Ep 007 - Culture is Like a Magnet with Jacky Fischer

Transcript

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Chris Hanslik: In today’s episode, you will meet Jackie Fisher, the CEO of Three Men Movers, and learn why she believes culture is like a magnet and what we can learn as a leader from Ted Lasso. Hello, everyone. My name is Chris Hanslik, and I’m the chairman of BoyarMiller, a mid-sized law firm in Houston, Texas. I want to welcome you to Building Texas Business, a podcast about corporate innovation, entrepreneurship, and business leadership in the Lone Star State. The goal of this podcast is to learn from the best business leaders in Texas in hopes that their stories of growth, challenges, and success will inspire our listeners in their own journey to building a successful business. Today’s guest is Jackie Fisher. Jackie is the CEO of Three Men Movers. She grew up working in a multitude of crazy family businesses. She received her undergrad from the School of Hard Knocks and her MBA from Rice University. In 2003, she bought out her parents’ moving business and grew it from $3 million in revenue to over $40 million. Jackie finished her first book, The Growth Paradox, which highlights her industry disrupting signature management method aimed at helping small business owners avoid the pitfalls that are most destructive to a company’s growth. Jackie loves helping entrepreneurs skyrocket their business through proven and unique growth processes. Jackie, welcome to the show.

Jacky Fischer: Thank you. I’m happy to be here.

Chris Hanslik: Well, I’m glad that you took time out of your busy schedule and kind of want to jump right in. I mean, I know that you took over a family business, but can you tell us a little bit more about what the business is known for?

Jacky Fischer: Moving people. Mostly residential moving. I’d say about 95% residential. We don’t go after the business market, but Sometimes people, they want us to move their office when we move their house. So we have offices in Dallas, San Antonio, Austin, and Houston, and we’re expanding into Florida right now with a different brand. So we’re all over the place. We’ll probably do about $40 million with the business this year and maybe around 40,000 moves this year.

Chris Hanslik: Very busy schedule.

Jacky Fischer: We are very busy.

Chris Hanslik: And I think I know for myself, anyone around here, we’re familiar with the vans or the moving trucks. Maybe tell us a little, what was the inspiration for your parents to start the business?

Jacky Fischer: They were broke. No, I think a lot of times people think entrepreneurs are started when they get like seed capital and they have this great business plan. But literally my dad, he had this delivery truck. He had a furniture company. He was building furniture and that went out of business. My mom was making minimum wage at the public library. Times were tough. He was 50. no college degree, put an ad in the green sheet, and started moving furniture. And that was over 30 years ago, so.

Chris Hanslik: What an inspiring story.

Jacky Fischer: Yeah.

Chris Hanslik: Did you then kind of just grow up in the business?

Jacky Fischer: I did. I was their first salesperson. I would come home from middle school and check the answering machine. That was when they had cassette tapes. I had to explain this to millennials because they’re like a green sheet. Is that kind of like Craigslist? So I had to explain everything to them. But yeah, I would check the answering machine and take messages and call and do the sales script. And it was truly a family business. It was on the kitchen table in a small apartment kind of over Over in Spring Branch, but not the nice side of Spring Branch, the tough side. So that’s where we started.

Chris Hanslik: Started at Houston, I guess Houston born for the company, right?

Jacky Fischer: Well, it started in Houston. Yes, I’m from Illinois, but I came here when I was seven. And so we started the business when I was around 12 years old. So I went away from the business. In 2002, my dad had a massive stroke, made it difficult for him to do his work. And so he asked me to come in. At that time I was an art major. I had two kids. I was helping my husband with his business. And I really didn’t have a lot of time on my hands, but when my dad asked, I just, you know, I had to say yes. So I came in and helped him out.

Chris Hanslik: So at that point, did you kind of believe you’d be taking it over like full time?

Jacky Fischer: I thought it was a short term thing. And about a year and a half later, I realized I hadn’t left and I was completely running the company at that time. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I was doing better than what was going on previously because he wasn’t at the office that much. So you know how when the owner’s away, just things get a little sloppy. So about a year and a half later, I realized why I moved out of the house so early. My dad and I butted heads. And so I decided it was better that I had a relationship with him as a father or daughter than a boss employee. So I quit my job and he said, that’s fine. And about a week later, he had a meeting with the drivers. And they all signed the back of this yellow invoice and they gave it to my dad and they said, this is from all of us. We want you to bring your daughter back home. And so he called me and I said, no way. I’m coming back to work for you because he was just a really tough guy. You know, he was kind of short fused and big heart, but very short fused, very emotional person. And I came back to, I said, I’d do it under one condition. If you agreed to sell the company to me. I thought it was going to be easy to get an SBA loan. I knew that they were lending money trying to get more women in business at the time, but it was a lot harder than I thought. So after nine nos, I went back to my dad and he said, I’ll finance you 6% interest, 15 years. And I put him into retirement and took over.

Chris Hanslik: And what year was that?

Jacky Fischer: That was 2004.

Chris Hanslik: had to make you feel good that the drivers, you know, had that in such a short time, had such respect for you. What was it specifically that did you ever learn what it was that caused them to want you to be back running the company?

Jacky Fischer: My dad was the original driver. He was the guy out there on the truck. And so I knew how it was to have somebody in your family that had to work like that. And there had gotten to be a little bit of a shift in the office where we forgot that we work for the drivers instead of the drivers working for us. If we do our jobs right and we take care of them, they’re going to take care of the customers. And I think I understood that philosophy. And I was able to make some cultural shifts with that in the office.

Chris Hanslik: So, you know, culture is such a big topic in business and rightfully so. How would you describe the culture that you’ve built at Three Man Movers?

Jacky Fischer: Well, I think we sometimes when we talk about culture, we look at Google, right? And that’s when culture became like a big thing. And you look at the pictures of their office and they’re playing ping pong and video games and ordering pizza and they have beer on tap. And that’s all cool. And that’s nice. And I appreciate companies that give yoga to their employees. But I think just as important as those types of things are the other aspects of culture, which is culture should be like a magnet. I think it should attract good employees to you, but I think it should repel the people that don’t fit in your culture. So it’s both sides of that magnet. I think that’s really important. If you hire and fire based on your principles, you’ll get rid of the people that don’t belong there. And they say the number one demotivating issues for well performing employees is having to work next to an employee that doesn’t perform as well and gets paid the same amount of money. And that’s like very annoying for top performers. When you get rid of all the people that aren’t top performers, your culture just, it just blossoms. And if you have such a strong culture, you don’t have to make those decisions. Your people will make them for you. They start pushing people out that don’t belong.

Chris Hanslik: There’s like a self selection process, right?

Jacky Fischer: Yeah.

Chris Hanslik: You said words that we use around here, we hire and fire from culture. And I think when you have the top performers see those underperformers, especially from a cultural standpoint, if you’re not doing something about it, then they believe there’s no consequence and you risk eroding your culture. Have you experienced that? And if so, how did you manage or lead through it?

Jacky Fischer: I’ll tell you, one of the hardest things, I mean it’s easy to say hire and fire based on your values, but it’s a lot harder when it’s your top salesperson who might not have the same values as the rest of the company. Are you going to fire your top salesperson? Well, are you going to put culture over short term profits? And a lot of times people put short term profits ahead, but I think for the long run, I think it becomes an issue. I’ve never regretted letting someone go because of the cultural issues. I think that the regrets I usually have is because I let them stay too long. You know, you run your company, you know, as well as I do, like when you let somebody go, there’s always that anxious feeling. And then afterwards, everybody will come and say, wow, high five you.

Chris Hanslik: What took so long?

Jacky Fischer: Yes, exactly. What took so long?

Chris Hanslik: You see it in Jim Collins wrote about it and they’re great. It’s moving too slow on those decisions that can do more harm to your company. And you mentioned something else, I think that those high performers that are low culture are more like, I think it was Jack Welch said, they’re like cancer, right? They can infect in a bad way. So when you think about how you’ve run this business and you took it over in 2004, what are some of the key things that you’ve done that kind of led to the success of the company?

Jacky Fischer: Yeah, so when I took it over, we were doing around three million a year. And last month we did 4.8 just in one month. So I mean, we’ve had really tremendous growth. And of course, this housing market has been quite helpful to us. But I think one of the biggest things for me was understanding when we made that shift from being a small company to a midsize company, The way we were able to do that is when I realized that the company didn’t revolve around me. And I know that sounds, I’m not an egotistical person, but I used to think that like, because I was the boss of the company, I would come in, I set the agenda for every meeting. When the meeting started, when I showed up, it ended when I left. If I showed up 10 minutes late, it started 10 minutes late. If I left 10 minutes early, it ended 10 minutes early. If I was out of town, we didn’t meet. And basically, the company revolved around me. And when I realized that it should revolve around our mission to our customers and to our employees, that’s when we really started seeing a shift. Our employees became much more engaged. They hold the meeting with or without me. I just kind of sit there and listen to everything, maybe put my two cents in here or there, but I really kind of took a step back so they could take a step forward. And I think that really made a huge change.

Chris Hanslik: It makes sense, that would, right? Because you can only do so much. And if you’re trying to keep it centralized with you, then you’re going to stunt your growth.

Jacky Fischer: Exactly, 100%, yeah.

Chris Hanslik: How did that change your hiring practices or your hiring focus as you learned to step back and then trust more of your kind of top team?

Jacky Fischer: Yeah, good question. Well, for the people in those leadership positions, you’ve got to hire accountable people. I often say, and I said it in my book, the idea of holding accountable makes absolutely no sense because if you think of the word hold, it means to support, and then accountable means somebody that stands on their own two feet and they don’t need support. So you’re trying to support and let them stand alone. It just doesn’t work out. So you just really have to hire accountable people.

Chris Hanslik: Never thought about it that way, but it makes sense when you break it down. So what type of setbacks have you encountered along this journey and how did you overcome them? What was the learning from them?

Jacky Fischer: I think one of the things is to be true to your brand. And when I think of one of the biggest was during the housing and I laugh because I now I looking back, it seems so stupid that I made this decision. But at the time, it seemed so right. So during the housing crash of 2007, a lot of people were really hurting. They didn’t have a lot of money. We’re more of a premium premium brand. And I had this really brilliant idea that I was going to open a secondary brand called great price movers. Yes. Great price movers. And they still tease me about it around the office today. So what we did was is when we got a new driver, we’d put them on these trucks and there were our newer, less experienced drivers. And then our idea was, is we were going to have two types of service and the people who couldn’t afford three men movers, we’d put them with the less experienced drivers. And really it was kind of like we cannibalized our own brand. And also we only know one way to be. We only know how to get really good service. So basically people were getting the exact same service because we only knew one way to be, but they weren’t paying as much money for it. And it just never worked. It never materialized.

Chris Hanslik: I guess at least one lesson, right? I mean, the consumer is always going to go for the lower price if given the choice, right?

Jacky Fischer: I think they’re getting the exact same thing, yes, because they knew that we were behind the brand anyway and we’re not going to let our customers, you know, even with a different brand at a less price. So it just, it ended up being a complete flop.

Chris Hanslik: How long did it take for you to shut that second brand down?

Jacky Fischer: I’d like to say a month or two, but it took probably, I think a little over a year.

Chris Hanslik: Okay. So, you know, read a lot about what you’re doing, three man movers. What would you describe the things that you’re doing that would kind of fall into the category of innovative? Because from what I’ve read, there’s several. I hope you’ll share them.

Jacky Fischer: This is stuff I love to talk about because the moving industry is a very rigid sort of industry. It’s you know, some sweaty guys show up and they move your stuff, right? It doesn’t get much low tech than that, but we really started bringing tech in right when cloud technology started. We were able to really utilize tech to be able to communicate with our drivers. And so we probably, we have, four or five, like five people that are really high level coders that do all our backend technology. We feel that, and customers don’t want to download an app for one move. Like that’s, you just don’t want to clutter your phone up with that. So we didn’t do an app for customers, but we have an app for our drivers. They can see what their jobs are. They can see their reviews. They can manage their work through that app. We, when COVID happened, um, We were able to send everybody home just immediately because we had everything in the cloud and it really didn’t skip a beat. Technology allows us to track just numerous things across the organization and we were able to maintain the same customer service levels when our people are at home. I think the biggest thing for COVID was really my head trash being old-fashioned and looking at people when they work. Walking by and seeing somebody on the phone made me kind of feel like oh I’m getting what I paid for right? I mean you can’t see anybody I just you know like my brain is kind of thinking okay. They’re all at home watching Netflix But we’re able to monitor their phone calls and make sure they’re on the phone and so that was just a bunch of head trash I had to get over but technology really helped us during this pandemic, too I think like most leaders right you’re used to

Chris Hanslik: Seeing people and part of being in an organization is being connected to people. So then I do think COVID has presented some challenges and will going forward because there’s this hope push to be more flexible, but still have a strong culture and strong connections. And I believe that that employee engagement with each other helps not only form the culture, but keep people.

Jacky Fischer: I do too and I was telling that to my employees just recently my leadership team is I have a lot of seasoned people in my leadership team and I can leave them at home and they’re fine they don’t need any feedback from me to do their job but the young people on the team they need that mentorship they need somebody they can lean on and ask for help and yeah they can reach out to you and zoom you or whatever but it’s so much easier when you’re mentoring somebody if you’re nearby Also, young people, a lot of times, that’s where they meet their friends. That’s where they meet their husbands or wives at work. I mean, work is a social, cultural thing that’s more than just about going to work. It’s a community. And I think it really hurts the young people on our team more so than anything.

Chris Hanslik: So give us a little behind the scenes. How do you go from, do you say, art history major? Yeah, so… To be a business entrepreneur running a 40 plus million dollar business.

Jacky Fischer: I did go back and I got my rice MBA. So I do know business now. But a lot of the growth happened before I got my MBA. And I think, believe it or not, I think being an art major was one of the best things that happened to me because if you get a lot of business people and they all have a business education they’re all going to lean into that business education while I lean into the artistic side. So I understand business but at the same time I have that artistic flair that lets me design things and processes and the way customers see things and the way the drivers see things in a very artistic way and I think that gives me a competitive edge.

Chris Hanslik: That’s insightful. Yeah. So yeah, I can see that. I mean, do you think that background helps or has helped you maybe be a better empathetic leader or?

Jacky Fischer: You know, probably. Probably my empathy probably is what made me the art major. So I’m not sure if the art major made me empathetic. I think people who are artistic are a little more empathetic. And I think that could be probably one of the best words to describe me. Having a big heart, it’s probably my best quality and my worst quality.

Chris Hanslik: A lot of people say that’s your best, your strength. It can be your weakness as well and being aware of that. Sounds like you are. How would you then describe your leadership style and leadership philosophy?

Jacky Fischer: Well, when I first started, I had learned how to be a leader from my dad. And my dad was very old school. He kind of ruled with an iron fist and he was a very sensitive guy, but he was a little prickly. And he would go through great lengths for anybody who needed help. I mean, some of the stories, he passed away in 2016. And some of the people who spoke at his funeral hadn’t seen him in over 40 years and remembered how he had helped them or changed his life. So he just had a big heart. But when he went into the office, he was like, he was always like that. Um, kind of shouting orders and that. And so when I first went in, I thought that I had to lead like him and it didn’t fit well. That wasn’t my leadership style. I didn’t have that authoritarian leadership style. But I tried. I tried to be like him, but it left me feeling very uncomfortable. And so I think Once I was more true to myself, more authentic to my own personality and leadership style, I think that really helped me be comfortable in who I am and really embrace who I am. And the culture shifted a little bit. My leadership style is completely different from my dad. A lot of things are the same, like our work ethic, helping others, that kind of stuff. It’s just our way of going about it was different.

Chris Hanslik: Then how do you show up in the office different than you believe your dad did?

Jacky Fischer: I don’t think I ever raised my voice and that’s one thing. So I just like the things very peaceful. Also, my dad always believed and I think it’s like a good thing to have that belief that he always felt like if anybody tried hard enough, they could do anything they want to do. And I don’t agree with that. I think that. Certain people are good for certain types of jobs. And I think, you know, you wouldn’t put a Shetland pony in the Kentucky Derby. Some people are great at accounting and some people are great at sales and you really have to find somebody’s talents and put them where they need to be. And I think sometimes my dad would like promote somebody who was like the top salesperson into sales management. That’s not always the best thing to do with your top salesperson.

Chris Hanslik: They may not be a good manager, right?

Jacky Fischer: Yeah, exactly. But he just felt like if they wanted to do it, they could do it. Because that’s how he was. If he wanted to do something, he just made himself do it. So he figured everybody else It’s the same.

Chris Hanslik: He’d figure it out.

Jacky Fischer: Maybe we like him. Yeah.

Chris Hanslik: So obviously you went to Rice. Anything that you’ve kind of drawn on to adapt or polish your leadership skills, whether that was seminar or book, our listeners out there, our business owners, aspiring entrepreneurs, anything that you’d say, I did this and it really helped me, changed me in this way.

Jacky Fischer: During my very formative years of leadership, like in the mid-2000s, I read this book called Pour Your Heart Into It by Howard Schultz. That was a great book on the culture and that really helped. The Trident 2 is great, which you were talking about earlier. The EOS Traction Book is very good, especially for those entrepreneurs that have their minds everywhere. That Traction Book is amazing. And you know something really funny? If you’re into movies or TV series, Ted Lasso. I am in love with this guy. Everything’s, the glass is half full with everything. It’s such, he’s such a breath of fresh air during COVID. He has such a, have you watched this stuff?

Chris Hanslik: I’ve started it and season two is out now, right?

Jacky Fischer: Yeah. Yeah. He’s just got the, as a leader, he’s got the most sunny, happy personality. He always wants the, he always wants the best for everyone. He’s just a great inspiration. I mean, it’s a silly comedy show, but I just adore him.

Chris Hanslik: Sounds like it’s a good outlet for you.

Jacky Fischer: Yeah. Yeah. Especially because it kind of balances. My husband likes to watch things that shoot them up things. And so it’s nice to be able to watch something that’s not like that.

Chris Hanslik: Okay. So along the way, any mentors that you’ve had in your life personally or business wise that kind of helped you get to where you are today?

Jacky Fischer: Yeah, for sure. So obviously my first mentor was my dad and growing up in a family business changes you forever. You always have that work ethic and drive. And honored to do things the right way, always trying to do things right. And then my mother, who’s so different from my dad, but I learned so much from her too, because she has the ability when something happens bad, she has the ability to just let things go and not let things get in, I call it get in your kitchen. She doesn’t let things get in her kitchen. And being a business owner, you’ve got to let things go. If you let everything in your kitchen, you’re going to be stressed out all the time. Also, at the beginning of my career, I had this guy named Bill Perry. A lot of people have heard of him through Houston. I was looking up to have him as a coach and he was just a seasoned, older business guy. And he just gave me some really rudimentary, fundamental lessons about business. And I had him right when I needed him, right at the very beginning of my career to give me those fundamentals. And then I had Robin Stanley from Vistage. I don’t know if you know her.

Chris Hanslik: She’s my business chair.

Jacky Fischer: She’s amazing. I love Robin. And I had her… And Robin will be listening.

Chris Hanslik: So there you go.

Jacky Fischer: Yeah, she’s amazing. So I had Bill early and then Robin when I needed some refinement. And what I love about Robin is she always has the right words and sometimes I struggle for the right words when I have conversations with employees. And like I was saying, my biggest attribute is my worst, my big heart, so I have a really hard time saying things to people that they don’t want to hear because I don’t want to hurt their feelings. And Robin’s always so good at giving me just the right words to use, so I’m just incredibly fortunate to have had her in my life for, I don’t know, about 15 years.

Chris Hanslik: That’s great. Any of those kind of fundamentals that Bill Perry shared with you that you would care to share with us?

Jacky Fischer: He used to say, there’s two of them that I remember specifically, he would say, you’re perfect just the way you are, but you’ve got to know your weaknesses, you know, because then you can hire for those weaknesses, but you’re perfect just the way you are. He always said that to everyone. And then the other thing he said, which I can’t say on the air, but he said, don’t F with a man’s paycheck. And that’s another word. So now start moving people’s commissions plans around because you’re going to get in trouble. If I didn’t follow his rules, I usually got in trouble, so.

Chris Hanslik: Don’t try not to do things that demotivate, right?

Jacky Fischer: Yeah, yeah. And then when you’re messing around with the guy’s paycheck, of course he always said a man’s paycheck, but anyone’s paycheck, but yeah. Bill Perry’s old school.

Chris Hanslik: Well yeah, definitely maybe the workforce looks a little different than when maybe he came up through it.

Jacky Fischer: Yeah.

Chris Hanslik: Any advice that you would like share with, again, listeners out there that are business owners, aspiring entrepreneurs who say, you know, Here are the things, from what I’ve learned, if you’re out there trying to do it or thinking about doing it, these are some things that, you know, these two or three things you’ve got to do or be aware of that you could impart based on your journey.

Jacky Fischer: I think I wrote this book and we’re in the process of trying to get it published, but it talks about the growth paradox and how to get from a small business to a larger business. And everything that I thought was one way when I had a small business ended up being a lot different than I thought it was as I grew my business. And so there’s a number of things like you have to watch your numbers and your key indicators. And so you’re always watching profitability. You’re always watching key indicators. You try to have some leading indicators. Um, but even though you’re watching all those things, you, your number one goal shouldn’t be profitability. And I differ from a lot of people, a lot of people say it’s all about how much money you make. But I think money is the result of achieving your goal. It shouldn’t be the goal. And so that’s a big thing for me is that if we focus on making sure the drivers are okay, making sure our customers are okay, we’re gonna make money. Our business model is set up in a way that will make money. Going back to the key indicators, just because you should measure something doesn’t mean you should. When you first start measuring stuff, you get really excited about it and pretty soon you got like key indicators coming out the quazoo and your people are like, oh my God, you know, you’re showing them all these numbers and it’s just too much. And when everything’s important, nothing’s important. So if you have like 30 key indicators at a meeting, it all gets kind of blurred and you just really want a couple of key indicators for people to understand it if they’re on the right track with their job. So that’s important.

Chris Hanslik: That’s great. You know, I think what I would say, my interpretation of that is numbers are important to running a business, no doubt, but businesses are made up of people.

Jacky Fischer: Oh, for sure. Right?

Chris Hanslik: And so if you don’t take care of the people, the numbers aren’t going to be there.

Jacky Fischer: Exactly. And then to build on what you’re saying, when we look at moving, a lot of times people see the moving industry as a logistics business. I do not see it that way. I see it as customer service. And if you start focusing on, I mean anybody can pick up, I tell my guys all the time, anybody can pick up a sofa, wrap it up and get it from A to B without breaking it. But can you get it from A to B without breaking it and make the customer happy? Because I don’t just want you to be really good movers. I want you to be good people. I want you to just take care of people. I want you to take care of their feelings. You know, I get to that touchy, feely, emotional thing. But usually when people are moving, they’re really stressed. And usually they haven’t slept. And usually they probably want to kill their spouse because their spouse didn’t help them the way they thought their spouse should have. And then you come in and they can’t kill their spouse, so they jump on the movers sometimes. So, yeah.

Chris Hanslik: So how do you deal with that? I’m going to make an assumption if I’m wrong, tell me, but I would think your industry does have a kind of somewhat negative connotation. So how do you deal with that internally and externally?

Jacky Fischer: Yeah, so we do have a very negative connotation. We’re right up there with like these car salesmen. It’s really sad.

Chris Hanslik: And lawyers?

Jacky Fischer: Lawyers. I was telling someone else about the lawyers. I was like, yeah, we try not to move them. No, but just sort of sort of. Anyway, we were talking about dealing with the negative connotations with moving. One of the things we do is we try to show our guys in a good light and, and it’s so easy to do because they’re sweethearts. Like we volunteer for this once a year, um, community thing that gives bikes to, uh, underprivileged kids. They sign something with their teacher and if they meet all the requirements, they get a bike. So we do the bike delivery. We’ve been doing that now for. about 15 years. Every year I ask for volunteers and every year almost every single guy in the whole company volunteer. And they volunteer their trucks, they pay for their own diesel, and they come out there and they help out. The first year we did it, the guy that was working my office, I mean, I had just taken over my dad’s company and I was paying him his money back and there was not a lot of wiggle room for doing a lot. And I said, well, I’m just going to ask for volunteers and see who wants to do this. And the guy at my office said, nobody’s going to volunteer for this. And every single one of them did. And since then, they always have. Being out there in the community, showing that we’re a part of the community, it’s a lot easier. It was harder for my dad to get back because he was trying to make ends meet. Now that we’re more successful, it’s easier for us to get back to our community. Also, making sure you over-communicate with the customer. Because the biggest thing about the moving industry is you get there, you finish the movie, you ask for the money, and the customer says, oh, well, you didn’t tell me about that charge, right? So we try to record every phone call. If there’s a mistake on the phone call with our salespeople and we told you the wrong amount, we’re always going to honor what the salesperson said. So we record the phone call, we do QA, we send an email confirmation with everything in writing, all of that good stuff. Just to over communicate.

Chris Hanslik: That sounds somewhat innovative as well that maybe some of your competitors aren’t doing.

Jacky Fischer: Yeah, for sure. I mean, recording the phone calls and pulling it, and then we spot check. We have a person just for QA that listens to phone calls all day long, a certain number for each salesperson. to make sure that they’re getting the right information to the customers. And then if they’re not, then we have to drain them up a little bit.

Chris Hanslik: It’s good stuff. I mean, see why your business has been so successful with your leadership. So just kind of wrap things up, do some things on the lighter side, less serious. But I would usually ask a guest what their first job was, but I think we know yours. No, it was not in the movie.

Jacky Fischer: Houston Chronicle selling subscriptions door to door. Big scary van would come and pick the kids up in the neighborhood and drive them off to the suburbs and drop them off. And I was 11. I lied and said I was 13. I had to get the job. I needed the money.

Chris Hanslik: Very good. So it’s a Texas based podcast. So are you Tex-Mex or barbecue?

Jacky Fischer: Tex-Mex.

Chris Hanslik: All right. And if you could take a sabbatical, what would you do?

Jacky Fischer: Somewhere remote like Colorado, which I’m leaving in a few hours for. So yeah.

Chris Hanslik: Any book that you’re currently reading or just finished that you would recommend to our listeners?

Jacky Fischer: Man, I’ve been reading a lot for pleasure recently, but I did read Radical Candor. That was really good. But I was reading this silly book about training dogs. I like to read a lot of variety of things. I just keep my mind sharp so I can read something about the history of salt, which is weird, or business, or just a really good novel.

Chris Hanslik: Great stuff. Well, Jackie, I want to thank you for coming on the podcast with us and sharing your story. It’s very inspirational and congratulations on all the success you’ve had and the success I know you’ll have in the future. Thank you. And there we have it, another great episode. Don’t forget to check out the show notes at boyarmiller.com forward slash podcast. And you can find out more about all the ways our firm can help you at boyarmiller.com. That’s it for this episode. Have a great week and we’ll talk to you next time.