was. And I always avoided it. I just, I had a negative opinion of it. I was like, I’m not selling, I’m just being myself. But. But people are buying and, you know, spending money with us. So once I got my. That head trash out of the way, I started attending Sandler sales training, which was fantastic. And then that, you know, getting to the point of knowing I wanted to train somebody. One of the things that I learned over the years was personality assessments and we use something called the disc. And I really started to learn about the traits that a good salesperson would have.

Jef Forward
So everyone on our team is tested and has been tested for a while, or I shouldn’t say test. It’s not a test, it’s an assessment. A test implies you either pass or fail. It’s an assessment. And so I could see people on the team that could have the aptitude to go into sales. And there was a young man that came onto our team at the time. He’s currently on the salesperson with us or a project coordinator is what we call him. And he similar degree. He’s got his architecture degree and he fit the profile perfectly, but he did not want to do it and I knew not to even say it to him for about a year and a half because he really wanted to come in and practice his. His degree and focus on design.

Jef Forward
But he really enjoys talking with people and influencing them. So that eventually became a natural fit. And we started the process. And so he shadowed me. And one of the things that my coaching had really prepared me for was to be patient. Don’t expect somebody to come in and make a sale in the first three months. So he started doing training with me. He started to shadow me and then he would start going out on his own. And so it’s kind of like a batter’s average as well. You have to coach people that you’re not going to bat a thousand %. You know, 300% is. A.300 batting average is considered very good, you know, and sales is, you know, similar with that. So. And it. The. The biggest challenge for me was learning how to shut up.

Jef Forward
You know, like I have to let people find their own way and make mistakes and make people feel safe that they can make a mistake in this environment. Because it’s about learning. Because in the grand scheme of things, every mistake leads to a success, you know, if you’ve got the right mindset. So that’s really what we’ve tried to practice and you know, emulate here.

Logan Shinholser
So did you send your sales guy to Sandler as well, or did you just, like, have him shadow you and you would do the role plays together and that’s how you went about getting them ramped up?

Jef Forward
We went together to Sandler and we would. We would do role play at Sandler. We would also do role play here. You know, in the office back then, we didn’t do it as much. Now we. We do a lot more role playing. So. Yes.

Logan Shinholser
Cool. Yeah. Because I. It’s funny, I. We role play a lot in our office. Like, it. You just bust out into role play. And everybody here is used to it, but, like, if I’m talking to, like a client, I’ll just start to role play. And they’re like, wait, is this real? And I’m like, no, this is just a role play. Like, this is kind of how we get our thoughts out.

Jef Forward
Right.

Logan Shinholser
But, you know, get, you know, I have, like, our account managers will go to Sandler and stuff because it’s really in our. My mind, it’s all communication, but it. It’s still surprising to me that people that are in that, you know, the owner is selling everything. You know, they’ve never gone through official sales training. It’s really more of this, you know, well, I’m just. I’m helping people and I’m good. And for you, Jef, what was the. The hesitation of going through formal sales training? I used to. You didn’t want to do it because you. Maybe it was an identity piece, but was it. You felt like that would then make you slimy or you didn’t need it, I guess. Like, what was that thing, right? Said don’t go to sales training.

Jef Forward
It was a concern of how people would view me. I’m a people pleaser, and people’s opinions can matter to me more than I want it to. It’s something that I’ve worked on for years, but I really wanted to be seen as an authentic guide who is an expert in the design and budgeting and eventual, you know, construction of a project. And I really feel we are. But the, you know, the, the challenge, the head trash specifically was I didn’t want to be associated as a used car salesman. And, you know, there might be a used car salesman out there right now, and I may have totally offended him or her, but, you know, stereotypes, I did not want to build into a stereotype. So.

Jef Forward
And once I realized that selling is all about bringing value to the client in a manner that the budget is less of a pain that we’re bringing more value than we are paying with the budget. So it’s all about selling is honestly about asking questions. And that was a huge element for us to overcome and then start to train. So. And like we still work with the sales trainer. We’re not working with the Sandler person anymore. We’re working with somebody who’s more focused on the remodeling industry. And it’s fantastic. So it helps to have a, for, from, from my point of view, you know, people get tired of my voice and so they need another topical authority voice to come in and things resonate. Even though I might say things either exactly the same or just slightly different.

Jef Forward
They, they listen to Mark more than they’re doing with me, which is, it’s funny to hear that, but it’s good. I mean ultimately impact is what we want to have.

Logan Shinholser
Yeah, it’s the idea that like my dad talks about this a lot but you know, with. So my dad entrepreneur, like he’ll tell me, hey, this is what you could do with the business. And I don’t, I’m like, yeah, dad like it, Whatever, man. But then Jef comes along and says the exact same thing. And I’m like, dad, I got the greatest idea from Jef, right? He told me I should actually job cost. And he’s like, remember I said that? And it’s the same idea that it’s, you know, when you’re the parent, it’s not as cool sounding but somebody else’s parent telling you to do homework. It’s like they thought about doing homework. That sounds great. So love it. And then with where you are right now in the business.

Logan Shinholser
So how would you like chapter wise in the book of, you know, for design, builder, model? What chapter are you in right now?

Jef Forward
We’re in the complexity that. Well within that stage, the complexity grows. But the chapter for me, as I would describe it with my team is emerging leaders. I’m sorry, let me.

Logan Shinholser
Tell me about that.

Jef Forward
Building and emerging leaders. So we have a leadership team and we’ve had a leadership team for a long time. Several years, at least 10 years. And people have shifted in and out of that role. But as you know, our company is growing. You know, we have a general manager, we have department managers with our production manager Mark, our design manager, Miranda. We’ve got a really smart and talented marketing. I would call her marketing director now. She’s building her marketing team and we’ve got also some really smart Motivated, you know, authentic. All these things that you want in teammates, in employees. We’ve, we’re really blessed to have them. And so my, I’m looking at what could their growth path be? What’s the next role for this person that they’re going to want to take or be challenged with?

Jef Forward
And because you know, in the next 10 years I’m going to be out of the business and you know, 10 years is a long ways away. But I have to start thinking about who’s, who wants to come up, who wants to take ownership of the business and, or who, you know, are we moving towards, you know, an esop, you know, selling the business to the company, to the employees. But who’s coming up? Who’s the leaders on board right now?

Logan Shinholser
So what are you doing to attract these higher level people on the team? Like to have a leadership team is not everybody hears about it and if you’ve read Traction or know what EOS is all about, like, you know, you hear this term leadership team, but what did you actually do to find, attract and then grow a leadership team within the company?

Jef Forward
So for us it’s all about culture, team values, knowing where we’re going and that comes across in our social media, how we post for openings. We don’t do the typical posting strategy. And so we’re attracting a lot of people still to the company, which is great. But that also says something to our current team that this is because a business can be a little isolated in terms of understanding what other team environments or cultures are like. So they see that and they seem to recognize that they’re in a really positive environment for growing their career. And we’re very open about that.

Logan Shinholser
So the first thing is the actual like, and you brought it up is the, you said you do the job postings differently. What is the typical way that you think somebody does it and how does Jef do it?

Jef Forward
So the typical way is somebody takes a job description and they’ll post the requirements. We need, we need, we need. It’s all about the employer. And so we take that, we turn it and we post about what we think a client or I’m sorry, an employee needs, a happy employee about culture, about time off, about working with people, everything that people are looking for in a typical, what’s considered a good job and in a great company or a healthy company with a good culture, those are the things that we talk about that they might be looking for and then we can get into the, you know, the specifics of the job because when we’re making those posts we’re also, we’re not just targeting that person that we’re looking for.

Jef Forward
We’re targeting the, the boyfriend, the girlfriend, the partner, the mother, the father, all those associated people who might know them and get them to respond.

Logan Shinholser
So it’s funny, I, I did that maybe four months ago with some of the jobs that were looking for where I, I did a deep dive into looking at the job descriptions and realized it was all about cgn. This is the requirements, this is what we need. And then I flipped it. So now all of our job postings are, they talk about like the benefits of the company, but the actual like benefits to the employee that’s above the requirements section, like the requirements almost at the bottom. The rest of it is this is a basic just overview of the company. This is what your day to day will look like. These are the benefits of working here from both a upward trajectory and education standpoint and actual benefits.

Logan Shinholser
And then by the way, here’s all the requirements that you know, we want this role to be to make sure it’s a good fit. And that for us it attracted way more people because it was, you know, it’s funny, I get in these job interviews and the people I can ask like, hey, why’d you apply to this role? You know, some people immediately jump into, well for me, I want this for my portfolio. My, this am I that I’m like, yeah, okay. But then, you know, it, that by switching around it started to attract more and more people that were talking about, well I think I can step into the company and help do this. So it was a very good like tit for tat situation.

Jef Forward
Right.

Logan Shinholser
Just by restructuring the outline of that job post. So it was very cool to see.

Jef Forward
Awesome. That’s great news.

Logan Shinholser
So, yeah, so it was awesome. So with you right now, last question on the leadership team. What are you doing to continue to pour into them? So you have them here now we want to retain them. So you have that exit strategy. What is the current situation look like to continue to develop them into the leaders that you need them to be?

Jef Forward
That’s a great question, Logan. And it’s something that we’re right in the middle of. So we practice the great game of business. And I would say it’s a little bit of a hybrid of the EOS approach and so we involve our leadership team and all this strategy for the company in terms of the yearly budget, what are we spending on marketing? You know, our sales strategy, our closeout strategy. Like we bring our leaderships into making those decisions. So that’s probably the biggest thing we’re doing right now is we’re helping them understand, you know, what a budget looks like, what a cookbook looks like in terms of we need this many leads to produce this many sales to produce this many build projects to produce revenue in this time frame. And so that’s like working in the business right now.

Jef Forward
The second thing that we’re doing is a few of them have worked with specific coaches over the years. For example, my now retired, the first person we ever retired from the business, he was a project manager with us and then a production manager for five years and he’s since retired, but he worked specifically with one of our business coaches who was also working with me. And that’s. Our next step is finding some business coaching for, you know, besides me, for a few of our leaders. And then the third element is sending them to conferences. One of our, or actually two of our teammates went to the IBS show this year and it was really cool to see them and how engaged they were with both the classes as well as the products. And they came back, gave a big presentation to the team.

Jef Forward
And it was, it was, it’s really cool to see like that is the funnest part of my job right now is seeing people engaged and just winning. So, you know, in the game, so to speak.

Logan Shinholser
And in your opinion by sending your, you know, a few guys to ibs, how much of the benefit that, let’s just say Jef gets from it is from them going there actually hearing the classes and coming back with the knowledge compared to how much of it is them seeing. Okay, Jef is pouring into us, he’s investing in us. And that’s where like the goodwill comes back, if that question makes sense.

Jef Forward
It’s. Yeah, it’s a little of both. You know, the, you know, the challenge is, you know, time. How much time is somebody willing to put in on their own and how much time are we willing to put into them? So it’s fine when it becomes a two way street. That’s when the kind of the give and take, the synergy really happens. So, and we, what I’m seeing right now is our, the leaders that we, that are also beyond our leadership team. They are really open and they are really giving and we are trying to figure out ways right now that we can give back more to invest in them more so. And that’s specifically with coaching.

Logan Shinholser
Cool. Love it. Last question. What are you looking forward to most over the next 10 years?

Jef Forward
Next 10 years? Well, I would say transitioning into my retirement over the next 10 years and what that second stage of my life is going to look like. And as it relates to with my family, kids graduating College, I’ve a 17 year old and 13 year old twins, you know, and them transitioning, you know, into or out of college as well. So the family aspect is the next 10 years is going to be really fun but for the business that continued growth of, of our people and really seeing what the team looks like, you know, without me, that’s what I’m most excited about.

Logan Shinholser
Awesome. Last question. You’re a big learner. What do you think is the most impactful book that you have read since starting the business?

Jef Forward
Oh my gosh, you know, that’s a tough one. Most impactful was Brene Brown, which has to do with being, oops, sorry my earpiece fell out. Which has to do with being vulnerable and using vulnerability. With regards to leadership, one of my go to books is the five levels of leadership. But the most impactful was Brene Brown’s book and the idea of asking for help. And there was a point in time where it kind of also served as a launching point when my wife had cancer.

Jef Forward
And it was also at the time where were ramping up with our GGOB great game of business initiative and late in the year and that November, December time range and you know, coming to that understanding and learning that she had cancer, we had to talk to the team about it, let them know what the upcoming year looked like. And you know, we had, it was a targeted growth year. We were going to do, you know, announce or keep doing this great game of business approach which led to a team bonus reward. And I gave the team the option, we can pull back, we can delay this for a year, we can totally drop our revenue goals and put a hiring freeze on and really slow down or we can continue on the path. But no matter what, I need help. We need help.

Jef Forward
And so having that moment of asking that question and saying those things and announcing to people, you know, that my wife Monica, who is working in the business, still is working, she’s doing great, she fully got through it. But asking the team for help and with that I also part of the book was to give them permission to fail. We’re going to make mistakes, but it’s okay. And that year we hit our goal. We hit our profit and loss or I’m sorry, our P and L net goal. We. It was one of the. The business ran smoother that year than it ever did. And that was a big light bulb for me of, okay, I gotta stop getting in people’s way. But the most impactful book was that by Brene Brown. And the concept of being vulnerable is a sign of strength. So cool.

Logan Shinholser
Love it. Well, Jef, I appreciate you coming on here, man. That’s fantastic. Very cool to hear first. Crazy is the first five years were you got out of it. 08 Hits and you grow the team, you know, you’re. You’re dealing with growing the business while your wife is battling cancer. I mean that’s. Both of those are, I’d imagine, full time jobs in itself. So the fact that you’re here today and you’re continuing to blaze your own trail moving forward is awesome here. So I appreciate you coming on here and talking all about it. That’s awesome.

Jef Forward
Thank you, Logan. I really appreciated the opportunity.