171 Transcript

The following transcript is provided by YouTube. Mistakes are present. To hear the podcast episode, click HERE.

scaling up nation there’s a new standard

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h-c-i-n-f-o

welcome to scaling up h2o the podcast

where we’re scaling up on knowledge so

we don’t scale up our systems

my name is trace blackmore the host of

scaling up h2o and happy december

everybody

can you believe it 2020 is almost over

i know a lot of people are fine saying

goodbye to 2020 but i think we have to

give it to ourselves

we’ve learned a lot about a lot of

things

this year in 2020. now let’s face it

some have been good

some have been bad but the fact is

we have all gotten through it

and we’ve learned through it which i

believe has made us

all better it’s made us stronger it’s

going to make us better and stronger in

2021

so all the things that we’ve had to

endure

we are going to get the benefit of that

i know we are stronger as people our

companies are

stronger as companies all of those

things are going to play

forward when we get into 2021

but we’re still in 2020 and i want to

look back on

2020. and back in march the rising tide

mastermind in connection with this

podcast the scaling up h2o podcast

put on a 13-part webinar

series now many of you have watched

those

webinars if you haven’t you can go to

scalinguph2o.com

and you can navigate over to our

resources page and you can see

all of those webinars those webinars

were on items

like financial marketing hr health

conducting better zoom meetings we had a

bunch

of webinars and i want to let the

scaling up nation know

that all of these webinars came to be

because

on the rising tide mastermind calls

during february during march we were

asking each other

how do we weather this storm of a

pandemic

how do we deal with lockdowns how do we

deal with customers not

wanting to see us how do we deal with

our people

working from home how do we deal with

not being able to see

new prospective customers folks nobody

knew the answers but what that forced

us to do was figure out what were all

the things that

we needed help with because none of us

had experienced a pandemic before

and then that allowed me to have a list

of topics

and go out and find market professionals

that understood all these different

areas and that we’re staying up to date

on a daily basis

how things were changing and how that

was going to impact the particular

discipline

that they were so versed in

so through the rising tide mastermind we

gathered that list i and the team at

scaling up h2o we found

experts to come on and deliver

those webinars and then we made those

free

to the entire scaling up nation because

we knew

if we had those questions you had those

questions and as you know

a rising tide raises all ships

so that allowed us to get that

information out there

and so many members of the scaling up

nation have written in to say

thank you for that that gave them

valuable

information to help them make better

decisions

well of course many of those people were

associations of water technologies

members

and the awt knew that we were doing this

in fact the awt

promoted this on some of their

listserv pages and jill cavano

a great friend of mine a vendor that we

use

she makes incredible water treatment

products she takes our recipes and makes

sure that

they make the best possible

version of our products well she

is a member of the rising tide

mastermind a member of awt

and jill and i were asked by the

association of water technologies

to do a webinar for the recent

convention

on things that we learned during the

pandemic

we talked about how we learned them what

we’re doing to continue

to learn new information

and just continuing to take what we know

now

knowing that nothing is in stone it’s

going to change tomorrow

but taking the best information that we

have and making

decisions with it so jill and i had the

privilege of doing a webinar

explaining those very things to the awt

audience and what you are going to hear

right now is that very webinar

so folks i hope you enjoy it i hope you

learned something

hello and welcome to the webinar

navigating the pandemic while

innovating for the future my name is

trace blackmore

i have a water treatment company

business i also host

a podcast called scaling up h2o and i’m

here with my good friend jill cavano of

scranton associates

uh jill this is going to be a great

webinar i think there’s a little bit of

something for everybody

i think everybody’s going to have a

handful of takeaways that

they can instantly start working on

their business whether they’re a

supplier whether they’re a water

treatment company owner

so i’m really excited to get started i

am too

well what’s our first topic that we’re

going to talk about

our first topic is company culture um

what company culture

means to me is the shared values the

attitudes and behaviors

of a company and its employees i have a

favorite quote about company culture

from simon sinek

my favorite quote is customers will

never love a company

until the employees love it first and i

think that especially during this

pandemic

company culture is more important than

ever

with all of the uncertainty just to

navigate through the pandemic

and keep your employees informed and

kind of have a cohesive unit is very

important

yeah i love that quote by simon sinek

and i love that we’re talking about

culture

and culture’s a really big thing here at

company and i’ve even had the

opportunity to help other companies

develop their culture

and more often than not people think

when they hear the word culture they’re

thinking touchy-feely

and it really isn’t you know the

definition that i pulled up for it is

probably everything but touchy feely

the manifestation of human intellectual

achievement

regarding collectivity you know that

couldn’t be more scientific

i think my definition personally is it’s

the glue the cultural glue

that binds everybody together

and and when you look at why people

leave a company

you know sometimes people leave for

money but very seldom it’s a money issue

it’s because they lost connection with

that company

and that means culture when people feel

their they are being fulfilled

on many different levels because they

jive with that culture

people thrive in that community you know

another thing i like to think of when i

think of culture

is the tribe mentality you know when

we’re part of a tribe we feel that we

belong we feel like we can contribute

and when we’re a member of that tribe

you know we we know that we belong

and now we throw into the mix

we’ve got stay-at-home orders we’ve got

people working remotely

we’ve got this stuff called coveted 19.

and how do we deal with culture with all

this

other stuff that we’re now having to

deal with

trace i agree completely i think company

culture has changed i guess you could

say

pre-covered i guess mid-covered uh

postcovid

i think now company culture you know

especially for us

is more important than ever there’s so

much information out there

it’s misinformation the times are

uncertain

you don’t want people to become scared

you want to do everything that you can

to alleviate stress

um in your staff so what i’ve done to

kind of

foster a sense of you know company

culture even more so than we’ve done

is just made sure to communicate more

with my employees i find that we meet

more even if it’s not an official

meeting we just meet to talk about you

know the expectations

of how to keep ourselves safe at work

how to keep ourselves safe outside of

work

you know any new procedures that we’re

going to institute

we’ll touch more on that later you know

all of the things that we’ve had to

change

you know we can’t really work remote as

a manufacturer

so meeting with my employees and staff

and keeping them up to date

is really key and i find that that’s

kind of brought our

company closer together and made our

culture even stronger

i’ve tried to do things such as you know

have special luncheons

um because this is a stressful time for

everybody you know it is really kind of

the great unknown

we’ve all never navigated this before so

culture is so

important how do you know that you have

a good

strong company culture would you say you

know it’s a it’s a really

good question you know when i think of

if i were to look up my company filings

with the state of georgia

it lists me as the chief executive

officer and that’s how the state sees me

but i really look at myself that my job

is i’m the chief

cultural officer so i’m the i’m the

tribe leader

of this tribe if you will and my job is

to make sure that we have a

strong basis for culture that everybody

understands

and everybody follows in fact we go as

far as to say

we hire fire reward and recognize

based on our culture so i think if you

can

do those four things based on how your

company is and specifically

i want to talk about core values next i

think that’s where you know

you’ve got a very strong basis in

your culture do you mind if we talk a

little bit about core values

sure i’d love it so i i truly feel

that core values is the foundation it is

the bedrock

of a good culture and there’s so many

companies out there

that they think they know what their

core values are but they’ve never

communicated like what you just said

across the entire company of what these

core values are

that we all agree to that we all are

going to work

in this fashion with each other and then

once you come up with your core values

communicate communicate communicate i

read something somewhere somebody has to

hear something

seven times in order for them to hear it

the first time

uh in fact you have chick-fil-a up in

ohio

we have a ton of chick-fil-a’s here in

atlanta when you go to the chick-fil-a

drive-through

and you say thank you what do they say

in return

my pleasure my pleasure that was

something that truett kathy wanted to

start as part of their culture

one he stole it from ritz carlton he

stayed at the ritz carlton he loved it

and he said you know what this is so

much

better than no problem or whatever they

would say

and he goes it’s absolutely free so

we’re going to start using it

so every year they gather all of their

operators together

and they they talk about the state of

the company and hey this is what we’re

going to do this next year

well he released the fact that we’re not

going to say thank you anymore we’re

going to say my pleasure because that

just means so much

more when somebody hears that so he said

that and then he was so excited

a week or so later he got in his car he

went through a drive-through he said

thank you

and the lady said no problem and he was

like oh it’s not working do you know

how long it took chick-fil-a to say

my pleasure i can only imagine probably

a lot longer than he thought

it was a lot longer than he thought it

was seven years wow

seven years of staying the course

repeating the exact same message and

making sure that he gave people

opportunity to fail

but allowed them to get picked back up

as well

and now you can’t go to a chick-fil-a

and they won’t say anything

but my pleasure in fact i find myself

doing it now

so it just goes to show that you have to

communicate that but also

core values is more than just a piece of

paper or

maybe even a plaque that we had made

that’s all dusty hanging on a wall it

has to be embedded

in everything that we do like i said

we hire on it we fire on it we reward

and we recognize on it

so the exercise i like to ask people to

do with core values

is one you can’t do it on your own so so

i would recommend you and i as the

leaders of our company we’re part of

that team

but we get the head of the departments

to come in

and allow us to have a discussion with

them so that’s we have to be a little

bit vulnerable

as a leader and then being vulnerable

we need to ask them what is the ideal

employee what is what does that look

if we hire somebody who do we want with

certain traits

that’s coming through the door another

way to ask that

is who will we not allow to work here

so what is the opposite of the core

values and i find that that’s normally

a better way to get some answers out of

people if they’re if they’re not able to

figure out what they really want

they can definitely tell you what they

don’t want and there’s a lot of value

with that

and by the way i’m just doing this on a

whiteboard as people are talking so

very casual and then i asked them okay

now if we’re going to take it as far as

to hire fire reward and

recognize do the traits that we just

mentioned

do they match that and then people say

well that one not so much or maybe

maybe that’s the sentiment but it’s not

the right word and then you can go

around and you can word smith

and this isn’t a 10-minute conversation

this is a meeting and then maybe a

follow-up meeting and then once you

decide

on what the words are i encourage

somebody to go through

and then define which each one of those

words are

so one of our core values is integrity

now we can define that totally different

and that’s fine but we have a very

specific way

that we define that here in the company

and because

everybody was hired based on that

everybody

knows what that means we can without a

doubt hire fire reward

and recognize but when you have a

culture like that

now you can bring that in to any

situation

and it just makes it so much easier to

have conversations

that are hard to have i agree completely

trace i think that having a strong

company culture

and having core values and your

employees must know what your core

values are

i think that’s very important especially

if you’re talking about

attracting retaining and training new

employees

without a strong company culture you

know what kind of employee as you just

reference are you going to get

how do they know what their expectations

are and

you know employees like you said never

leave for the money

they leave because they’re unhappy so i

think especially during this time of the

pandemic

having a strong company culture as it

pertains to your staff

is very important during this pandemic

we have not needed to lay anybody off

but we also haven’t needed to hire

anybody either

but a lot of my supplier colleagues that

i’ve talked to they’re struggling

so even if you have a strong company

culture and you know core values for

your company

during the pandemic you know what is a

safe way to train new hires and do

interviews

that’s one of the struggles of the

pandemic because it seems like the way

that we do things now

is so new um it’s out of the box you

know everybody’s coming up with virtual

ways to do it

um but company culture as it pertains to

your employees

is key that’s why they’re going to want

to work there and that’s why they’re

going to want to stay

totally agree with that i think now more

than ever we have to bring

culture into our meetings we’re going to

talk later about remote work and

the people that are not seeing people on

a regular basis

they feel like they’re disconnected from

that tribe that we mentioned to earlier

and we have to make sure that we’re

including them

more now than ever and tying it back

to our core values and our culture

and then you know i think everybody’s

probably zoomed out

we’ve used zoom so much during the

pandemic but again how cool is it that

we can do so much

with a platform like that i’ve done it

myself i know some other members of our

mastermind have

done some of the things i’m getting

ready to mention but in addition to just

company meetings

they have games and we’ve done

wheel of fortune over zoom if you

remember the tv show

press your luck we did that we did who

wants to be a millionaire

and our questions we’re centered around

our culture

you know not only defining our core

values but we list specific examples

where people got awards for

doing a specific behavior with culture

so we we had that on there we had trivia

with the company

you know things that if you worked in

the company for a while that you would

know

and just just really had fun with it and

you know we talk about all the things we

can’t do during covid

that’s something you can do and it’s

probably something we wouldn’t have done

if things were as normal and to this day

we probably started doing that back in

april people talk about how much fun it

is and when are we going to do the next

one

i agree i’ve been on a zoom call where

we had a best background contest

i would have never ever done any of

these things i think that you know even

though you can’t

you know do the personal touches and the

in-person

meetings um i’ve had a lot of uh

supplier

you know friends and colleagues say that

you know sales channels are changing

but i do find that you have to look for

the positive and that the virtual

world that we’re in right now does allow

you to do

things a different way but there is some

benefit to it so i always try to focus

on that

i think that’s great i want to make sure

as we go through this webinar

that we give people handles that they

can pick up and take something with them

and whenever i’m looking at core values

if you ever listen to the podcast one of

my favorite books is the seven habits of

highly effective people

i think that does a really good job of

helping you build core values it’s

speaking more of a personal sense but

there’s no

there’s no reason you can’t translate

that to the business

and then of course the book that we just

finished reading

in the rising tide mastermind geno

wickman’s

traction and eos stands for the

entrepreneurial operating system and i

borrowed those words

hire fire reward and recognize from that

but in that book it also talks about how

to come up

with your core values but also how to

embed them in your company

so if you’re looking for a how-to to

start um

you know just making the core values of

bedrock of your organization

i would say either of those books or

both of those books would be

a great start ppp

eidl loan social security deferment oh

our next topic i’m sure is one of the

major things people are going to be

curious about

and have questions about is economic

recovery

and best practices during this uncertain

time

i know for myself at scranton associates

we did apply and receive the ppp

loan but like a lot of people our bank

is not

accepting the forgiveness applications

yet so we’ve done a fabulous job of

keeping all of our records and getting

everything ready to submit

but we’ve had nowhere to submit it to

for the last couple months

so we’re still in a holding pattern as

far as our

eidl loan which is the disaster loan

from the small business administration

we didn’t need it

but in conferencing with my cpa he said

well you don’t need it

but he’s like you know it’s called a

disaster loan for a reason

so he’s like there’s no harm in taking

it you might as well go ahead and take

it and if you need it you have it

and if you don’t you can send it back um

because there’s no payments for a year

anyway

although interest does accrue i guess

september 1st

there’s also the social security

deferment

my accountant and i have just started

talking about that

so we haven’t come to a decision on it

we’re still gathering information

um but it seems like it it may be

something that’s not a good fit for us

because like i said we have not had to

lay anybody off or change anybody’s

salary

so i’m not quite sure what the benefit

would be but it’s very important i think

and i’m very lucky that i have you know

a fabulous cpa

where we meet all the time you know i

have my dashboards we meet once a month

and go over everything

because all of these rules are

constantly changing

and record keeping is paramount so you

don’t want to go ahead and take

advantage of these

and find that things that could be

forgiven or not because your record

keeping wasn’t up to par

i’ll be working with my cpa more as we

head into the end of the year

to make sure that any kind of tax

credits or

anything that’s available to me as a

business owner from this pandemic that

i’m able to take advantage of

i think why we are talking about you

know economics and financials

awt sent out a business owners survey

a week or so ago the water treatment

industry financial outlook survey

and i think that if you haven’t already

taken a look at the results of that

i think that they’re very interesting

and i think it shows that awt members as

a whole

have weathered the pandemic very well

and i think that just goes to show

that you know we all have a lot of good

information available to us

and are taking advantage of it and trace

and i hope that this webinar

can be yet one more tool along with the

speakers that we’ve brought to you today

that can help all of us navigate this

together

yeah joe i really agree with what you

said about the different loans the

different programs that are out there

we still have questions now but how much

know about those things now versus back

march and april and the thing that

i think helped us so much is you and i

are a member of a group called the

rising tide mastermind

and it wasn’t just you and i that had

questions the other 12 numbers within

our group we all had questions and we

were able

to bounce ideas off of each other we

were able to

bring in subject matter experts to help

answer our questions

and and let’s face it they’re learning

right along with us

but they at least know their industry so

they can be better prepared to answer

those questions

so i think it is a victory what we do

know now

i remember during one of the webinars

that we had with the mastermind

somebody recommended that any expense

that we had over and above a normal

expense

due to covid categorize that because

that’s going to come in handy later on

your taxes

and i know we all did that in the

mastermind now we don’t know what we’re

going to do

with that later but we have that there

so if we can’t take advantage of it we

don’t have to do any extra work

it was already done so i guess the point

i’m trying to make

is in times of uncertainty you know

there’s information out there whether we

have access to it or not

i think isn’t the thing to focus on but

it’s who do you have access to

and then you’re not an island so awt is

such a great resource or we have so many

businesses so what are other people

doing

how can we learn from each other’s

mistakes and victories

and then we don’t have to go through

this alone and the other thing that i

think we all learned and you mentioned

through your cpa

is we need good trustworthy

knowledgeable people that we can trust

that can help us navigate our company

ship

where it needs to go of course the

gentleman that spoke to us on the rising

tide mastermind

and our cfo his name is mike iverson he

owns a company called trillium financial

services

i know a lot of people think they can’t

afford a cfo

but you don’t have to have somebody full

time in the office right next to yours

i know we both enjoy somebody coming in

on a part-time basis

every so often that all they know is

numbers

and they can look at the same numbers

that you and i have been looking at

day after day and just find material

that we didn’t even know existed

so we’ve asked mike some of the

questions that we have

we’ve polled some of the awt members to

see what questions they’ve had

so let’s go ahead and listen to mike

iverson as he answers some of those

questions

hello i’m mike iverson with trillium

financial

and i’m here to today to give you an

update on a few areas

that as applies to the ppp loan

forgiveness

so we’ll get started with the ppp loan

originally when this was issued back in

march

under the carers act the ppp loan

allowed

for companies to apply and

the idea being is for about an eight

week period it would help cover for

payroll

and non-payroll costs there’s talk about

any loans under 150 000

they’re anticipating potentially to just

have automatic forgiveness

the idea is there are so many loans well

more than 50

of the loans or for an amount less than

that

and all the applications the hundreds

and thousands and millions of

applications that would come

through would just be a huge bottleneck

for the sba and

for their system to be able to process

it so they’re considering

doing some automatic forgiveness so

we’ll see

so stay tuned with that so i hope these

updates have been helpful

and thank you for your time and best for

the rest of 20

and into 2021 thank you thank you mike i

really appreciate you being part of our

webinar

what i’d like to talk about next is what

we’ve learned what has worked well

during the pandemic

and what we’d like to change going

forward taking all of the information

that we now have trace and i would like

to kind of

phrase this as a on the supplier side

versus the water treater side

surprisingly i think that there was a

lot of synergy

but there’s also some differences so

myself being a supplier

what i’ve learned what’s worked well and

what i need to change going forward

is being a manufacturer i think the

biggest thing is

is that we didn’t have a choice in

working remote

you can’t blend chemicals from home so

we were pretty much

forced as an essential business to you

know

i don’t want to use this term but i will

to pivot very quickly

which led to you know a lot of increased

time and demand on me

because we had to be in the building

every day

we are very fortunate that we can space

out but it meant that

you know very quickly i had to you know

get

what i felt was the best information to

my employees

i had to make sure that they were all

spaced out i had to source you know ppe

you know masks and gloves and as i’m

sure everybody can attest to

those types of things are were in short

supply

and are still in short supply one thing

that we did

is that we had a couple of employees

that were in

a different age group that were maybe a

little bit higher risk

and those employees did work remote but

for the most part

you know that really wasn’t an option

for us what i’ve learned

like i referenced before is that

communication is key

you know i need to let my people know

what i expect from them

and i also need to keep on them so that

as the days and weeks go by

they don’t become relaxed i needed to

figure out what happened if somebody

in my staff was exposed to covid or had

coveted you know what do i do

you know we had to come up with a plan

you know you can’t tell my customers

well

you know we’re gonna shut down for two

weeks you know that that is not an

option

so we have learned a lot we’ve come

really far

and i feel like we’re kind of practicing

the best practices going forward

we know what works for us we’ve got you

know the spacing which we’re fortunate

we’ve got the the ppe that we need we

can keep certain people home remote if

we have to

i’ve even gone as far as when the

drivers come into

the building to pick up the loads each

day that have had my staff

only use the facilities in the office

that way the drivers

are the only ones using the facilities

in the back so i’ve completely

segregated

and tried to minimize as much contact as

possible

so pretty much we’re not letting any

visitors in the building

we’re not letting anyone call on us so

it’s pretty much

just us everybody takes their

temperature every day before they come

into the office and i’ve instructed my

people

that no matter what if you are sick

we will deal with how we count your time

off later

do not worry about it but if you are

sick or you think that you’ve been

exposed

do not come in that is paramount we can

deal with everything else later

and you know everybody has been so

receptive to it

we’ve had zero problems everybody has

been very safe

you know we’re only around each other

all day you know

six feet away from each other so we’ve

had to change really quickly

and it’s went really well and we’ve had

no problems

from a supplier perspective it was

pretty

stressful in the beginning because my

customers i have to ease their fears

because they’re afraid we’re going to

run out of materials and as a supplier

i need to make sure i have materials for

my customers

so we just like i think all of my

suppliers echoed

and all of my colleagues that are

suppliers echoed that everybody went and

stocked up

you know because of ports closing you

know just uncertain times

so we’re all kind of heavy on inventory

but i feel it’s a necessity

because how else are you gonna you know

tell your customers don’t worry we’ve

got material

we’re not gonna run out communication is

key

communications with my customers i spent

uh quite a bit of time

just you know calling and making sure

you know we’re here we’re open we’re

operating we have plenty of product

you know everything for us is going to

be business as usual

i’ve learned that that is a lot of time

i’ve learned that everybody was very

receptive to just being transparent

and you know being contacted and just

having a conversation with people

you know this is what i’m doing you know

how are you doing

once i reached out to everybody i think

it it’s just nice to even have an excuse

to just

talk to people like how are you doing

what’s going on

everybody was very receptive to that now

of course you know increasing your

inventory and stocking up

takes away from your cash but like we

just talked about

in our last section you know with mike

and with myself and my cpa

you know we made sure that we’re cash

strong

to go through this you know stocking up

on inventory or not

you know no matter what happens we’re in

a really

great position with our employees with

our customers with our suppliers

with our financial situation with our

financial people

it helps so much talking to my my member

you know co-members of the rising tide

mastermind

and just bouncing ideas off each other

you know it’s a lot of work on my end

and that’s what i’ve learned this is a

lot of work and communication is key

but i think to be honest with the

pandemic we are

in a better situation now i think than

we’ve ever been

it was hard one to get there and kind of

you know all of a sudden

you know ohio says okay we’re shutting

down and okay well we’re an essential

business nobody worry we’re not shutting

down

i’ve learned a lot and i think i can say

that i formulated

through trial and error the best

practices to move forward

and i feel very confident about the

future i think as

you know the water treatment industry

and the country as a whole

moves towards economic recovery what

that looks like

right now i don’t know i don’t think

that this is

anywhere near over but i i feel

confident

that the work that i’ve put in and the

knowledge that i’ve gained

i feel that we’re in a better position

than ever to move forward

and of course that’s the whole goal that

we don’t just get through this

we get through it stronger on the other

side

you know i think there are a lot of

similarities with how

the water treatment company has dealt

with

the the same things that you mentioned i

i can’t think of in the very beginning

everybody

didn’t know what was going on and of

course that brings

maybe some some bad thoughts to people

am i going to get fired is the company

going to get open

and attitude start to shift and i

noticed that very

very quickly not that people had bad

attitudes at our company but that could

happen

and people were uncertain and we’ve

talked all through this webinar about

communicating over communicating you

know i really i was letting people know

that i do not know the answer right now

but i am just as curious about finding

the answer

as you are and i promise you will know

as soon as that i know

that helped also we we met with our team

quite a bit during this time

and uh it was always about stuff we

couldn’t do

you know we can’t do this because of

code we can’t do this so we changed the

meaning we said no this has to be

a covid can meeting and what can we do

and

from that we were able to get so many

ideas from the same people

that were saying that we couldn’t do

something before

one of the ideas was uh we do a lot with

commercial buildings

in order for the commercial buildings to

reopen here in georgia

they need hand sanitizer they couldn’t

get it at the time of course now the

market’s flooded with it

it’s everywhere that you look but at the

time nobody could get it

we didn’t sell hand sanitizer so we

actually worked with a supplier who was

making it we could get it a lot quicker

than our customers could

we put a very modest markup on it and

then all of a sudden

we were in the hand sanitizer business

nothing that we planned

during uh our quarterly planning the the

quarter before

but what that did it allowed us

one to to ensure if we did have a longer

time period

which we are for people paying us our

accounts receivable

is higher than it’s ever been that gave

us a little bit of buffer because we

only allowed for cash or credit card

payments

for the hand sanitizer so that

ensured that our employees were secure

here what it did for our customers

was we actually told them the story

matter of fact i wrote a little letter

thanking them for buying the hand

sanitizer and letting them know where

that idea came from it came from a

meeting

based on one of our customers saying

they didn’t know how they were going to

reopen because they couldn’t find it

so i wanted the customer to know that we

talked about that and we found a

solution and that’s why they have hand

sanitizer

in their possession right now we got

thank you cards back

because we sold hand sanitizer

so we started thinking okay well besides

that what are some other ways

that we can help ourselves at the same

time help our customers

and we came up with a handful of ideas

occasionally that we can’t do that

because of covid would creep back in and

we had to change our our minds around

that

but you know something that we like to

do and i know all water treaters

want to do it is a customer review

if our customers don’t understand the

value that we’re providing

then when somebody else walks in the

door and they’re a dollar cheaper well

why shouldn’t they go with that person

if we’re not telling them our value

nobody else is well people aren’t

meeting with us

so how do we have these customer reviews

and i’m sure if your company is like

mine you’re probably backed up on the

reviews that you probably

should have already done before kovid so

we started scheduling them over zoom

and people were appreciative i think to

see people outside of their company on

on zoom on the video conferencing but we

we picked up so much new business

because we were reviewing where we’ve

been

where we need to go and then the pieces

that were missing

that the customer needed to approve in

order for us to take their water

treatment program to the next level

you know we had one-on-one contact

they were less disturbed they had we had

their undivided attention because

we do have the this pandemic going on

and again it looks like we are slated to

have one of our best years

ever and it’s because you know we can’t

do a lot of things

but when we look at what we can do and

we ask

our people to help us think that way you

never know

what the customer’s going to approve i

think that was

key with that of course you know we’re

calling this lessons learned

i think it’s really lessons learned and

learning

we learn something new about what’s

going on each and every day

you know you and i share things quite a

bit because we’re in the same mastermind

group

so i don’t have to worry if you learn

something you’re not going to share it

with me

so it’s my hope that other members out

there in awt

you know have some sort of forum that

they can get that information because i

got to tell you with all the stuff that

comes out

every single day you just don’t have

time to keep up with all of that

another thing i’ll mention is you

mentioned having like a coveted plan

and companies are doing that now and it

used to be you had to write them and

hope that they were the best well now

you can find

templates all over online for free so if

you haven’t gone

and searched for some sort of covid plan

for your building i encourage you to do

that

that allows your people to know that

you’re serious if there ever were an

issue

you know you’re not going to stop covid

but at least

just like legionella you can take

liability off the table you can say hey

we’ve got a plan

this is the items that we’re going to do

if something were to happen

well in addition to all of us doing that

our customers are doing that as well

and if you’re like me you’ve probably

talked

this course of outside of new york

you’ve talked to your customers

about doing something about legionella

due diligence

and they may or may not have done

anything

well folks they are putting money in

their budget

right now to write these coded plans

it is extremely easy to talk to people

about putting something for legionella

as well doing a water management plan

because now they’re open to that they

see what can

happen when the world gets sick when

somebody gets sick with their building

so we have had tremendous success

of during these customer reviews talking

about legionella

and also some of the experiences that

we’ve had in developing our own

covid plan so if you haven’t talked to

your customers about that

they need to hear that and they’re

probably not going to think about that

on their own

nation i know today’s episode is a bit

longer but i wanted to get all this

information out to you so you could do

with it

what you needed to do and let’s face it

it’s a podcast you can pause it you can

pick it up any time

that you like so i wanted to make sure

you had the information

and now it’s up to you to figure out how

you are going to devour

that information that being said this is

a good time to

to take a break if you need to take a

break maybe check

out some of the webinars that we’ve been

mentioning on this podcast

i do want to say again that all of these

ideas came from

conversations that we had within the

rising tide

mastermind the simple fact is we don’t

know

what we don’t know however when we align

ourselves with a group

of professionals a group of like-minded

people

that group will demand that we

collectively as a group and as

individuals

become more successful

we learn from each other what we don’t

know

we don’t know quite frankly others

can help uncover the blind spots that we

all have

that we don’t know that we have

as a member i can wholeheartedly say

that i am better able to weather

this pandemic because of the rising tide

mastermind because of all the questions

that were asked because of all the

topics

that people were coming to me for saying

i need

more information all of those things

helped me directly it helped the members

of the mastermind directly

and i can say that we

did the best effort that we knew how to

because of all the information that we

were gathering

because of the rising tide mastermind

and because of all of this the group

collectively

decided that we needed to know all of

this stuff in order to make

better decisions how awesome is that we

have the support of the group

we get the group trying to figure out

what we don’t know

we don’t know that we need to know and

my question to you

is are you in a group like this and if

the answer is yes

that is awesome if the answer is no

i want you to consider joining the

rising tide

mastermind at the very least go to

scaling up h2o.com

forward slash mastermind read about it

and see if that’s something that

sounds intriguing to you if it does

i would love for you and i to connect

so we can see if the group makes sense

for you

and if you make sense for the group

now if the rising tide mastermind is not

right for you

i urge you to find a group

that is right for you there are just so

many things that

come to fruition when you

join a group like this and folks

life’s too short to do it alone it’s too

complicated to do it alone

and when it comes to things like this

pandemic there is no way i

could have done it alone so i urge you

find a group so please

find a group figure out why i am

so excited about masterminds

and see if it’s something that you

should consider joining

well folks here is part two of our

continued

webinar with jill myself and our invited

guests

i know myself as a custom chemical

manufacturer i’m an expert in blending

chemicals

whereas trace as the owner of a water

treatment company

you’re an expert in water treatment i

think the pandemic has forced

both of us as business owners to become

experts in hr

i know that i have a lot of questions my

employees have a lot of questions

and i’m sure everyone watching this

video has a lot of questions

so now that we’re being asked more hr

questions that are pressing

more than ever the question is how do we

get these questions answered

how do we make sure that they’re

answered in a timely manner

and in an accurate manner so we’re

fortunate enough to have helene grossman

from hrtg atlanta with us today and

helene is going to answer

what we found were some of our own

questions some of what we felt were the

most common questions

and then helene is going to let us know

what she thinks that we need to know

pertaining to hr right now

hi everyone and thanks again to trace

and jill for inviting me to talk with

you today

again i am helene grossman i am

president of hrtg atlanta

we are an hr consulting company that

helps businesses like yours

deal with hr questions and challenges

that you may be facing

today trace and jill have asked me to

provide some best practices

concerning some pressing hr questions

that you are probably

facing right now so these are the three

questions

um and best practices that i will be

covering

the first one is you know as we come up

into the fall season

is it flu sick or is it coveted sick and

how do i deal with that in the office

we have employees coming back to the

office after being remote what are some

of the best practices for that

as well as how do we accommodate or help

employees

with school-aged children and the remote

learning aspect

so before we get started on all of that

i just want to review

the five steps of an employee who tests

positive for coven 19 in your workplace

um the reason i’m doing this

is this will obviously impact um as

people are either coming back

to the workplace as we talk about covet

flu or covet or flu

so i just want to remind you of the five

steps around

employee testing positive number one

obviously send the employee home number

two make sure that you’re cleaning

and vacating any working area that that

employee may have been

in number three it is your obligation to

notify potentially exposed employees

those would be anyone who was within six

feet of that person for more than 15

minutes

a big one is determining when the

employee returns and it’s not by testing

negative alone these are cdc guidelines

so if you

if an employee has tested positive and

there’s no symptoms you can end that

isolation 10 days after testing positive

if it’s moderate to mild symptoms you

can end the isolation after 10 days

if at least 24 hours have passed without

a fever

and other symptoms have been improved

and then obviously if it

is severe symptoms um

the employee needs to continue isolation

for the full 14 days or longer

you may need to record if the infection

is work related and report it to

osha i mentioned that because obviously

that needs to be done

in the state of california if you are a

business in california

however there may be other states that

also have that requirement

so i just wanted to make sure that you

look into those

state regulations as well so the big

question

for the fall is you know the flu looks

like covet

in many aspects what do we do and how do

we handle that in the workplace

so the first thing i’ll tell you as a

best practice is to have a team meeting

and be totally transparent

it is hard to tell the difference both

of them have similar symptoms we all

know that

so let’s just put that up front in terms

of a flu sick or a covet sick

there are some differences but you’re

not a doctor so

what you’re going to do as a team

obviously is

talk about what the plan is going to be

and you and your team should develop a

plan

and this is an example of a plan a plan

would be

to tell your entire team that no one

should come to the office that is

experiencing

any of those symptoms and this is just

to be on the safe side

i would recommend that they talk with

their own doctor

about whether or not they should be

taking a flu shot this year

i would treat each situation as if the

employee has

coveted if they get tested and it comes

back

negative then just make sure they’re

sitting out for 24 hours free of

symptoms

before they come back into the office

obviously you do not want an employee

to bring the flu into the into the

workplace and infect anyone else

if it is coveted and they are out then

in terms of

paying them you have the family first

response care act which is two weeks of

sick leave um that will be paid

if it is the flu just like normally

anyone being sick

then you need to look at your pto your

sick days and your unpaid leave

plan okay that is a best practice it’s

really getting together and determining

what the plan is going to be but i would

tell you

the big one here is treat it as if it

were

coded the second

best practice that we’re going to talk

about is bringing employees back to the

office

after being remote

one of the best practices here is that

you can’t

come up with all the items that you need

to cover

by yourself and so one of the best

practices is really to create a task

force

of various individuals mainly from

different departments if possible or

different levels to help with designing

the back to office plan and again

a plan okay that plan

should be communicated and forthcoming

before employees return back to work

and the plan should include these couple

of items

at a minimum the safety procedures

are we wearing masks where’s the

sanitizer how are we going to be

cleaning the office

are we doing temperature checks the next

question

how will they return is it by choice

are we going to be phasing in are we

going to have some people working monday

wednesday friday

are we going to have some people working

tuesday and thursday

if you say that you’re a high risk can

we just let you work at home

are the business hours the same is the

layout of the office

different are we going to have space in

between the desks

um and then again you need to reinforce

um what the expectations will be if

you’re coming to the office

or whether you’re working from home

and then finally check in as often as

possible

okay and find out how is it working in

the office

what changes do we need to make put this

back on your task force

you know once they come up with a plan

the plan should be the task force is

checking in

after people get back to the office but

again the big thing here

the big takeaway is create a plan

and make sure you’re over communicating

that plan

the third area is what we call

accommodating and helping employees with

school-aged

children with their remote learning

and i will tell you that for the most

part um

you’ve got to be flexible you just have

to be flexible this is just

such a difficult time for many

and so i tell you as a business owner to

look at your schedules

look at your start times look at your

end times can people come in later

maybe they can work you know starting

from 11 o’clock

you know later because they need to be

with their kids in the morning

if there’s ways that you can be flexible

and still get the work done and work

with the employees

then definitely explore that possibility

i’m going to tell you that a lot of

businesses are being creative

they’re working with compressed work

weeks some of them are giving

day care stipends if they can afford it

to those employees with school-aged

children some are working from home

working from the office they’re

adjusting their days or being flexible

but again as long as they are

communicating and it is working for you

in the short term um again i tell you be

flexible

and then the last thing i will tell you

is be consistent

you know don’t pick and choose employees

with children have different

situations and even though it may be

very individualized

we also need to be consistent in how we

treat them so if you’re allowing

employees with children some to stay

home

or to work then you should allow all

employees with children to be able to do

that as well

and then remember the family first

response cares act

again is still in effect on december the

31st and this

act for 12 weeks

allows an employee to stay at home with

their child if they cannot

work in the office and cannot work at

home

this is two-thirds of their pay for

those 12 weeks

some of them may have used that up back

in the march or

april time frame so again you’ll just

need to keep track

of all of that we are going through a

very difficult time

and i know that it is very trying on

everyone

but i will leave you with this quote

which i love from maya angelou

and that is people will forget what you

said people will forget what you did

but people will never forget how you

make them feel

and i will tell you that this rings

especially true

in the workplace so remember that as

you’re dealing with your employees

everyone is going through a very

stressful time so

so please please remember take care of

yourself

and take care of your employees and stay

safe

thank you very much joe you got it right

we’ve got to do so much more as company

owners we have to know

so much about hr so i’m so glad helene

was able to come on and share some of

the valuable information

with us and the people watching this

webinar

the next topic we’re going to talk about

is how do we move on from this what’s

the

long-term plan we’ve got so many

questions

about what’s the new normal nobody knows

what that is and then if they think

something’s normal today we’ll watch out

because

it’s going to change tomorrow so

this is our section where we’re going to

talk about what ifs

this pandemic has really brought up the

question as trey said what if

there’s a whole lot of what-ifs myself

and some of my supplier colleagues and

friends that i’ve spoken to

they’ve mentioned you know sales

channels are changing so for me

what if nobody’s able to call on me in

person anymore

for some of my other suppliers and

colleagues what if

they’re not able to call on people in

person anymore

what if the people that they’re calling

on don’t want to see them in person

anymore

you know it’s a whole new virtual world

out there and while there is

definitely some limitations and you

don’t get that personal contact

which i don’t think will ever go away i

think people are always hungry for that

but at least for right now i think

everyone

has or should be taking full advantage

of the the virtual world i think

sometimes even though you can’t get that

personal contact

you may be able to get more information

in front of somebody

through a virtual presentation what if

we don’t have in-person

conferences anymore well as awt members

we’re finding that out right now

you know i think everybody was

disappointed that the live event for

this year got cancelled

and that we’re having the virtual event

but i think

now that we are in the midst of the

virtual event and looking forward to it

is that this is very positive it’s

something we’ve never done before

which allows us i think almost more

creativity in a way

and a whole new different way of doing

things

i kind of think from my perspective that

i’m able to get more

information out in front of people it

might be to

maybe a smaller audience hopefully not

but i do believe that the content can be

different

and i think in some regards it can even

be better so i think there’s definitely

positive aspects for that

you know going back to the what if we

can’t see people it’s not just calling

on customers or

suppliers calling on us i think it is

really

the lack of in-person meetings and

dialogue

i think that this time more than ever

it’s more important to reach out and not

become

isolating i think small business owners

especially can feel that

i think it’s important to have a trusted

network of people

i think it’s important to have good

advisors people to ask advice to

i know that i’m fortunate to have that

with my legal team

and my cpa and my financial team

but also with the rising tide mastermind

with my colleagues

with my awt colleagues i think what i’m

lacking right now in seeing people in

person

i’m more than making up for virtually

but i think you need to be open with

that you need to be able to change with

that and take advantage of that

i’ve also found that traditional methods

of marketing

that we’ve done in the past have really

needed to change during this pandemic

so i’ve been spending a great deal of

time

kind of figuring out how do i network

and how do i market

and i think that i have not only

succeeded

i think that we have really surpassed my

goals in terms of

you know how do we market how do we

network how do we stay in contact

what new things can we try you know not

everything

works but i’ve been pleasantly surprised

that most things that we’ve tried

have worked better than i’ve anticipated

trace what have you found your what ifs

are during this time

well i will definitely say the what ifs

grow with each and every passing day

i think the biggest what if people ask

in our company and other water treaters

is what if we can’t get back to normal

with how we

sell our water treatment wares and

i know we’ve we’ve had a webinar on

selling during a pandemic

with the rising tide mastermind i know i

learned a lot about that

but what i want to convey to people that

are watching this webinar

is you know we might be doing things

differently but the foundation

of how we did those things doesn’t need

to change

now maybe somebody’s not going to see

you in person but

they can see you over zoom and as i

mentioned earlier

you have somebody’s undivided tension

normally on

zoom so if you’ve got a very well

planned out

agenda so you’re very cognizant of their

time you’re not wasting their time

you make sure that you ask them what do

they feel

they’re going to get out of this meeting

or how will this meeting be most

productive to them to make sure

you can adjust the meeting to hit their

needs

i think you’ll be surprised of what you

can get done

virtually there are a lot of people out

there that just say well if i can’t do

it the way i’m used to i can’t do it at

all and folks if that’s your attitude

you are not going to survive this

because

as jill mentioned there’s going to be

some form of this

even after all of this finishes

people are very heightenly aware and

we’re eventually going to change so if

you haven’t

changed now is the best time it reminds

me of a chinese proverb the best time to

plant a tree is 10 years ago the second

best time is today

so go ahead and plant your tree with

some of the new things that you can do

taking care of the virtual community i

also have to think you know

trainings you know i go to several

trainings to get certification credit

for several certifications that i hold

how are we going to do that

now that we’re not going in person well

i’m sure you’ve seen that people are

doing

virtual trainings and those are getting

a lot better

again thinking about what we can’t do in

covid now thinking about what we can do

just like your fees with this conference

you are able to probably send more

people because you’re not having to pay

for their travel

you’re not having to pay for their

lodging so don’t always look for the

negative things that are there there are

some positive things and i will be the

first to admit that there is

a lot taken away when you can’t get face

to face

in front of somebody but if you can’t

you can’t don’t focus on that

focus on the things that you can do and

see how you can do that to the best or

at least

better than anybody else and then when

you’re talking to your customers

they’re really going to appreciate that

thank you trace we’ve both done a lot of

work with long-term planning and goal

setting

and i know that you have a lot of

expertise in that area

could you talk to us a little bit about

goal setting and long-term planning

and what are your thoughts on how it

works during the pandemic

yeah great question well first off

long-term planning i feel is key to

any business i feel it’s key to any

family if you’re going to drive

somewhere

you want to know where that destination

is otherwise you don’t know what route

to take well life is the same way

with the company i always recommend that

people

mentally go three years into the future

and see

what do we want to accomplish in those

three years so we’re actually sitting

three years into the future

who are the people that are around us

what equipment do we need

what facility are we in uh what are the

different positions that people are

holding in the company

all of those things and you’ve got your

trusted leadership team there with you

so you’re now able to all see that image

together

and then you think well how am i ever

going to get this three

year image to come to a reality well the

answer is one day at a time

and what i like to then ask people to do

is to go back

to one year planning so you know what

three years looks like so what’s a

one-third

slice of that long-term plan

and that’s your annual planning you’re

thinking what do i have to do

that’s going to get us one-third to that

three-year plan and then cut it down

even further

into quarters these are the bite-sized

pieces that we can do

during the quarter so we can accomplish

these goals so

we call these 90 day rocks in the

mastermind group

and that comes from one stephen covey

seven habit book

and then they also use that in one of

the books we read called 12

week year which is one of i think the

best planning books

ever written because it everybody tells

you how to plan

but very few tell you how to execute

12-week year does a great job of doing

both

now when we get together as a company

after

that 90 days we know what the three year

supposed to look like

we know what that year is supposed to

look like and we know what we should

have accomplished over the last 90 days

now we have the benefit of life

happening

to our plan so how well did we do with

all of the things that happened to us

during that 90 days and what did we

learn

from that 90 days and now we can

readjust

over the next 90 days and get it even

better every time we go through this

process as a company we learn something

new

we get better at it so that’s how i’ve

always

done long-term planning it allows us to

have a vision of where we’re going

it allows us to use the past to learn

how we’re going to get better

as we’re going forward in fact if you

listen to

a scaling up h2o podcast it was episode

it’s actually where i share the story of

uh how we do long-term planning here at

the company

and the podcast is about me preparing

for my ted talk but you can hear how we

actually do that here at the company

on episode 92 and i actually

refer to back to the future when we do

long-term planning so we get into our

delorean we go three years into the

future so if that interests you

you can listen to episode 92 but your

question

jill is how does that change now that we

have

a pandemic now that we have cobit around

and

my my short answer is i don’t think it

does

i think we all know where we need to go

but now just like we were loading the

car

and we were going to disney world well

we’ve got a road closed

and it doesn’t mean we can’t get to

disney world but it means we can’t take

the road that we were going to take

we now have to take a detour doesn’t

mean we can’t get there we just have to

figure out how we’re going to do that

so within all the things we’ve learned

in the last couple of months

we actually know how to navigate this

pandemic so much better than when it

first started

using that knowledge we can now apply

that to see which road we are going to

take to hit that

now that being said some of our goals

might have to be adjusted a little bit

just because we’re not able to do them

in the same way

so an example that i have of that is

a lot of times we all have revenue goals

i mean who doesn’t right we all want to

put more money on the top line well now

that we’re not able to sell the way

we’re used to

and we’re learning new ways to sell

having that same revenue goal might not

be realistic this quarter maybe it will

be more realistic next quarter

so change the goal a little bit you can

you think to yourself

what am i able to do that will impact

that goal

although it’s not really going to

complete that goal this year

and the example that i can come up with

that we did

is we didn’t reflect on dollar revenue

we reflect on company touches so

how many times did one of us from our

company

reach out and touch another member

of our clients companies and we were

able to do that

very easily over zoom we got compliments

for that

i shared on part one that we got

business from that

and that is leading towards that

ultimate metric that we had of putting

money on the top line

thank you trace i have to echo like you

said

the 12-week yearbook that we read in the

mastermind i’ve taken full advantage of

that this year

i believe that goals are important

during the pandemic now more than ever

they just have to be adjusted maybe

you’re not looking at the same metrics

maybe those have had to be adjusted

but i find that my goals are important i

find that i

have kept them i’ve revised them i’ve

actually crushed them this year

which i’m happy to say but i have also

noticed that it takes a lot more time

this year

i have worked harder than ever in the

business

just because of all the adjustments that

need to be made

in my personal life i have goals and

some of those goals because we’re not

able to do

certain things or go certain places

those are put on hold

but in my personal life i have really

found that i’m

am struggling to maintain a work-life

balance

because of all of the extra time that

i’ve been putting in at work

to keep us safe keep us stocked up keep

us up to date on the newest information

you know change our goals you know just

kind of

changing with the times and with the

information that i’m given

and making sure that you know anytime

anything that’s uncertain

that i’m getting the best information

and making the best decisions going

forward

i think going into our next topic that

it is really more important than ever

to maintain or try to maintain a good

work-life balance

but also to kind of avoid burnout to

take care of ourselves

now more than ever because this is such

a stressful and uncertain time

and if you’re not careful you know it

can really take a toll on you

and we are very fortunate to have

somebody with us today

who trace will introduce that i think

his message is very important

and really a good way to close on i i

definitely agree jill

and before we move topics you know

thinking about personal goals

a lot of times you know we kind of get

depressed that we weren’t able to meet

those personal goals because of the

circumstances that we have right now

i think when you really take account of

all the things that you have that are

going well in your life

you’ll realize that it’s not as bad as

maybe you once thought it was

but let’s face it if you’re watching the

news that’s not the mindset that you’re

going to be in

that does not sell people turning on the

news stations

so something that i have found that’s

been very helpful i know we’re using

this on the rising tide mastermind

is a book called the five minute journal

it’s not really a book

it’s called the five minute journal if

it takes you five minutes to do it

that’s probably a long time

but what it does it asks you certain

questions in the morning and then it

asks you certain questions at night

and it gets you thinking about all the

things you really do have

going for you jill i know you and i have

been using this book for for this

journal for quite a while

um it does help you get in that positive

mindset

and see positive things instead of what

the world kind of gravitates us to

with all the negative things going

around so uh

if you have not stopped by our booth the

scaling up h2o booth in the exhibit hall

we have a starter kit for the five

minute journal

in fact i even have a video showing you

how to use it

so please stop by watch the video

start doing the journal and i promise it

will help you with some of those areas

if you want to buy the journal

you can go to scaling up h2o.com forward

slash journal

that just takes you to an affiliate link

straight to amazon if you want to go on

amazon and find it yourself you can do

that as well

but i just felt if i didn’t share that

with everybody

knowing how much that that’s helped us

through this personally and then also as

business owners i just would be leaving

something on the table that

that somebody could use but i think that

does tease up

perfectly for our next speaker

our next speaker has two main roles and

he’s going to tell you about those roles

but he’s going to talk to us about you

know navigating the pandemic

and making sure not only we get through

it but we stay positive

as we do this so our speaker is austin

causey so please welcome him

are you drinking enough water during

this season

now i imagine that’s probably not the

first question you thought that i was

gonna ask especially to a group like you

guys

amazing water treatment professionals

however

it’s an important question and it’s one

that i hope that you will remember as

you leave

our time together today is are you

drinking enough water

during this season now my name is austin

causey

i love the work that i get to do in a

couple different roles the two most

important that i want to talk to you

about today

are my role as a travel agent

specifically the vice president of a

travel

agency based out of fort lauderdale

florida and the second my role as a

pastor

so let me start with the travel industry

world because i’m guessing

like a lot of you your industries our

industry was wrecked during the past

six months during this coveted season as

you can imagine

the travel industry exploded and not in

a good way right

not only were all of our trips cancelled

but we had to walk through that with

every single client do they want to move

did they have trip insurance did they

not have trip insurance

did they want to wait it out and see if

they were going to get canceled which

countries are shutting down which

countries are open

it was chaos and here’s what i want to

tell you it’s not

over yet but i do see a line on the

horizon and i think that we’re starting

to approach that line and it’s why i

think this topic for today

is so important is are you drinking

enough water

during this season you see there’s

something that i noticed about two

months in

to the covid19 season and that’s this

bottom line here

is that i think that the companies that

respond best

and not just the companies but the

leaders the companies and the leaders

that respond best to this season will

have a shot at becoming the best

after this season is over let me say

that again the companies and the leaders

that respond

best to this season will end up having a

shot at becoming the

best companies and the best leaders out

there

after this season is over and here’s why

i think that that is so important

for me and for you while i would never

wish anything

negative to happen to my competition i

don’t believe in that

i do think that there will be

opportunities to leverage

especially in our world in the travel

industry world and probably in your

world as well

competition is thinning out as agencies

and as

industries and as companies that weren’t

prepared for this coveted season or that

aren’t responding to it well

are dying out that’s an opportunity for

you

and for your company to leverage and i

want to make sure

that you do that incredibly well because

here’s what i know

here’s actually it’s a theory but i

think there’s a lot of ground here

i think this is true the end of the

coven season

will actually be the starting line for

the next season

to come and i think the next season is

even more important

and here’s what i want you to think

about as you approach

that starting line of the next season i

want you to think about it like a

marathon

and i’ve run a couple marathons and

there’s one thing that i will tell you

is incredibly

important as you prepare for the

starting line day for race day

it’s that you come not only trained

but you come hydrated you come with

energy you don’t show up exhausted

you don’t show up burn out and you don’t

show up

unprepared that’s a way to drop out of a

marathon

and i don’t want that for you and that

takes me back to our original question

from the beginning of this talk

is are you drinking enough water during

this season

and i know that question sounds obvious

you’re like oh i see you want me to be

hydrated because the starting line’s

coming

yes that’s true but i want to unpack

what i think

being hydrated in this season as we look

towards the starting line

actually looks like and i think that

there are three things that i want to

unpack with you

but before we go there let me tell you

about my second role so like i said i’m

the vice president of this travel

agency that’s over here but i also

worked full time as a pastor

at when at church and i love being a

pastor

not only because i love jesus and i love

everything that he represents

and here’s what i know i know that for

some of you when you heard that i’m a

pastor

that may have some negative connotations

for you and so if that’s true

i apologize for whatever your bad church

experience might have looked like

but here’s why i think it’s important to

tell people about what following jesus

looks like

because in life i think that when you

know jesus

it not only makes you better at life but

it makes your life better

and i will unpack that for anyone who

wants to talk about it at another time

but today here’s why i’m talking about

that for you

it’s because i don’t just care about you

and i don’t just care that you’re at

this summit today because of your work

your role

in the business world i care about you

as husbands

as wives as parents as grandparents as

spouses those roles are just as

important as the roles that you play

in your business community and i think

if you lose sight of your life

holistically

you might be winning at business and

completely

failing with your relationships and so

that’s why i want to unpack

these three things that i think will

help you stay hydrated

not just for your business life although

that will make it better

but these three things that will help

you stay hydrated holistically

in your life in this season as you

approach the starting line

of the post covet season

so here’s the first tip here’s the first

thing

i want you to do to stay hydrated in

this season

tip number one is this is that you need

to be

filling up not only on work time

but filling up on your relationships

filling

up on family time with those people that

matter

most to you and here’s why i don’t want

you

to sacrifice your family to succeed at

business

here’s why if you do that you may win at

business you may have a lot of money

but countless people will tell you that

isn’t enough

and showing up at the finish line with a

great business or even showing up at

that starting line with a great business

is not in the same realm as showing up

prepared but also with family and

friends beside you

so don’t sacrifice your relationships

just

to prioritize your work life and here’s

something really practical

because i know that pretty much sounds

obvious and a lot of the things i’m

going to say today

may sound obvious but it’s more

important

to remember them and to apply them than

it is to hear them for the first time

and here’s why i think that’s true

because if you don’t prioritize these

relationships if you don’t prioritize

that quality time like i said you’re

going to end up at the starting line of

the post-coven season

alone and i don’t want that for you so

practically speaking here’s one

really easy thing you can do and this is

something that i did personally because

like i said my world has been

chaos for the last six months but as i

thought about this idea of filling up on

my relationship

time here’s one simple thing that i did

and i’m going to specifically talk about

my relationship with my wife

so i went to her and i said hey you know

how crazy things are right now

bringing her into my world you know how

crazy things are

you know that there are fires going left

and right in the business world that we

work in

but i want you to know that you are the

most important part of my life

and i want you to help hold myself

accountable because if i don’t

and if you don’t help me with that i

will run a hundred miles an hour

towards the business community and

forget about the things that are most

important to me so will you help me stay

accountable

to our relationship will you help me

prioritize date nights

will you help me prioritize our quality

time together

that is one simple way that you can fill

up on your relationship time

during this season so that you can show

up at the starting line

of postcobid hydrated on your

relationships

now for tip two here’s the second thing

i want you to fill up on

is i want you to fill up on positive

mental nutrition i know that sounds so

weird it sounds so ethereal

but here’s what i mean by that is

typically in our lives

when work gets really busy we start to

you know crowd out the things

that really help us grow and help us

learn and i call that positive

mental nutrition for you that might be a

really good book it might be a

documentary

it might be a podcast that you love to

learn and grow in

it might even be conferences like this

so way to go on showing up

that shows that you prioritize things

like this

don’t lose sight of that as you continue

to fill up and hydrate on your positive

mental nutrition

because here’s what we do is we actually

default

to the things that are bad for us we

think oh man i’m exhausted

i just need to go binge watch a series

on netflix

that is a way to rest but i’m telling

you it’s not the same

as hydrating on the things that are

actually quality

positive mental nutrition and so it’s

just one really practical step as you’re

walking through this

is just to continue to set aside even if

it’s 30 minutes even if it’s just

a chapter a day don’t lose sight of

learning and growing or you’ll come to

the starting line of the postcode season

exactly in the same place as you were at

the beginning

so maybe that’s reflecting for you maybe

it’s journaling and taking notes of what

you’re learning in this season

so that you can apply it to your next

season that’s another thing i want you

to fill up on

during this season now the last thing i

want you to fill up on

and this is one that i think is so so

important especially

for all of us who live in such a great

country

like the us and that is to fill up

on gratitude over comparison

that’s right i know it sounds super

churchy it sounds super weird but i

promise it applies to all of us

filling up on comparison will fuel you

for a little bit but here’s the analogy

i want to give you and i know you guys

will understand this

because you’re water treatment

professionals filling up on comparison

to fuel you and to look at your

competition and have that be what

inspires you

to work harder and grow more that’s the

same thing

as filling up on untreated water it may

quench your thirst for a little bit

but a couple hours later you’re going to

get sick and if

if you show up to the starting line of a

race like the post coveted season

you’re not only going to not be able to

finish that race you’re going to end up

worse off than you were before you

started that race so instead of filling

on the untreated water of comparison i

want you to fill

up with gratitude and on a daily

basis look at the things in your life

that you’re grateful for

no matter what you’ve lost no matter how

hard this season has been for you

there have been things that have gone

right or there are things in your life

that are still

on the upswing and so i want you to

focus

on those things there’s actually been

research done on this

idea and doctors have said time and time

again but the people that do this

gratitude exercise

may be picking three things a day at the

start of your day that you’re grateful

for

people that do this have happier lives

and that’s a pastor doesn’t even matter

whether you’re a follower of jesus or

not

i want you to have a happier more

fulfilled

life a life of peace and joy and so if

you can do that if you can

fill up daily with gratitude that is

going to help you

show up to the starting line of the post

coveted season

hydrated ready not burnt out

not exhausted ready to take on

what comes next so those are the three

things

i know they sound simple but i know that

they will help you

stay hydrated now you can come to me and

you can say

alston what about work you didn’t say

anything about filling up on work

well that’s because i think that’s where

you’re already putting a lot of your

time

and yes working is like running it is

part of training for the marathon

however if you only run to train for

your marathon and you don’t

hydrate along the way you may be ready

to go

as a runner but you’re not going to be

ready your body’s not going to be ready

for what that race is going to take so

yes work

is a piece of it but i know that you as

high-capacity leaders

have no problem prioritizing the work

that needs to be done

i think we actually need to pull back

the reins a little bit

and to hydrate on these three things

that i said

that are the most important to make sure

we can sustain

this next season that’s coming at us so

from my heart to yours i want you to

think about these three things

do i need to fill up on my relationships

and my quality time

do i need to be filling up on positive

mental nutrition have i pushed that

to the wayside in this season and do i

need to be filling up on gratitude

over comparison one of those three

things

is going to ring true with you today and

i want you to set aside some time

i want you to even write it down right

now to prioritize

filling up on that in the weeks or maybe

even months to come

we don’t know but i do know that this

season will end

and i do know that the next one is going

to be better

and you have an opportunity just like i

said at the beginning

those that respond to this season best

will have a shot at becoming the best

after this season’s over and that’s what

i want for you

so i’m so grateful you came to this

conference i’m so grateful

you prioritized this time today and i

really do hope

and wish you the best in the race to

come

austin thank you so much for that and

ladies and gentlemen members of awt

i hope you found a handful of things

that you could

take back to your companies to your

personal life

during the webinar that we just

presented

i’m pretty sure you can you can share

some of those items with people

in your company you can act on them

almost immediately

and you’re probably frantically taking

notes on some of the books that we’ve

mentioned some of the resources that we

mentioned

well i’m here to say you don’t have to

do that we have a pdf

that you can download that has all of

those resources

on them again hope you learned something

and jill i want to thank you for helping

all the people that i think learned

something today that feel maybe a little

bit better

about this crazy thing called the

pandemic

and the ever-changing world that we live

thank you trace the only thing certain

about the pandemic is

nothing is certain during a pandemic

things change sometimes on an hourly

basis and what we knew in march

changed in april it changed in may it

has changed

today i hope that this episode has

helped you

get up to date on some of the items you

most likely had questions about i hope

it got you

thinking about some of the new things

that you

can try some of the new things that you

should be

doing within your territory within your

business

and above all else i hope it allowed you

celebrate all of the successes

that you have accomplished in the year

2020 sure you probably learned some new

things on today’s episode

but i am certain that you have also

confirmed a lot of the things that you

have already been doing

please commend yourselves for all of

that

success folks i will be the first to

admit one of the tougher things to do

in 2020 has been networking

it is very hard if not

impossible to get together and network

during this year but you can

still do it and we have a

joint function planned with the

association of water technologies on

december 10th

at 6 00 pm eastern time

it is a virtual hang now many of you

enjoyed the virtual hangs we did

each night of the awt

convention last month well it was so

successful we decided to work with awt

to make it a regular thing that we can

all

look forward to so if you want to learn

about the hang very easy go to scaling

up h2o.com forward slash

hang you can register there and then

on december 10th at 6 pm eastern time

log on the zoom room and i will guide

you through a

fun process that will lead you to

meeting

new people in your community

folks last time we did the hang it was

wildly successful

we all started out in a large room

i had a couple of anecdotal facts and

different things that i shared with the

group and then i quickly got you

into a smaller perhaps

five or six person breakout room

where you had certain questions you were

going to ask each other but the bottom

line was

you were meeting people you did not know

before

if you did for some chance get into a

room with somebody you did know

you learned more about them and more

importantly

they learned from you and what you’re

doing is creating

a network so when you have a

question about something when you need

something you are now collecting that

network of people that can help you

through those situations so i urge you

on december 10th

join us at 6 pm eastern time and of

course you can do that

by going to scaling up h2o.com forward

slash hang

i hope to see you there and i also look

forward to bringing you

a brand new episode next friday

of scaling up h2o have a great week

folks

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