In this episode, I interview Christina & Scott Beckett of USA Roller Chain & Sprockets on the role core values play in maintaining their company culture as they scale their family-owned organization. Lots of great advice shared from two well-respected entrepreneurs as we cover topics such as:
In this episode, I interview Christina & Scott Beckett of USA Roller Chain & Sprockets on the role core values play in maintaining their company culture as they scale their family-owned organization. Lots of great advice shared from two well-respected entrepreneurs as we cover topics such as:
Roy Richardson (host) (00:00):
Good day everyone. I'm Roy Richardson here from Aurora InfoTech and welcome to this week's edition of the dynamic business podcast. You know, the goal of this podcast is really about you and getting business leaders to, you know, share their knowledge, share their journey with regards to how they got started. Some of the challenges that they faced along the ways, and really to just share best practices and advice to help us get through these difficult times. And speaking of today, I happen to have today two very well-respected business leaders in central Florida and, and, and people that I've come to know over the last year and a half. We're in many different circles together. And I'm speaking of no other than Christina Beckett and Scott Beckett of USA Roller Chain and Sprockets. Folks, welcome. It's truly an honor to have you here today. And, you know, I'm, I'm elated because I know that, that I know your journey and, and I'm excited for you to get your story out there and share with others in terms of how this small family-owned business, how you've been able to grow, but not only grow but actually maintain your culture, which is so important than some of the things that we see out there today with regards to, you know, especially businesses as we start to scale, that's a hard, hard recipe to sorta keep, you know, intact in a bottle.
Roy Richardson (host) (01:19):
So how are you doing it
Scott Beckett (Guest) (01:21):
20-Year overnight success? We're just now getting to the point where it's not 90% of our time to maintain that culture. We finally came together, but it was a, it was a struggle. We knew it could be done, but we had never done it. And no one really had a good recipe for, so besides some of the study and that we did, most of it was just trial and error and not, not keeping doing the same thing, expecting a different result, the old cliche. Yeah. So we're, we're, we're now at a point where very little maintenance, but it is still maintained. Can't, it's not every what I found out is every quarter, you're going to have someone get sick, get fired, you know, go away, change positions. So you're never going to have the team just stay exactly the way it is today. This morning for example firstly in the morning we had to have a meeting about there was a challenge with some orders that weren't being passed out, which was perceived as fairly. And, you know, somebody was getting the line share back in the day. We would ignore that because we didn't want to ruffle feathers or create any animosity. That's exactly the wrong thing.
Christina Beckett (Guest) (02:27):
Right? That's the main thing that we figured out is, you know, don't let you know, the don't let issues lie on the table. You've got to bring them out and address them with the people involved and move forward from there.
Roy Richardson (host) (02:40):
So, so, so, so tackle, tackle that problem, head-on, get it out of the way. And, and, you know, hopefully, everybody learns from it and, and, and considerate water onto the bridge and move forward.
Christina Beckett (Guest) (02:50):
Exactly. Maybe, maybe a little bit of uncomfortableness, you know, in the beginning, but it's better just to go ahead and, and, you know, move through it and get over it. We keep a big
Scott Beckett (Guest) (03:00):
Box of Kleenex on this conference room table, and it's not runny noses. It's been very uncomfortable at times. As she said, Christie was dead on. It's so uncomfortable that you almost don't want to do it. But now that we know what happens if you do ignore it. And our culture is this though, the team knows that if there's something that comes up, that we are immediately going to come in and sit down and we call it IDs, we'll identify what the problem is. We'll discuss it. And then before we leave that room, we'll have a direction or a solution to what the problem was it's working. And it really feels good to feel the momentum. All of a sudden, now everybody's rowing in the same direction. And if we see something like this morning where there could be a potential problem, we did exactly what I said, we test it and it's done. And there are no hard feelings, no one leaves, no one walks out of here ready to try to get, even with somebody. Cause you know, in business, that's one of the things that I'll show them, I'm going to sabotage them. That's not even an issue at this point.
Roy Richardson (host) (04:00):
And, and that goes, that goes back to what I was saying before about your culture. I mean, you have defined culture to two of you within your organization. And what, I've, what I've noticed, you know, over the last you know, year and a half of being engaged with you are that you know, no matter, you know, yes, you're going to have pieces of the puzzle that sometimes don't work right now. I like to use the analogy of gears, right? As, as gears are working into each other, sometimes the teeth on one get wound down, and well, what do you do? You replace this one, you bring another one in, you have, from what I've seen, been able to master, bringing in that other gear or Sprocket and been able to no pun intended, but you know, being able to have it fit without, with very little. And don't let me take away from your efforts, but cause I know you put a lot into it, but you've been able to have that gear come in and adapt to your culture versus having that gear change, you know, the rotation and velocity and everything else of the engine to which it's coming into it.
Scott Beckett (Guest) (05:02):
You got to keep your teeth in order.
Roy Richardson (host) (05:03):
You got to keep your teeth in order. There you go. There you go. So I kind of, I kind of jumped ahead a little bit here and, and you know, people are probably saying, well, okay, well what did they do? So tell me a little bit, you know, how did you start your company? What is it about, what do you do and, and what made you choose roles?
Scott Beckett (Guest) (05:19):
We were in an industry that was specialty metal fabrication for large commercial buildings, hospitals, universities. And when the downturn came back in Oh eight Oh nine it went away 50% overnight. And then it just started going from there and we were studying internet marketing. We, we didn't know exactly what we wanted to market, but we wanted to learn. We thought the internet would be a good platform. And it was amazing back then, how many people thought it was witchcraft? You know, it was, you can't do that. And we, yeah, and we had some of the manufacturers that we approached that said, you're the evil internet people. You're, you're, you're a website. They're eating those words now. It's kind of feels good. I didn't think that the people that didn't adapt or were left in the dust that we started off in a converted master bedroom with a couple of websites and a couple of cell phones.
Christina Beckett (Guest) (06:14):
Yeah. And we didn't start with roller chain Roy. No, no, we didn't actually, we, we started, you know, with like online business consulting trying to figure that out. And then we went to like a V belt. We thought, yeah. V belts, that's, that's the way to go. And you know, we saw, there really, wasn't very much profit margin in belts, you know, but yeah, let's look at the other products that we could have access to. And that's where we kind of went with the roller chain and the Sprockets
Scott Beckett (Guest) (06:45):
That hurt. What, what happened is Christie has these aha moments that I got to give her a hundred percent credit for. She said we need to change the name because at that time it was called screaming express. And that meant to do things quickly. And here locally in the market, I had that reputation, but when you're going out to an international or excuse me, a national audience, they thought that we were a trucking company because of the name. She said, let's call it USA Roller Chain and Sprockets. And as soon as we put that website up and started doing some adjustments to it, the name really pulled well because, you know, even, even those years ago, people like the patriotic part, and it still continues to do well. The website is what really brings us our customers so that we can start that relationship. So yes, we have a website and yes, we, you know, Mark it off of that, but that's not what our company,
Christina Beckett (Guest) (07:39):
Right. And we, we started off, you know, with a couple of folky, WordPress websites, you know, some YouTube videos that we did with a hundred dollars flip cam, you know, so that's kind of where it all started. And we started to see, you know, the phone ringing and people, you know, meeting service. And that's kind of where we started really putting things together with you know, how we wanted to go to the market and how we wanted to be perceived and what kind of products we wanted to sell.
Roy Richardson (host) (08:09):
Nice, nice. And you have grown of course from, you know, screaming Metalworks here and central Florida to the name, change that then when nationally, and now you're internationally as well because,
Scott Beckett (Guest) (08:22):
And that's another whole learning, the different ways of the countries do because I've never done much traveling, but this will enable me to do that. So that's kind of a cool thing. We are international at this point and it's, it's very humbling.
Roy Richardson (host) (08:36):
That's awesome. Do you find that the, you know, particularly with, with, you know, shipping domestically as one thing, but then when you start getting into the international market, of course, it's, it's, you know, a whole different realm, is that, is that a challenge at times for you, or
Christina Beckett (Guest) (08:51):
It is, you know, things can get pretty sticky pretty quickly. And, you know if it's not clear, you know, who's, who's paying for what and who is liable for what, you know, then you can turn into a big mess real quick. But that's one of the things that we do is we make sure that we clarify with the customers what's expected
Scott Beckett (Guest) (09:10):
This is how it starts. And one of the nuggets I hope people can take away from this today is this was one to write down because I sure did. And I memorized it. And I said, all the time, I got my pen and paper here. If you're going to have a conversation with someone, you need to know the following. Who, what, when, where, how, why it's that simple? And if you can get clear expectations, set, both sides, that all that, that gray area has gone. And one of our things, we have a core value sheet. And one of the things on that core value sheet is no gray in it. Have to have those set expectations because if you don't, it's mutual mystification, nobody knows what to expect. We're amazed at how many companies had don't even have that. They don't operate that way. They're limited questions and really kind of limited concern for what you're going to get. They're just wanting to process an order. We're not order processors where we are consultants and we act and walk as such,
Roy Richardson (host) (10:01):
You focus more on the relationship with the customer, whereas others may be focusing more on meeting their quotas,
Christina Beckett (Guest) (10:08):
Right? Profit, an order. You know, we're not just processing an order where we're trying to build a relationship with that customer and you know, them know what to expect and understand how we do business and it makes it, it makes it good for both sides, right?
Scott Beckett (Guest) (10:26):
Well, we start out the initial and I won't even really call it an interview, but that's what it is, where we're actually seeing if they're going to be a good fit for us because if they're not, nobody wins. We start asking the initial questions we have many times say, well, wait a minute. I just want to get a quote on some chain. And we can't just do that because we don't know exactly what you need. And everybody's so used to someone just selling whatever, they need to sell or push whatever product they want to get off the shelf. And that's not when we started doing that, there was actually, customers who were confused about wait a minute. No one's ever told me there was a choice. And so we've, we kind of opened up a can of worms in the industry with that, with the just simple, good, better, best in someone made it that doesn't need the best. They just need something in the middle that that'll get the job done, or they may need the very best, but you can't find out unless you have a conversation
Roy Richardson (host) (11:14):
And that's true. That's true. And that's, that's all part of the education process as well, right? Because you're, you're helping to educate that customer along the path and saying, Hey, you know what, I know you, you're saying you want this, but you know, do you know that this will also do the job for you? And, and, and, and then there's an appreciation that gets built into that or baked into that. Right? So
Scott Beckett (Guest) (11:32):
Some, some do, and some just are just there to get it's a transactional thing. They just want to get a price and either buy it or not. And they, those don't make it through that. We kindly refer them to someone else that's ready to serve them that way. Right.
Christina Beckett (Guest) (11:47):
Right. And then the biggest thing that we, our biggest, one of our biggest takeaways was, you know, understanding that we can't help everybody, you know there are some customers that we're meant to work with and some that, you know, it's not the best fit. So those are the ones we try to refer off to some you know, somebody, one of our somebody who's more suitable to work with that customer, you know, to make them get them what they need. And it is a win-win for them.
Scott Beckett (Guest) (12:14):
Yeah. It's not a matter of, they're not worthy for us, our attention. It's a matter of that. We know that we were not going to be best serving them. It's not about us. It's about us making sure they get taken care of. And if it's not us, that's making the sell. It's still a win-win.
Roy Richardson (host) (12:28):
And that's, that's, that's, that's amazing right there. I mean, to be honest with you, I'm sitting in, I'm putting myself in a customer's position now I'm calling you we're not a good fit, but you're not just kind of leaving me, you know, hanging out there in the middle of the ocean, sort of threading for water. You're saying, no hair, come, let me, let me get you to this life raft over here who may be able to help you. And then that life raft who was, who was probably, you know, let's call, let's call it a vendor partner. And the future is going to be able to pay that back and pay it forward to you because they may actually come to have someone who, you know, it's not suitable for them. So, wow. That's, that's, that's good.
Scott Beckett (Guest) (13:05):
Exactly correct. Yeah, it happens. It's a neat concept. It's you can get lazy and stop asking all the questions is it's, you know, just let me just, I don't feel like going through that or they're getting irritated. Let me just go and give them a price. No one wins. That's not what we're about. And the team here we have I think currently nine people in sales solely for in the sales department. And it's a constant refresher course, every, and you know, we have a weekly meeting and that's another thing that our we're, our culture really changed for the better our meetings are not drudgery. People do not go, Oh God, another Friday meeting. They're coming in here energized. And they leave energized because we come in and we have an agenda. We wouldn't go over what it is. We let them voice their concerns. And if there's one thing you can ever do to make your team feel like they're valued is listen to what they have to say. And as much as you can implement, you implement that. And it makes them feel like, wait a minute, I am part of something. Yeah,
Roy Richardson (host) (14:03):
Of course, of course. There's, there's a lot, there's a buy-in to that process there. And knowing of course that their, their word, first of all, they have a contributing factor. They're being listened to they're being heard. And, and their ideas are, or, or are being acknowledged and integrated. So, yeah. Wow. That's so
Scott Beckett (Guest) (14:23):
The meetings are not supposed to be something where you come in every week and talk about the same problem and leave with no solution. But that's what we, that's the normal meeting that most people are used to. We do rate our meetings at the end with, Hey, this was a, I believe this was a nine and you'll have someone say eight and a half. And so we'll say 10, no one. I don't ever hear sevens. It's always, and it's not to just surprise me. It's just a matter of people leaves here. And you can tell they weren't because we did, we used to have meetings where you'd sit here and try not to go to sleep. It was that bad.
Roy Richardson (host) (14:53):
I think we've all been through those in our lifetime. So absolutely.
Christina Beckett (Guest) (14:57):
And trying to come up with resolve and even if, even if the resolution is not an immediate, long-term resolve, at least we're trying different things, you know, and, and they know that, and they know that their ideas and what they think you know is valued by it.
Roy Richardson (host) (15:11):
Nice, nice, nice. So how did you, you know, you, you, you started this whole concept and you dabbled in little things and then you follow your niche in terms of what really works for you. Change the name of the company started expanding, growing the website is working for you. So how did you bring your products and services through marketing in the beginning? And really, how has that changed? You know, over time as, as you have scaled and evolved,
Scott Beckett (Guest) (15:34):
Having constant vendor relations, and you're going to have, there's going to be challenges no matter how good things were running. And usually when things are going really, really good is when you know, something's fixing to happen, right?
Christina Beckett (Guest) (15:45):
You better start getting prepared because it's coming,
Scott Beckett (Guest) (15:47):
It's done and that's not looking for doom and gloom. That's just the reality of it. And when it happens, sometimes it can be overwhelming. We're, we're going through some transitions right now, left unchecked, though. It goes back to that. Nobody wins. If you get complacent, I think with the current situation, the world situation, now there's a lot of excuses given, and people are getting to the point where they're just kind of coasting along. And some of them aren't even making excuses anymore. They're just not trying they're in their comfort zone. Yeah. And they may only have somewhat of an excuse for not performing. We decided a few meetings ago that we said, look, we're not going to lower the bar for them. We're going to raise our bar even higher. And with that comes some damage you're going to lose. You're going to lose some availability to a product. You're gonna have some relationships tarnished, but if it's back to the culture thing if you don't address it and you ignore it, it's not going to be pretty when it finally rears its head up. So it's uncomfortable up front, but then the rest of it starts to feel better. Does that, does that make sense?
Roy Richardson (host) (16:44):
Yeah, no, no, definitely, definitely. You know, it, it, it takes me back to a, and w we've shared some stories that we, you know, with regards to, to my previous company and you know, always raising that bar and we always raise the bar. You know, it kind of reminds me of the old Road Runner and Wile E Coyote show, you know Road Runner was always Wile E Coyote is always trying to catch Road Runner, but he was always raising the bar on him. So when he was starting to spot where a Road Runner was, he was already gone. So we took the same concept in our, in our previous company, you know, with the competitors, the competitors were always looking to catch up to where we were. One, they were focused on where we were, we were already focused on where we want it to be. And, and, and so, you know, by continuously making those small adjustments you know, we, we continue to all pace them.
Scott Beckett (Guest) (17:34):
One of the other things that popped into my head right now, that really is part of the, in having that core value list and sticking with it. And I remember one of my sayings is you, you never negotiate with a non-negotiable. I said, all the time, you can't because then it's not a non-negotiable right. And sticking to your core values. And if it means losing orders or losing vendors or whatever it takes, if you stay with it, eventually you'll find out it's worth it. That under-promise over-deliver. I don't know why, why in the rural people want to tell you something that they know absolutely. There's no way it's going to happen. Why do you want to set yourself up for failure, but they do. And it makes sense. Why do you want to tell the customer the truth, even if it's not what they want to hear, or they'd soon hear it there, then have to find out afterward that you'd lied to,
Roy Richardson (host) (18:22):
That that is sold through. And, you know, you know, there, there, there are a couple of takeaways there that, that I relate to. And you said something earlier about, you know when the going is good as usual when something is going to happen. And it immediately took me back to my, to my former business partner, he had a saying, and his favorite saying is that only paranoiac survives. You know, you, you, you've gotta be on top of your game and constantly looking and measuring and looking over your back, no matter how good the horizon is in front of you, because, you know, something's about to happen. And if you're, if you're well prepared for it, you know how to adjust them and handle it. Right. and then your core values, of course, you know, as, like you, you keep on referring back to that, which is an integral part there. And sort of gives me the idea in terms of, I asked you in the beginning, you know, how are you doing this? Where you're able to bring these, you know, these Sprockets and gears in and have them fit into the organization. But really what I'm gathering is, you know, the important part here is making sure that whatever these newcomers are, whatever the new ingredients to the soup are, right. It needs to match up with and adjust and adapt itself, to your core values.
Scott Beckett (Guest) (19:33):
What's really neat when we got all this in place, not only is it is the culture self-policing in for the most part. And when I say that, I mean, it, that's why I'm saying it's running so smoothly now because everybody kind of knows what they need to do. So there's that when, before, when, and it was me because I worked more with the sales team, I did not ever have a set and what I expected from them, that expectation, I, I thought I had given it, but sometimes you have to repeat stuff four, five, six, seven times. And it's like the core, you know? Right. And I did not set that example or expectations. So whenever someone would violate that, who is to blame, it's not them. And also knowing when there was a mistake made, what was the intent? And that changed my life in general, just all over you in personalized to what, what was the intent when that mistake was made?
Scott Beckett (Guest) (20:25):
And if you, if you see that you have someone on your team, that if it came down to whether, if they were coming to you for a job, would you hire them, or if they told you they were giving their notice, would you try to hold them back in the company? And if you're saying that you wouldn't and you wouldn't hire them again at the, isn't it, you need to let them go. We're an anchor in Roy. The reason I know it is because you know the story and I'm not going to go into detail. But all I know is I held onto a couple of people for two years. And I hear this in some of the other training we do where people, why can't let them go. They've been with the company 10 years, the company outgrew, it's not their fault. And it's not our fault that you've got them in a place where they're not comfortable anymore.
Scott Beckett (Guest) (21:06):
They're not having a good time. So their performance is going to show it in. And at the end of the day, when, when I typed to a couple of the people and they left the company after it was all over, I really felt bad that I cheated them out of a couple of years of their life. And, you know, nevermind our company. I actually cheated them too. So we know, the way things work here if someone's not fitting or keeping up, they self prune, we don't, we don't really have to come down to, you know, if this head continues, you're going to be fired. They pretty much know, Hey, this isn't
Roy Richardson (host) (21:37):
I'm meeting the bar and, and you know, I'm going, I'm going out for the new England Patriots, but I'm not able to keep up with their speed and, and, and their rigor that they, that they implement with regards to a, to a training program.
Scott Beckett (Guest) (21:50):
Nordstrom's had that a little bit that I studied them. There would be people that were really, really good at what they did, but they couldn't keep up with that culture. And they would resign from the company. They wouldn't get fired, they would resign. And then they would say, you know what? That was the great greatest place in the world of work. It just wasn't for me.
Roy Richardson (host) (22:06):
Well, you know, I, I think we've all been, and I know that I've, I've done it many times in the past. And, and, you know, God knows like, like you, as a, as a husband and wife team, you know, I, I, I have my, my better part as my, as my boss. And, and, you know, she's pointed out several times in the past where I, you know, held on to people because we go into this mode where we think we can save them and, you know, we're going to bring them around and we're going to coach them up, et cetera. And like you said, when, when the, when the post-mortem is done and you start looking back and start quantifying your time to cost and opportunity lost, et cetera.
Scott Beckett (Guest) (22:40):
Yes. It's, it's, it's it's staggering. When you do, when you go back and do that math of what it really costs you to try to save them. Rusty said earlier, you, we can't win, in their customer base. We can't help everybody, and so you have to, you have to make some decisions is every decision we made, correct? No, but the ones that were wrong, we learned from it. And then we applied for the, it's just a continual growth and there are mistakes are okay.
Roy Richardson (host) (23:06):
I, I always say, you know, if, if we learn from the mistake and we move on, it's good. If we're improving the mistake in this bad, fortunately, a lot of people have proved that mistake. That's their learning part, you know? And, and, and, and you, you kind of, I use that a bit as my litmus test, you know? Okay. Let's see if you learn and let's move on. Do you want to do the mistake a second time? Okay. There's a second learning experience there the third time over. No, that's, that's not, that's not, that's not learning from it. That's improving the mistake.
Scott Beckett (Guest) (23:33):
You know, if you're, if you're busy trying to bring the people that are the late adopters are the ones that aren't quite getting it quick enough, and you're spinning, you know, 80% of your effort there and ignoring your winners. That's a, yeah. You need to make sure your winners spending the time with them because they're wanting to grow. They're there, they get it. The ones that aren't, you don't ignore that you don't want to spend all your time trying to bring them up because it's the, maybe that's the wrong position for them. So they're good. They may be a great person, but they're not right for this company at this time. That doesn't mean they're a bad person that shouldn't get a job. Heck no. I mean, just not for this job.
Roy Richardson (host) (24:10):
No. And that's true. And, and I've, you know, we've seen that as well and, and, and been guilty myself of it is, is, you know, trying to then see, you know, the person's not the right fit for that particular job. Can we move them to another seat, but at the end of the day, if they don't meet, or, you know, when you talk about, you both mentioned your core values, if they're not meeting those core values, it doesn't really matter what CQ put them in, because they're not going to really conform and be an integral part of your, your DNA and your culture moving forward.
Scott Beckett (Guest) (24:39):
And you're not ever going to feel.
Christina Beckett (Guest) (24:41):
Yeah. And they're going to, they're going to be a Burr in your side basically, and they're gonna know that, and you're going to know that, and it's not going to be a good situation. You know,
Roy Richardson (host) (24:51):
You are able to see and observe over the last year and a half. And, and, and, and I tell you you guys are doing an amazing job. You know, you've been able to retain staff. As you said, you had some Sprockets that, you know, didn't really maybe fit into place, but you, you were able to, they were able to self prune. But for the most part, the people that I met almost two years ago at the same people, for the most part, who are there and continuing to grow within the organization as the organization is scaling and growing.
Scott Beckett (Guest) (25:17):
Yes. And if there were a lot of young talent here and in this particular industry that young talent is the future. Like, and if you're not putting something in them, what's the one where they say, if you train them and they leave, you wasted all that. And he said, yeah, but one, if they stay in you though. And so we're going ahead and doing the training, and we know once a quarter, there could be someone that could, you know, I go back to that something, your team is never going to stay perfect, intact. You're going to have changed. That's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. It doesn't mean we're doing anything wrong. And most of the people that say, Hey, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna take the employment somewhere else. We're behind them. We're, Hey, I'll call your new employer and tell them, you know, Hey, this is this a real negative made a good choice. Oh yeah. Oh yeah, absolutely. We haven't in the last few years we haven't had anybody that really left here that we were sad to see them go, but it was time for them to go to the next level. And I don't mind, I don't want to hold anybody back. That's selfish.
Christina Beckett (Guest) (26:14):
And that's also with that. That's why we try to do cross-training as well. So yes. You know, maybe your position is sales, but I want you to know how to, you know, get shipping, you know, figure out if you need to do like a freight quote or maybe it's the shipping department, you know, maybe the two ladies in there are out that day. Then we need to have somebody else to be able to step in and pick it up and, you know, do what they can do to keep everything moving.
Roy Richardson (host) (26:41):
That's amazing. And you don't want the of itself. First of all, it builds esprit de corps, and comradery and all that, you know, teamwork, et cetera. But I, and I've used that myself and, and, and pass scenarios where, you know, you have in particular in scenarios where everybody was, was siloed, right? Operations are one side of house finances, the other, et cetera. But, well, there need to be approvals from one to the other. And so bringing people into that cross-training and letting them come in and see for a day or a week or whatever, you know, Hey, this is, this is your colleagues work. Not only so that in case you need to step in there, but so that when they send you a request that you understand, you know how your let's say lack of timely response may actually affect their ability to do their job. And, and that's, that's amazing. I applaud you for doing that. That's great. It makes a big difference for them to understand, you know, part of the why, why
Scott Beckett (Guest) (27:35):
A good way. A good example is a company that was making some pumps using PVC pipe and the guy they ship boss, a new guy comes in. He says we need you to cut this at a 45-degree angle. And it goes down to the next line. And they found out that the guy down the line was getting a lot of bad components. The night shift guy would take the guy, the new hire in and say, look, I need you to cut. These are the 45 come down here. And let me show you why they have to be at a 45 degree as close as possible. And you show them the why, if you're, if it's 47 degrees, it's not going to fit in a scrub that few minutes of training to show them why that all of a sudden, the guy knows he needs to cut that and why he's cutting it like that. It's simple. It's not this isn't rocket science, but so many people ignore it. They just want to hand the person, here's your phone, go get on the phone and start selling. Well, that's a disaster. That's not what we were about. And I remember when we first started doing this, we, we did that. We would say, Hey, you're here the second day on the job. Here's your phone?
Roy Richardson (host) (28:37):
Well, we haven't improved the mistakes. You'll learn from them. And you're, you've been able to perfect the process. And what I, what I've gathered from you is as your organization is very process-oriented. You, you, you, you're measuring, you're analyzing. And, and you're, you're refining as you move along, which means that you're, you're constantly taking the, I would say you have a finger on the pulse of the quality of, of service and the quality assurance of your organization.
Scott Beckett (Guest) (29:09):
It changed things, rehearse, review, revise. It's, it's, we've made so many changes in the last two or three years. I make the joke of, if you took me right now and put me at a sales desk I would fail. Cause, cause I don't know all of the new rules and we watched the last new hire came in, come in. And he, we told him the next two months, we don't expect your numbers to be good. We want you to learn how we do business and the why. And he's excelling. He's doing so good. We're before me, they didn't come in. And after a couple of days, they were on their own and that's you can't succeed like that. They don't know. They don't know you, they don't know what to expect or nor what the customer.
Roy Richardson (host) (29:46):
Yeah, yeah, no, no. That's, that's, that's, that's amazing. That's amazing. That is really amazing. So, Christina, you are the CEO of the company, you know, what sets your company apart from others in the market who were offering, you know, some types of products?
Christina Beckett (Guest) (30:02):
I think it's, it's the relationship, the relationship that we have with our customers and, you know, doing what we can to continue to grow and maintain that relationship.
Roy Richardson (host) (30:13):
Awesome. And, and you know, what, you're, you're family-owned business and, you know, your, your, your husband and wife and their other family members that are also involved there. What, what are some of the big challenges that, that you have run up against with regards to, you know, first of all, you know, being able to, and I got it, you have it under control because you've been able to scale and grow and come up with a successful formula, but there must've been some, some, you know, make making certain pieces of the puzzle fit together. What, what, what's a success there? The secret I should say,
Christina Beckett (Guest) (30:44):
Well, I would say leaving your work at work is like a big thing, because at first, no, we worked out of our house. You know, work was always there. If you wake up at, you know, two in the morning and you can't go back to sleep while I might as well, you know, get on the computer and start working, that's not really conducive to, you know, a good, healthy relationship and the same with, you know, bringing your work home. I mean, the work was always there, but if you can separate that, you know, and not have the nightly, you know, back and forth of what's going on, what the problems are at work and you know, how do we fix that? Because then you're not really getting any downtime. You're always working, you know, and you feel that,
Scott Beckett (Guest) (31:27):
And you're not, when you come in the next day, cause you already, you never took a break. If you're at work, you need to focus on work. And if you're playing, you need to focus on the plate. And it's hard to do. I mean, especially when there are things going on and even with this recipe, we talking about, guess what? There's still two o'clock that we're awake, we're having a discussion, but they're not the same kind of discussion where it's banging heads, where we're are. And I have really figured out how to what each other's strengths and weaknesses are. And they accomplished absolutely that she compliments me more so than I do her she's really, really gotten better.
Christina Beckett (Guest) (32:00):
Well, I think we both have, you know, it's really through trial and error, you know, and figuring out what doesn't work. And we figured out a lot of things that don't work
Roy Richardson (host) (32:08):
And truth be known. There's no book out thereof, you know, this is a success formula or that you follow this to the T I mean, well, let me back up, there are a million books out there that will offer all sorts of success formulas, but they work for the particular person. Who's, who's doing the course. But you know, every business person that I know of every C-level person, etc, who I've ever spoken to has always said, Hey, you know, we have a hit our heads along the way we had to learn. We had to make mistakes. We tend to learn from those mistakes not improve them, but stick to our course and our goals and move forward
Scott Beckett (Guest) (32:46):
And be moldable don't whenever someone says to me, that's the way we've always done it. I'm going to go, well, you're doing it the old way where things are constantly changing. And like how many times Roy, we had a conversation either face-to-face or on the phone. And all of a sudden, one of us will say, well, there's the nugget, there's the golden nugget for that conversation. Yeah. I've written many books. And I even put a note in it you know, on page 67, there's my nugget out of the 150-page book. I'm not only getting one aha out of it, but you start combining a bunch of those ahas and start applying them. That's the other thing you have to apply what you learn in all of a sudden that's, that's the momentum and it's a Connor calls it, the compound effect. He's the third part of our success. He's the young innovator that that's, you know, he's, he has some ideas that we would have never thought of. So having that young talent is absolutely necessary it's because no matter how good we think we are, this younger generation has some great ideas.
Roy Richardson (host) (33:45):
Not really, not, not any great ideas. They think completely it's almost perpendicular to what we would probably do. Right. But yeah,
Scott Beckett (Guest) (33:53):
It's a combination of that. And if you're, if you're so strong-willed that it's going to be this way or no way you're missing the boat when people, but people do it, they don't even realize they're doing it. I've I pride myself in being open-minded and my father would not agree with everything I said or did, but he would listen. And then again, during that time he may even go, you know, I never thought of it that way. And when I'm, when I'm coaching or teaching, I love it when someone does that. Aha moment. That's when I know I finally got through because I know I do them all the time. I'll, I'll be talking to someone and I'll go, ah, that's the greatest feeling in the world. You just you've just taken yourself up a level. Yeah,
Roy Richardson (host) (34:31):
That's true. That is true. That is true. Well about, you know, this, this is, this is yeah, I, I wish you both, nothing but the utmost success and it's, it's really so nice to, you know, hear your story and I'm glad we got an opportunity to do this. I do have two final questions for you. And, and so let me, let me pull them out here. You know, if you, if you could put together a dream board, you know, anybody out there living or dead, anyone out there, if you could pick three people to be on this dream board that would be, you know, bring business advice to you, et cetera. You know, who, who would, who would those, what would that board look like for you?
Scott Beckett (Guest) (35:11):
My, my first one would be someone that I would love to sit down with and have that communication with would be a sort of Richard Branson and Steven K. Scott. he, that he was a genius or is still genius and marketing. And those are the two that I would say right off the bat, who is a couple of your people that you would like to be with if it's men or to have mentored us. Okay.
Roy Richardson (host) (35:34):
I don't know. I'm drawing a blank right now. I'm thinking of the name. I'm trying to come up with a name
Scott Beckett (Guest) (35:41):
PT. She's talking about Dale Carnegie an innovator also. We can't forget the people that, that family and friends that have offered that there's a, there's a gentleman that started off in a carport doing automotive batteries. And now he's, he's huge. He's still humble though. He still gets six. I mean, money's not a challenge for him, but he can still get excited about a new toy that he gets. That's awesome. And no matter how successful you are, if you get where it's something, you know, the little things, the little things where the, where the magic is, if you get, we're seeing someone get a new bicycle is just, I got a new bicycle and man, it's be excited for people be excited. And in one last thing, I just thought of that's really cool. You have to when someone says, what is it you want from this?
Scott Beckett (Guest) (36:27):
What is it? What is it you want? And they start naming all the things they don't have. I asked him, don't you want to keep the things you do have. And that's that attitude of gratitude. And I believe that's, what's taken our success to the level. It is because we haven't forgotten how we got here and the people that have helped us. And I hope that never changes. I'll do my best to make sure that that 10 years from now we can have another meeting. And you're going to say you're still right there with that core set of core values.
Roy Richardson (host) (36:52):
So if I, if I were, if I could sum this up here, with three important nuggets and feel free to chime in with more, I would say it's important to define your core values. The important thing is to continuously analyze all your processes and make adjustments as you move along and, and have an attitude of gratitude. As, as, as I would say, three, three nuggets that, that you could leave with, you know, business owners here in central Florida and anywhere else in the world who may be looking at you and, and wanting to replicate your, your model. Anything else you'd like to add?
Scott Beckett (Guest) (37:28):
Yeah, one thing I would just say that, that most people, not all really like to be told they're doing a good job and really told that they're appreciated. And that goes for vendors and customers. And some people have a hard time Oh yeah. On a daily basis. And we do, we do, we celebrate the little victory still the little, Hey, I just got a $2,000 order where that's not a big thing anymore. It used to be a huge thing on the data boys and all that. But that's what I would say is learn if you're not good at it, learn to be able to tell people how much you appreciate them.
Roy Richardson (host) (37:59):
Awesome. Awesome. Well, you know, I thank you both for taking time today to really share your story with, with our viewers out there and our listeners, you know, there's so much to take away from, from YouTube and, and you know, not, not your, you're not outside of central Florida. You're right here in Winter Garden. You know, what a success story starting in a bedroom you know, going through different iterations of what you wanted to do, finding your niche, perfecting that, bringing on staff, you know, continuously analyzing your process and you're continuing to scale and grow. And I, and I have witnessed over the last year and a half of our engagement. So keep doing what you're doing and I wish you much, much, much success. And by all means, you know, we, we would love to have you back here in a few months a week and do a follow-up segment, but thank you both.
Scott Beckett (Guest) (38:51):
We really appreciate you bringing us on and having this interview. And I hope some of them get benefits from it. That's, that's, that's the joy that's at one, like they say, if one person gets a takeaway, this time was very successful.
Roy Richardson (host) (39:02):
Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you both. You have a wonderful, wonderful day and we'll be in touch soon and folks, be sure to tune into our next segment. W like I said, you know, we're bringing the best of the best leaders here in central Florida. We're bringing them forward to share their story. And if you would like to share your story with us, please click on the link below, sign up, and our team will get back to you and, and see if we're a good fit to move forward with each other, take care, stay safe, and keep crushing it.