Full transcript10 chapters · 9,564 words
00:00From Kinsale to coaching 360 home service contractors
Laura Kelly: After working with 360 contractors, I’ve seen exactly what separates 30% annual growth from complete burnout. The difference isn’t a strategy or luck, it’s how owners lead, delegate and build systems that actually allow one to scale. Welcome to Profit and Grit with Tyler, where blue collar owners and insiders spill the real
Laura Kelly: story behind their hustle, building businesses that thrive through sweat and smarts. We’ll dig into their journeys from scaling chaos to growing the bottom line with lessons and grit that pay off big. Here’s your host, the blue collar CFO, Tyler Martin. Hey, if your business is growing,
Laura Kelly: but your life feels harder, not easier, this episode is for you. Today’s guest is Laura Kelly from Clover Growth Partners, and she’s helped hundreds of home services companies grow 30% year over year without burning out the owner or the team. Today, we’re talking about why knowing
Laura Kelly: your numbers isn’t enough if you’re not acting on them, how owner dependency kills momentum, and the hidden rules most business owners live by that are costing them time, energy, and a lot of money. This isn’t about tactics or hacks. It’s about the psychology behind growth
Laura Kelly: that actually sticks. Let’s get into it. Hey, Laura, welcome to the Profit and Grit Show.
Tyler Martin: How are you doing? I’m good, Tyler. I’m glad to be here.
Laura Kelly: By the way, I love the hat. It’s an awesome hat. Thank you. Thank you. We are live lucky,
Tyler Martin: huh? So it’s the mantra we try to live by. Yeah, very cool. So, hey, I want to start out
Laura Kelly: just learning about you. What do you do professionally? Yeah. So what I do is I help our Clover Growth Partners facilitate people in the home service space, driving up revenue, improving profit and increasing the quality of their life. They’re the three metrics that we
Laura Kelly: measure on the back end. Driving revenue, increasing profit and improving quality of life. We like to see business as a vehicle. So we always want to ensure that the vehicle is facilitating our members living an improved quality of life. So revenue and profit is an indicator that things are improving,
Laura Kelly: but also you can have a whole lot of revenue and profit and be trapped by your life, be trapped by your business. And as a result, you know, you’re driving so hard for what?
02:34Why she won’t take clients under $2 million
Laura Kelly: So we ensure that the journey isn’t just highly conducive from a revenue and growth perspective, but there’s also a capacity to really engage with life after business hours.
Tyler Martin: Yeah, very cool. Do you, just a couple of questions about Clover. Do you have a certain size of client that you work with? Is any particular home service space or is it pretty wide open? What do you, what’s an ideal client for you?
Laura Kelly: Yeah, good question. I would say yes and no. Yes, meaning we typically tend to attract people over 2 million. And the only time I’ve ever made exceptions is if the person under 2 million has the capacity to implement. The only reason I don’t want to take you on if you’re below 2 million is I don’t want to waste your money.
Laura Kelly: And what we’re going to ask you to implement requires time that if you’re consistent, typically if you’re under 2 million, you tend to be on the field a lot, that you don’t have the capacity to implement. Now, there’s some people that are like, I’m just going to stay up and I’m going to bloody implement.
Laura Kelly: And there are some of those folk, but even folk that, you know, have that desire, like if they’re doing the manual labor, that’s hard. They also need their rest. So in situations like that, if it so happens to be me on a call or somebody I’ve trained on a call with that contractor, I’ll ensure that they’re served in a pretty helpful, actionable way, that I give them a plan that if they follow, will allow them reach two million with relative speed and then we can serve them.
Laura Kelly: We’re working on a product for under $2 million that’s not currently live, but the intention is to not have to send a person on their merry way because we want to serve them, but I also don’t want to waste their money.
Tyler Martin: Yeah, that is a tough space, that kind of under $2 million, because you don’t have the infrastructure to get out of the truck. You also, most times, you know, like most business owners, you’re not trained to be a business owner. So you’re stuck so deep in, like you said, going out to job sites.
Tyler Martin: So it is kind of a tough area.
04:30The six human needs that keep owners stuck in the field
Laura Kelly: You know, it’s interesting that you bring it up because I had a call this morning with a gorgeous couple and I say gorgeous. Yeah, they’re cute looking, but I mean internally. And I see this often. The husband spends so much time out on the field and not as much time in the business. And if he spent more time working on the business, it would propel the business forward.
Laura Kelly: However, we all have six human needs. And the more any one vehicle meets more of those needs, the more we will become addicted to that thing. So even when these business owners have the capacity to get out of the field, sometimes they choose not to.
Laura Kelly: Because if they are helping their technicians or helping their CSRs, they get the six human needs are contribution, significance, certainty, uncertainty, love, growth and contribution. and when you’re out in that field helping your technicians even though you don’t necessarily have to be you’re getting significance
Laura Kelly: you’re getting contribution you’re seeing them grow you’re getting a whole host of your needs met and as a result it’s kind of compelling to stay there and then you go into your office where you haven’t spent most of your career and it’s miserable
Laura Kelly: you hate it you just want to be out in the field so it is a difficult transition that I have empathy for and when you’re ready We have the infrastructure in place to allow you to experience a lot of wins when you transition back into the office so that you can get some of those needs met while working on the business versus in it and put systems in place.
Laura Kelly: So, you know, technicians don’t call you with the same questions every single day, which makes engaging in deep work almost impossible. So, yeah, it’s a tough spot for sure.
Tyler Martin: Very cool. OK, one other thing I want to learn about you. What about something on the personal side? Anything you could share that we could just kind of get to know what makes you tick?
Laura Kelly: Yeah. What prompts my mind when you ask that is I originally from Ireland, you probably guessed from the accent. I said to I said on a podcast I was on recently, you might know from the accent that all my friends in the industry were like, I don’t know why you even preface that.
06:35Her mental health struggles and talking openly about emotions
Laura Kelly: Like, it’s so obvious that you’re not from our country. It is so obvious. So, yes. Anyway, that is where I’m from. A little seaside town called Kinsale. Grew up there, had some hardships growing up that caused me to have my own mental health struggles that I honestly see as blessings today because they’ve shaped me in a whole host of ways that allow me to have empathy to serve, that allow me to have grit to push through, even when everything, even when I was, you know, even really when I hadn’t the capacity to push through.
Laura Kelly: and it’s, I would say now, although I grow a lot of businesses and grow a lot of leaders, what I’m most passionate about is facilitating people having conversations around how they’re doing emotionally. And I believe if we can make it, if people can speak as casually
Laura Kelly: about their weekend plans as they do their emotional health, the amount of psychological safety we can create globally would be really profound. And the organizations that I see grow the fastest is when there’s a lot of psychological safety organizationally. It’s part of what I love to do.
Tyler Martin: Yeah. I was talking with you before we started about, I’ve seen some of your posts where you talk about having anxiety or you have some challenges that you deal with and you’ve dealt with. You know, it’s one thing that gets glossed over in business a lot
Tyler Martin: when you own a business is it can manifest in a lot of different ways. It might be anxiety. It might be extreme stress. It might be, I mean, we have a lot of emotional things in running a business that just never get addressed.
Tyler Martin: Do you see that? I think you guys have worked with hundreds of companies. It sounds like you do consciously address and make awareness to that.
Laura Kelly: Yeah, I think the biggest gift you can give a person is speaking truth to what you see. So if you see a person struggling, that you call it out, you allude to it and you make them feel comfortable. You normalize that it’s okay to struggle.
Laura Kelly: And only from that place can you help navigate a person through. And I also say to a person, you can’t judge a person and influence them at the same time. So if we care to influence our people or our members, we have to not engage in judgment.
Laura Kelly: And from that place, people typically allow us the capacity to help them through because owning a business is hard. You know, there’s there’s a lot of there’s uncertainty is guaranteed. and being able to navigate that with as much grace as possible and not identify with the bad days.
Laura Kelly: It’s just part of the course is a healthier way to navigate entrepreneurship.
Tyler Martin: Right. One of the things I also want to, before I get into the main topic here that I want to talk about, loneliness. Like as business owners, that’s probably one of the biggest things I think I hear
09:20The loneliness of owning a business and her virtual community
Tyler Martin: is just that loneliness. And I don’t know if it’s always articulated that way, but it’s like you’re on an island on yourself. Sometimes you can’t go home and talk with your spouse just because you don’t want to drag down the marriage or you don’t want to bring negativity or you just hold it
Tyler Martin: inside. What’s your thoughts around that? Is there anything, I’m sure you see it a lot, but how do
Laura Kelly: you deal with it with your own clientele? Yeah, it’s a profound question and I think it has layers because I think there’s a part of anytime I’ve had the biggest leaps in my growth and my capacity to contribute just before that big jump in capacity to contribute was a chapter
Laura Kelly: of loneliness. However, you’re typically fueled and pulled by what you’re building that the emotional burden of the loneliness is less heavy. That is one part to my answer. But the second part my answer is this. I think why I like on my weekends, I love to just not leave, like not
Laura Kelly: leave the house. I love to just be with my family and kids. And I think why I love to do that and I have the capacity to be emotionally healthy is I have such a community around me in my team and from an industry perspective.
Laura Kelly: So what I find, what serves me in such a massive way is we have in this space and almost every industry has it, they have industry events that they like to attend. For me, I have been just so massively blessed with the people I’ve been able to encounter
Laura Kelly: in the industry that we all have busy seasons at the same time. We’ve slower seasons at the same time. We are all entrepreneurships. We’re in the hardship at the same time that there’s so much relatability. that there’s not this expectation to continually like meet up with them super often or hang out
Laura Kelly: with them every single weekend. But you know that if you picked up the phone and needed them, they would be there. And they know if they picked up the phone and needed you, you’d be there. And that kind of unspoken language of I got your back. And you know, when a person has your back,
Laura Kelly: you can almost feel that they have your back. It’s like a knowing that doesn’t have to even be spoken. I have that. So I’m so lucky to have that. And that I am really grateful for, because I think otherwise I would be very lonely and that would be detrimental to
Laura Kelly: one’s emotional health, because one massive variable in emotional health is a connection. And without it, I definitely would perish. And I have a lot of it. However, a lot of it is virtual. A lot of it is my virtual team, the virtual leaders I connect with, my partners that I would do anything for and my friends in the industry that I would do anything for and then the same.
Laura Kelly: And, you know, right now I actually have on my board for this year, three friends around my house. And I have such little motivation to make that real because I feel fulfilled with those. But I say that to be transparent with you. I don’t think I have that piece fully figured out.
Laura Kelly: I think it would be healthy for me to have a friend over the road that I would go for a walk with. And the friends that do reach out to me that are around, I would accept their invites to hang out more. And I don’t do that because I feel very pulled to what I’m building and pulled.
Laura Kelly: And when I’m not building to be a present mom. So it’s a dance that I think entrepreneurs ongoingly engage in. And it’s still something I’m engaging in.
Tyler Martin: Yeah, I don’t think any of us totally have it figured out because I think it ebbs and it flows. Like you said, I think there’s times where it feels like it’s all coming together and other times you’re on an island by yourself.
13:01The daily progress report and pivoting before month end
Tyler Martin: I want to talk about 30% growth formula in particular. You’ve helped, I’m going to say, almost 400 clients, maybe even more than that by now, but a lot of clients. And the average growth rates you’ve seen, I believe, based on my research, is over 30% year-over-year growth, which is, that’s a pretty darn good pace.
Tyler Martin: I don’t care what size you are. Talk to me a little bit about what are like the common bottlenecks that you see when clients come in, particularly in the home service area.
Laura Kelly: What are you seeing in terms of bottlenecks? Yeah, my success managers would probably answer this better. But the few things that immediately popped to my mind is many business owners don’t know their numbers, but those that do, just knowing your numbers isn’t sufficient. So it’s
Laura Kelly: those that can make, that can pivot early and often based on their numbers that end up having the most fruitful companies. And here’s what I mean by that. Any company that I’m an owner or an investor in or advisor for, I set up what’s called a DP report. So it’s a daily progress
Laura Kelly: report. So right around this time of year, I identify what that organization is capable of from a growth perspective, from a revenue perspective. And I break that dollar amount down from an annual dollar amount to a quarterly, to a monthly, to a weekly, into a daily amount.
Laura Kelly: So the organization every single day have a daily revenue number that they must arrive at in order to stay on track for goal. We don’t really care and nor should you care if you don’t hit goal. Like caring is perhaps the wrong word, panic. There’s no need to panic if you don’t hit goal
Laura Kelly: any given day. But if you don’t hit goal like three days in a row and the report will be read when you’re off track, green when you’re on track. When it’s red for three days in a row, what’s warranted at that point is a pivot. Many business owners, and just for easy math,
Laura Kelly: who say they know their numbers, and they do, I guess, to an extent, but they don’t make decisions on them early enough. So I’ve seen many business owners that they’re hoping to have a million dollar month, and it’s the 27th of the month, and they’ve done 700K. It’s typically too late in the
Laura Kelly: month to make up that amount of revenue. So they end up missing goal. And then they end up becoming a culture that misses goal. And then they end up becoming a culture that doesn’t even look at the numbers because looking at the numbers doesn’t mean anything because they ongoingly miss those
Laura Kelly: numbers. So something that I would immediately encourage you to incorporate into your organization is a DP report. And then every single morning meeting with leadership to have a proactive meeting as to what leadership are going to do about that number. It’s a mistake I’ve seen many
Laura Kelly: owners do. And it’s been a change that has had the most leverage for me over the years, that when I come into an organization and I turn that morning huddle that in the past was just a reporting session of this is how plumbing did yesterday, or this is how HVAC did yesterday,
Laura Kelly: or this is how install did yesterday. And then they carry on with their day. An awareness session is bloody unnecessary. We can all read a report for the most part. But if If everybody pre that meeting looks at the DP report and sees why we’re off track for goal and comes with suggested levers that if pulled could potentially put us back, would allow us course correct, then you’re having a meeting of the minds and you’re engaging your top talent in order to course correct.
Laura Kelly: And something I tell people all the time is if you meet often enough with the right people, you can solve any problem. And chances are you’re meeting often enough with the right people. if you’ve good leadership, just that little strategy tweak will make that meeting far more
Laura Kelly: worthwhile. Because ultimately, you’re not really meeting, you’re just reading. That would be my
Tyler Martin: challenge to your listeners. When you say leadership team, a lot of times, you know, we’re talking, let’s say, a two to six million dollar a year company. They’re not really going to have necessarily a leadership team, or maybe at this point, what would you say? Like, would you say, hey, identify your key players, and that’s who you’re
Tyler Martin: meeting with every day? And then is that, so two part question, is that report, is that number one metric a lot of times you’re looking at, is it the revenue number or what does that DPP report
Laura Kelly: generally entail beyond just revenue? Sorry, a lot there. No, good question. So organizationally, I like the revenue report is like the North Star. Profit, I care more about profit than I do about revenue. However, that revenue is set, also considering profit. But if you’re a small
17:30Bonusing the whole team on stretch and double stretch goals
Laura Kelly: organization and you don’t have a lot of leadership in place, I absolutely encourage you to invite your team into that conversation of BP report and bonus them when revenue goal is hit. So what you need to try and facilitate is them thinking like an owner. So for instance, you have, I don’t know,
Laura Kelly: two technicians, an office manager and yourself, for instance, I would every single morning meet with them all with this DP report and say, hey, here’s where we’re at. Here’s where we need to go. Here’s the number of installs that would happen to have to make that math real, make it tangible.
Laura Kelly: Here’s the amount of installs that would have to happen to make this real. Here are the number of calls that would have to be run to make this real at this closing percentage. Here’s where we would land. You’re meeting with them daily and then make it exciting for them when goal is hit. So you’re
Laura Kelly: not just going to pay them out for that ticket that they sold, but also what happens when we as a unit together hit goal. And in our organizations, we bonus everybody when DP goal is hit. When a stretch goal is hit, we bonus them even more.
Laura Kelly: When double stretch is hit, we bonus them even more. When pot of goal is hit, we bonus them even more. So there’s layers to winning. There’s levels to winning. And it creates this beautiful momentum.
Tyler Martin: When you say you hit the DP, is that the monthly one, the annual one, the quarter one? Corey, what is the definition?
Laura Kelly: Monthly.
Tyler Martin: Okay. Oh, wow. Cool.
Laura Kelly: It just allows a business owner not in January panic about December. You’ve just got to take control of this week. And oftentimes just this day or a three-day call board is a pretty healthy principle to have in place. If you worry about the next three days and ensure you’ve done everything you can to set
Laura Kelly: those three days up for success, your successful months will just start to accumulate.
Tyler Martin: Yeah. And I also love how you say stretch goal and double stretch goal. I haven’t ever heard of the terminology necessarily double stretch goal, but it makes a lot of sense saying it that way. A couple of questions. You use the terminology pivot if we’re not hitting the DP report.
Tyler Martin: What does pivot look like? Does that change my revenue number? What would a pivot be?
Laura Kelly: Yeah, no, it wouldn’t be change revenue number. It’s a levers mindset. And this mindset has been really, really helpful. So if there’s a call center manager, there’s your service manager, there’s you, the owner. What are certain levers that I could pull today? What are activities
Laura Kelly: that I could engage in today that would most likely push our revenue forward? What are the, it’s like engaging in the 80-20 principle. What are the 20% of things that would allow me bear 80% of the fruit? And then prioritizing your day accordingly, especially as you’re small.
Laura Kelly: And that would prevent you getting caught up in the busy work. It’ll prevent you bloody worrying about ordering hats just to use your co-op money when if you keep focused, you could arrive at goal and then arrive at goal again. And then you start to become an organization that people win when they’re a part of and they start to tell their friends and you start to attract more talent.
Laura Kelly: So that cadence in the morning just really sets you up to stay focused on results that will push the needle forward versus activity. And I tell people all the time, there’s a big difference between activity and results. And there’s a framework I typically teach people on how to ensure that they bring about results.
Laura Kelly: And it’s firstly, on a Sunday, what are the five results I want to bring about this week? Why do I want those results? And then what’s the massive action plan I’m going to engage in to bring that result about? And then those action items that will most like, that will be the most fruitful in getting me to the result is what I time block.
Laura Kelly: And you will end up mitigating such an amount of nonsense work that you really don’t need to be engaging in.
21:10When performance pay flops, build a theme of the year
Tyler Martin: Sure. What would you say to, so occasionally I’ll have client, a new potential client come to me and we’ll talk about labor efficiency or staff efficiency. And in that conversation, I’ll say, hey, do you have some type of pay for performance plan or something where people get additional amounts if they exceed certain thresholds?
Tyler Martin: And the comment I’ll get, this isn’t always, but once in a while, they’ll say, yeah, I have them, but it doesn’t really motivate my team. They don’t really care. Like that’s, they just don’t do it. What do you say when you hear that?
Laura Kelly: Yeah, good question. I usually, when there’s ever like pushback around moving to performance pay, or there’s not big adoption on moving to performance pay, it’s because it doesn’t allot to them making more money. And they like the old way allows them just do enough to get by and they still get paid.
Laura Kelly: So immediately what comes to my mind is you are going to have to work on creating like a culture of winning where people like sincerely crave growth and want more and want to work for more. A tangible and actionable way that I have found that that can create good culture change over the
Laura Kelly: course of a year is we do this across all our companies. We say, what is something that we’re not amazing at that if we were to become better at, it could really cascade us forward. And that becomes our theme of the year. So two years ago for Clover Growth Partners specifically,
Laura Kelly: it was whatever it takes. Whatever it takes was our mantra. We had a coin built around it that if you caught a team member without a coin and you flashed them, they’d have to get down to 20 pushups. But if they flashed, but if you flashed them and they had it, you’d have to get down and
Laura Kelly: do 20 pushups. We would have a whatever it takes text channel and Slack channel. And we would be shouting out people when they would see them engage in whatever it takes mentality. This year, It was consistency. And 2026, it’s rising tides. That’s our theme. So if, for instance, you see this like lack of motivation toward even desiring excellence, I think that could inform your theme.
Laura Kelly: So wherever you feel like you’re culturally lacking, build a theme around it, create incentives that are associated with this rollout.
23:27Phantom stock and why A players will choose a small shop
Laura Kelly: And over the course of a year, if you’re consistent enough, you will start to you. You might actually end up losing people because they don’t want to be part of a team that pushes them and holds them accountable. And that’s cool. I’ll teach you. Other people will teach you how to attract and keep great people.
Laura Kelly: This is something that I feel called to share. So many people that are in that $2 to $6 million range that are not like 15, 20, 25 yet feel like they can’t attract great talent. They honestly believe that great talent aren’t going to choose me.
Laura Kelly: They’re going to choose the next guy. You would be so surprised by how many great people that work for really large companies, many of which are associated with private equity, feel like a number and don’t care about their work that much anymore. and you have the opportunity to make work feel meaningful for them again.
Laura Kelly: And for those that are really all-stars that you want to attract, you have the opportunity to give them phantom stock. So what that is, is they get units of the company as long as they’re in good standing, as long as they’re employed. And they can earn that over, like,
Laura Kelly: they can earn that when they’re perhaps a year with the company or you can offer them profit share. There’s a, you can offer a person a career that a really, really large company isn’t going to offer. somebody that is a young dad or a young mom starting out and wanting to build wealth.
Laura Kelly: You have the opportunity to, so I would challenge anyone listening to this is dump that thought of eight players aren’t going to choose me. Instead, ask yourself, do I sincerely want the best for my people? And if I do, and every day I consistently show up
Laura Kelly: desiring and working toward growing them personally, professionally and financially, they’re bloody lucky to work for me. And then you have to hold yourself accountable to the delivering on those three promises that I make everyone that works for us, that you’ll go personally, professionally,
Laura Kelly: and financially by working with us. And if you sincerely care about delivering on those three promises, they are better off with you than some big guy.
Tyler Martin: Yeah, that’s good stuff. So you kind of answered my next question, but I do want to just touch on it a little bit. When you have clients enter into your world and you’re helping them, do you preference to them, hey, you might lose some staff.
Tyler Martin: It’s part of the process. Some people are going to want to come along for the ride and some of them are not going to come along with the ride. Do you kind of like disclaim that? Or, I mean, do you see that happen periodically
Tyler Martin: because of this transformation of being more, I think accountability sounds like plays into this, being a little more paper performance-based. I mean, is that part of it or is that more of the exception, would you say?
Laura Kelly: No, A players love to be held accountable. They love it. As you grow a lot, yes, you will lose people. But at that point, you’ll have developed enough of a reputation that you’ll be glad to lose them. You’ll have the capacity and the systems behind you to allow an A player thrive.
Laura Kelly: So I wouldn’t at all worry about lowering your standards to meet a low standard of another. Rise yours and those who want to rise with you will and those who won’t will fall off. But you continue to rise your standards and you’ll attract people who want to live that way also.
Laura Kelly: So in other words, it’s okay if during transformation, you may lose someone that isn’t beaten to the same song.
Tyler Martin: Yes.
Laura Kelly: Okay.
Tyler Martin: Okay, got it.
Laura Kelly: Okay.
Tyler Martin: I want to get into this next topic. I think the 30% growth, by the way, is just awesome. I think anyone that’s struggling, you know, typically when a client comes to me, they’re struggling to get above 20. And so to kind of have that threshold, that’s pretty cool.
Laura Kelly: One thing I’ll allude to, Tyler, that I probably should have, I think why we’re able to have such consistency in growth. is Josh and his dad grew Parker and Son. So it was an HVAC plumbing and electrical company that they took from six and a half million to 110
Laura Kelly: and then they sold it. Then we started Clover Growth Partners. But I felt like I have a big background in growing leaders in all walks of life, but I’d never grown a home service industry. And I had like imposter syndrome around that, that I thought I’d like to give a whirl at this thing
Laura Kelly: and see, could we do it? So then we started to buy our own home service companies and build them. And now we have six that are doing north of 100. So anything we share, absolutely anything that I’ve spoken to, spoken to you about today,
Laura Kelly: but that we share with our members specifically is battle tested first in our companies. And I think that’s quite unique. I will not, I don’t want anyone wasting my time. So I will not ever release something that I first, that isn’t still actively working.
Laura Kelly: Because there’s some things that worked at Parker that don’t work today. Like AI wasn’t even concept back then that we’re consistently having to test and evolve and improve and it keeps us fresh. And as a result, it helps our members. So I think that’s very cool. Part of why the
Laura Kelly: consistency is there is it’s stuff that’s working like right now. We’re in it with you. We get those hard days too. We’re just perhaps exposed to them more so they shake us up a little less.
Tyler Martin: And I imagine that puts the imposter syndrome to rest. Like there’s no reason to have an imposter syndrome, when you got six companies under your belt, that you’re battle testing your methodologies and improving them and being able to bring that to the market.
Tyler Martin: That’s pretty cool.
Laura Kelly: Yeah. In that way, it definitely, it puts it to rest some because I only will give you, I’ll only release to you something that I know is working. There was something I, you probably thought, but I’m not forgetting it. Let’s move on. That’s okay. Yeah. If it comes back, bring it back out.
Tyler Martin: But I want to talk about owner dependency. This is a common one. And we touched on it a little bit in that like under 2 million range, but you have a psychology background. Everything we’re talking about today, I could tell you very well, really put a lot of thought into people’s emotions, how they’re thinking about things.
29:11Your rich life and the hidden rules behind your values
Tyler Martin: How does your psychology background help break that owner dependency kind of trap where owners feel like unless they do it or unless they’re getting their needs met unconsciously probably, but that’s the reason they’re doing it. How do you break that?
Laura Kelly: Yeah, various ways. The first thing that came to my mind when you asked that question is this, and I do this all the time. I ask a person to define what their rich life is. And rich, I’m not necessarily talking about monetary wealth. I’m speaking about like, what would be the kind of life that you would value immensely?
Laura Kelly: Like for me, that is being able to end my workday, having meetings that I was able to facilitate great impact on, but still having the energy to get on the floor and play with my kids, not the desire to lie on the couch and make everyone leave me alone.
Laura Kelly: It’s being able to spend a month in Ireland with my family. It’s being able to pick my, I get to drop and pick my kid up from school every single Friday. I get to take breaks in the middle of the day and go for, and go to the gym or go for walks and breathe.
Laura Kelly: And defining what that is, unless we have outlined what rich looks like to us or success looks like to us, you’ll never know when you’ve necessarily arrived. and unless you’ve a compelling enough vision of the life you’re building, you’re not going to be as enthused to go about building it.
Laura Kelly: So being less dependent, your people being less dependent on you and the day-to-day being less dependent upon you is a transition and you need to have something worthy that will allow you even take, allow yourself to not have full control. Like it’s, you’re going, there’s transitions where you’re like,
Laura Kelly: okay, I’m just going to not have as much control here and see what happens. But I always first have a person get clear on what rich life looks like for them, and then I help them work toward it. But something else that I help a lot of people with is people have interesting rules that they’re unaware of.
Laura Kelly: So we’ve all heard the relatively generic advice to live a values-driven life. And I just think that’s a very generic and a very big ask that, OK, cool, I can say I’m family orientated or I’m kind and I’m driven or whatever. But if I look back at my calendar, what were my values actually?
Laura Kelly: And it’s helpful to know them. But then ask myself, what do my values need to be to live that rich life? and then this is where it actually gets helpful is what has to be true in order for me to experience this value
Laura Kelly: and that’s when you start to become aware of your rules. We all have rules associated with our values that we’re unaware of. So an old value of mine used to be achievement. I would have done anything to achieve like meaning at the cost of myself.
Laura Kelly: I would have done anything but my rule, I asked myself then what had to happen in order for me to experience achievement and it was bananas. I had to make a global impact and be globally recognized for that impact for it to count.
Laura Kelly: That was my rule. I have hundreds of clients and a call I only had last week was with a gentleman I coach, I won’t give a name, and one of his rules were love. Beautiful rule, much healthier than achievement. But his rule associated with love was unless my wife initiates sex every night, I’m not loved.
Laura Kelly: and once that was unconsciously brought to the conscious he was like well that’s a wild rule um number one it’s probably stopping me from getting a lot of sex and secondly um like that’s that’s just like that’s crap to ask of her and uh a crock to put that upon me so we created change
Laura Kelly: and now his rule now his uh now so he’s formed his rich life firstly so what is what would be a rich life me and oftentimes it’s like what’s the feelings you want to feel is it ending your day with a whole host of energy,
Laura Kelly: not being back to back and having hours in the middle of the day that you can decide where you want to put your energy. Like, what is that for you? Then what would you have to value to get there? So if you want to have spots
Laura Kelly: in the middle of the day to just be, chances are health is going to be somewhere up there on your values, which it wasn’t anywhere to be seen on mine. And then you say, OK, what are some rules that have to exist in order for this value
Laura Kelly: to be wildly achievable? So if you’re listening to this and you’re going to go and write out your new desired values, I want you to make the rules associated with those values so, so, so achievable. So for instance, if I read you, I’ll read you one of mine. Gratitude is one of my
Laura Kelly: values. Anytime I notice all the good I have in my life, or anytime I ask myself my primary question, or anytime I notice any or various forms of good I have in my life, that’s gratitude. Another one is cheerfulness. Anytime I make myself laugh or choose to engage in a source of laughter,
Laura Kelly: or anytime I have a smile on my heart or anytime I do something playful. So it’s so achievable for me to experience joy. Here’s what the research and the data says. Values and the rules associated with our values allow us to experience joy, fulfillment and happiness
Laura Kelly: on an ongoing, more consistent basis. Our values should make happiness achievable. Our goals is what should make us stretch. So my goals are always aggressive and they force me to grow and evolve. And I always tell a person a goal is not ultimately what really matters.
Laura Kelly: It’s who you’re forced to become in pursuing that goal that really creates the molding of a person. So my goals are aggressive, but my values like, gosh, I’ve every which way possible to achieve those values. So in the development of your rules, have a load of options for how have a load of rule options so that value can be easily met.
Laura Kelly: And what you’re going to essentially do is create a very easy way to experience joy, fulfillment and happiness. and have that overflow cup. And you’re going to make it harder to experience what I call like that lack, kind of that lack of abundance.
Laura Kelly: So that would be my encouragement to you is identify desired values that the person with that rich life possesses. What are the achievable rules associated with it? That’s how you measure a fulfilled life and then use your goals to stretch you.
Tyler Martin: Do you find when working with new clients, are they usually able to articulate like what’s going to make them happy? Like what, what’s part of that rich life? Or is that something
Laura Kelly: that exercise sometimes people need a little bit of handholding to get through? Yeah, good question. So if I were you and you weren’t being coached by me, here’s what I would do. I would go into, as a listener, I would go into ChatGBT and say, Hey, this is the rich life I want to live.
Laura Kelly: Here’s how I want to feel. Here’s how I want to feel every day during my day. Here’s how I want to feel every day at the end of my day. Here are the kind of things I’d like to do in my life. Here’s how I’d like my work to feel. Here’s how I’d like my romantic life to feel. Here’s how I’d
Laura Kelly: like my relationships with my kids to feel. What does this person have to value in order to experience that life? And then you’re having somebody kind of engage in dialogue with you back and forth because it is difficult to come about on your own. Having a thinking partner is
Laura Kelly: really helpful, which is why I think AI can be a great tool when it comes to engaging a thinking partner without having to part with your dollars. Yeah, you might make a little bit more. The change might be facilitated a little bit faster
Laura Kelly: if you’ve got a really good coach. But honestly, there’s terrible bloody coaches out there that ChatGBT might be even better. That would be my suggestion to you is if you’re unclear on how to arrive at a way of thinking, pick up your phone and talk to ChatGBT.
Laura Kelly: Allow it to kind of hear the nuances in what you’re saying versus typing and have a teeny little therapy coaching session with ChatGBT and you’ll start to enjoy how resourceful that resource makes you feel.
Tyler Martin: Very cool. Good feedback. Hey, I want to last topic I’d like to just spend a little time on is around the psychology of performance and leadership. Now, this is your superpower is getting into like, I think, motivating and getting people to perform at a high level and with strong leadership.
Tyler Martin: So where I’d love to start with is what are some top traits in high performing teams that you see as it relates to home service? Like what are some things that stand out that we would expect to see?
Laura Kelly: Yeah, I’m going to write it down as it comes to my mind here. The very first thing is knowing one’s numbers and making decisions on those numbers early and often. That’s point one. Point two is your people must, for your people to remain motivated over the long haul, they must be emotionally engaged.
Laura Kelly: engaged. So the fastest way I’ve seen, I’ve seen folk do that is using it as a vehicle, allowing them see your business as a vehicle that moves them closer to their goals. So in order to do that, it’s helpful to know what their goals are. So that’s why I tell anyone that
Laura Kelly: works with us, everyone that we hire on, either Josh and I meet with them and we make them three promises. We say by the time you leave, we promise you will be better personally, professionally, and financially than you’ve ever been before. And we promise you that because we’re willing to give
Laura Kelly: you more training, invest in you more, bring people around you that are going to pour into you in ways that you perhaps have never experienced before. We are willing to make you that promise if you’re willing to make us one promise back that you’re willing to work for it. And then every day,
Laura Kelly: You know, you both go to work for it. But if working for you allows them enjoy a higher quality of life, moves them closer to their goals and aspirations, they probably won’t ever leave. An emotionally engaged workforce is fundamental. In order for anything to grow, there must be energy.
Laura Kelly: And if you don’t care about a thing, there typically isn’t a whole lot of energy. So you must have an emotionally engaged workforce. How you can identify whether you’ve an emotionally engaged workforce is through ongoing surveys. we survey our people every single month. You could do every single quarter. And then you’ve
Laura Kelly: got to remain. You should not be defensive when you get answers that you don’t like initially, but it’s information that allows you grow and improve and evolve. So a high performing culture is not afraid to be hit with a hard truth. However, this is the third thing. So number one,
Laura Kelly: know your numbers and make decisions based on your numbers. Number two, help them see your business is a vehicle that moves them closer to their goals. Number three, and this is a big one, changed almost every culture I’ve ever been a part of, is you have to not allow venting to ever
Laura Kelly: happen in your organization. That does not mean people aren’t going to have bad days and have stuff that they want to give out about. However, their intent must be resolution. Their intent must be to solve. So if anyone comes to you as a leader, as an owner, as an operator, and they have a
Laura Kelly: problem, ideally they will have brought it to the person that they have a problem with first. That would be most ideal. However, if they are coming to you and they have a problem, they have to come to you with the intent for solution. And that also goes cross-departmentally.
Laura Kelly: Like our leaders are all trained to also train the people under them that venting is not allowed. And I’ve, there’s, venting statistically has been proven to help nobody. It’s why some people go to therapy and stay in therapy for 10 years. And they’re just as screwed up as they were when
Laura Kelly: they started because they just bent. Bent without intending for solution and a sourcing solution and then doing something with that solution. It actually emotionally worsens an individual. And what it will cause in your workforce is it’ll cause them to be more emotionally charged about
Laura Kelly: the thing that’s annoying them. So firstly, know your numbers, make decisions accordingly and reward everyone when numbers are hit. Second thing I would say is have enough psychological safety, that a person can tell you what they care about having in their life and that you can use
Laura Kelly: your business as a vehicle to push them toward it. The third thing is we don’t allow venting. We all work too hard. We do not want to build an environment that crap talking happens. I don’t expect you to have endless perfect days. I expect you to be human. And with that comes hardship
Laura Kelly: sometimes. And if you’ve hardship, please bring it to me. Totally fine. I just want you to bring it to me with the intent for solution. And you will build a thriving organization that people who don’t want to engage in BS will be more attracted to you. And those that like to engage
Laura Kelly: in that negative talk will wean themselves out because that won’t be tolerated. And because of that, you have an organization like Clover Growth Partners right now. I would run through a concrete wall, although I wouldn’t get through it for these people. And they, for me, it’s a gorgeous
Laura Kelly: culture that I’ve only built from mistakes. I’ve built from knowing the data and trying to implement things and then also mistakes. The gorgeous culture we have now wasn’t the gorgeous culture we had always. And they are the three principles that allow that to be true.
Tyler Martin: Got it. That’s good stuff. And then you have something called the three promises framework. Is that the same thing as this or is that something different?
Laura Kelly: No. Yeah. Good question. It is something different. Our leaders change and evolve and enjoy more fulfilling lives and more people were asking for that who weren’t yet in our programs. So I have a waiting list because I only take a certain amount of people at a time.
Laura Kelly: It’s where you grow personally, professionally and financially over the course of 90 days. It’s dramatic. It’s transformative. It’s fulfilling. It’s it’s just you and me. And I’m figuring out a way to scale it more. And I’m not I’m not yet sure how to do that.
Laura Kelly: But it’s just you and me. we work closely together and life becomes a whole lot more fruitful it’s my favorite part of what i do and uh currently there’s a waiting list but uh you know i’ve i’ve facilitated people jumping around on waiting lists when their story was just so compelling enough that i knew i could
Laura Kelly: facilitate change with them that i you know made exceptions so you know if if something we’ve spoke about today really speaks to your spirit you can email me and i can see whether you know we can move you around on that wait list and, uh, and, and serve you and hopefully create some,
Laura Kelly: some just a life that you enjoy more.
Tyler Martin: Love it. Hey, I want to, I know we’re going over time here. I just want to wrap up with a couple things. Mantra. Do you have something that you kind of live by or that is in your head a lot when you’re thinking of guiding principles as it relates to business and running a business?
Laura Kelly: Yes. Grow personally, professionally, and financially yourself, and you will attract those that want to do the same. And then where you can go is wildly endless. The possibilities are infinite. Use your business as a vehicle to move closer to your goals and facilitate it being
Tyler Martin: a vehicle for your people to move closer to their goals. I love that. And I would say, just in terms of takeaways, the three things that really spoke to me, business is a vehicle. I love the way you say that. I think that’s just really powerful if
Tyler Martin: you think of it that way. It’s taking you somewhere. It’s just like a very visual thing to me. And then I’d also say huge thing to me as a numbers person, fractional CFO, it’s more than just knowing your numbers. And I think even I sometimes kind of forget this. It’s great to know
Tyler Martin: your numbers, but where is the action in those numbers? Like that’s the more important part is, and I think I need to do a better job of this. You really kind of taught me something here in terms of bringing, always bringing that to light. You know, what’s the action that we’re
Tyler Martin: going to take to get to those numbers or meet whatever that criteria is that we’re gauging ourselves by. So that was huge. And then I, of course, I’ve heard this one before, but I think the way you expressed it is awesome. No venting allowed. Let’s bring resolutions because resolutions
Tyler Martin: is what moves you forward. So those are the three things like just really a lot of stuff you talked about, but that really spoke to me. So, hey, in terms of people reaching out to you, growwithclover.com is your website. I will put your Facebook page, which you’re really active. You always have some
Tyler Martin: really cool posts on there in the show notes. I’ll also put your LinkedIn and your Instagram, your company’s Instagram. If people wanted to reach out to you, you mentioned your email address. Is that, would it be better for them to go to Facebook
Tyler Martin: or would it be better for them to shoot you an email?
Laura Kelly: I either, or laura at growthclover.com or Messenger is fine either. I ensure that, you know, all are checked. And yeah, if you believe I could serve you, I have somebody that helps me with my email and she’ll facilitate us, you know, finding time.
Laura Kelly: And if it’s me you want to speak to, will find 30 minutes or perhaps even an hour if the calendar allows for it. And if you do book time with me or you want time with me, my request is that you come to the call with a desired result
Laura Kelly: so I can facilitate you leaving the call with that result at least relatively met, if not fully met. That will make it more worthwhile for me and for you. And I’m happy to gift that to your audience, Tyler.
Tyler Martin: That’s awesome. Love it. Okay. Hey, thanks so much, Laura. A lot of wisdom you shared in the show. I know you were a little bit under the weather, so even more. Thanks for taking the time to talk with us. Have a great one.
Laura Kelly: Cheers, Tyler. Thank you.
Tyler Martin: My biggest takeaway from our conversation with Laura is that the idea of business is a vehicle, it’s not a destination. Too many times as owners, we chase revenue without ever defining what success is supposed to give in real life. And when that happens,
Tyler Martin: growth just becomes another form of pressure. Laura made a strong point and it’s one I know of and it really sticks with me every time I hear it. It’s not enough to know your numbers. I mean, knowing your numbers is good. It’s a good start. The real leverage comes from acting on them early and often,
Tyler Martin: creating systems that don’t depend on you and building a culture where problems come with solutions, not venting. Now, as a fractional CFO, I see this all the time, owners who work harder every year, but don’t feel any more in control. The fix isn’t usually more hustle. It’s better structure,
Tyler Martin: clearer priorities, and decisions that line up with the life you actually want. So if this episode hit home with you and you’re realizing your business is running you instead of the other way around, I’d be happy to talk. I work with service business owners to
Tyler Martin: clean up the numbers, build clarity around their growth, and make sure the business supports the life, not competes with it. You can book a no pressure intro call at cfointrocall.com. Once again, that’s cfointrocall.com. No pitch, just a real conversation about where you’re at and where
Tyler Martin: you want to go. Thanks for listening. I’ll see you on the next episode.
Related Episodes
- The Real Reason Growth Gets Harder After $5M – Lance Bachmann
- The Revenue Levers Most Owners Ignore – Justin Judd
- The Habits That Separate Profitable Shops From Busy Ones — Jason Noel
- Marketing Mistakes Costing Trades Businesses Thousands – Adam Rich
Tyler Martin works with owners on the numbers behind these stories: an accountant who works with HVAC contractors, a fractional CFO for HVAC. For where your business sits right now, read the $3M to $15M scaling breakdown.
