Levels Of Ownership, Anthony Mattioni

Jack interviews Anthony Mattioni, owner of Mattioni Plumbing, Heating & Cooling.  Anthony talks about transitioning from the Marines to his family-owned company. The discussion ranges from setting career expectations to understanding the true value of a high performance service manager. 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:08

TheHi, this is Jack Chester. I'm president, CEO of Nexstar. And this is another edition, another episode of the Leadership Lounge. I have got the pleasure and distinction of being sitting in the opposite with Anthony. Matty. Yoni, I do an Anthony doing well today. Thank you very much. Good, good. Glad you're here. Thank you. Now Anthony, you're here to in our office in Saint Paul. For what reason? Today here for HVHC specific, uh, sort of services from training and you, you brought in, was it three technicians with you for four, four, 10 missions right on. Okay, we're going to get back to that. Thanks for coming here. Anthony and Anthony, you've been here a lot at nextdoor. I see you and your brother Michael, all the time. In fact, last week you were in Palm Springs, right? That's right. For Service management training. And now this week you're in Saint Paul for HVDC training. Awesome. And we're coming back for leadership mastery as well in December. I can't wait to have you here. Let's do another one of these then. Okay. Okay. So, um, I want to talk to Anthony about it. A couple of interesting things. Um, but first I want, tell me a little bit about yourself and your business. How long have you been at[inaudible]? I joined the family business three years ago. Okay. I was in the Marine Corp prior to that. Thank you for your service by the way. Thank you. Thank you. Um, our family business started in 1948 by my grandfather after he got out of the army after World War II. Okay. He realized his radio technician skills had been now done by the commercial side of the industry at that time and, uh, wanting to move out south Philly and became a plumber. Okay. He operated his own truck until about 1980 using, uh, new grants. Now they did from 48 to 80 guess kind of employing a, his three sons. Okay. My Dad and my two uncles and a, and then in 1980, they took the business from over from him. All right. And have grown it substantially since. Okay. Then you came in through years ago. Well, I came in three years ago. My brother, uh, graduated from Penn State. Uh, it's my business degree. Michael. Um, he graduated 2007, 2009, he joined the company. Okay. And, uh, had started as an, uh, Hac apprentice or not working on the outdoor units. So he worked his way through the apprenticeship program at, well, he kind of created the apprenticeship program at the time, higher near to the apprenticeship. Right, right. And how about that? He was the first one. Okay. Yes. Um, so then after that, uh, he moved into the officer's call center manager, started developing processes 2012 and moved into the office and I joined him in 2014. Okay. Very good. Why did you decide to come into the business? Me Personally? Yeah. That was something I've always wanted to do ever since I was, uh, you know, even 10 years old. And so, um, I was always told that, you know, unless I want it to be a technician, there wasn't much room for me in the business. And today I operate as CEO of the company. So, uh, that mindset hadn't existed at the time that there can be such a position in a plumbing and heating company back when you're out of high school and considering career options. Yes. Yeah. That was the thought of your father and uncles that you got to be a technician. Right, exactly. Which is not bad, which is pretty good actually. Right, right. Okay. Um, so you, you, you and your brother are now you're the CEO of the business. Yeah. Brothers a partner, uh, call him the president. Okay. So you guys are kind of run the business now. So tell us about Maddie on the size of it were what kind of work you do. Sure. So, uh, when my brother took over in 2012, we were around a$3 million company, uh, primarily plumbing only, uh, and just getting into HPAC at the time, uh, this year we'll be on track to do about 8 million total. Very nice. Uh, and that'll be a split between right down the middle of about three to four h Vac, three to four in plumbing. Okay. All residential service, replacing all residential service and replacement. Okay. We did have a remodeling department, but we had, uh, since decided to shift our focus strictly, um, to residential service and replacement. Okay. Very good. Very good. Now, a little private insight here. I'll mention that, uh, your company participated in our frank j blow junior financial survey and we had your 2016 numbers and I won't share them, but you are one of the more PR, most profitable companies in the Nexstar. So congratulations. Thank you very much. Did a great job. You are in the, the shortlist consideration for that top award. So, uh, well try harder this time. Well, but you were telling me before, it's like you're even having a better year this year, so you might, you may take the prize in 2017 looking forward to it. Awesome man. Well what, what brought this on is what I'm seeing you in your brother all the time at these events and I saw your financial performance, so you're making it work, you're connecting the dots back in Philly, you're doing a great job. And then I got an evaluation from last week's service management class. And you had wrote on the end of the class evaluation, we ask people for comments and you had written a comment to me and I wasn't at the class, you had just written a directed to me and this was sent to me by Gina Bronto here as she was looking at the evils. And we do look at these events and the is proof of it, right? Yes. So it says Jack, it would be helpful if you personally spoke with each owner and Nexstar not the gms to ensure that all the training will be supported when it's brought back to the company. Right? Yes. So talk a little bit about, about what that disconnect is or what you are kind of pointing to when you wrote that, that statement and there's more that you wrote. I'll get to that in a minute. Okay. Uh, first off, I just, every time I go to a next star event, I see the enthusiasm especially, um, you know, the service system events a little bit eye opening for some of the newer people. So, so there's, there's, there's like an awakening at those and I really appreciate that. Did you just for everyone to see a little bit more, but then as you get to the service manager level and beyond, uh, and enthusiasm that is just unparalleled. It's very professional. Everyone is under the same page of why they're there. A lot of times I the service management class at the service management class, so, so the, and then that enthusiasm has just carried over to the three days and it's fantastic. They're charged up in that class. Absolutely. And then, and then one of the things that I just here at the end of that classes, man, I hope I can put all this in place. And that idea of taking the imaginary and putting it into the reality, Ooh, kind of, uh, kind of, kind of puts a, takes a little bit of the glimmer out of their eyes a little bit because they know that they're going to go back to a system that, you know, supports them in theory, but not necessarily with the tangibles that they need to have all right there in order to do that. So one of the things that, that, that you said is that know we teach some concepts in service management school and that those concepts might not be something that the owners even aware of. Exactly. What elaborate on that because what can happen as an example in service management school? So service management school, well that has quite a definition along with it because if you ask somebody with a business background like me, I think that serves management and the way it's taught at Nexstar is very in line with the way I would have that mentality. Good to know. Um, now if you ask someone, like my uncle or my dad, uh, who, who grew up in the business as technicians, their definition of service manager is someone who kind of works in the background to support the technicians on the technical level and help them keep moving throughout the, um, throughout the organization and help them be profitable, but, but more along a technical manager. And that's not something that can be technical troubleshooter or something. Right? Right. And someone who can, you know, work behind the scenes with tech support or something like that so that we can deepen the, the industry specific knowledge. And I think that we have a place for that next door. And that's called the field supervisor of okay. Is that correct? Well, we have that on the org chart that we give to our members as an example of year. Right. So, so I think there might be a little bit of confusion there between what the owner sees, the service manager's responsibility as to when they come back. And we're, we talk about things like tracking conversion rates and, and um, you know, using the coaching and tracking manager to help us increase our plan memberships or you know, items per task or tasks per call kind of thing. Right. So, um, you mentioned billable hours and hours, just the whole concept of having the price books set up for, to submit work billable hours. So it becomes an overwhelming task sometimes for service manager to take what he learns or she learns in the next star training. Right. And implement it. So what I hear you saying is that that the owner, if they're not aware of what's taught at next to our service management in, is operating from a different playbook maybe from years ago. Yes. Sends their service manager, they're thinking they're doing the right thing and the service manager comes in and has these ideas that are not just about how to support troubleshooting a water on the phone. Yes. It's supporting how to manage the field, how to grow people, how to recruit, how to hold people accountable to numbers. And if the owner's not aligned with that, it's almost like this guys, the trainings almost been kind of waste. It hasn't not wasted, but well it certainly takes the glimmer out, especially when you talk about the accountability piece because see that with other guys there. Uh, I, you know, I, I didn't see it go from like 100 zero but I definitely saw it go from, you know, maybe 100 down to down to 50%. Oh sure. Because you were there as an owner, but you saw the service managers there, right? Yes, correct. I got it. I got it. Okay. Well that's awesome. And uh, so I think the takeaway here is for sure as an owner, if you're sending your mid level or management team to an event, you better know the content yourself. Absolutely. Right. You better go with them or have been there so that you're aligned when they come back. Now you're singing out of the same hymnal. You're not, you're not, you're not counter. He, you know, it next door is an investment in it. I think it is a great investment and it's one that at our company, we're very happy to be a part of. Um, you never want to undermine your investment on especially unknowingly. And I think that that can happen a lot of times. Okay. That's awesome. That's awesome. All right. And that was basically the essence of your, uh, your comment right to me was to get this message out to owners so that what you saw may be occurring on a little level doesn't happen on a physical level, which gave rise to this idea of this podcast, which won't hit every owner. I wish it would, but it will at least make a dent. How's that? I hope so. You know, make a dent for sure. Well, let's talk about, so thank you for that feedback and thank you for giving this as a good platform here. We've got more to talk about by the way. Great. Um, thank you for giving this platform to talk about that. And then I think the broader message here is it's not just service management, it's every management class. Absolutely. And I think if you're going to make the investment in Nexstar, um, you can't ask your people to implement something if you're not aware of what it is, cause you will unknowingly, cause you're not bought in. Right. You haven't, you haven't, I hate to use the term, drink the Koolaid, but you haven't been to the event. You don't know what they've learned. Right. Yeah. Especially it cannot be an outsourcing of knowledge. So in other words, uh, you know, one of the things that I think that I would encourage everyone to do, and I hope I'm not jumping ahead, is to read your book about, um, you know, I wrote on the shoulders of giants is available on Amazon. Right. So, okay. Um, I think a lot of owners, you know, have, have really, really done their time getting through the apprentice and the journeyman level of, of ownership. And I think every, if you read the book, you'll know, you'll know what I'm referring to. And they a lot of times enter into that mastery level. And I think they do a great job of that. They've something they're proud of. They do something that they would want to continue, but sometimes they, you know, we talk about in your book the pitfalls of that mastery level and, and, and, you know, having the mentality that, you know, I'll just hire someone that thinks like an owner or maybe my general manager will think like an owner. Right. And then they'll be the one to implement next star, not me, not, not, not me. And, and, and you know, I've, I've done my piece of dumb, my learning. Um, you know, I think I, I'm Google or I am, it's the company that needs to grow and, and then we send the service manager or the general manager or you know, whatever manager down, even at the technician level to call center manager to training to learn and implement. But, but if the owner themselves is not willing to grow, oh, okay. And, and, and kind of put themselves back not into the same growth pattern they did as a technician to get to where they are, but into, into just, just the understanding of what it is that's being taught. When, when these new ideas come back, they will be new, but they might be challenged and they might be challenged in a way that really demotivates because of, uh, because you don't mean to a motivate. I mean you wouldn't be a nexstar member if you didn't truly love your people. Um, but you want, you want to make sure, in my opinion that you're loving them in a way that's supporting them in their missions. Right? Right. So, so the, the, the, for those that don't know what we're talking about is, is in the master section of the book that was written, um, we talk about one of the pitfalls of growth, which is you get to a point where maybe you're tired, maybe you're, you've, you know, you've experienced a lot and you do have a lot of knowledge and now you think training's for everybody else. But you, right? You think that the, now it's my time to sit back and kind of coast and I'm going to give Anthony Nexstar here in Anthony, here's next door to you. You learn about that. I don't need to worry about that cause I want you to implement it, but you're still got this hand on the business. You've still got your still the people, the person that people really look to for inspiration, for motivation for that, for that next thing. And you're not doing the next thing. You're just hanging out. Right. And then people kind of know that the boss hasn't really bought in. Right. He's not really committed and so they can kind of half way do it right. If the boss can pick and choose of what he likes about Nexstar and what he or she, excuse me, he doesn't like about Nexstar then then everyone inheritantly we'll do the same thing. Especially when you come back from service management course. I mean the first question here in this course and service system today was what do we think about next? Star and boy does that answer very throughout every employee in the next hour related company. Um, and a lot of the times you get Nexstar has some great things to offer and not some great things to offer it. It will work in other areas, but not ours. Right. And that's exactly what you wrote about Jack in the mastery section of, you know, if you're saying things like, you know, that doesn't work in our service area or you know, that's great for them but not for us. You know, those are limiting beliefs that I think needs to be overcome. But those limiting beliefs might be being projected by the owner and the owner doesn't even know about. Right. So when, when the service manager works one on one with the technicians doing, trying to do their job, um, and then service technicians that adopt that because most of the time to service technicians may have been with the company longer than that service match. So they, they might be echoing the owner's sentiment, right? Saying, you know, the things that I just said and the service manager, it looks at an impossible challenge ahead of him now or her right to implement the things they learned to, you know, whatever training it is. There's kind of this unholy cabal between the owner and the tech, the older technicians, and they don't even know what's going on. Right. And it's kind of getting in the way of progress. Right? Absolutely. And we've seen that, you know, Anthony, you bring up a great point because I, I tell you over the years here, we've, you know, as a business coach, before I came back here in this role, so I worked with a lot of companies and even heard it on a partner level. Meaning this, that the partner says, new you go take care of next door and I'll, I'll you, that's yours. Okay, you do next door. So he got two partners running a business and one of them is kind of all in, in one of them is kind of, well I'll do it cause he wants to, and then they say, well you do it and I'll just sit here and you go to next door and I'll, I'll, I'll, you know, maybe they even bathed it around or wrap it around terms. Like, I'll just make sure that the business is running well while you're gone. A little martyrdom, right? Yeah. And then they come back and then the, the, the, the partners kind of maybe um, hasn't experienced that. The content, so they don't have the motivation. And so when this owner comes back, partner comes back, all jacked up. The other guys almost rolling his eyes. Right. Right. And no other ability to do anything else cause he doesn't know. Right. Or she doesn't know. Right. So that's just, and so the same thing I'm, I'm guessing happens with a service manager or any employee, you know, send a text away. Let's just say it's a small company, you know, you're doing everything. But I send a tech away to service system and they come back either one of two ways that come back, either all jacked up and the understanding, what is this? Yeah, you want me to do this? Or what often happens Anthony, is the technician comes back and lets just say that this is going to cause this technician to do a lot of change in their life. Yes. And we hope to change people in this event, but sometimes it doesn't happen and they just say, ah, next door's okay. Yeah, next door is all right. And that could happen from a service manager's perspective too, I guess. Well, you know, so one of the things that I've experienced personally is that, um, is that next doors for the new guys. Next door is not for the old guys. Oh, so you've heard that. Yeah. So the new guys, but let's focus on the new guys. Let's have the apprentices focus on next door. What's at the, you know, the new hires, but the old guys leave them alone. Yeah. We're already pretty successful, successful and run this, I built this place, Anthony. Right, right. And especially the senior technicians. I mean, I have the utmost respect for, yeah. Every technician that I work with and especially the ones who have given, you know, their, their young adult lives, right. They've been on call, they've done great work, they've done the great work and, and, and you know, it pains me a little bit as, as someone who's grown up with them in my position as a family member, just, you know, who's grown up alongside of them, knowing them that I truly want to help. I want their lives to be better. And I know next star is, is it's not next door the organization, it's next started the information right? That will make their life better. And, and that's why we subscribed it, but it just a better quality of life and how simple it may seem and how hard to implement sometimes when you're taking somebody into the unknown. You know, one of the things we say is, you know, and Keith, our training manager, you know, is it an extraordinary job here growing our training organization with our amazing trainers. And a lot of times when people come here or go to training, it's almost like what they've done has been said is wrong. And we don't say that right. We've really consciously said that whatever you are doing is great. And it was, you were doing the best with the information you had at the time. We just said that. Right. And now we might have new information that doesn't repudiate anything you've done. Right. It just maybe is showing a little different way to make it better for you, your customer and the company. So don't think we're saying what you've done 20 in the last 20 years is bad or wrong or different. It's just the, now we're giving you new information that hopefully will help you get better. Absolutely. It's a mind shift, a better experience as well for the client. Yeah. That's where, that's what we say and, and I get how if you say that you've been doing it wrong right away, people with Bristle, no, I haven't. Right, right. Because they've been profitable. We've been a profitable company. Accelerate came. Right, right. You guys are doing fine. Right? Right. I was doing fine. You know, and so many people that technicians had been at this 20 years, well, they've clearly figured out out to be a decent employee or a good employee, I should say. Absolutely. Right. And we're just saying maybe we got some information that makes your life a little bit better, makes the company a little bit better, it makes the customer a little bit happier and it doesn't in any way disparage what you did in the last 20 years. And hopefully that'll help the more seasoned and more tenured people like myself, I'm 55 and I've got these habits that I've created and it's hard, you know, Anthony, how old are you? I'm 34. Okay. It gets harder to change when you get older because you've had a lot of success and a lot of things and uh, and that's just, it's good reinforcement though, you know? Yes. You know, sometimes I know we have to have a little grace for these more tenured people in the business because it is duffer. Right. And it takes a little bit more and it is easier with an apprentice. Right. It is easier. It's all they know. Yeah. Until they hang around the other guys too long until the hanging the other guys. And I think that, well, that's a whole nother podcast. It's awesome. No, this, I don't know where we went, but that was, uh, an interesting little sidebar there about, about change. And we were talking about, I want to get back to the, the primary thing we're talking about this. Um, one of the pitfalls of a, of a, of a tenured owner is this thinking that everybody else needs training and everybody else needs to change. And I'll sit here and watch the change occur and I won't grow myself. Right. So I don't know if it's always coming from a place of like that though I think, I think it's coming from a little bit more of a hidden place of um, you know, have a true concern. I think that at any owner, again that's affiliated with Nexstar truly loves young people and I think that they think that they can help in a different way. And one of, one of the short story I'd like to bring up is that, um, I, when I was in the Marine Corps, he was in the Marine Corps for 14 years, started as a private, fantastic. Um, mate, you know, work my way through staff sergeant and, um, and then I became an officer and, uh, and as I was a new officer as a lieutenant and I was working with a staff sergeant at the time and you know, staff sergeant rains, I'll never forget him named staff sergeant rains. Yes, yes, yes. All right. So, um, one of the lessons that I allowed the staff sergeant to teach me as a young lieutenant was, um, we were in, uh, Japan and Camp Fuji and we were doing an exercise shooting exercise and I had to get the marines moving and I just been a staff sergeant, so I know how to do staff sergeant work. And uh, with the staff sergeant said to me, well, we stood out. He said, hey, sir, gave me the respect, I saw you over there illegally talking to my marines illegally, illegally. So he made it very clear that I was a legally speaking to his marines because of the organizational chart, goes lieutenant to staff sergeant to the squad leader. Okay. So I was violating the organizational chart or the Marine Corps by going directly to the marines themselves and not keeping the staff sergeant in the loop or not allowing him to deliver the message that we need to get moving. So in doing that, it causes obviously to two things. Number one detracts from the staff sergeants ability to lead the troops because, um, now there's a message that, you know, only unimportant things come from the staff sergeant on the important things have to come through. It comes from the lieutenant. Okay. Right. And then it just implicitly provides them with, now they have to listen with both ears. One does the lieutenant one to the staff origin and no two human beings will ever be on perfectly the same page at the same time. Okay. So that was a lesson I always took away. Although I knew how to be a staff sergeant. I was a staff sergeant. I had been a staff sergeant. I had walked that walk, I talked the talk. I was directly in line with my troops at one point. Yeah. I was no longer that. Okay. I had a higher calling. I different calling. Yup. To understand the commander's intent above me, in which case as an owner could be your economic factors. It could be your marketing considerations, it could be what the competition's doing, but it's not internal to the company anymore. It's external. It's you want to be in charge of obviously the morale and wellbeing of the people in the company. But if you have a management team in place, it's their job to make sure that they're connecting with the true. Right. Right. And, and if you as an owner or even a general manager like myself, want to make that personal connection, that's fine, but it can't be on a professional level and got it. It has to, you have to allow your manager who you're employing to do his or her job. Right. And, and by making that connection with the troops directly, or were they employees directly? Um, you just might be hindering that. You may not even think of it that way. Yeah. Yeah. You think you're almost being accessible. Right. Right. And one of the men and, right. You know, going down there and, and it's not just having nice conversations and how you're doing, but it's actually given direction where things can get cross and sideways. Sure. And the other thing is is that they, the, whether you like it or not, every employee knows the buck stops with you. Yeah. So if you don't, if the employee like a technician, yeah. It doesn't feel they're being dispatched to the right calls and they tell the service manager, the service manager can have a very informative counseling session based on what they learned in next door to help that employee understand why they're going to that call. If they talk to you directly as the owner there, number one, expecting a change because they reported it to the person who can either fire the call center manager or change their watt and it just right away. Now you don't know as the owner, you haven't been to call center manager school, you don't know what was taught. You want to support the call center manager, but at the same time you have an affinity towards the technician. Yeah. And I think that that creates that a little bit of an environment where there's some counterproductive, right. Leadership going on. Well that's awesome because I can see that, right? The owner's thinking, I don't know. He doesn't know the dispatch matrix. Right. Right. He's not taught that. And you know, he does it his way. Right. And then he thinks, well, of course I'm listening to technician. It sounds like we haven't given you enough calls, I'm going to go and take care of that. Absolutely. And then if you don't, you're a bad guy. Yeah. So if you're kind of setting yourself up to fail at the same time, right. So what, um, so the council you'd have for, uh, for, for this is obviously don't be like you as lieutenant, right? Going down doing the, the staff sergeant's job, right? With the squadron leader or the platoon leader. Platoon leader. Right. Don't do that. I'm not in the military and so understand this stuff. So, but sure. Thank you again for your service for sure. Awesome. Really great content. Um, and it's been a great conversation. You know, I thought we'd talk about this one thing and we did, which is, you know, making sure that the is aligned and, and that the owner knows what the person's getting trained on. And we ended up talking about a lot about the great things. Absolutely. I've really enjoyed this. Um, any other feedback for our, for our audience here, but this has been great, Anthony. I just loved it, so thank you. I, I think, uh, the only other thing I can bring to mind is a lot of times we do, we do care and we do care and we, I think we need to balance the caring with an education and I think that's very important. So, um, if you care, educate yourself as much as you care. I'm not going to, I'm going to leave it at that. Educate yourself as much as you care. Awesome message, Anthony, thank you so much for stepping out of the class here and sharing your thoughts here. Again, this has been awesome. Thank you for listening to another

Speaker 2: 27:38

edition here of leadership allowances as Jack Tester. Andrew, we'll catch you next time. Thanks so much.