Eric Gilbert, thank you for coming in today. Eric of ANOVA furnishings. Tell me what ANOVA furnishings is. Yeah man, it's my pleasure. Let me start by just saying thanks so much for having me in. It's an absolute pleasure to be here. I've been so impressed with Bryzos and the work you've done, everything you've grown here. So ANOVA furnishings, we are an American manufacturer of commercial grade site furnishings, benches, tables, trash cans, planters. It's a really like curious, opaque, small category with a surprising number of competitors. And man, I've been hammering away at it. Well, kind of my whole life, because I'm second gen, second gen business owner. And so, yeah, I've seen a fair amount now, I think I've been at it for a couple decades. On site furnishings is a great phrase for that. So are we talking about if I'm walking through a park and I see the bench, or like where might I encounter your products? - Yeah, so you'll find them in municipalities, schools, universities, commercial retail, commercial residential property. Those are kind of our primary categories. The way I like to think about this category is it's everything it takes to activate the space. So if you want humans to actually interact with an outdoor space, you have to put these kinds of objects in it, right? Otherwise, we're just walking through it. So you drop a bench, any pull up bars, or any that stuff. Yeah, there's always a story. There's a story there. Because that's always been this fringe like, Oh, why don't you get into fitness? Like you can always do this. And when you stop and look at it, like our industry isn't big. And that's even smaller, like it's tiny. And it takes a ton of work to sell it right so you have to find a park director and tell them all your stuff's great and see if they have a need and on and on and on and then when you're done you might get to sell them like $10 ,000 worth of like yeah you kind of have to take them from point like of we weren't even thinking about this to okay here's an idea your citizens we've driven all driven around they're a little heavy and you guys need some workout gear available in the park next to the bench you're trying to get people people sit out and we're trying to get a new pull -ups. - It's an incredibly difficult sale. - I imagine. - Yeah, painfully expensive. - So okay, so anything that you said activates the space, is that what you said? Okay, and these are metals that you're using. These are, you guys are into plastics, whatever the project calls for. - Yeah, so our materials are really steel. It's sheet and pipe steel, powder coated. I like to say, let me get this right, we, like, punch it, cut it, bend it, weld it, code it, box it, and out the door. Okay. That's our, those are our steps. Easy to say. Yeah. Those are steps that are easy to say. Yeah. Yeah, right. And then the doing is a whole another animal, for sure. If it's anything like a distribution or anything like anything else, it, you're still encountering, after all these years, the different ways that an order might go awry. The powder coat was, you know, somebody gave them the wrong hex color for the bench or something like that or any number of things. - Yeah, I mean, you're starting to scratch on the surface of a piece of our organization that's been like deep with us for a long time. So we refer to the lean manufacturing space, I'll call them escapes, like customer issues, things that get out to the customer because you have quality issues all day long every day. Somebody's like stumbling, there's kinks inside, you think about the and online on, and like Japanese car manufacturing, or probably car manufacturing in general. We have a system that doesn't lend itself to pulling a bar and saying, Hey, this is, we have a quality issue, and there's a red light. Anyway, when quality issues get out the door and hit a customer, they're typically called escapes, we call them MARs, or MARs, which is just an acronym my father made up years ago. So we've tracked quality issues, getting to customers for decades on end, and we're down to a, I think, a strikingly low number. And it's just an exciting piece of the business where we're always trying to tighten those screws and make manufacturing better and smoother and faster and easier. - It's like all things, it's things. It's a balance. You take like an inventory system or an ERP system, which if you make it really flexible, the sales team loves it. And the operations team hates it because they're overriding part numbers and making all these changes, where if you make something that's really designed to ops, then sales guys are spending all day just like putting in these super rigid sales orders and work orders. And And it's same thing my experience with doing these quality controls is it has also, you're like, okay, if we didn't do any of this quality control, we'd have a 5 % problem. You know, that's how what we found is that what if we just let it go and just assume that it's been built correct? Does that take less time to manage that 5 % than to review the 100 % that's about to go out the door. Yeah, that gets a guy we don't do that. Well, no, no, it just gets into a lot of really interesting stuff around like because we have we have swung a pendulum recently, I would say that was like very heavy sales focused from maybe always being focused on more to trying to be focused on a little bit less and like where is your business really coming from and what's driving it and and that's a transition that I would say has favored our operations team and I think I you know I would say I personally lost track of the operations group and for many years saying like hey if the customer needs it customers always right man if they say jump we say how high and like just put the team to work on it and it was interesting just now it's always easy to look back and see what was happening at the time but man I mean I think we really put some hurt on our operations group by asking them to do everything our customers might need. It's really hard because there's only so much time and resources and you're like well which one do you want us to do this or that right now and you're like both you know get them all done And it creates burnout for ops teams. It's been my experience, which is if you can't hit a rhythm and they're always jumping around, you're becoming sort of a retroactive custom shop versus trying to batch things or manufacture things with a rhythm and having to kind of-- and I always thought about was right now I was like, I don't ever want to be looking in that rear view mirror. You know, I was going to be looking at the next order versus the one I just had shipped out the door. Very expensive to deal with the one that went out the door. Yeah. But you know, the rhythm that you refer to, I think is one of the most beautiful things in business and it doesn't happen all the time. But like when you have a team that knows what it's doing has confidence in each other and confidence in the broader envelope that they're working in and the work is coming through in a stable way. Man, I mean, it's amazing. I think in some ways like that's the reward, the lagging indicator there is the financial returns. But it's like it's a matter of like if you can hit that pace and that rhythm. And it's really like, I think there's a lot of voodoo. I mean, you know, there's tons of books and lots of engineers like to hold forth on it, but there's a lot of like feel and qualitative pieces of that too that get us there, my belief. I think it's, you know, I usually drag things back to music, which is you got to go play on the road for a while before anyone knows who you are. You know, you got to, and you're not reading a ton of books on how to get good at that. you just are going out and you're like, "That show sucked," and you know, "I was way too drunk for that show. I don't know if you can't do that anymore," or something like that. And your act just gets better over time. And there's always, you know, knowledge is power, so the more you're studying and learning about other people, clearly the better, which we do in music. You're like watching how that guy plays soul is right? I might bring some of that into mind. But I think that to your point, there's just an evolution that has to occur with it with a team. And the great part is the people that you hired and they worked out perfectly and the less glamorous side is people hired and didn't work out. And to what extent, and I always came back to this, the process or the people, right? And so there's sort of that that rub. I think there's an interface there. Yeah, I think that sparks when you say the process of the people and the key of the people. I'll put leadership in that people category, right? Oh, yeah, certainly. But I would also-- one of the things I think I've struggled with is I had a friend whose business acumen I've always thought really highly you know, we were just talking shop a little bit, we don't talk shop a lot. And she just asked me one time, she's like, "So are you a good people picker?" And I was like, "Holy shit, I'm not." - Really? - Yeah, I'm like, I'm not good at hiring. Like, it's just, I'm afraid to make a mistake. I don't like the reps, I don't like the impact it has. Like, I don't, it's hard to have enough reps, repetitions that like hiring to get good at it. And like, that's, in my experience, I feel like I've been elevated in my business Pretty rapidly through my career. So like when I make a call on somebody they have an influence It's pretty dramatic on the organization. And so if I make a bad call, it's substantial and so I have a lot of trouble with that honestly that being said like I have I think you're probably you're in good company Yeah, sure. It's a hard thing. Yeah, but I have a couple people on my team who are outstanding, right? And so it's like if I need a good hire, I make sure they're on the Listen to them like it's a it's a matter of like you know and not everybody I don't need to have like everybody being great at that right if we got a couple people with that quality fantastic We all like know it and acknowledge it and make sure like they're in the mix Doesn't mean I don't like have anything to do with my own hiring decisions But it's just like right who do I pay attention and how do I watch them work and what do I think about they're doing? It's great. It's fun. It's not just just going to the bullpen. Yeah, you know and be like I need you your help here to get through this piece So what we were talking about before we started I say I was thinking about this last night knowing you're coming in today Which is I think you and I both think about I think to be effective You have to answer Questions about business in different ways. I mean you can't just think like, okay, heads down business. I think there is the softer side of understanding business that then goes down or manifests as to into action, which is the simple question of what is a business? Yeah. The simple question. Right. The simple question of what is a business? Like, I think we're going to rapidly get into some metaphysical stuff here. Well, that's the point, which is I think that for people to do their business well in, I mean, not everybody, but when you're sitting there as an owner and you're sort of exploring all of this thought that you have, we have to create these anchor points in our thinking, right? That say, okay, I knew in a clear moment, I believe this, I still believe this. But so you have to have kind of these philosophies that come down and they shape every bit of what you do. So what is a business? All right, well, I am not a philosophical student of us. I'm sure there are like pages and pages of academic material on this that I haven't read. But if I just try to kind of break this out from the ground up, you know, a business has customers, It has people getting something done, an employee or people working within it, you know, a service or good that that customer wants, and it has some kind of capital being delivered to it, right, usually in the form of ownership. And so, you know, what is a business, it's something that's taking materials or taking people and delivering a good or service to the marketplace. But I think the more interesting like piece of this for me is like, you know, how we live in a capitalist framework. That's a society I was born into, but incredibly fortunate personally. And like that framework allowed my family to build from from a business from nothing and like provide more than we needed. And so I think like in a capitalist framework, like a business is like the critical piece that holds it all together. And like a well run business that is taking care of its customers and taking care of its team and taking care of its owners, which is really hard to do. I think it's really hard to like balance all three of those. Say those three again. It's great It's great for the employees, great for the customers, and great for ownership. And balancing all three of those at the same time, I think, like I was saying, I think it's really, really difficult to do. I think we glorify a lot of different aspects of it, just in the media, and it's hard to clean that up and get a clear picture of how do we get all three of those working effectively? And And I think that in a lot of ways the customer is separate from the owner -labor, I'm just call it labor, like the owner -labor relationship. The customer is separate from that. And that's the marketplace. And I always think like the marketplace is a cruel master. That's a phrase that lives in my mind, like the marketplace doesn't give a shit about ownership and customer and employees. It doesn't care about their health care. It doesn't care about all the things that none of it you know impact those employees likes to talk about it and cry about them for sure right but like at the end of the day people buy what they buy when they need it for a price that they want to pay for it and they don't care who's behind it they don't care what chicken lay the eggs no it's well said I need fucking eggs how much is it how much does yeah so can you have a business so you've got an play between an owner labor market. You have these three things. Yeah. What is the sensitivity of that? Like in a business, in your estimation, perhaps you haven't thought about this and you're thinking out loud. I love it. Yeah. But how long can a business, how out of balance can those be? Because you can never get them in harmony completely. Like usually. Well, wait, I mean that's I'm going for that, right? I mean like I'm is that an is that an ideal? Yeah, absolutely I think it's like I think we drive for getting those in harmony and keeping them in harmony for Generations right I mean to think about again. I haven't studied this but I like to imagine right so their hotels in Japan that have been owned for like 900 years 800 years same family right like Was it harmonious for for like all those centuries, absolutely not. But like the majority of the time, there has to be something there, like driving it and keeping it together that's keeping those things in balance. So like my belief is that this may be an unattainable like goal at the top of a mountain, but like it's worth always trying and putting in the energy to get close. So like that's what I'm shooting for. - So let me go up a rung then. So I would say if we went up a rung is a business, a group of people that can create a revenue in excess of cost. That's a really good question. Like, are we defining business by the gender, like that it necessarily has to generate profit? Not necessarily. Well, I mean cost, cost less than cost less than revenue. And if the-- I would say if the objective of the business is an operating business versus a business that is trying to just create enterprise value and then be acquired, per se. Like, there's something disruptive occurring or whatever. But if you have a business that, in the case of ANOVA-- I don't put words in your mouth, but-- No, you're good. But I think the objective in general is a group of people, a company, right, that is able to, together, make the market happy. And the feedback of that is that you have a little charge more than it costs to create it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a lot of interesting stuff there that I'm taking for granted, I'm glad you're like separating it out. So, so talking about an operating business where you're generating profit on an ongoing basis versus maybe a disruptive organization where you're not so much worried about profit, but you're worried about changing the landscape to get to a different level of a different profitable state, I would expect or assume, you know, I live and die in that operating space, for sure. And so, and it's interesting, like I've taken it for, I've kind of lived in that water for so long that like, I think about the other value creation space that really brides us is living in. And it's like, I appreciate that at this point in my career, I probably couldn't shift into that. I could study it, I can advise, I can help, I can think. But like to operate in a space like that would be exceptionally difficult for me. It's a more of a right like it's yeah I coming out of distribution I lived like I was always thinking what's the GP on this deal what's the GP on this deal always looking at just high -level revenue cogs where are we yeah and you know in more of a okay we're trying to install a new way of things being done that it has a magnetism or gravity to it that people are like, I gotta have that, right? So it's ultimately the same effect, but one is at a transactional operational level. And one is that sort of the objective are slightly different, but perhaps maybe the object, the high, like trying to try to get the highest level of, is it just a group of people that have the right kind of chemistry that can get that desired effect get that desired feedback day in day out Well, I think for for me as an owner what comes to mind when you're saying this is like But I'm not saying this is the purpose of this purpose of my business like I'm trying to keep a set of families alive and thriving for as long as possible and That in profit generation in I think is what we need in if capitalism is what you're playing in and I'm thrilled to be playing in it. Yes, like you got to generate that profit that healthy profit over and over again, to keep that set of families alive and growing and thriving. Now, that's not to say that a disruptive force like brizos that's not necessarily focused on generating profit in the in the short term, can't do that thing. You're right. Very well may be able to keep a set of families alive and thriving for generations. I just well, there ultimately does have to be a shift. Absolutely. Got to be a path to profitability or else. I mean, I was thinking about it the other way, like there has to be a shift within the operating company that it like takes on and absorbs new tech, new disruptive technologies. Yes. Yeah. I mean, these things have to work together. That's like, again, more complicated still. But Yeah, I mean for me, I think the like what is a business in our space? It's You know as It depends on what ownership wants I mean like ownership can turn a business into a lot of things for me as an owner Like I want a business to be a mechanism to keep Like I said a set of families alive and thriving for many years Yeah, and so that's the exciting part about when I go the high level is like to having facilitated a way for people to lead a life that want to be they're proud to be living or at minimum and worse in hard times markets are soft you know you have a team that can still stay stay together and get through that time together because it's it's a high level thing now the question becomes let's say in the context of a novice how do you take these ideas ideas and push them down into making okay if you're an operating business how do we make sure that we have the revenues and the cogs and GPs and how do we make sure it's not in a frustrating way because there are different ways to do that one can be very autocratic this is how we do this and I don't really give a shit how how you feel about it. It's kind of like a defensive back on football. If you're not willing to risk your life, that guy will. So get the fuck out of here. So there are different approaches to it and what's kind of been in your experience the right way to, you know, just in general terms, like how do you take this idea of a group of people, Now we've got a company that has, you know, it's positive cash, you know, free cash flow. And how do you get there? In a general sense. I know there's so many details, but what's kind of your mental thinking as far as, like, here's how I'm going to do that? That's going to take a minute for me to form an answer to Um, I think my head kind of goes to a different question in there. Like there's a continuum of, well, let me, let me kind of back it up and say, like, again, that's, that's like a leadership preference issue, I think, right? Like the how behind it, because there's a pent, there's a continuum or spectrum of like autocratic to maybe fully. You get permissiveness. Autocrat. That's kind of like fully permissive where people can do whatever they want all the time to like fully autocratic where you're setting just really tight standards on everything. But what's fascinating to me is like, neither of those is consistently right. I mean, they both work, right? You can you can run them, you can run a business almost anywhere on that spectrum. as long as leadership gets like hits the market the right way, where you are on that spectrum doesn't dictate if you're successful or not. So that's more of like a preference. I guess I'm just thinking out loud around like the, I think that comes, I think what you're describing comes down a lot more to like product market fit than how a leader runs a business. Okay, you're either providing something that the market needs and is willing to pay a premium for like they see that there's value added right I mean it's just simple raw materials labor overhead going in like do they look at that and think eh I'd rather build my own and just pay for it myself or nope there's real value added there and I'm willing to pay you pay extra for that yeah and so so that's separate from like a leader how you feel about your people or like even if you want them to survive or not I mean, you know, you can run a great business and have a great bottom great as in great bottom line That people will look at from the outside and be like that's a great business That's a real one well run business because you fit product market fit It's got nothing to do with how you treat your team or if you care about whether they're living or dying Right. You're just I think your scoreboard. Yeah, I think it's a really weird aspect of like our society media capitalism where we are today totally glorifies bottom line scorecard I don't think it gives a crap about like how you treat your people right and like I would say things I care about I remember when I was in distribution I was promoted to CEO of the business and I'd never managed anything but myself really and I don't know what my scorecard 100. You know, how well was I doing that? I don't even know. And now you got to have you inherit the team of, you know, 80 to 100 people that maybe like you a little. You know, I have no idea. And so since that time, which was probably, let's say in 2013, maybe something like that, when that occurred, the way I approached things has changed dramatically from that day to today and yeah what what are in if you could just sort of milestone your your leadership mentality over a timeline what where do you think you started in style and where how do you characterize your style now like what are the in general, we are who we are, right? So but there are these levers we can pull as people and it certainly makes you grow as a person. If you're putting the effort in, you start to, you know, start to see things a little bit, maybe better. But how do you characterize your, you know, your iterations over time? Yeah, look, I will get to your question. Sure. But I think let me back the lens out on that for a minute and say like, I think that's one of the most absurd aspects of business in general today is like how we jump people from being fantastic at frontline single person work and we put them into leadership positions with very little training. And even when we give them training, it's always very little because to your point, it's a lifetime of work to be a good leader. And I think, and I'm working with a good friend of mine on this specifically. And what I think people don't appreciate, I certainly didn't appreciate at the time, is like as soon as you step into a leadership role, like you are responsible, I believe, you are responsible for the growth of everyone on that team. And you might not like those people, right? Like they might have done terrible things, right? They might be having an affair in the office, like whatever it is, they can be doing crazy stuff, The fact of the matter is like you are responsible for their growth in and out of the business like it or not. And I think very few people appreciate that that's what they signed up for the day they step into like, I'm now a lead of like four or five welders. Do I care about these people? Has anybody even shown me how to care about a person? Right, a lot of people come from homes where like that's just not part of it. - Right. - Like parents don't have time, people are stressed, they grow up in super stressed environments, it's really hard to like suddenly care and lead for a group of people. And I think this is actually, I will get back to myself here in a minute, but I think this is actually one of the biggest faults of our society is like people get moved into those leadership positions, they don't know how to grow or help or lead people. And then you have the set of people that are reporting them, they're like, my job sucks, Because that person sucks my job sucks this company sucks work sucks and It's like it might But it's largely because we haven't trained leaders to help help other people grow and so I think if we did Train our leaders effectively like we would have a much different experience as a society in general I think that's like so I think to your point when people get promoted And generally on the younger end of the spectrum, I mean, we're at Usually you're kind of in your 30s or something. You're starting to make some progress at that age oftentimes Your people who are in charge of your bosses. You just think of like you just do what they say to a degree, right? So then you get in that role and you think I'll just tell people what to do and that's not a great, I mean, effectively that's what you're there to do is to manage the activities that are occurring and drive towards whatever that objective is, but there's a right and a wrong way to do it. But that's exactly, that's the scorecard part of it, right? Like so you step into the role and you got to hit the scorecard, so like tell people at the, you know, if you have to manage the scorecard and get that bottom line glorified. I love a good bottom line, don't get me wrong, But like that aspect of managing, you know, to those numbers, which the business needs to thrive and survive, no doubt the business does in the marketplace. It doesn't care if you're growing your team. But but that those people care if their job sucks. So myself, like, I mean, man, when I think about, I mean, Yeah, I was like, Eric 1 .0. Uh, just like super concerned about whether or not people would like me. - Okay. - Right, just like very afraid of, yeah, of like rubbing people the wrong way or asking people to do something they didn't want to do. Very capable of like taking on more work. You know, it was like I would much rather just like put it on my back than ask other people to do it. And it's taken me of, how am I, It's taken me a very long time to grow out of that and even saying that I'm like, I don't know if that's fair, right? Have I grown out of that? But I think the do you I mean there's that's a complex thing you're talking about which is yeah One mentality is a pace center mentality, which is if they see me working hard they'll all work hard which is sort of like, it doesn't really happen. It's like, if you always carry your kid's bag, you always carry your kid's bag. - Yeah, absolutely. - You know, so you're always doing that. But there's also, sometimes you could say the founder or the person who's running the business finds himself doing it because that's what they like to do. You know, the reason they're doing the business 'cause this shit actually interests them and they enjoy doing that work and it's not really a pace -sitter mentality, you have to be mindful of like oh that's not my highest and best use right now I do need to be mindful to be not be doing that. Yeah so I mean it's or it's faster for me to do it than it is to teach it. Yeah yeah well that that's a we always we get to have a good laugh in my office when we hear ourselves saying that right it's like well it's we just know that's an opportunity for growth and you got to go teach somebody. I mean, it's a really hard question for me to answer because, you know, my career has evolved. My position has evolved. I think the better way for me to think about that is I took the reins as a CEO of the organization in 2011. It was more than 10 years ago now. And how did things change over that period of time? You know, I was, at that time, when I stepped into that role. I was actually intimidated by the people reporting to me, right? I was really intimidated by the business and what I didn't know about it. And I think a lot like parenting, I came to appreciate that, you know, most leaders don't know what's going on in every nook and cranny of the business. It's not physically possible. And so, you know, I ran into some pretty big problems in the organization and what worked for me. And when you when, you know, when I think about you commented on, like, do you have kind of steps along the way or points along the way? I think about there are steps and points where I kind of stopped and put my hand in the air and was like, Okay, I need help, right? And you got you're going outside, you're finding a coach, you're finding a mentor, but it's a much more. I don't know, I've never been in a big company with mentorship programs where mentors are assigned. I think that's well, well intended. I hope it works for some people, I can't imagine it myself, because I think you got to get to some pain and like know the problem that you need to get solved before you go find a mentor who you can help otherwise you're just like you're just having a nice chat yeah well yeah you need to and we're always kids at heart right which is yeah I would I need to be showing that I don't know how to do it right before I yeah look for help on how to do it but this shows up in like every every corner I think of life in so many ways. Like I think about my wife, she struggled with some basic sciences in college is super smart human being. And, and then like we got out on our path, she decided with clarity, she wanted to be a veterinarian. She went back to college and took some classes and just crushed them, right? Because it was like she had the clarity of like, Oh, this is what I want to do. I've found something in my life that I really want to chase and run down and want to beat up. And like, she had the same intellectual chops when she was in college. She could have like gotten those grades, but without the guidance of like, I want, I want this, right? And I think for me in business, there were times where the business was underperforming. And my team didn't feel like the team I wanted it to feel like, right? From that like, that leadership and growing standpoint, maybe A lot of people didn't like their leaders. Who knows what it was? But I was like, man, I need to figure this out, make some corrections, make some shifts. - So you would say version one, you had a self -consciousness about your position. And you were just like, okay, I understand I have this title, but I don't feel like I'm that person. All right, do you feel like this person? I just don't know how to roll. I don't know how to roll me out Yeah, I think that's I think that's a big part of it. Like I don't know how to Yeah, like what what part is I mean second -gen leadership is a very weird thing. Tell me about that. Yeah Well, I mean it like what I get what you're saying, but like tell me about that Like we weren't like we trust him not you kind of thing or no, no, no not not at all I mean, I liked it. This is a story. I tell my team. It's like I was a I got good crates I was a responsible kid. I was an only child And I you know, I generally did what I was told and so I was I was a good like fit for the business But my father gave me the option like super early I was a junior in college When he's like if you want to he's like I'm gonna business in a good spot. It's a really good spot So I think I might sell this thing or if you think you might want to lead it like I'll figure out something else Like that was quite literally the job interview Yeah, and I didn't appreciate how curious that was at the time right at the time It's like oh, that's my dad to make sense. He's had this business and he knows He said I could I should do whatever I love But he's clearly like always wanted me to lead it and I thought it'd be fun to lead. So sure, I said yes, put my chips on the table, like push them all across. Yep. I was like, what do we do now? I think I literally said that. I was like, what happens now? And he was like, just go back to school and study. And I was like, oh, okay, that sounds fine. So I did that. And I think the reality of it is when I'm talking about all that leadership training that I was talking about a couple of minutes ago, like that didn't this in our business when I came into it, right? And so I just took my cues from the people I reported to. I never reported directly to my dad. He's a fantastic, like founder, operator, but it wasn't like a ton of leadership guidance. That's fine, just wasn't his jam. So I'm kind of watching the other people that I'm reporting to and trying to figure it out. And really none of their styles were what I wanted. They're great. I mean, there's a lot of good people. I worked for a lot of good What style sticks out as one that didn't feel right? Like just that, you know, as an archetype, like What is one that you're like? I don't really want to be like that Unless you can't say without it specifically calling somebody else. No, that's uncomfortable to me, but I will say that like You know, I just reported to somebody who was very confident in in their opinions. - Okay. - And if somebody who reported them didn't reflect those opinions or guess them preemptively, then they were made to feel like less than. - Sure, okay. - So, and they were super smart, right? And a lot of their ideas worked. So that can work, right? I mean, if you're just, if you're brilliant, and you have all the answers, and it happens, man, there are people that are. There's a spectrum of intelligence and some people have all the answers, but they're very, very few. So would you attribute that to more of a presentation style? I mean, like same person, different presentation, does that work better for you? If you just kind of say it differently. Presentation is a cure. No, it doesn't, right? I mean, I'll just flat out like, no, that doesn't work for me. I think that leaders have to be drawing the best out of their teams and they need to be coaching their teams up to their team's greatest capabilities and being able to recognize their teammate. I'm going to call them teammates even though they're like leader or teammate. They have to recognize their teammates weaknesses and be honest about them. That's the hardest part of the leadership job is like you see your teammate hitting a wall and they desperately want to get through it or they don't even see it, you know, like, man, that's a that's a limiting factor for that person. So moff on it. No, you're not because I think it all comes back to well, we're going to get to Eric version 2 .0. Right. But yeah, I will this resonates with me because I had a similar feeling which was when I was promoted from within. And I remember, you know, on a Friday, I'm just some dude in ops doing our project man whatever I was doing and on Monday I'm running operations and you have these different kind of cells of people that feel differently about that event yeah right some are like that I'd worked closely with right that's really comfortable for me I like the fact that that occurred you have something like that guy's a total dipshit. And I really hate the fact that his thinking has anything to do with my destiny. And then you have people that kind of been different, whatever, getting my paycheck or whatever. - Yeah, I got a safe job. - I got a safe job. And I remember I was now sitting at the head of the table and having ops meetings. and I was just like, you could feel it in the room if at least half these people think I'm a dipshit. And you can't think about it too much. And you're only opt course of, your main course of action is to make them successful, right? That's your main, how do you get over that? Is you can tell them you're great or whatever, Or you can say I've got a battle plan on how we're gonna get you to here And I remember I was talking to a mentor T Bauer about this right when that happened He goes chef, you know what you have to do and I said I really don't And he goes you have to do one of those you know those Qualtrics evaluations He goes you have to roll that out and you are the subject first and you get to let everyone in there bash you and hear everything that they hate about you, get out their trust and when you don't, when there's no repercussion from them doing that, they're gonna trust you. And because you didn't even talk to about, you just took it and said, "Thanks, thanks for the feedback and some of the shit." People were writing, I was like, didn't like that one. And to the extent I believe they were true, I remember I talked my boss at the CEO at the time and I showed it to him. I said, hey, he didn't really know what we were doing. I just said, hey, if you want to take a look at this, see what kind of person you got running your ops. And he's like, I don't think a lot of these are true, but he goes, Chef, I always remember perception as reality. I always remember that. And I said, well, yeah, that's true, isn't it? Yeah. I'll keep that in mind. Yeah. I hate Because you know your workings are already something done, but yeah, you can always take a hole in the wrong place Yeah that uh That sense of like letting your team hold forth on your weaknesses And talking about like kind of evolution like kind of stepping down the line. That's something that I think we started doing with intention three or four years ago in our organization And there's a whole structure or framework, and we kind of turn it on and off. It's not everywhere at once, right? But we like, this is a big kind of tool that we use from time to time. Stakeholder -centered coaching, where you have teams of maybe four to eight people focused on one leader, and they're all weighing in on where that person can improve. And that person's working with a coach to look at all of that feedback, and then choose a couple of things, go back to that whole team and say, here's where I'm going to change my behavior, and have the whole team hold them accountable to it. That's been a pretty big evolution. That was a big evolution for me. And just like, having to get really clear as a leader of the business, like what my weaknesses were, declare them in front of my team, you know, with my team, affirming like, Yep, those are your weaknesses and then you know having an intelligent conversation about okay which one's gonna help the business the most and then going after it. Well it also makes you much more likable because if you have an error about you do no wrong and that you're sort of above the human element it makes like like for instance sincere we all sit in the same room for a reason which is I learn as much from them as they're learning from me yeah and it's easy for someone just you know you see I'm working on something you hear the size and you're like what are you working on like let's let's take a time out and work on that for a little bit together and so you you spend very little time off track mm -hmm because you know instantly if somebody's going off track and myself included 'Cause you're like, why are you working on that anyway? It's tangential. - Yeah. - You know, it's so-- - Does your team interrupt you when you're signed? - Well, I think they kind of, you can feel it. You're like, someone looks over, you're like, I just, yeah. So it's an organism factor, right? Which is you're together. And I learned that, you know, in distribution, I started pulling the team physically closer and closer and closer together. - Yeah. - Where like, people who are new, I will really put them in my office. - Yep. - And work side by side with me. And not even, I would never explicitly be like, coaching per se. But I was like, it's just exposure versus telling, right? And it's kind of, kids, you can tell them as much, not that they are children, but I think we all learn same way, but regardless of age, which is it's not what you're saying. It's what you're modeling and how you're approaching your problems. And, you know, the idea of like the thing that I think of first is, or a thing that I hate the most is what I should be doing right now. You know, it's like, it's like when someone passes, someone, you know, pass away, mom passed away or something like that, you, you know, you should pick up, call the phone and you should do that or go see them. But that's a hard thing. It feels hard, which to me is the number one indicator. That's what I should be doing. Yeah, I very rarely-- when I listen to that and follow that path, I almost always feel rewarded emotionally better, right? Having done that, very rarely do I feel that, like, oh, that's going to be hard, or I don't want to do that and then do it and then feel worse for it. It's kind of like my my instinct that I have is inverse meaning my instinct of desire to do something that I want to do the least is the number one on my list. Yeah I think that's pretty human and typical and hard to overcome. Yeah doing what I do is not think you know you have to keep it in the reflex arc meaning for some reason you you have a flex of not wanting to do it and somehow you seem to transfer to I'm gonna go do it and just keep it in an arc like okay I'm just gonna go and but that's tangential so version two you think in your second iteration you you were starting to probably get confidence that hey I know how to do this or I'm getting better at leading this group what would But what would you think? - Version two, so version two was, version two was like finding the right mentors and taking their direction and just applying it. Version three was like the coming back to my team and saying like, hey, where do I need to improve and committing to improvement? And I think that's largely, that might be largely where I am. I just Keep working that same sense of humility like really trying to Really trying to like put less and less and less of my ideas on the table One I mean I found this phrase a while ago That lives with me a lot and in a class. There's like a three -day class about listening was a I don't think it's offered anymore It was It was very way miller But I can't remember I feel like it was a splinter group from that anyway It's listen like a leader was a Bob, you know Bob Chapman did kind of kick that off and And there was there are a lot of phrases a lot of pithy phrases in that but one that sticks with me is like Does your team need to hear it does your team need to hear it from you? And does your team need to hear it from you right now? And like if you have a thought in your head, you're about to blurt it out like just run it through that filter. It's a great one to run through your filter at home too with your family, kids, wife. Like do they really need it right now? - All things in life. Another comment on those lines was Warren Buffett said, "You can always call someone an asshole tomorrow." - Yeah, you can always let it rip. - Yeah, so just make sure - Yeah. - And deliver it. - And so I spend a lot of my time in meetings now running that through my head and kind of watching my team operate. And I think one of my greatest joys has been to discover that the vast majority of time, if I just keep my mouth shut, somebody else on the team will say what I have to say. And that delivery is 100 % of the time, well, I shouldn't say 100%. The vast majority of the time, it's more effective coming from someone on my team, then it is coming from me. And so then I've started to isolate my thoughts down to like, what are the things that only I can say? And what are the emotional levels that only I can set? And there are things as a leader that like, really at the beginning and ending of meetings, like there's tone setting that like, if you don't fill that hole, your team fills that hole and that's not, that's less than ideal. But like once you set the tone and kind of set the stage, like then it's more just like letting the team go. And I think that's the-- maybe the kind of like a piece I'm kind of evolving through in messing around with right now is like, how little can I do? To that point, so I was told also by T -Bauer, which was it goes, when you're doing your job well as the leader, you should be able to say, room full of, you know, your group. I want everyone when I count to three to point to, uh, on a daily basis, the least important person in the room. And he goes, you want everyone to point to you, right? Because now, how do I think about that in practice? You know, there's old, like, uh, you know, the Spanish boats or whatever there were cross in the Atlantic, like yes for Columbus, there's always that scene of the captain in the back of the boat just reading the map. Yep. Yep. You know, and that's really how I started or have been thinking about like, what is my most useful thing I can do, operationally speaking, I mean, the job is you always make sure you have capital and all this stuff going on. But as far as us making progress, you know, it's, it's even though you're back there reading the map, your head up, looking around and figuring out what is the best tack and because you could argue or one could argue that success is a series of right decisions, right? If you isolate things like market and like say you've got a consistent market, you've got these constants, Nothing's changing. It's your series of decisions that make something successful or not successful. And it's just a series of doing that correctly. And so how do you make the right decisions is you've got to spend time with the material, you know? I mean, the map or the metrics. - But also when the company reaches a certain size, like you can't do it alone, right? I mean, we've kind of touched on already, but the, I think what's fascinating to me in this evolution is like, where, where am I actually submitting my time where I'm like, okay, that was valuable. And it's places that I never would have believed in my earlier days. So my earlier days, it's like, I was running well, if I could just like step into a meeting and lead it, right? Like hardly needing a agenda, like walk up, like scratch the agenda on the board, off and running, and then the meeting's done. And somebody might write up minutes, but like really who needs to look at those, right? Like, I mean, really, we're, we're onto our day to day jobs. We might take a couple things from them and we're off and running. And now my job is like, if I go into a meeting without having like fully prepped an agenda and thought very carefully about the things that I want to make sure get talked about, not the outcomes, not like plotting every step, but like, what are the topics that I want to make sure our team beats the crap out of and like knowing and making sure we're on that and then coming out of it, actually reflecting on the minutes, like what did people say? Who said what? How was I feeling about that? To your point of like feeling matters so much. And so I'm spending all my time on that like that before and after to make sure that when we get in the room, my team's doing their best work. And I think that's right in that they, they're coming from harder day to days. Like their day to days are more packed. They've got more people in their faces asking them more questions, they might have like some work their hammering away at. So like when they come in the room, it's my responsibility to set a stage where they can they can achieve and go without like they don't have to prep and they don't have to follow up the same way and hopefully they will like one day we'll all elevate and we'll keep doing that. And it kind of the part we're not talking about and it just goes without saying is There's a point at which when your team building, at the outset, it's about, okay, I need to get people in here, and hopefully I'm choosing the right ones. And then it becomes, once you have a team that is beginning to click along or starting to seem to actualize the concept of team, you now become team defender, right? Which is, if there's not somebody rowing like the rest of us you have to be it takes so little to throw something out of kilter yes it's unbelievable yes I mean just takes it takes one person two percent of their time if they devoted two percent of their time to throw and shit out of balance that's all it would take it takes one comment a week from a a person to throw it out of whack. - Yeah, we have this ridiculous phrase in my family. So I was in grad school in Seattle. We were driving out of town. Sarah and I were driving out of town and we like hit traffic. There's always like miserable traffic headed south out of Seattle. Bumper to bumper. And I was like a grumpy grad student and I was so pissed and I just look at this traffic and I don't understand why we can't all just go quickly. I turn to Sarah and I'm like, "It just takes one asshole to fuck it all up." And like, we both just started laughing our asses off 'cause it was just me being angry all the time. But it kind of holds, right? - It feels like you're angry and right though. - Yeah, it's unfortunate situations, yeah. - Like those traffic jams, like nothing's changed but now we're going in the speed limit again. Like, what the fuck was that yeah and I yeah I decided not to study traffic and just accept those things yeah you could say I'm gonna take some ownership on mood here yeah you know let my my behavior tick -tape mood versus yeah other way around that was long before that was long before I was in control of any field yeah I got not yeah I'm not charged control yet no in my early 20s - Feelings were just controlling me. - So over time, you and I have talked on and off about how you have approached honing, refining ops, save leadership and put this ties into leadership, which is like putting facilitating improvement in a way that's not painful and that is an experience that people might not otherwise get. And if they're interested in business and interested. They are of a mindset where they do want to grow. You went to, you have to tell me the details, but you focus on really efficient ops, right? Yeah, yeah. And so what have you done as you've matured? You got to clear certain things off your deck before you can get to that, right? Like, you know, the things that are on fire, whatever, okay, now we can start using the fine -tuner knobs to get better. So what have you done? You told me what the Japan did that trip. And there are different programs out there, different methodologies about refining ops and so forth. So what have you leaned into? Yeah, I think that story really starts with at a deep level, I just don't like waste. It just really like, it makes me very uncomfortable and there are lots of ways to define it, right? But I do-- - You know it when you see it. - Yeah, but I mean, I do like the seven deadly wastes that come out of like the lean manufacturing space or that basic idea of like anything that doesn't add value to the customer, which is very broad and hard to hear sometimes, because arguably, like, that's, that's me, right? My old, like, am I adding? Like, if you're not modifying the steel, if you're not putting the powder coating on the steel, like, does the customer care? Like, if the customer could fire me and not pay for that cost and still get that product, they'd take it all day, right? Like, arguably waste. And I think it's just good to hold that. So, so when I bumped into the whole continuous improvement, like culture and area, it really appealed to me. And then farther, I had a friend introduce me to two second lean, a book by a guy named Paul Akers, which is really democratizes the idea of getting waste out of a system. And this idea that like, hey, anybody is capable of seeing waste. And this is something I do really love and embrace, the idea that like, you don't have an engineering or continuous improvement department that like sits in an office and then comes down and stares at everybody for a while and then says, here's the new process you need. That is complete bullshit. That shits all over the people doing the job. And I just think it's incredibly like, I get it, it can work. It works in really big companies that do better than mine. But I think it's fundamentally disrespectful to the team that's doing the job. And I think that is a really important part of work. Like, you want people to want to go to work, and they need to feel respected. So you do that by powering them to solve their own problems and to get the waste out of their systems. I also have this core belief that we all show up every day wanting to do amazing work. We want our customers to be thrilled and happy. We don't want any mistakes to get out the door. And I do believe that about everybody on my team. We all have good days and bad days, but at the end of it, nobody's like, "Yeah, fuck that customer. "I'm glad they got an MAR." Like, yeah, I mean, there are some shitty customers out there and that's the-- - Be - Careful sitting on that one. - Yeah, but there's some like long, those are long tail, right? That's long tail nonsense. Anyway, I went down this path of two second lean and the author there, Paul, is very, very accessible. And so he takes groups of 17 people on trips to Japan. And I just kind of went all in on it and took myself and three other people on my team on one of those trips. And It was fantastic. Yeah. Where'd you go? What would you guys see? Man, so it was 2019. My memory is not good in general. We went to the island of Fukuya. Some of the highlights included a company called Hox, which one of the, you were talking about working with your team. You know, their whole senior leadership team was on stand -up desks on wheels that they pushed away and cleaned the floor every day. Right? And like, that was just the way they did it. And you kind of look at that and think about kind of what you were saying too. And it's like, man, how in tune and in touches that team, nobody has a problem without everybody knowing and wanting to work on it together. So like, you see little things like that. We, we saw a Lexus, a Lexus manufacturing facility, which was really mind splitting, Alexa, Lexus, right, the car manufacturing company. And while it's interesting, I, you know, a lot of my friends say things like, Oh yeah, you know, Lexus, it's just, it doesn't have the heart or the soul of like a, of a BMW or Mercedes and like maybe from how the engine sounds, but like, man, that's pretty, I think that comes from people who have never walked the floor of a Lexus facility. I've never gotten into a Lexus. I hate. Yeah. I've seen, I saw a lot of heart and soul And I think one of the one of the sweetest outcomes of that is I have a teammate now who drives the Lexus to work And it's a function of that trip. Yeah, and I look at it every once in a while I don't drive a Lexus and everyone's I'm like, man, that's a nice looking car It's a good reminder to see that out there. You're like, all right. Yeah, how are we doing what we're doing? Yeah, and what's possible? Lexus must have been just like spic and span I mean it was it was it was nuts I mean just how like clean and beautiful and sharp but also the thing that stuck out so much and like everybody on the trip commented on it the team wasn't the team wasn't rushed and by team I mean like hundreds of people building cars on an end online and they were just like clicking along cruising look like a pretty mellow job look like a job I'd be happy to do I'm like dude that'd be a pretty sweet job right screwing Let's take it easy go over here and make sure everything's right like slow and steady wins the race That's what it that's what it appeared to be like now How does it feel in those people's heads in the moment like is there a pressure? I have no idea what it's like, but like just the third -party view was like didn't look Harry and And you know they were pointing out like oh, that's where you know Cuz in that case like the leads main job was to backfill anybody So somebody's going to break like the lead steps in and takes that spot or Yeah, somebody's got it. So like, you know, oh, there's the lead. They're like chipping in that way You know, they're just kind of like say they're the leader. Just like a debt of Rover. I mean are both is both. Okay Yeah, it was just like I Don't know that one of the other like fun phrases is just kind of random thought that comes to mind It's like I had a mentor once asked me like when you go into situations like that and you walk other floors Are you Are you encouraged by what you see and ideas that you can take from it? Are you discouraged by that overwhelming sense of we can never be that? And like feeling those two things at the same time never is a strong word, but we're not that today. It's really interesting. And I feel like that's been one of the internal evolutions that I've felt really good about is earlier in my career, I really struggled to go to anybody else's facility because I would walk through it and just be so pissed about everything in ours. And now I go, yeah, it was hard. And like, and now I go into other facilities and I'm just super fired up about everything I see that can come back to ours. And I worry about where my team is, you know, and when they go walk other floors, how do they feel? Cause I want them to feel encouraged and not discouraged. And so I know I'm rambling here, but like when you think about leadership and what do I do and what can I do and what can other people do? It's like, there's always value in seeing other people's operations always. It's one of those rare, like 100 % of the time things, but it's really important to tee your group up, tee yourself up and be ready to like, not be discouraged by not being where somebody else is. It's like bringing back to music. There's that story where, uh, Brian Wilson, you know, they did Pet Sounds, which was their huge release in Sargent Pepper, who came up by the Beatles and because they loved pet sounds and they they're like what a great album and so they kind of brought some of that flavor into a couple of the songs that are on that album and then Brian Wilson heard that album so the story goes and it was like a turning point where he's just like they're so good like well it was not like oh we can do that it was like if that's out there I mean how could we ever how could we ever beat that or match that you know so it's the mentality of the Beals like oh love that let's incorporate some versus the idea of we just got defeated yeah and things that you know it's parallel to what you're saying which is how are you able to manage your reaction to something that you could maybe reach for versus something I'll never be. Yeah, I mean, I haven't read a lot. I just know the language, but like that abundance versus scarcity mentality, right? And really trying to evolve from scarcity mentality to an abundance mentality, that sense of like, hey, we can all win versus I can't, or there's already somebody there in the seat. Yeah, and I think there's, especially from what we do here is - There's not a roadmap to follow for what we're doing. There hasn't been metals and marketplaces doing what we're doing. So there's also this point of, I've made a point not to look at other marketplaces because they're not having the success that we're targeting. And so I don't want that, I don't want to see something and not be able to see it. And so you kind of have to say, I just have to believe my experience in the industry is going to steer this product in the right place and then just really stay in touch with the team here. What are they hearing from people who are using it? Because that's the only thing that matters. You know, because they're marketplace to be organized in a number of ways. And so there's also the idea of, well, I know what we do, we do it really well, and I need to be aware of competition, but it's our thinking that God is to where we're going, and we're not saying anyone else is wrong, but when you're creating something, you just can't unsee things, and it can pull you off of what was kind of your original thinking. And it's kind of coming to a question which-- two questions. And I ask everyone this, which is, AI is everywhere. How will you-- how will ANOVA intersect with that? And will it intersect with it? Yeah, so AI and tech in general, those are two big, two big questions. Um, so sorry, I'm just trying to formulate my thoughts. Take your time. It's a big thought. Yeah. So AI, AI is really, so the short answer is yes, 100%. Like we're going to, we will adopt this and be using it. Um, The timing on it was really unclear to me. - Okay. - Like, because-- - Is that 'cause how you might use it is unclear? - No, no, no, I mean, we will, I know I have a very clear sense of how we will use it from like an HR and customer experience standpoint, customer service standpoint. It's pretty darn straightforward. - Okay. - What's fascinating to me is like how hard it is to move it into the organization. My team's not feeling enough pain to adopt it and I don't feel like we are, there's a staffing issue around me simply saying do this, we have to do this because when I can come right up to the edge of that and like the organization isn't pulling it in. And so if that's the case, then, you know, if I could force it in, it'll be a bad implementation. I've done that enough times in my career, I know, like, well, I can demand it and get shitty results. So there isn't enough pain in the organization or perceived growth or need yet. And so that's why I'm like the time and what's the timing going to be when my team is like, man, I think it's, I think, um, do a Doolingo, I think I just read the article where they were like you cannot hire Unless you've demonstrated that AI can't do your job And I think that's gonna can't do the job or what part of the job And I think that's probably where we're gonna have to move is in certain spaces say When somebody says hey, I really want to add somebody here and you look at all the numbers like yep That would make a lot of sense like we could totally just add somebody and it even pencils out well, but it's like, but first you gotta go, you gotta jump this hurdle. - Yeah. - And I have to be convinced that, hey, I can't do the job. And I'm just thinking out loud about like, how do we get through that hurdle? 'Cause right, I mean, I've tried to put the timing and you mentioned, I'm like, that's why I rolled my eyes. I'm like, I've tried to put this in my company for like two years now. Like there's such an obvious spot and our customers would have a better experience. And like things would be we would be growing faster, but I, um, and it's could just be like some of my leadership challenges, like I'm just not able to, or I haven't been able yet to just like push it in. Right. I'm probably not thinking about it the right way, but we'll get there. And so you think it's going to be customer service and would find its way into, into design, you think at all? Well, it's from my design team to figure out. I'm, I'm not a designer by or by trade. And that's a meaningful thing. And so, and my designers are, like, they know their shit. And it looks different than the stuff I know. And so, at any point, when they're like, here's how AI fits in, it'll be like, I'll be tripping over myself to get the checkbook out. Yeah, I understand. Well, you know, I design and Right now, AI, the platforms I use, they can generate a design for you. But AI does things based on what it knows. And if you're trying to create something that hasn't, especially in the metals of marketplace, that is successful, you can't imagine or you can. Likely how sensitive people are to or this UI user interface isn't just insanely user friendly because a lot of people who try it for the first time might be thinking, let's see if this piece of shit works. You know, like, and so they might be thinking, you give me one reason, I'm gonna tell you that yep, not ready. So, but what I'm finding from a design perspective with AI is yes, it can generate something for you and but you're gonna spend more time straightening it out than I would if I just did it. Yeah. And so and when it kind of hits that inflection point of it takes considerably less time for me to correct the way I want it. Okay. Yep. I'm just doing it myself. Once I think it would be a very powerful design tool. But right now, you look at it like that looks and feels and operates very AI generated to me. Now, the question is that necessarily bad? If everyone's using it, maybe that's the normal, because the normal user experience and stuff that really is super well thought out as, well, gives a shit. - Yeah, you know, the most interesting technology that's to think about, um, in terms of disruption in our space, because it speaks to the steel too is like, um, think about 3d printing, right? And what it's doing. And it's, um, it's brilliant. Like I feel like it's getting adopted at either end of the physical spectrum, like very small, hard to make parts or very large, like houses, bridges, things like that. We're kind of in the middle in this like six foot, four foot envelope. And there are people messing around with like, you know, benches more like artistic and kind of theoretical ideas, and the outcome is not comfortable yet, and not visual, you know, it's visually interesting because it was 3d printed, but it doesn't really stack up against the kinds of things I'm making or my competitors are making. But there will certainly come a day when like additive manufacturing can make a great receptacle or a great bench and I don't know what the material is going to be like is that going to be a plastic is that going to be a metal like what is it physically going to be and what is that going to look like but once you can convert to an additive manufacturing as opposed to like what we're doing with a subtractive where you're starting with steel and you're cutting up parts and you're throwing away massive amounts of it and you're handling and touching all that, like the cost basis for an additively manufactured bench or receptacle is going to be so much lower. It's going to absolutely, like it'll turn our market on sear. It will. And it's like, it's kind of what the idea of injection molding did, right? Which is now you just have a container and you just fill it with this stuff versus perning it. But it's kind of the bitch being that you've got to make the mold. But once you do, you make these things so fast, probably faster, you can print something, you know. So it that was an enormous. Yeah, but it's a great example. But just right there, like so, wrote but rotomolded, like receptacles, I can't think of a rotomolded bench that isn't an art piece. And rotomolded receptacles haven't displaced steel receptacles, even though they're great ones on the market, I mean, we saw a couple wrote them over receptacles. But they serve a different purpose, right? So like, that's, that's kind of an interesting piece that isn't clear to me from just we're talking, I'm talking tech not AI in general, like, how's that going to play out? And like, is there an additive metal process that's going to actually displace steel sheet and pipe? Maybe who knows? Is it five years out now? Is it 30? Maybe, right? Maybe right. Yeah, probably the ultimate thing for just in time deliveries You have you know, you look at it like a mill test report built on site And you've got five gallon buckets of silicone carbon and all the different ingredients that will go into that spec that you need You're pouring in a hopper, you know, and it just prints out a piece of steel for you Yeah, you know the exact spec and grade that you need it to be and that's That's just in time. That's nice in theory. Yeah nice in theory, but Perhaps not a today thing. Yeah, but could happen Mills won't love that They won't so though what they'd have to do is say well You've got to buy the plans from us That you put into that printer Yeah, or whatever somehow control the spec in the grade. Yeah, because is ASM here, ASTM still would have, but I think people are clever and might find a way around that. - Yeah, I mean, especially in our space where there's very little regulation, I mean, a bench or a receptacle, like it's not a safety fact, like you can pretty much know if you can sit on or not, you can know if it's gonna hold trash, like you don't need, thankfully, like a federal regulation to like tell you how to make it. So it's curious, 'cause then in my space, there's no trade organization, 'cause there's no group around it to figure stuff out. And like there's no SPAC, right? Like I could make, we can make a bench out of any kind of steel we want. - Yeah, you could use mop handles for slats. Like you could use fucking anything. - Right. It's a curious, like I said, it's kind of started this way about when our conversation started. Like it's a really weird little category we're in. It's unregulated, but it doesn't need to be. - How many companies are in your space? I think I think it's a lot. I put us up around like two dozen or 30. We were American site of landscape architects ASLA that's kind of the main show we go to and we walked the floor last year. One of my teammates counted like 17 companies that all do what we do and those are big enough to like show up or care enough to like show up put up a booth put put their wares out there, and the product differentiation is not significant, in my opinion. You guys are better. A lot of these companies are good in different ways. We feel different design niches. There's a lot of them out there. I think it's a crowded space, but it's mostly taken up. There's one company, Landscape Forms, that has 55 % of the market. What do you think would happen if you took a flatbed of your main benches and stuff like that And just went to a giant park put them in install them and just sent the city a bill Mean like you guys didn't have any benches. We solved it for you. Here's the invoice The city would throw in the trash and ignore it. They would oh, yeah, okay Sometimes when you just do things yeah, like well, we were kind of thinking about No, that's the so one of the most fascinating pieces of this whole thing. Like, um, it's really hard to give our stuff away. So that's where my, so my dad, when he started the organization, it's hard to give. Yeah, it's hard to give side frames away. So the very original business model from 1970, um, my dad invented a, an aluminum frame that goes over a 55 gallon drum. And he was, he was going to change out the panels as a square square -paneled frame. He was going to give those away and retain the rights to the panels and sell the advertising on the panels. It's a pretty great idea, company JD to sell, you've probably heard of them, a couple billion dollars on the top line, we didn't make it there yet. But the idea was a good idea, right? They sell a lot of advertising on benches and panels and things like that. But he couldn't give the receptacles away. like he struggled because there's so many decision makers in the buying process, right? You're not talking to a single person, you can make a decision about where to put a receptacle. You've got a board of aldermen, you've got a mayor, you've got a street department, you've got like six or seven like rungs long ladder, everybody's got to sign off on it. And somewhere along the way, somebody wants a piece. It's usually how it works in cities. - Right. - That's, I mean, in our experience. - Right. - That's how it works in the municipal space. And So, and it's not like overt and it's not clear, but man, some something's just curious, right? We've had different experiences in retail and in commercial retail, like that in those spaces. Or sorry, commercial property management just feels different. So when you go try to give something away, like there's always somebody getting in the way, there's always somebody saying it's too big or too small or the color. So, um, so we got, I don't want to say got lucky, but like, uh, there was a grant program from, uh, like a pitch in campaign from the federal government that clicked in with Anaheiser Bush. And apparently like somebody from AB just said to my dad, like, look, quit trying to give these away. Like we will just buy them. And he's like, that sounds great. I'm just going to make them. And that's how the business got going. But don't overthink it here. Yeah, right. Totally kind of a roundabout thing. But like even today, like when we have, like if we make something wrong and it's sitting on our shelf, like giving it away as an effort, that's most of our inventory is stuff we, it's just hard to give it away. Really? Yep. We largely give it away to people in the town. So we manufacture out of Winona, Minnesota, awesome town of like 30 ,000 people in southeastern Minnesota. I just saw, I was up there, one of their brochures that was the Miami of Minnesota. I was like, how about that? Wow. I haven't found the clubs yet, but I'm going to-- It's an aspiration. Yeah, totally. And most of the stuff that we give away goes to people doing not rallies, fundraisers, local fundraisers for individual people know who are battling cancer or fight another some other big chronic disease. And it's like this person needs to raise $10 ,000 to get something. And so like, we'll give them a bench, people bid on it. That's what you're not up in Minnesota. Like just filling up those 10 ,000 lakes with furniture that can't sell. Just throwing them in the lakes. Yeah, I'm going to be at the bottom of the lakes. It's creating fishing habitat shop. Come on. It's a reef. Yeah. In freshwater. Yeah. Freshwater reef. No, that's not our jam. Well, I'm going to wraps up and talk it and cover a lot of grounds of stuff that I'm going to be thinking about because leadership and just being a good person that can facilitate growth but also stay very much on track which is because it's in everyone's interest is something that journeys I don't think ever finished you know so things to think about but thank you for coming in today and talking I appreciate it yeah man my - Sure, definitely an unfinished journey. - Bye. - Thanks.