Fostering an inclusive culture of excellence, problem solving and creativity with Josh Liegel

Transcript

Dave 0:00
Hello, and welcome to another episode of the agency balance. I’m thrilled today to bring you another guest, Josh, legal president of EIC solutions. Josh, welcome to the podcast.

Josh 0:11
Good to be here. Dave. Thank you.

Dave 0:12
Well, thanks so much. I’m, I’m thrilled that you’re here for a couple reasons. One, we’re doing this live in my studio. Yes. Which is great. We were just were talking about the differences of doing this virtually versus in person, there’s so much different type of energy you can get being in the same room. Absolutely. And we’re gonna dig into that in and of itself, and this episode. But the other reason why I’m pumped for this, because Josh and EIC solutions was my company’s very first client ever. Client one, I think it goes back to 2008, which is forever ago. And you’re my first client on the podcast. There you go. So I think it was just fitting to have that. Josh, I would love for you to just spend a few minutes to talk about your background, your role where you came about, and a little bit about EIC solutions,

Josh 1:03
okay. So I’ll talk first about myself, just to kind of lay that out first, I’m very open as far as who I am, and kind of where I’ve come from. So I, I’m a son of to a brother of nine, a husband of one father of three, I’ve got a lot of different titles that I might have given through through my family. So I was raised by two educators, both teachers, and I have nine siblings, seven of who are adopted. And most of the kids who are adopted also had some sort of special needs. And then I’ll kind of dovetail into kind of other things we’ll talk about later, but you know, growing up with that, you sort of just learn how to be a part of a bigger thing when you’re when your family is 12 people, you know, your immediate family is 12 people, everything is is an ordeal, everything is a big production. And, you know, so I grew up in this family, just sort of learning how to be a part of something larger than myself. And now, you know, grown, I have my wife, we have three kids there, we had twins, and then 16 months later, one more so they’re basically all the same age. They’re all in high school now. So that’s a brings its own challenges, three high schoolers at once. So just you know, that’s, that’s kind of my personal side of my life. And from professional side, I am the President CEO of EIC solutions, I started with the company as a as a sales guy, just a regular old sales guy 18 years ago, and just through you know, time and opportunity, just sort of hanging on and seeing what’s next, was able to sort of start to move up the chain through management and then wind up you know, in the top slot that started at the end of 2019. And 2020 is really when that really transpired. And so for the past almost three years, I’ve been running the company and trying to you know, find the ways to grow and find the ways to build the team and build the company that I have always wanted to work for. Ya see solutions is industrial manufacturing company, we manufacture what is called a thermal electric air conditioner. Go ahead and Google that because I’m sure no one knows what it is. It is a air conditioner that works with no compressors no refrigerant, no oil, the only moving parts are the fans. So it’s a solid state cooling device. And we primarily apply it to electronics protection for sensitive equipment in the industrial and military fields.

Dave 3:46
Wow. That’s, that’s, that’s amazing. Not only the technology that goes into because I love thermoelectric cooling. It’s really cool actually get see what I did there. I do. But so interesting. Thanks so much for being vulnerable and sharing kind of your background and how you kind of got got started with family life and now where you are from from a company perspective. I maybe there’s some parallels there are about I think one of being many in a family you’re always getting trying to get attention and you’re always you know, trying to stand out or you know, managing younger or maybe older siblings too sure. Any parallels there with being in a large family and then managing people Sure.

Josh 4:36
You know, I did speak to getting attention I’m second born fifth oldest so I’m pretty much right in the middle no matter how you slice it. And I was so I was probably the attention seeking child on some level. So yeah, I I get that side of it. But also, you know when you have you know, to speak to manage Getting like, we’re kind of clustered my family, there’s, there’s like a group of older kids. And then there’s like a group of younger kids, the age span is about 15 years, between youngest to oldest, and like, I have a sister who’s a month older than me, and I have a sister who’s 16 months older than me, and then I have a sister who’s 13 years younger than me. So when you’re kind of clustered in at the top, you do wind up bearing a lot of responsibility and kind of learning how to, you know, manage, you know, if my parents had to be out one night, you know, you might be my job to make dinner, you know, make dinner for 10 people, you know, so at 12 years old, learning how to make you know, dinner for for 10 people is, you know, kind of a big undertaking, but you kind of learn how to, alright, I know that if I ask this person this too early, they’re gonna get mad, because it’s not ready yet. And you know, so you just kind of learn personalities, you learn what’s necessary, what needs to get done, and you just sort of figure it out on the fly regularly, and even managing up to, you know, older siblings, you know, some older siblings, who were just, you know, out of the house doing this, that and the other thing, you know, lessons or, you know, jobs or whatever, and then I have older siblings who are handicapped, so they couldn’t do much, you know, so you’d have to, like, help them with certain things, I mean, lift my, my sister was in a wheelchair, so we’d have to lift her in the car, lift her into bed, you know, those kinds of things, you see, learn that pretty young, how to be a big help, and a contributor to that, and that there’s a lot of small items that have to happen in order to run a ship that big, you know, a family that big, and you have to be willing to jump in and do any one of those things, you know, it’s not, it’s easy to be like, well, I want to, you know, choose the movie tonight, or I want to, you know, take everybody to the park, or you know, something like that, but you also have to be like, Well, I’m gonna, you know, put my sister in bed, I’m gonna, you know, help these kids with their homework, I’m gonna, you know, do these things. And not because, you know, my parents weren’t around. But just because when you have a big family, everyone contributes, you know, so you try to just make sure you’re always a part of what’s going on.

Dave 6:59
Yeah. So I would imagine that in business, you have different levels there as well. So you might have others, even at the president, you had the president level, there’s somebody above you that you have to go into and talk to. And then there’s different layers of management and all the way down to entry level people. So talk about your your vision, because you said something there about, you know, you wanted to run the company, the way the way that you wanted to work when when you were in there, right. So you were your, as an employee for a period of time, you were obviously probably making some mental notes along the way. And I could draw some parallel to this too, because I was on the same boat. So So talk to me about some of the things that you wanted to do and how you want it to make an impact in in leading this next generation of EIC.

Josh 7:55
Sure. So, you know, I’ve been at the company for 18 years. In today’s day, and age is not something that you hear of a lot, where someone stays at one company, and that company is able to provide multiple levels of opportunity. Oftentimes, you know, you have to leave in order to find those new opportunities, you kind of ceiling, you hit that ceiling at one company, so you go somewhere else. So having been at one company for a long time, I’ve kind of gotten to experience a lot of different things. And you know, in one company I have, I have felt like I was in a dead end job, I have watched the company have a meteoric rise, I’ve watched the company equally have, you know, the downside of that come down the other side of the slope, I’ve seen, you know, slow and consistent growth, I’ve seen really fast growth, I’ve seen awesome management, I’ve seen poor management, and I’ve seen it all in the same company. So it gives me a certain perspective of like, I’ve watched people do it, well, I’ve watched people do it poorly, oftentimes the same people, you know, because nobody’s going to do everything perfect, you know. So looking at all of that I wanted to when I was given the opportunity to run the company, I wanted to reestablish certain things in order to make sure that people understood what I was trying to accomplish, and how that I wanted their success just as much as I wanted my own, you know, and so I wanted to build the company, sort of rebuild the company in a way that sort of started to step us not only up from a, you know, sales and revenue and you know, development and all of those perspectives that every company is trying to grow in, but also from an internal cultural perspective, trying to create the company that that values their employees that realizes that, you know, from the top to the bottom, all of us have specific roles that we need to fill and jobs that need to be done. And just because it’s the job that the lowest guy on the totem pole does doesn’t mean that it’s it’s inconsequential or not important. You know, when that job doesn’t get done, you find out real fast, you know. So I tried to create a culture that allows everyone to feel value.

Dave 10:15
Yeah. And I imagine that that can be challenging sometimes, especially being in industrial manufacturing. And you’re focused on quality and consistency of making a product the same way every time. Talk about some of the things that come to mind that keep your team engaged with not getting maybe burned out or bored, or doing the same thing over and over again, and talk about that, or anything that comes to innovation.

Josh 10:46
So I mean, that’s a lot of different things, right? So how do you take somebody who basically their job is to do this type of task, day in and day out. And to do it well, and not to lose steam and do it poorly, or to you know, start to cut corners or any of those things. And, you know, part of that goes to direct engagement with them personally, people are much more willing to do what’s necessary when they feel like what they’re doing is valued. So and that goes down to simply walking out onto the shop floor, and saying good morning to people touching base with them, seeing how they’re doing, asking them questions, what are you working on, people will tend to take pride in their work, when you notice their work, if they feel like you don’t see what they do, they don’t see you don’t care what they do, they’re just a cog in a machine, it’s very easy to kind of let that slide. But when you go out and you look at it, and you ask them what’s going on, and you and you ask them, what the challenges are new engage them, they get, they’re very willing to talk, they’re very willing to get engaged. And when you, you know, you applaud their successes, they get very charged up about what they’re doing, even if it’s the same thing day after day after day, you know, and there’s a lot to be said about that, you know, the type of person who can sit there, and do that job day after day and still be engaged with it, you know, we, we tend to sort of push those types of people sort of like, yeah, they’re sort of at the bottom. And these like, you know, high performers, you know, switch from one thing to the next real fast. They’re the, they’re the high performers. And these these lower people are sort of looked down upon, but honestly, those are the people who are going to be consistent, and they’re going to be, you know, your bedrock later, when you really need them. You know, I had a guy go into partial retirement this year. And he is the foundation of where we start the product line at literally his step one, and he’s building these things, step one, and when he went into partial retirement, we’re like, oh, man, like, what are we going to do? This guy is like, the bedrock of everything we’re doing, he’s the foundation, like, we’ve got to get good people down there. So you can’t just assume, because the job seems easy, or doesn’t take a lot of thought that it is not something that is extremely important to do well. And repeatedly, you know, so we just really wanted to, I just really wanted to make sure that these people felt like they were valued, that, that they had a connection to me, you know, growing up through the company kind of helps, you know, because I’ve literally worked at alongside of them, I’ve worked in managing them, and now I’m working to lead them, you know, so it’s, they’ve known me the whole time, which, which gives me like, a ton of, you know, points in my side, that somebody who’s just walking in the door to lead somewhere wouldn’t really have. So that’s sort of an unfair advantage that I have, I guess, but at the same time, they know me, they know, they can approach me they know, they can talk to me, they know, you know, and sometimes on a personal level, sometimes not just about work, you know, that just, they’re really going through it at home, they’ve really got an issue they need to deal with. And, you know, I want to make sure that I hear them, because the second you don’t hear that that’s going to dramatically affect their ability to work and their willingness to work. So I always want to be able to be available to them and, you know, make sure that they are they realize their own value.

Dave 14:13
Absolutely. Those are some great, great points that Josh is making. And hopefully, that’s resonating with with the listeners out there. And I can draw that absolute parallel. I you know, working from it, you know, I’m on the agency side. So start off as a graphic designer developer, worked into project management, doing estimates and managing project and scope then to being an account executive, managing relationships, then going on to the sales side, moving up into the VP position, and then inevitably, we’re at where I’ve landed as CEO, so I’m kind of in the same boat where it’s like it apps, no, you do have an advantage. And that, number one, I always say this, it’s like, people can’t pull a fast one on you sometimes because it’s like I did that like Don’t try to pull that on, right, like I did that before. But the other, the most important thing is, you can then at any point, and you said this, and if you’re not doing this, as a manager or leader start doing this is Get off your high horse and sit down with them one on one. If they’re on the level of they’re working on the execution, roll up your sleeves, and get your hands dirty, and try to understand what their problems are. Because the problems and challenges that they’re facing are totally different for you, their objective might be to produce x number of things in a given day or problem solve why this unit isn’t thinking the way it’s supposed to be thinking, I don’t know how to build thermal. Electric scares me I had, I had a rewire an outlet over the weekend. And I said to my wife, I was like, this is the one thing that scares me, I’d rather do plumbing.

Josh 15:56
Yeah, it is, it is a little bit scary. But I think, you know, as leaders, it’s easy to think, well, you know, they’ve kind of got it handled, you know, and I don’t really know what it is they do. So I’ll just leave it alone, because it’s not my problem. And I think from an employee perspective, it’s very easy to view the leader, as this guy either knows it all, or thinks he knows at all. Yeah. And as a leader, the biggest trap we can fall into is I as the leader know it all, or think I know it all, you know. And so when you’re looking at your team, you know, when I look at my team, and I think of alright, what am I going to do next? Who am I going to add next? You know, the first step is, I need to add people who know things that I don’t know, right? Like they need to handle the things that I don’t know how to do. And then the second step is, well, now I need to have people who can handle the things I don’t have time to do. Because I can’t do it. All right. So when I create that team, at no point, am I looking at those people as devalued, because either it’s something that I can’t do, because I don’t know how, or it’s something that I can’t do, because I don’t have time. So they feel very, very important roles in my success and the company’s success. So I can look at them, as you know, you don’t have this degree or this skill set or these letters after your name. So therefore, you’re sort of, you know, expendable in some way, you know,

Dave 17:22
yeah, I want to talk about two things. The first thing that comes to mind is incentives. And what what talk about some of the things that you do, either, and it doesn’t have to be like, financially, maybe it is, but talk about some of the things that motivates that you’re working on to help motivate your employees to get them excited about the new vision and where you’re going to, can you can you share any of that?

Josh 17:47
Sure. So I think, you know, money is a great motivator and a horrible motivator all at once. You know, money is like, you know, everybody wants more money, you’re right, there’s no, I don’t think there’s a single person that would be listening to this podcast, or, you know, involved in this, who would say none, and I don’t want any more money, I’m fine. You know, like, everyone would say, Sure, I want more. But it’s a slippery slope. Because you’re, you’re basically you’re paying someone to do a job, you’re, you’re saying, Okay, I want you here, and you’re capable of doing this. And that’s why you’re earning this money, right? You are earning that it’s not, I’m not giving it to you. And if you just start to like tack a lot of stuff on top of that, it starts to become expected, and it starts to become very hard to, you know, still incentivize the same way over time. So I think the better way to really incentivize them as a company is number one, treat them with respect, treat them the way they want to be treated, you know, treat them as part of the team as a valued member, not just here, because this is where you work, not here, because your timecard sits over by the time clock and you punch it, right. But here because you have a valuable contribution that you’re going to break, then you need to hear that contribution regularly. You need to understand what it is they’re doing, why they’re doing it. And they are the experts in the field. They’re the ones you’re trusting to build the product that you’re sending out as a representation of your company. So they are the ones who can say, this isn’t working because of this, or this would work better if we did this. And you regularly hear that value. And you rarely applaud that value. You know, and because of that people feel that value and the money becomes a great thing. But it’s not the thing that drives anything. It’s just sort of like yeah, I earned this. I did well, and I earned this. And the other side is I feel heard, I feel valued. I feel like these people understand who I am, you know, I I’m big. I say to my people a lot like life happens outside of work, right? So I can’t just be like, well, you’re here at 8:30 You’re here, you’re here till five. Do whatever I need you to do here and if you’re out for some reason, or you have this or that like that some, you know, negative check mark against you. Like, that’s, that’s not fair to anybody, right? Like, you know, people have doctor’s appointments, they go to people have kids and their kids get sick and have to stay home from school and you know, you got to be able to look at them and say, they’re worth more to me to take this day off and handle this personal situation, and come back and be like, Okay, that’s taken care of, then them feeling like, well, if I don’t get to work, I’m going to be in trouble. And now I’m gonna go to work, and I’m distracted the whole time. And you know, life is happening, I gotta be gracious enough to let that happen outside of work. And when you do that, suddenly, people start to be like, Well, I’m here when I’m here, right? Because I know that if I needed to step out, it would be okay. And it’s not looked at as like, Well, why were you 20 minutes late? One time, you know, if it’s a if it’s a historical problem, then we can address that. But it’s like, you know, sometimes we get so nitpicky right about little things. And it’s like, we got to be willing to let these people be people. They’re not cogs in a machine. Soon as you treat them like that, they’re willing to give you so much more.

Dave 21:10
Yeah. And I bet you that’s really easy to fall into that trap in manufacturing, because you’re, you’re making something you’re literally making cogs operational. So it’s easy to get trapped into that to really great points there. Treat people with respect, create the value in that relationship. And remember that they’re hired there for a reason. They are the experts. They know they are experts in what they’re doing. I live by that. All I trust all my people and I and they’re there for that for reason, why micromanage them, right? The other thing I wanted to talk about is managing time and to do’s because you quickly touched on it, that they’re in a position where they’re doing different things to help you, right, there’s so many different things that you’re responsible for not only managing people and vendor relationships and dealing with awesome agencies like SmartAcre, yes. But it taught what. So you know, I’m all about balance and trying to like figure out balance. And you and I’ve had had many discussions, I can imagine that there’s a lot in any given day, and sometimes it’s unpredictable, what are some of the things that you can share that you found that really help you stay organized and managing to dues and different things coming at you?

Josh 22:28
Sure. So number one, I have to be able to delegate tasks that are not mine to handle to make sure they’re being handled. And I have to trust, you know, goes back to what we were just talking about, you have to be able to trust my team, I have to be able to know that if I told this person to do this, they’re gonna get it done. You know, maybe I just need to follow up on what the result was. But you know, empowering people to do their jobs. So that they don’t feel like you know, I’m just waiting for them to screw up or waiting for them to, you know, report back I’m checking in, because I need to know the answer, I’m not checking in to make sure that they’ve, you know, checked the task off. And, you know, I think from a management on my side, I use task management software, I have a very specific way that I organize my emails, I have several folders, I have response folders waiting for info folders, first thing folders, so that way, as things come into my inbox, I can put them where I need them, I can file it, if it needs to be filed, I can delete it if it’s trash, and then I can put them in these files. So they’re not just staring at me in my inbox all day long. If you guys know that Tim Chaley says he’s an author, and he wrote a book called do more better. And in the appendix of the book, he talks about email, email organization, and it’s it’s an excellent analogy. But he says the way we handle our inboxes is akin to us, going to the mailbox every day, opening it, pulling out all the mail, taking one piece out, stuffing everything back in and closing it again. And then the next day going in and pulling all that same mail out pulling the one thing you need and stuffing everything back in, if you don’t put things where they belong, if you don’t throw away the things that are garbage, that’s just gonna get stuffed, filled full of things, and you’re not gonna be able to find the things you actually need or want. So I have to keep a very strict organization of of my emails, I probably get, you know, 200 plus emails a day. So I have to be able to organize those or it will drown me very quickly. So there’s that and then task management software that just kind of says, These are the projects we’re working on. Here are the dates they need to be done. And then I can just reschedule all those dates when I missed them.

Dave 24:38
That’s right. It’s funny. You mentioned about email the other day, because I work from home. My my youngest walks in and goes, Dad, you have 47,000 unread emails. How? And I said Well, so what I do is I I don’t open them. No To them, I can tell that it’s not important. I just leave it there. He’s like, do you don’t even delete it? I got no, I don’t delete anything, because that’s even a step. Sure. So that I think the point, Josh, you gave some great tips there. And those little microseconds add up in your day, it’s a distraction. As leaders, we make so many decisions throughout the day. And if you can minimize some of the subconscious decisions that you’re making, again, for me, I have five black T shirts lined up in my closet, guess what I wore today, a black T shirt, I didn’t have to make that decision, because I was setting up for this. And I would much rather give that energy towards you. So those are some some great, you know, tips. You know, talk a little bit about because you’re managing other things I can imagine, not only in touch on it, maybe how it’s different from, you know, during the pandemic, and then after the after where we are today. I can imagine supply chain issues, managing vendors can be difficult. And even maybe just the the people aspect that you correct me if I’m wrong, I think you had to do like partial remote. During How do you go? How do you manage something like that when you’re producing a product?

Josh 26:18
Sure. So I mean, that was, I mean, literally, the official switch to me as leader of the company was on March 1 of 2020. And, you know, like, 11 days later, is when, you know, the pandemic struck, and everything went into turmoil. So my first order of business as leader of the company is like, figure out how not to die, like, you know, so it’s like, Okay, so here we go. So, in a manufacturing environment, like, there was no way for me to be like, Alright, you guys all work from home, you know, like, well, you know, we’ll see in a little while, like, just bring the products back when you’re done, you know, we have to have people in the building. Now we have enough physical space, that we were able to take all our manufacturing staff and spread them out and kind of move things around. For the first couple of weeks, while things are really sort of unknown. And, you know, we didn’t know what’s going to happen next. And, you know, they were saying, like, Oh, we’re going to close for two weeks, or we’re going to do this, or, you know, we just have to do this for now, when everything was still very new, we had everyone working alternating shifts on every other day, and like, you know, so we were, we were working out ways to still continue to manufacture the product, without losing, you know, any of my staff due to fear of, you know, like, I’m in a situation where I can’t, you know, I can’t work here, because I’m right next to this person, and my wife’s at home, and she’s sick. And so I don’t want to get you know, her any more sick, she’s compromised, you know, or whatever. So, there was a lot of that we’re just trying to figure out, okay, well, how are we going to get to tomorrow, right, everything became very, very immediate, very, very quickly. So we just constantly had to look at okay, well, what’s gonna happen next, you know, where, where, what are we going to do tomorrow? What are we gonna do the next day? You know, where are we going to wind up? You know, so we ran that for a couple of weeks. And then everything started to cool a little bit from like, Okay, we kind of know what needs to happen. Now. We know people should have masks. We know people should we should have sanitizing stations, we know. But then, of course, you couldn’t get any of those things. So there was that challenge. But, you know, we were constantly having to reevaluate, we sent all of our office employees, so engineers, salespeople, and admin people, everybody went home and worked from home, which we did not have a way to do that. So like many companies, we were scrambling to figure out, Okay, how are we going to remote into our desktops? How are we going to share information, you know, we went from a standard phone line system to you know, VOIP, just so we could have, you know, ways to talk to people and, you know, continue to service, our customer base. So, there was a lot of big challenges in that we got through 2020 was a great year, you know, but then when we got to the end of the 20, of 2020, we started to see the problem with having half of the staff working remotely. And like the my, you know, basically my office staff working remotely, and my manufacturing staff working in house because it was really starting to drag the culture down. Because even though this wasn’t happening, the way it was viewed was kind of like, well, where are those guys? We’re here every day. Where are those guys? You know, and I know those guys were working, I’m not in any way, you know, accusing them otherwise. But there was this split between people where it just said, you know, we have to figure out how we can have everyone understanding that we’re all you know, pulling together, even though you might not see this person physically on a regular basis. They’re still part of this team. They’re still contributing, they’re still valued from the other side, from the people who were gone. One of the things you Finally, manufacturing is there’s a lot of scheduled shift. There’s a lot of you know, manpower changes, supply chain changes. And the people who were outside the office weren’t seeing that. They weren’t, they were just sort of like business as usual and make any sales, they’re gonna go out and X amount of weeks, right? And so then they’re calling up and they’re like, what’s going on? Like the customer saying, they’re like, We’re three weeks late on this order. And we’re like, yeah. And they’re like, Well, what happened? And we’re like, everybody’s firing on all cylinders. But we can’t get this part. And we can’t get that part. And when they’re not seeing it firsthand, and everything’s secondary information, it’s very hard for them to sort of wrap their brain around. Okay, yeah, I see these challenges, because that’s how we’ve always operated, you know, when you can walk out into the manufacturing floor and say, Hey, what’s going on today? And then suddenly, you’re not doing that. Your assumption is, everything’s great. You know, but then over time, you start to see, okay, they’re sort of disconnected from the whole thing, and we need to reconnect them. So this whole operation is moving in one direction. And we’re not starting to splinter into multiple directions.

Dave 31:06
Yeah. I’m immediately thinking of a scene from the office. It’s literally like the salespeople, the admin people on the first floor, and then downstairs is the warehouse. Yelling up, Darrell. Darrell, where’s the the 100 pound white? has that gone out to Acme Company today? Yeah, it’s exactly what I’m picturing right now. But so fast forward, like post than where you’re at today? Like, I think in ways correct me if I’m wrong, like, the pandemic has forced companies like yours, to accelerate digital transformation systems, the upgrading technology at lightnings pace? Yeah, I mean, are you still finding that there’s bits of technology are gaps that you’re you’re forcing, or that you’re being forced that you need to implement because of where we are in our country today? Sure.

Josh 31:57
So I mean, there’s the challenge of making sure you’re technologically advanced enough to handle the situations that are like culturally driven right now with, you know, people needing to work remotely or people, you know, having certain situations that would cause them to like, no need to be removed for a period of time, or you know, whether it’s just because that’s the new allowances, sort of an expectation that people have of jobs, you know, all those things. But then you also have all these other contributing factors. You know, if you deal with the government, you deal with military work, cmmc, compliance is coming up in, you know, in 2023. And that has to be done, then there’s tons of stuff that has to go with that. And so there’s all these different layers of there’s like daily operations in the midst of a post COVID world. And then there’s all the new compliance documentation and everything that has to go along with doing work in that sphere. So you have all these moving parts all at once, that you’re trying to make sure that none of them are grinding each other. Right. So there’s a lot of that management that goes on on a daily basis, right now, as we sort of crossed some of these are, I’d say, jump some of these hurdles, because they’re, they’re pretty significant. But once we get through them, we’ll have a really nice structure. So it’s, it’s really just trying to be flexible day to day, and sort of understand that like, we’re not there yet. But we’re, we have to consistently move towards it, we can’t ever lose focus on what we’re trying to accomplish. So we can’t ever just sort of like, put the ship on autopilot. And like, take a deep breath. We don’t have time for that right now.

Dave 33:32
So imagine managing a lot of outside third parties, he talked about managing logistics and parts, and that could affect building something sure, that you’re trying to produce. And that that’s managing people in and of itself, managing vendor relationships, talk about how you, how do you how do you even go about doing that and be organized you and other people that help you with that?

Josh 33:56
Yeah. So I mean, my ops manager, Mike Clark, he is, you know, he’s the one who’s sort of steering that ship as far as management and of material and vendors and all that, but I think, you know, the, what’s really been exposed in all this, you know, post pandemic stuff, we’re really seeing supply chain just weakening is, you know, we’re all sort of subject to like the Amazon effect, right? Like, we’re just very used to cheap and fast we can get anything we want, we can get it for dirt cheap, and we can get it in two days. You know what I mean? Like, the shipping is free. You know, that’s, that’s what we’re used to. And the reality is because the supply chain has been down so much there, that idea of like, I’m going to be able to find what I need is is not necessarily true, you’re going to probably struggle to find what you need, depending on what you’re looking for. So what you have to do instead is you have to start to treat your vendors like employees, you have to start to develop them. This is what I’m need from you, this is what I expect from you, and you start to grow a relationship over time and use it, you can go back to that, and draw on it. You know, it’s like I was saying earlier, when you have a team, and you have put into them, right? Good friend of mine always says, You can’t make withdrawals unless you’ve made deposits, you know. So it’s like, I can’t ask something of my team, if I have not, you know, put into them, you know what they need. And it’s the same thing for a vendor relationship, they need to know what it is I’m after how I need it, and I need to treat them with the respect they deserve. And not just expect, well, I’m the customer, I know best. So if you, you know, have a part, I need it tomorrow. And it’s got to be free. And it’s got, you know, there’s an aspect of like, treating them as if they’re one of your employees, you know, if you spend a lot of time developing an employee, and suddenly they make a mistake, you’re not going to be likely to just be like, Okay, you’re fired, you know, we’re not talking about, you know, some sort of egregious mistake, but they make a mistake that’s sizable, you’re not going to just turn around and X them. But you are going to correct the mistake, and then you’re going to move forward should treat your vendors the same way. There’s a mistake, we should turn around and look at that and say, Okay, what happened? Let’s fix that. And then let’s move on. So we can continue this relationship, I’ve invested time in developing this vendor, I need to be able to draw on that investment. Now. That’s how we’ve sort of approached, you know, how do we get through some of these cycles is really direct communication with those vendors regularly, really trying to understand what their challenges are. So we know where those, you know, all of those log jams are going to come through on our end. So we keep constant communication with our vendors in order to make sure they know what’s coming, we try to prioritize what we need. And that way, they know how to best work for us.

Dave 36:53
How does that managing those outside relationships? How does that affect the culture internally.

Josh 37:01
So again, it dovetails into the same thing of how we want to work internally, we want to be treated with respect, we want to be respectful of each other, we want to move the whole thing forward. Because when the company is successful, everyone’s successful. So we want to continue to sort of push that whole mantra over and over again, and you do the same with your vendors, you want to say to the vendors, like look, you know, when you hit all your delivery dates on, you know, these parts, I can sell faster, and therefore I’m gonna win better contracts and order more parts, you know, so it’s more success for you, your success now adds up to success later, you know, so we just continually have to drive that home with a lot of them. And it’s very similar to what we want our employees to feel to.

Dave 37:49
And how do you? I would imagine that what the you said, you get a lot of emails, I would imagine, when there’s an opportunity to select a new vendor, or something. I talked about innovation, you know, how do you how do you innovate? Or how do you improve? Talk, talk me through some of the things that as a business owner you look out for? And maybe it’s the people side of it, too, when you’re deciding to partner with somebody new.

Josh 38:20
Right? So I mean, the biggest thing we’re going to look for is like, do we have a need, you know, first and foremost, I mean, again, if you treat your vendors your onboarding process your selection process the same way you would treat an employee, the first thing you’re gonna say, do we need another person in this slot? Right? Do are we lacking here? So you know, maybe you’ve you’ve brought on a new, you know, line or a new offering, and you need someone who can produce that, or you need someone to manage it. So you’re, you’re looking for an employee to bring that on. If someone were to just come to you tomorrow, and say, Hey, I’m this great employee wanted to hire me, if you had no need, you wouldn’t hire them. Because the only way you would be hiring them as if you were letting someone else go, you know, so we don’t want to do that to our vendors, unless there’s a problem unless there’s actually an issue where we say, oh, yeah, we really need to solve this. So we want to be careful that just because someone presents themselves as this amazing manufacturer of this or supplier of that, we don’t just jump ship with our existing people because it takes a lot more time to onboard this new vendor, train them up to what we do. Make sure the expectations are set clearly and sort of, you know, get really clear performance out of them. It’s going to be months maybe even longer before we really start to feel for like yeah, they’re a good fit. So we don’t want to just jump ship with these people. We’ve spent years sort of grooming and setting expectations with just because we’re this guy looks better, or you know, has a better offering. You know,

Dave 39:48
I get those and we all get those emails constantly. I always I always got to say sometimes it’s just timing, you know, if, if sometimes if I see an email I majority of the time it’s like on Subscribe block II, I stopped selling me this, I don’t need this. I’m not ready. But it is a timing thing you don’t know when that timing might be sure. So if they catch you at the right time, it might be that so we’re a vendor, we’re a partner. Yes, we’re a partner, we don’t like to use the term vendor internally, because we do think that there was a partnership and that because, I mean, it wouldn’t be a partnership, if we didn’t have the tenure that we have we, you know, both feeling each other’s pains and wins. Right. So I think, you know, as we can get, you could share anything you want to share right now, this, but let’s get into it, but being being a client of mine, you know, obviously, some things that, that I’m not afraid to talk about is, you know, we’ve had turnover over the years, you’ve seen a lot of different people come in and out of, of your account. But I think, you know, it’s important that you don’t one of the things that I always did with you is I always maintained a relationship. Number one, I was always transparent with you. That’s, that’s the other thing in partnership, I think it’s really important that you communicate, and don’t just, you know, shove it under the rug, if there’s turnover, I mean, the agency world, there’s a lot of that. Right? Right, there’s a lot of that you get to work a lot with a lot of different smart, specific people on different things that help you because you don’t have an in house marketing department, you outsource that. you outsource that to that. So this is almost like we are an extension of your team. But talk about the immediate thing I’d like to get your your thoughts on is, so you’re doing all those error things? And then how, how is it like you’re interfacing with us on a weekly bi weekly basis, and getting on Zoom calls, and then talking about the things that you need to do to help grow your business?

Josh 41:45
Sure. So again, I mean, it really just follows the same framework. I have, you know, if I have an employee, and that employee has gained trust, and has demonstrated ability and has, I’m going to hand them more things that I’m not going to have to worry about, you know, I might come back and you know, hand you a project, and then come back in a week and say, Hey, where are we at with this project? But I’m not with you, like every four hours, like, please provide updates, please tell me what you know, it’s like, I’ve given it to this employee, and they’ve said, Yeah, I’m gonna handle it. And I trust them to do that. And, you know, you and I have worked together for so long. I know that when I say, you know, to your team, hey, look, we need to get this done. They’re on it. And you know, they bring me stuff all the time. This is what we’re thinking is you can you weigh in on this. And, you know, the reason again, going back to what I said earlier, you hire new people you add to your team, when first you you don’t know something, and you need that skill set added. And second, if you don’t have time to manage that. So I have both of those things with you guys, I am not a marketer, that’s not my skill set, I’m not trained in it, it’s not you know, where my brain lies, it’s just, it’s something that is necessary that needs to happen. But I’m not the guy to do it. So smart hacker brings to the table like, you know, hey, we are experts in this. And so it’s like having a, you know, top of the line marketing employee who can handle all that and make it happen for me. But the thing that’s always been amazing to me is the level of understanding they’re willing to gain of our product offerings of our culture of how we operate, in order to know, like, Okay, I know that if I, you know, they know, for me, if they come to me, and they say, Hey, we need this, they gotta give me a date, if they don’t give me a date, it’s going to slip, I’m not going to stay in front of it, because it’s going to be sort of nebulous, and in the background, you know, or if they say, Hey, we’re working on this project for this thing, they have an understanding of what it is they’re actually talking about. And it’s not just words on a page to them, you know, and the level of investment it takes to get to that point is significant. And that’s really one of the things that I have found to be invaluable over the years is just to really say, like, when I tell you guys something, you understand what I’m talking about. And it’s not because you’re experts in what we do. It’s because you’ve taken the time to understand it enough. So you can do your job effectively.

Dave 44:10
Yeah, those I mean, thank you. I mean, that’s, that’s great. I’m gonna cut that out and use that as a testimonial. But the two things that I can share is one we have this term, this phrase that we use and it’s ingrained in our culture of caring and and it goes for internally but also for our clients because I just think there’s so much into it and that’s what I love working working at an agency is I don’t get up to work for smarter I do. But I get up to work for for our clients and you get to learn all of those things. And I just think that’s what’s fun about being in business, the businesses you get to learn about all of your business challenges. But the other thing there is that a word accountability I think there’s so much I guess you would say like in flocks on where’s their accountability, it’s usually always fall falls on all of the accountabilities on the vendor side. But in order for to be a successful partnership, there needs to be accountability on both sides. So, you know, that’s really important about putting dates and, and holding, you know, accountability there. I can imagine with managing people and managing vendor relationships and managing and well, you don’t let the manage an awesome agency, but and culture and growing and making sure products get out and all that. How I mean, balance, right, like, how are you balancing your day? I mean, or is that something that you’re still working on? Talk to me about budgets.

Josh 45:34
So I mean, balance is one of those things that’s thrown around a lot. Now, you know, you see a lot about, you know, creating good work life balance and creating, you know, good, you know, barriers in place to make sure your work life balance isn’t out of whack and everything. And, you know, the more I thought about that, you know, I don’t want it to just be buzzwords, right, you know, you go back in like culture, and, you know, accountability, and like, these are all real things. But they’re also buzzwords that people use to sound like they’re talking about something. So, you know, with balance, I look at balance, and I’m like, Okay, well, what does balance actually mean? So I looked it up. And the Cambridge Dictionary defines balance as the condition of someone or something in which its weight is equally divided. So that I can stay in one position or be under control while moving. So when you understand what balance is, it’s not equality, okay? Because things can be different weights and still be in balance, depending on where you balance them, right. So if you have two weights, and you have, you know, a balance on them, and you put that, you know, the center of it closer to one side, it will either be out of skew if they’re the same way, or it will be level if they’re different weights, you know, so it’s that it’s a matter of understanding what it takes to balance what’s on your plate, okay, I can’t control what kind of fires I’m going to have to put out in one day. I don’t know, you know, what failure is going to happen in the field that a customer suddenly needs help with, or you know, what sale that’s suddenly going to need support on the pitch or what, you know, engineering problem needs immediate addressing, I don’t necessarily know what those are going to look like in any given day. So my day might look like an eight hour cakewalk, it might look like a 12 hour slog, it just depends on day to day. So I don’t think it’s something where I can plan to be like, all be balanced today. You know, it’s, it’s taking those moments that you have, and being extremely deliberate with them. Okay. I think when a lot of people think about balance, they think about time, and they think, Well, if I go to work eight hours a day, then I need eight hours a day of me time or free time or whatever. So the only way to create balance is to reduce my amount of work. I’m sure that sounds awesome. But it’s not realistic for most people, you know, so I did the math, and it’s like, there’s whatever 168 And suddenly, hours in a week, and if you work a 50 hour work week, and you sleep eight hours a night, right, which like who sleeps eight hours a night, you still have like 62 hours in a week of time to spend on other things. Now, granted, especially as you know, a parent and you know, involved in different things, like you’re going to be giving the time to different things. But like, let’s be real, right? How many of us are guilty of spending an hour on our phone, Doom, scrolling social media, or binge watching, you know, 10 episodes of a show, you know, that we’ve already watched, you know what I mean? Like, it’s, there’s a lot of time that is wasted, you know, because we’re not deliberate with it, we don’t say I need to unplug, I need to engage with my family, I need to engage with my friends, or I need to engage in a hobby or something like that, you know, we sort of assume that because we have this free time, that will be filled with pleasure and fun and and therefore we will automatically create balance. And the fact of the matter is, is that time will just evaporate. If you don’t do something with it, and you don’t choose this is how I’m going to spend my time. Because if you are just letting it lie, it’s it’s going to tend to chaos, it’s not going to tend to order. So we have to be able to sit down and say, Okay, I want to do this, I want to you know, you take up a new hobby, you want to learn an instrument you want to you know, learn a new language or something, you have to be deliberate about that. It’s not just gonna happen. You’re not just gonna show up one day and be like, I can play the guitar. You know, you have to take lessons you have to take time to practice. It’s the same thing with any relationship or anything else. You have to be deliberate about putting time and effort into those things. That’s how you’re going to create balance is saying, I might only have two hours you know, Mike kids were little, they were all little at the same time. I mean, they were really little, you know, it was It was wild, you know, three kids in diapers we had, you know, just to so everyone can understand. It’s three kids under a year and a half, that’s, that’s where we were at one point in our lives, you know, I was working two jobs. And you know, my wife was staying home with the kids. And so we’re, we’re trying to figure out this not. So I might only have I get home from work at 536 o’clock, they’re going to bed, they’re little they’re on, they’re going to be like, seven 730. Like, I might have two hours with them in that day. So what do I do, I can’t get them for eight hours, right? I only have this much time. So you be deliberate with that time, you know, it’s not going to balance itself. You it takes work, you know, creating that moving that peace in order to keep that balance in order is what’s necessary, you know, and you can’t, it’s not just going to show up one day and be like, Oh, my life’s in balance, suddenly only have to work 20 hours a week, and I’ve got all this extra time to do all these fun things, it’s like, that’s probably not going to be happening, especially as a leader in an organization, you’re probably gonna have a lot on your plate, and a lot of demands on your time. So you’re gonna have to choose what things get attended to and what things get pushed to later. Same in your personal life, I’ve got to choose time with my family time in my church, time playing music time, you know, doing things, you know, that are relaxing, time doing the work that needs to get done around my house, you know, like, I have to choose and make sacrifices and do these things. But if I’m deliberate about them, then it’s okay. You know, then it’s going to create that balance, if I just sort of like, let it all fly, and just hope that for the best, it’s gonna be all out of whack.

Dave 51:42
Great stuff. Great stuff. Josh, I agree with that. 110% If you listen to my past episodes, you know, you know, I’ve said things about prioritization is your superpower, you prioritize the things that you work on Episode Two, we talked about having a glass ball. So you’re like juggling all these things. But you always want to keep your eye on that one glass balls, you don’t want that to ever fall that’s like your kids, right? When they’re at one and a half those in your glass ball, make sure that you don’t drop them, right. And so it’s really important. And what I always say is the math that a lot of what a lot of us fall into this trap of it’s like, okay, I do my work. And then I have to sleep. And then I’m left with this, right. That’s the math and then our feelings is like, I’m left and it feels unbalanced. But if you flip that script, and you work on those hobbies, you work on those things, and you prioritize those, or start to prioritize those in your throughout your day. If you can do that, or parts of the day, you’ll start to feel a little bit more balanced. You just have to be like, hey, you know what I really enjoy. You know, this, I’m going to start doing that every single day. And it’s going to create some happiness in my life. And it’s something that’s giving back to me. So those are all those are all really, really great points. I love. I love that stuff. That’s, that’s awesome. Thanks for sharing that. This is the part where I like to have a little fun and we want to get into Dave’s top 10 of randomness. So Dave’s random 10 I wouldn’t want to get into now. Are you ready for this? There’s, I’m as ready as I’m going to be. There’s nothing on your laptop. For those who are watching on YouTube. There’s nothing on your laptop that you’re going to be able to help because these are all new questions. I really thought long and hard about these. Some of them might be a little weighted, because I do know you on a personal level and certain things so we’ll start off easy. And just make sure that you know we don’t really mess anything up here. So all right, question one. It says you have to pick one friend’s pick one French press, drip

Josh 53:42
or pour over pour over all day every day.

Dave 53:46
So I apologize for having drip for you when you when you came by. It was easier I program at the night before and I wake up and it is freshly ground every morning. I

Josh 53:56
am an appreciator of coffee but I am not a snob of coffee. I love good coffee, and I have the things I like but if someone’s going to offer me coffee, whether it’s from a Keurig or a or a drip or whatever, thank you. I appreciate that.

Dave 54:12
Good stuff, good stuff. All right, we use you said this earlier question to stream and binge or live TV.

Josh 54:25
Well, I’ll go stream not binge and we don’t have life anymore. So is that even available? Is that a thing? You know, we we just you know with kids and just having things that are you know, sort of geared towards them, you know, it’s it just sort of makes sense for streaming. I try not to binge too frequently only because it will eat your time you know, so we will generally pick a show that we are if you say binging like we might watch the same show every night for like a couple of weeks. So if the if that’s a bit And then great, but we rarely are like we’re doing the whole season and like, you know, two days or something like that. It’s usually pretty calculated. So

Dave 55:07
I’m with you there. What are you watching right now?

Josh 55:10
What are we watching right now? I think we just ended we watch a lot of BBC shows, some of the like mystery shows and some of the dramas and we do a lot of like home renovation shows, you know, to look at the things that maybe someday I’ll have to do in my house, you know, but yeah, I mean, it’s a lot of that stuff. But we watched, if you guys get a chance to watch the repair shop, it’s a BBC show. That is basically all these craftsmen who repair antiques. So we were watching that a lot recently. So pretty cool stuff.

Dave 55:40
I am going to, I’m going to note that one. I’m a fan of that. So that’s cool. All right. Question three, audio book or paperback

Josh 55:50
audiobook, because I don’t have a lot of free time. And when I do, I’m generally pretty tired. If I’m suddenly like, oh, I have nothing to do. And reading just like makes me more tired. So audio book all day because I can listen while I drive. So you know, if I’m going into work or you know, driving over here, picking the kids up here, I can throw on an audio book and I can consume that content that way. I do like to read I just am you know, especially if we’re talking about like, you know, recreational reading and not like something that’s really like focused. Definitely audiobook,

Dave 56:24
and you go to audiobooks right now, for anything you just finished up, you can share

Josh 56:29
the comfort crisis by Michael Easter. That’s a good one.

Dave 56:33
Great, we’ll drop that in the description on agency balanced.com All right, number four, hard rock, or just rock or pop rock.

Josh 56:46
Are there any other categories? I don’t know. I’m a I love music. I’ve played music for years and, you know, played in bands grew up in like the, you know, DIY underground music scene. So, if you throw it into like rock fine, not really pop rock, not really into a lot of APA, like hardrock rock, punk rock, you know, all that stuff was was definitely my my world for a long time. So still probably a little bit in there. If I have to choose of those three, I’m gonna go with rock only because it’s more widely descriptive. hardrock can get into bands that, you know people like to make fun of.

Dave 57:25
Yeah, and I think

Josh 57:28
we won’t mentioned Nickelback, but

Dave 57:29
yeah, I was gonna say. So yeah, it’s just funny, too. If you if you do watch like musical words. It’s like everything is classified under rock. I’m like, how are they wrong?

Josh 57:38
That’s not really right. Rock anymore. Yeah.

Dave 57:41
Good stuff. Okay, this is an open ended question. This is kind of to see how your engineering brain works. Okay, if I gave you a blank sheet of paper, right? What would you do with it?

Josh 57:55
Probably take notes on it for whatever I have to work on next. Yeah, that’s I mean, or am I draw? You know, I went through art school. That’s my official business training is art school. So we probably sketch on it a little bit, draw some things, take some notes and move on to the next thing.

Dave 58:13
That’s, that’s amazing. Good stuff. All right. This is really random. And I originally wrote it just two, but I had to add a third. So cotton feather, or memory foam pillows, pick one,

Josh 58:29
when they sell at Target. I don’t know how I don’t even think about that. I guess. I guess memory foam. Because I guess the one pillow that I have that I like is memory foam. So yeah, we’ll go with that. Because I don’t, those are decisions that I don’t have to make. So it’s it’s not something I think about

Dave 58:49
that’s good. And it sounds like you’re a heavy sleeper and you don’t have to worry about the preciseness of your pillow. I do. I cannot stand feather pillows. I specifically asked for it. I am that guy that asked for it. When I go to like hotels or something. I’m like I need cotton, or memory foam. I have an allergy to fill the feather like I will share it but also, I’ve been really into sleep about making sure I get a good night’s sleep and that’s really important. So I am a fan of that memory foam and I wasn’t originally Okay. Since we’re talking about coffee earlier, right? This is the glass half full or half empty.

Josh 59:28
So, this is the optimist pessimist question is where you’re going to corner me. So I’m a realist. Okay, I try to with a tinge of optimism. So I will just say that container is half because it’s it’s just half of its contents. You know what it means? So is it is it half empty? I don’t know. It depends on what I’m doing. If I’m drinking it, yes, then it’s half empty. If I’m filling it, then it’s half full. You know, it depends on what action I’m taking with it. If it’s if I’m emptying it, yes, then it is half of the way empty.

Dave 1:00:00
I’m not even going to try to elaborate on that I’m good with that answer. That is a very good answer. All right, which of your five senses? The senses that you have? Or is the strongest?

Josh 1:00:11
is the strongest? Or is my favorite? Strong? Strong? Let’s see.

Dave 1:00:17
I mean, we were talking about Marvel earlier. Right? Like if we if you one of those senses became your superpower, let’s, let’s say that.

Josh 1:00:25
My strongest Wow. I mean, I guess, hearing would be the best. I’m sure some would say otherwise. But that’s probably the thing that I’ve cultivated the most over the years, you know, my eyes are getting worse and worse. So I don’t want to say seeing, but I would say hearing because I, I still do. Like, I like to listen to complex music. I like to hear the levels of what’s in there. Like to play music. So I like to hear what’s going on. So I, I think that’s the one. If it’s not the best, it’s the one I would like to be the best.

Dave 1:00:57
Okay. All right. So we’re wrapping up here. These are the final two questions. These are kind of getting into the more philosophy. Okay. All right, but or maybe not? Well, let’s just I just like to see how Alright, here we go. What is the one thing you will never do again?

Josh 1:01:18
Wow. A podcast? No. I don’t know. I mean, that’s a that’s a broad question. But one thing I will never do again. Wow. That is so deep. Can we can we come back to it? We can come

Dave 1:01:35
back to it. I mean, you could say you know, after this, I’m really never going to Dave choose the questions. Considering audiobook or paperback? Right. All right. So this might help it. Because it’s the opposite, right? So what is on the maybe you don’t have your to do got your I think your list type of person, I gather that what’s on the top of your bucket list,

Josh 1:01:59
my bucket list. Just spend more time with my family, with you know, my parents, my my siblings, my kids, my wife, you know, you don’t with kids in high school now. Um, you know, I know people keep on their bucket net bucket list, like really big things like, oh, I want to take a trip to wherever I want to you know, skydive, or, you know, there’s these big things. And like, I don’t really think about my life in these, like, tiny little moments. I’ve done cool stuff that I thought that was really cool. But when it gets to the end of my life, I’m not going to look back and be like, Man, I’m glad I skydive, you know, like I’m going to be looking at, you know, I’m never going to, like, be sad that I spent too much time with my family, you know, and especially with kids in high school, you know, it seemed like yesterday, there, they were three under one and a half. And, um, you know, you’re just trying to juggle everything. And then before you know it, you’re, you know, you’re you’re looking at like, wow, they could literally be out of the house in, you know, three years, you know, so it’s, there’s that side of like, I don’t think I’m going to look back and regret not having these very epic experiences, and just be like, Well, we had some really cool, you know, quiet nights at home, or we just hung out, you know, like that that’s going to be way more impactful. I think in the long term. Like,

Dave 1:03:17
I agree, I’m living that right now. Anything you would never do again?

Josh 1:03:23
I’d never do again. It’s one of those things like, I don’t, there’s probably things I mean, I’m sure if I if I went back through my life and said, Oh, yeah, I did this. And that was like the worst idea ever. But there’s usually something that I can look at. And I can say, okay, like, there was a lesson learned there, that was really important. And if I hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t have, you know, done this, you know, there’s points in life where I think you you look at something and say, like, I would never do this again. And usually when you get to the other side of it you like you can realize, like what was happening at that time and the things that you you know, learned through that. And I’m not going to turn back and say, Man, I really wish I would never have done that again, because the things that came out of were so important, you know, so I could, I’m sure run down a list of regrets that I had in my life that I’d never want to do again. But at the same time, I’m looking back saying like, but yeah, but that’s who’s made me into who I am today. So I don’t have a long list of those things. So

Dave 1:04:19
that’s a great, that’s a great way. That’s a great point. And I think it’s a great way to end today as well. Josh, thank you so much for coming on. There’s no regrets, right. No regrets. And if any of our listeners want to check you out, check out the company, anything that you can share with our listeners.

Josh 1:04:36
Yeah, so our website is e i c solutions.com. Again, we’re making air conditioning for specifically for electronic cooling for cooling systems and machines. So yeah, check us out. Wow, always new things happening, exciting things going on. And hopefully we’ll see you there.

Dave 1:04:54
Josh, thanks so much. Have a great day. You too.