Winning Teams Lead to Winning Companies with Brian Hess, President and CEO of The Pavement Group

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if they don't know where they're coming to work and they don't understand the culture of what they're walking into before they go there, there's a much lower likelihood that somebody's going to join that team. This is Lead With Culture. I'm Kate Volman, and on this episode we're talking about company culture, leadership, and building a great team with our guest, Brian Hess, CEO, and President of The Pavement Group, Top Contractor School, and the host of the Prospective Podcast and the Brian Hess Show.

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All right, Brian, I'm so excited to have you on the show.

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Let's do it.

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do that people don't know about.

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easy way to stay accountable. That's for sure.

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that they look forward to getting to see your face at eight o'clock in the morning.

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essentially thinking about, somebody in your family, somebody you work with, one of your friends, trying to imagine what they would say about you. Then living your life in accordance with what you would want them to say about you,

it's a little dark, but it's cool to think about,what would people say? would people show up? would things be different

if you weren't here?

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if you weren't here? Because obviously you get to make such an impact on people. That's funny. in my book, I actually talk about, let's say that you were going to be receiving an award and one of your best friends got to introduce you for that award, what would that award be for and how would your friend introduce you?

What are the words that they would use? even just thinking through that makes you think about, oh, What do I wanna be known for? And then just puts at the forefront of now being intentional about doing things every day that would make that person write those words about you.

But you have to be intentional about it, otherwise you're just going through life hoping for things to happen.

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when you're moving through something, it's never going fast enough. But if you are intentional every day and you put one foot in front of the other and you're really focused on where you're going. When you look back, it'll seem like everything happened so fast. and that's happened to me,

in every day life, I feel like we could always be doing more. But when I look back, at the last five years of starting and growing this business, when you really sit and settle into it, it's such a significant amount of work and progress and creation and achievement and all of those things, but on a daily basis, it feels like you're barely moving the needle

a lot of times.

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And so you have to have that decade thinking, which is what you do. Cuz then looking back, you're like, wow, look at all the things that we've done. you're a very intentional leader. I so appreciate you. I love our conversations every time I get to talk to you because you're very intentional.

You also value your team and your people. You have created a coaching culture over there. So talk about the last five years, why did you start the business and what are some of the things that you've seen over the past five years in growing this business?

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And, either one is okay, by the way. There's no right or wrong, but from the time I was a kid, I always had this vision that someday I would do that. As I got older, I started to put that in its place. there was a point in my life where I thought maybe I'm not gonna get married and have children

And so for me, some things happen, the place that I was working for, was sold, to another company and I thought to myself man, is this God telling me? that this is what I should do.

And so really what drove me to do this was, culture. It was like I knew that I could create a place that was unique, that people really enjoyed coming to every day. That people didn't have to give up something to be able to be part of what it is that we were doing, but instead, the culture of this company would multiply whatever it is that they had in the first place.

I think people, especially in: 2023

This glorious thing,there's a lot of people out there that call themselves entrepreneurs, but they're just individuals that have a tax ID number. They're not actually building companies. So there's a very big difference, and there's nothing wrong with either, but I think that, people see somebody who's, driving a certain kind of car or living in a certain kind of house, and they call themselves an entrepreneur.

And so people are naturally attracted to that. But the path of entrepreneurship and really building something significant is, brutal, it's gruesome, it's tough. it's also very rewarding and there's so many positives to it too. But make no mistake that it is one of the most self-revealing, things that you will ever go through.

you will really figure out who you are. Through the process of building a company. And so when I started it, I just thought there was a better way to do it. I had always leveraged technology heavy in my career in construction, there was a governor put on that everywhere that I worked because those companies couldn't innovate fast enough to be able to keep up with.

the crazy ideas that I had. And so when I got, the keys to the city when I had my own, path that I could pave, it was, unlimited access to whatever I wanted to create. And so as we created that, I was very intentional about, how to build the culture, who was going to be part of our business.

The vision that I had for those, people that I worked with along the way that I thought would be a great fit for what we were trying to build. and many of them are here. there's only three people in our entire company that haven't been recruited. People that were just hired in some other former fashion.

Every other person that sits in any office that we have has come through either me directly or. somebody that I've recruited here has also recruited somebody else to be here. And so the culture that we've built, really makes it easy to build. It really makes it easy to multiply the company, to really enjoy what we do every day.

It doesn't mean you walk in here and it's all sunshine and rainbows every day, but I would say, 98% of the time, we're having a lot of fun in this place. we're doing things that aren't normally done, from an achievement

standpoint.

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the entrepreneurs that I know that are Great at what they do. they talk about team first. it always is culture, it's team, it's building, it's creating jobs. It's creating an opportunity for them to shine, to do their best work so that we can achieve something together.

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I think anyone listening is wait, that sounds amazing. Like to be able to recruit the best people. How do you think about hiring and recruiting and what does that look like for your team? how can someone listening who is challenged by finding really great talent today, how should they be thinking about the hiring and recruiting process a little bit differently?

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if they don't know where they're coming to work and they don't understand the culture of what they're walking into before they go there, there's a much lower likelihood that somebody's going to join that team. for us, we don't hire on experience. we don't look for people that have construction experience.

we hire for values and talent and potential. And so if you have motivation and you have the ability to learn. Everything else happens naturally. when you plug winners into, an organization, it's impossible to lose. And so we just look for winners. I've got somebody in here today that is, extended family to our company she's shadowing our team and, figuring out what it looks like to work here.

she'll likely join our team in the next week or two, but we have a process we're not trying to just bring somebody in the door. many times there's people that I've talked to for six months or a year or longer before they actually come and work here.

We have two people that have a PhD in physical therapy that quit their jobs, and came here to make a lot less money to start, in order to get the culture and the experience and the values that they really were pursuing. And now the ceiling is multiplied for them of what they could make.

But immediately, People will take less money. To be in the place that feels right, that they trust is going to get them to the final destination. for me, that's the people that I want. if you wanna come here because you can make, more money.

That doesn't qualify as a person that I want on the team. Like I want somebody that's after more than that, It's after making an impact, changing the world, making a positive difference in our community. all the things that we actually do as a company. If people are about that, they will come here.

one of the things that we do as a company is take 10% of our net profits and give it back to the community every year in different ways.that means something to these people, if you don't align with that, Then you probably wouldn't care to work here. And so we're very open about who we are and who we aren't.

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It's also important to know who they aren't, who is the person that you aren't going to have a good track record, making them happy. And there's a lot of those people, if you actually think about it, the people you're gonna bring into your organization, who is it that you can actually make happy?

Because if you're a company that has a very low ceiling, And you're recruiting the best of the best, the best of the best want growth. they're not looking to work for a company that's gonna make A 5% increase in revenue because that doesn't create enough space for them,

If you want high achievers in your company, you better be multiplying and growing fast so that there's lots of opportunity because people will stick around for opportunity. but When it comes to recruiting at the foundational elements of it, it's what do people see? Why would they be interested in working for you, and what values are you demonstrating publicly?

That would allow people to be attracted to them. if you're doing all of that, it's not even a conversation. Like people will constantly come in the door. Like inside of top contractor school, the inner circle there, there's 31 companies that are part of that.

Rarely do they have an issue recruiting. And if they do, it's because they haven't done a great job of marketing. But for the most part, the companies that have grown the most inside of that organization, including us, they don't ever have an issue finding talent. And it doesn't matter if it's field, talent, office, talent, finance, talent, it doesn't matter.

It's not what all these other people talk about. I can't find people or the young kids don't wanna work anymore. No, they just don't wanna work for

you.

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just like you and I have talked a little bit about Dream Manager, I gave you the book because it's knowing the dreams of your people. And when you know the dreams of your people and you get to feed into those dreams and you get to know them a little bit more, not only are you now learning about them, personally, but it helps.

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So they do feel like they're not remaining stagnant because that's the thing is in so many roles, it's just like you get there and after a few months or a year or whatever, some people just feel like I'm doing the same thing and nothing's really moving or changing and I haven't grown. And, they might not even identify it as growth, but that's really, What it is, if we're not growing and you have that growth-minded person, they're not gonna stay with you for very long.

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As they are today. where I was five years ago, like our 10 year goal as a company has completely changed because I was only able to see what I thought was possible in that moment. And that's the same for any person. if you're not checking in on the dreams of your people, trust me, they're exponentially multiplying if you're doing a good job growing your company,

Because people start to. Earn more. They start to see more, they learn more, they read more. And so as all of those things develop in an individual, their dreams completely change. just imagine this, like they didn't have kids and now they do have kids. my dreams, when I had, no kids, one child.

Now four and Number five, on the way, they're all completely different because you look at life differently. You evolve as a person and in turn your dreams evolve. And so one of the things that I, repeat all the time to our leaders in our organization is like, The dream of the company has to encapsulate the dreams of every person in here.

And if we don't know what the hell they are, then how are we going to make that possible? And if we're not constantly checking in on where that is, then we're not fanning the flames of what really matters to them. Again, it changes man, from like one year to the next year, it can be completely different.

So I go back to, Mike as an example. His life has completely changed in seven or eight years, you wouldn't recognize it. And so now what Mike sends me as things that he wants in his life that.

Mike, eight years ago, wouldn't have ever thought about those things. And so what if we never checked in with him? What if we never asked him Hey, how have things evolved? now you've had one child, two child, Mike has three kids. So like how have things changed?

If we don't ask the question, if we don't have them fill out the how I want to be coached form then we won't ever find out how we're doing because as their dreams build, by the way, those are big time check marks for the organization that says we're doing a good job, man, cuz we're giving people hope that they can do and be more than they were before.

As we do that, it's not just a win for them, but it's encouraging to the company we're onto something here. We need to keep doing this, we need to adjust that. And again, it is tough as you continue to recruit big time winners into your company. sometimes there's moments where I think like, how the hell are we gonna keep up with, all the dreams of all these people, but at the foundation of it, that is actually what lifts the whole company to greatness.

Is the dreams of those people actually float the dream of the

entire organization and what it can mean.

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and then you grow and see each other grow personally as well. you said, obviously entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart and it's a lot of blood, sweat and tears that go into it. So what have been some of your biggest challenges that you've faced in building your business?

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he's absolutely right, because, most decisions that you're making are not crystal clear decisions. they're educated guesses based on experiences and knowledge, reading, studying.

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How much you don't like, it's literally reverse, that's what it feels like as a, leader of an organization, it's like you just recognize how much you don't know how important it is to continue learning and evolving and having great mentors and great friends that you can bounce things off of, and really surrounding yourself with the right people.

outside of that, business is business. It's always gonna have its, challenges. Its uncertainty. the twists and turns of business never go away. It's how you learn to react to them. That will change and that will get better. The amount of time that you spend worried about something that happens, reduces significantly as you mature as a leader, And so you just understand that those hits are never gonna stop coming. and the more that you're trying to accomplish, the greater the resistance is that you face. I often say to our team, business is really simple until you involve employees and customers the human element of business is always the most challenging.

And so it's why I always. First start with culture and work outward from there because it's the thing that makes the biggest impact by far. and so as you understand people and you can successfully integrate those people into the overall vision of the company, everything gets a lot easier.

there's a lot of people to push the rock up the hill. and make no mistake, success is a push uphill. anything worth it will always be uphill. when you look at creating these scenarios for people, like we're not paving parking lots here or we're not, solving client's problems, although that's what happens in the process.

Like we're building people's lives here. we're building. The dreams of the next generation of our employees. one of the goals that I've always had from day one is somebody that works here is gonna get home to their dinner table sooner and with less concerns than they would working anywhere else.

And our customers are gonna be home to their families, with less concerns than they would working with any other contractor. And when you do that, you can produce a happier person that works for us. Imagine what that impact is on children. so many children come home from school and they see their dad, angry or frustrated with their boss or their leader, or they see their mom.

disappointed in how they were treated at work. cuz a kid starts to think Well, that's how it's gonna be. Well, no it's not. There's companies out there that, don't treat people like that. It's not easy to find, but when you do find it, it changes everything. know, that's the best compliment we could get is when people say, not only do I feel more successful, I'm making more money, but my life is better.

several people here that have had multiple children, they say that their younger kids, can see a difference in because of the culture of this business. That's the ultimate compliment.

we can change the world if we can just focus on people, One person at a time. You can make a massive difference. And then those kids grow up thinking like, business is fun. Working is fun as opposed to. not looking forward to turning 18. Cuz looks like everything sucks after that.

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Saying stuff like that.

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And it's just always just this terrible thing when. There are leaders like you that are out there, and it gives me so much hope. obviously I get to work with so many incredible leaders that think like you do, right? Because they're implementing like Dream Manager and they wanna coach their people.

And so we get to see that. And so it brings me so much hope because there are organizations that do care about their people. They talk the way that you talk about. being able to bring people in to recognize and realize that we can't grow a business without great people.

And there are really great people out there that have a lot of incredible skills that they want to use,

Imagine what it would be like to be able to do both of those things. Not saying you have to work your life away, but you get to do both. You get to go work in an organization that cares about you as a person, that you get to grow. You get to use your skills, your professional skills, and you get to,work together to achieve a certain mission.

And then you get to go home and you get to do all the things that you love and you get to, pursue your passions and do some other things and be with your family and that is a beautiful thing. entrepreneurship isn't for everyone. It is for some people. But then when, you do want to work for somebody, then we get to look for leaders like Brian and like others that really care about their people because What you're giving your people is a gift. together you get to do some great things. Like that is good culture.

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easier than people think it is.

think about the family structure in the United States right now. the percentage of people that get divorced, the percentage of people that don't come home to, a healthy situation.

and then ask yourself like what percentage of that is caused by. The parents' workplace, and years ago, it was like taboo to leave your job. Right.you stay in one place. And so now we have the children of the parents who were told, you stay in one place regardless of how miserable it is, because that's just what you do, And so the kids automatically have a different opinion of what work is supposed to be or what they're supposed to even be looking for when they're trying to find a job or a career. kids are sold this idea that like, if you don't want to go to college, you're a loser.

Not all, but some kids are made to feel like if you don't go to college, or you don't have a degree. You're gonna be less than somebody else. most of my friends that are crazy successful did not go to college or didn't finish college.

it's the idea of like really implanting into kids these days. you can be and do anything and there's no rules to success. It's hard work, determination, caring for people doing the right thing over and over again for enough days that it becomes undeniable that that's where you end up.

one of my favorite quotes is like, You cannot wake up every day and do all the right things and somehow end up in the wrong place. It's just not how it works. Like you can't wake up every day, do all the right stuff, and somehow get the wrong result.

No, and that's not to say that you don't hit rough patches or go through things that are very challenging and have to deal with life situations that just come out of nowhere. But what's so beautiful is that when you do those right things every day, you're also setting your mindset up to handle those situations differently.

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as you get older and your life gets more complicated and you do have kids and get married, and all the things that happen in life When we don't have that mindset, when we don't have that mentality, when we don't have that skillset to handle those things, that's when things go downhill because we don't know what to do.

And now everything is doom and gloom and, we don't know the next right step to take. So when you're in a situation where you have great leaders and you have great mentors, and you can go to them, you can go to them with those. questions of I don't know what to do next. And have a really open, candid conversation and your leader can support you.

and then you get to support the people that you work with. You get to support your family, your children, you get to teach them. So it's this constant cycle of growth It's a beautiful thing.

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Cuz you're not a leader at all. you're a manager at best, if that, And so when you think about leadership as a whole, you can't care about one part of a person.

It's not

how it works. that's not humanity, let alone leadership. if you don't care about. How someone is.

it's all so intertwined. Like people ask me about work-life balance all the time, and I'm like, I don't have work-life balance. I just have

life.

my kids walk in this office and they play with all the people in here, and they all know them and they look forward to seeing them.

they don't look at work as a bad thing. Like, my daughter wants to come in here all the time. It's not that productive. at the end of the day, man, What a gift that my kids look at this place and say man, I want to be there.

I wanna be at a place that's called work.

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let's go with this because based on all of the data and information that you have at that time, and so how do you get more comfortable being uncomfortable when making all those decisions?

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And so I always try to keep it in perspective. and when it comes to making decisions, I think you get a lot better at how you actually approach that process. how do you look at decisions? What do you use to process that and what is the end result? an example, five years ago I couldn't make.

As sound of decisions as I can today, because we didn't have the systems or processes for me to be able to have the data that I have today. a leader, it's my responsibility to make sure that this organization, not just for my own benefit, but for all the leaders in our company to be able to look and see what are we actually doing well and what are we not.

decisions can't be made. Completely in the dark. So the most amount of light you can bring to a scenario to be able to bring the things that really matter to the surface, to be able to make sound decisions, you have to do that. And then you have to create a process that really removes the emotion from it as much as possible and allows you to just look at what is best for the business.

How does this impact the people? Look at it. From a 360 degrees perspective, how does this impact our customers? How does this impact our team? How does this impact our contractors? and once you start to understand and run through that enough times, your processing of those things happens faster, because you just know how it's gonna impact it, right?

The first couple of times you're trying to see things from everybody's view. It is gonna be challenging. You're gonna have to put in a lot of work to be able to dig into that. I've called people and said, Hey, this is, the scenario that we're in. I've called a contractor, I've called a customer and said, Hey, what if we did this?

what if our customer experience changed in this way? How would that impact you? And if you're willing to do that and you're willing to take the feedback of those people making decisions gets a lot easier. and it doesn't feel as heavy on your shoulders when you have. Data and real world people doing what it is that they're in the world, being impacted by the decisions you're gonna make.

When those people can validate that you're headed in the right direction, it makes it easier, And so I think for every person they have to understand what it takes for them to be able to make a non-emotional educated. Decision or guess. And so for every person, that's gonna be different. there's a reason why there's hundreds of books on the shelves in my office because, the more that I read, the more confident I get in my ability to make decisions that, maybe last week I wouldn't have known as much about.

But if I, can focus on, finance and marketing and sales and leadership, and I can read those books and acquire the right information. It gets easier for me to guide this company to the level that, all of these people here

want it to go to.

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Because hindsight is: 2020

Maybe I should have reached out to some mentors or coaches or had conversations before I finalized the decision. And so we get to learn from every decision that we make and really help hone in on having that. Process because it is important as a leader to have some type of decision making process so that you can feel a lot more confident in the decisions that you make.

I feel like I could talk to you all day. Brian. You have such a wealth of knowledge around culture and leadership and what you're building is just so wonderful. And you have a beautiful office.

You have a really wonderful team of engaged team members and obviously it's because you are so intentional about the culture that you're creating over there. So,they are lucky to have you. As a leader, as the c e o where is the best place that people can find you? Where can people find your podcast?

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versa.

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platforms, nice and easy.

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I hope that you got something out of it. I hope that there was, Bits of inspiration throughout this episode that inspired you to think about how you are building your team a little bit differently, how you're thinking about culture, how you are thinking about leadership and. You're doing one thing, right?

We always make sure that in each episode you're not just listening, but you are taking action on some of the things that you're learning throughout these episodes. And of course, we love hearing from you and love hearing what those, pieces are. What did you like best about the show? and of course we would love for you to write us a review.

So you have not yet written a review over on iTunes. We would. So appreciate if you would take a few minutes and do that. It really does help out the show and we wanna make sure that this show reaches as many leaders as possible. And with your help, we can do that. So thank you so much for listening. We so appreciate you.

If there's any topics or guests that you think would make a really wonderful podcast episode, please let us know. We would love to hear that as well. And if you are, Really wondering how you can level up your leadership and what that would potentially look like. We would love to talk to you about coaching.

We would love to talk to you about Dream Manager. Obviously we have lots going on. but the easiest way is to just go to floydcoaching.com and fill out that form and someone on our team is gonna chat with you and talk to you about. What's happening in your business? Where are you with your team?

Where are you with your culture? How are you feeling about everything? And really help you develop and create a plan to hold you accountable, to build a great culture, to become a better leader and ultimately achieve the success that you're looking for. So if you're interested, we would absolutely love to chat with you.

You can go to floydcoaching.com and until next time, lead with culture.