Ep. 278: What It Really Takes - Inside the Business Excellence Certification and the 2025 Recipients

Speaker A: M. Welcome back to out of the Hourglass, the podcast for small business owners and leaders in the trades industry. What does it really take to run a business at the highest level? Today we're sitting down with Nolan Consulting Group senior business coach Kathryn Freeman to talk about something we haven't covered on the show before. It's our Business Excellence certification. This isn't just about financials. It's a multifaceted framework built around how you perform, how you treat your team, and how you show up for your customers. Plus, we're celebrating our 2025 recipients. Let's get into it. A welcomed returning guest. How are you?

Speaker B: Oh, um, Molly, I'm doing so delightful today and always happy to be on the podcast.

Speaker A: Well, thank you for being here. It's always nice when I get to podcast with, um, someone from the team. I've had some amazing guests recently. Just, it's been so nice getting to connect with different members, different clients that we work with.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Ah.

Speaker B: I mean, I love the fact that not only are there people who are willing to share their story, but they have stories, but they have such good stories to tell as well, you know, and it's meaningful, uh, and everybody can learn from it.

Speaker A: Yeah. And it's been cool. I've had a couple of folks from the team come in and say, I love that, you know, conversation with so. And so. I learned so much more about them. Just, um, kind of being. Being able to, you know, have a dialogue with about one person's story, one person's world is pretty cool.

Speaker B: Yeah. You know, caring is one of our values. And so this is an opportunity for somebody who maybe doesn't know, uh, enough about a person and. And for us to care. For us all to care.

Speaker A: Well, there are more of those conversations coming.

Speaker B: Good.

Speaker A: And if I haven't tapped you yet, and you're a client of ours, just, you never know. You're going to get an email from me to join the podcast. Um, I promise I don't bite. Right, Catherine?

Speaker B: No, you don't bite. This is so easy.

Speaker A: Yeah, Just a conversation. Um, well, this is a cool one because I don't think we have really dived into the world of our business Excellence certification. Do you?

Speaker B: Do you have. I don't know that we have. And, um, boy, that's a shame because, you know, we have three certifications that, of course, that we work on, and, um, people are probably most familiar with our summit certification, our safety certification certification. Um, but we also have Business Excellence, and we have our community Engagement certifications, all three of which would qualify you for our highest honors. And it's so delightful to know that we've got a handful of businesses that we work with who are in that highest honors category. And this is one of the ways to get there. You know, you can't qualify for that unless you're Business Excellence certified.

Speaker A: Yes. And we figured it was worthy. It made for a worthy conversation to talk about one because we want to one kind of highlight, congrat, at least congratulate. Name, um, the few of the companies that have achieved it this year, but also just kind of lay the context of the land in general as to what it is in our hopes that there are more companies that will, um, aim to go after it in future years.

Speaker B: Oh, absolutely. And you know, to be clear, this is something that I have worked with clients on who have put it as a goal, um, and who have been extraordinarily deliberate about some of the metrics and KPIs that we measure. Because, you know, there's something about a target that makes people like, it's, it's exciting. And so putting this out there as a goal is, can be pretty fulfilling, I think, for, especially for those people who can take, uh, that overview look and really understand the levers that need to get pressed in order to make these things work.

Speaker A: And there, there are levers that need to be pressed. Now this, so this, this certification itself, this is a collaboration that has been kind of, I would say, continued to be built upon year after year. Wasn't. And it wasn't just one person sitting down and putting down metrics and saying, these are the metrics that I think that our, that our clients should be hitting. Um, and it, and it covers not only financials and we'll get into that, but it looks at. Because business excellence, while financials is a big part of that, there's also some other important parts like culture, safety. Um, and so we look for those components too. But it starts with financials. Um, can you just give us an idea of how maybe this cert kind of came to be and how the metrics were established?

Speaker B: Yeah. So, um, uh, I may be wrong on the timing here, but I'm going to say it was probably about 10 years ago, um, we had the first iteration of our safety certification process was underway. Um, and you know, Andrew, so many of you remember Andrew, but Andrew and I were talking about the idea of what makes a business really good. And safety is one of those building blocks, but so is financial acuity, and so is your ability to participate in the community and so, you know, we took some time then to go to sort of outline what we thought would be important. He of course did financials and I did the community engagement. And then we came back and over the course of probably about a year or so, we engaged people in the conversation. What do you think would be important here? What do you think would be important there? Um, and we made some decisions and that was really the beginning of business excellence. Um, I'll say though, that it isn't static and it's not 10 years old.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: You know, every year we look to review it. Now, not every year do we make changes, but every year we're looking really hard at the process and saying, is this still a realistic gross profit goal? Given current market conditions, given increases in, um, material costs and maybe a floundering economic future and so consumer confidence, do we have the right gross profit number out there? Um, you know, and so, so we're, we're, we're giving it a review on a regular basis in order to ensure that it stays meaningful. Um, but really it was, you know, sort of that recognition that um, being a good business is not just one thing or another.

Speaker A: It would be too easy if it

Speaker B: would be too easy. Right.

Speaker A: One thing or another.

Speaker B: It wouldn't be fun if it were easy.

Speaker A: Wouldn't be a game, as Brian would say. Brian would say business is messy, but business is a. Um. What are some of the core metrics that we, that we look for within this certification?

Speaker B: So um, we, we look for um, a gross profit, a gross profit number, we're looking for an operating profit number. Uh, we are looking at some balance sheet metrics. So days cash on hand, um, at the end of the year, um, is that days cash on hand? Both, ah, operating fluidity. And is it also reserve based? Um, we're looking at the safety metrics. So we're looking at, you know, days away, restricted or transferred. So the dart, we're looking at modification rates. Um, we separate those numbers too by industry. And that's something that, you know, in the original iteration it was just a set of blanket numbers. You know, hit this gp, hit this op, and you're good to go. Um, but we've recognized that in the painting world, for example, there is a very big difference between a, uh, commercial gross profit expectation and a residential gross profit expectation. And certainly if we add in heavy equipment operators or if we go into the roofing industry, we're going to see a, uh, flexibility there. And so we've tried to pay attention to that as well. So it's not just, you know, four or five core numbers, um, in terms of the financial piece of it, but we're also making sure that we're paying attention to what industry you're in, which is why sometimes, you know, when you're working with your coach, we get really annoying about, you know, how much business do you really do that's commercial versus residential. That's likely because in the background, somebody on the team is saying, I've got this person, I've got this business here that's sort of on the line for residential, but if they were mostly commercial, it would be a really good, um, business showing excellence. So as a coach, we tend to get annoying about it. That's why.

Speaker A: But it makes sense because if numbers are showing up in different ways, it's going to be interpreted differently based upon the industry that you are working in and industry serving.

Speaker B: Exactly. That commercial versus residential split can be pretty dramatic in terms of a gross profit expectation. In some industries it's not. But, you know, in, in most cases, the length of time on a job, the number of job sites that you have to go to, the number of times that you have to touch a customer in order to get a material commitment, um, that. That has an impact. So we want to know, we want to know.

Speaker A: So the review process itself. So there are these metrics that are put in place. We know what we're looking to achieve, um, from how it works. I know that typically we look at, you know, we do our annual benchmarking. So we get to. So, you know, right now we're recording this. It's the end of May 2026. This is the benchmark.

Speaker B: Season is over. D is celebrating benchmarking.

Speaker A: Season is over. Um, so, yeah, so we've done our financial benchmarking for 2025. And that's where this starts. It's when we wrap up benchmarking for the prior year and we get to look at what are the results of all of our clients and begin to compare them against. Against the metrics. So the financial metrics of this certification are reviewed first against client results. And from my understanding, it's only those clients who hit those, Those metrics, those financial metrics.

Speaker B: That's correct.

Speaker A: Through benchmarking, are then invited to apply or demonstrate that they've met the culture and the safety standards. Accurate.

Speaker B: That's accurate. Now, uh, there's two things. The first one being, yes, it's absolutely tied to the Ann and, um, benchmarking results. Um, both Dee and I would love to get to A place where this was something that we were able to foreshadow in November or December. So we were not putting pressure on businesses in March where they're likely having a spring ramp up. So we would like to get better. That's a goal of ours, is to get better at anticipating or foreshadowing who might qualify. Um, but the other piece of it is it's very rigorous in terms of who would qualify and who doesn't. But, you know, oftentimes coaches know things about a business that might have an impact on their year end results. And I mean, we've talked about this before in terms of cash flow planning. We know that accountants will often tell a business or ask a business to dump cash at the end of the year in order to, you know, take advantage of some tax savings. And so we might have a business that qualifies for all pieces with the exception of days cash on hand. And then we're going back and we're saying, okay, did this business maybe receive counsel from a tax professional to dump cash? And is that having an impact? Um, or in some cases, again, maybe from a tax perspective, um, a tax professional is saying, let's maybe take this amount of money out of, out of your overhead and put it into cost of goods sold. Trying to consider a scenario where that might happen. But, you know, stranger things have happened. And so while we have rigorous criteria, rigorous financial criteria, there is always the opportunity for a coach to say, hey, wait a minute, let's consider, um, uh, another scenario. Uh, I, ah, probably about a decade ago, um, you know, we had a business that was, uh, keeping money in a personal savings account. Um, it was, as far as their family was concerned, a business account. But it did not con, it was not a part of the business's accounts that it showed on their balance sheet. And you know, the tax was already taken, that the tax was already applied when they took the money out of the business through their distributions. Um, and we didn't know about that, or I should say that the, the committee that reviews the information didn't know about that. So we had to go to the coach and say, hey, listen, you know, this business could qualify. Do you know? And they're like, oh, yeah, wait a minute, there's, you know, there's an offshore account, not really offshore, but, you know,

Speaker A: the important thing here is the coach

Speaker B: knowing the coach knows. And, and uh, I'm not, I'm gonna, I know you're, you were gonna say something there and I cut you off. I'm sorry, but you Know, the, The, um. Uh, what is. What is so distressing to me as a coach is when I'm sitting on. I had a client like this, I'm sitting on a call with this company month after month and stressing over somebody's, uh, current ratio because it's so bad and their days, cash on hand so bad, only to find out, you know, a couple. Couple years later that that was the same scenario. They were taking the tax, taking the distribution, paying the taxes on it, taking the salary, taking, paying the taxes on it. Um, and that money was just an account that they knew that they could dip into if they needed to. So I'm having panic attacks, and they

Speaker A: were like, because you care.

Speaker B: Because we care. Yeah.

Speaker A: Um, well, you. What you. What you just said, um, kind of speaks to what I was going to mention there. It's just the importance of your. Of not, uh, withholding that kind of information, um, to your coach. Because, like, without that knowledge, the coach cannot give you, um, sound advice or talk through strategy or work through plan B, plan, you know, plan C. So, you know this. And on the flip side, what. I mean, this is a good situation where there was money available. On the other side, there's things, money debt or money due. When you're not telling your coach and you're thinking, things look good, but they're not telling you something.

Speaker B: And that before they started working with us, they took out a second mortgage on the house and they're stressing about making those payments. And, you know, one, uh, of the things about how we operate, and, um, a bit of a tangent, if you will indulge me in going off on this. You know, one of the things about how we operate, I mean, we. We are financial experts, and that's how we assist you, is by understanding your numbers and helping you to make the decisions that are right for your business. Um, we are not the tax man. We. We don't care, nor do we judge. Um, that is not who we are. We don't want to judge. What you do with your money is fine. How you operate within the context of your business is your decision. But if you don't share that kind of information with us, makes our jobs harder. And we always want to make sure that we're giving you the best informed piece of information, and we can't do that. If you're feeling like, I can't tell my coach this, I don't know this person yet, I can't tell them that I took out a second mortgage against my house in order to make the Business go. Okay, well, you don't know me, but if you don't tell me, I can't help you.

Speaker A: Yeah. And let it be known, ladies and gentlemen who are listening here, we've been doing some deep analysis of our coaching calls, um, you know, from just a coaching side. And Katherine is tapped to be one of the great financial experts on our team.

Speaker B: That's right. Yeah. The word was elite.

Speaker A: Oh, um, I just. Financial coach.

Speaker B: I'm, um, laughing about that. Just. So who are they comparing me to?

Speaker A: Well, I mean, a lot, but also just kind of, you know, analytics. But also, I mean, like, you have been entrenched in so many different organizations and have seen so many scenarios that you can now speak to all these things. Which again, is why you're a great person to talk about this certification with.

Speaker B: Exactly, exactly.

Speaker A: You can see all the metrics for what they really, really are. And I want to point out, um, these metrics are available on our website for anybody who is curious and wants to take a peek at as to what these metrics in detail actually relate to. Yes.

Speaker B: And for those of you who are clients of ours, keep in mind that in our financial workbook, um, the Nolan Consulting Group financial workbook, um, might be the third tab in, is our certification process. So the specifics are always at, ah, your fingertips of the things that you might be looking for.

Speaker A: Let's talk a little bit about metrics. So I want to understand, you know, what are the hardest to hit, you know, after going through this process year after year. Are there metrics that you see consistently that are giving businesses the most trouble? Most trouble, Whether that's on the financial side, like they're so close, if they just had like that one, that one last metric could have really gotten them into the culture and safety piece. Um, what's the typical pattern here?

Speaker B: You know, Um, I think where we tend to have the most influence and where we're asking questions of our clients is either in the days cash on hand and reserve question or in gross profit. Um, you know, uh, a year like, uh, not last year, but the year prior, there were so many fluctuations with material costs across industries. Um, and so that was a tough year because if, if you did not have the discipline to respond immediately in the moment to price increases from your vendors, you could have, you know, months of impacted gross profit because you didn't adjust your sales price. Um, so where we really want to make sure that we're asking the right questions are in those two arenas. Um, I will say though, that for businesses who are not already safety certified. Sometimes that, um, safety number can also be a challenge to hit. So if you, if you, um, aren't safety certified, and I think we've got a podcast on that, so I'm not going to go into the details of that. But, you know, there are, there are metrics that are both watched, measured and then followed up on. Um, and the, uh, if that's not something that you are disciplined around, it can be a bit of a surprise. What do you mean you're going to look at my moderate?

Speaker A: What is a moderate, they might ask?

Speaker B: Well, it has to do with your workers comp and how you're, you know, and so it's, it's, it's one of those things that can lead to business excellence because if you're not operating under safe conditions and you've had a number of events that have happened, that that worker's comp is going to get, is going to go up, it's going to have an impact on your gross profit. Your gross profit isn't going to be where you want it to be. What we don't want is for a business to see something like that occur and then to just, you know, obliterate other numbers in there. You want to be responsible. Right, but, so that's why we're looking at and why it might be a surprise to somebody that we're looking.

Speaker A: Yeah. Um, I was talking to Deidre about this and because I was, I was curious of her thoughts, um, because she's so involved in the financials and, you know, this process. Um, but from. I was asking her, you know, the hardest metrics and kind of what patterns she sees, and she pointed out that something like the debt ratio or the current ratio, which isn't just a standalone number, it's based upon a lot of things can really be a signal or indicator that something else is happening in the business. And so when, you know, when you see those numbers not hitting the metrics, it's warranting other conversations, certification aside. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Speaker B: Yeah. So, you know, I think oftentimes, so there's leading indicators and lagging indicators. Right. Leading indicators would be something that allows you to see the future that's going to tell you a story about where you're going. And then there's lagging indicators which are historical performance, um, and some of those balance sheet numbers, if you're paying attention and looking at them over time, can really tell you a story of a business that's maybe struggling. Um, now I want to be careful because there are some seasonal businesses who ah, are in a pattern of saving in the summertime to pay bills in the wintertime and who deplete their cash. Um, that as a pattern. You know, if, if it, if it works for you, it works for you. Um, we would rather that you were getting out of that as a cycle. Um, so I want to be careful in those cases. You might be looking at somebody whose current ratios are just terrible in January and February. But it's a cycle and it's a, and it's a habit. And so you're not panicking. I'm not panicking as a coach, I'm trying to educate and say we need to change some behaviors here so we don't see these numbers. Um, but if you are seeing some of Those balance sheet KPIs on the regular being out of whack, then it's really time to take a look at spending patterns and debt load and how you are adding some of those things in. And we consider business excellence to be, um, current ratios at 2 or above. Um, and we consider a debt ratio to be business excellent if it's at 0.6 or below. Um, so it's almost hard. And it's funny because if you work with me as a client, you know that every single time we look at the KPI page, every single time, I am explaining that difference every single time because it's, it's maybe not intuitive. And I want people to understand a current ratio is the uh, impact of anybody who has a short term debt saying to you tomorrow, I need you to pay up now. Like a credit card could come to you and say, you know what, we're going to cancel this. Ah, you have to, you're responsible for paying this. So, so could a line of credit. Um, long term liabilities, they don't operate that way. Long term liabilities are a contract that you've signed and you're obliged to pay a certain amount every month and that includes interest. But that current ratio, somebody could say to you, I want you to pay up now. And so we want to look at both of those numbers and make sure that you understand them and that you feel a measure of control. Um, right. But that's a, you know, control what you can control.

Speaker A: Those are numbers you can controllables.

Speaker B: Yeah, so that's the, and, and, and you know, Dee's right. You can see patterns there. Um, long before. Yeah, probably somebody's at a place where they're saying, um, I have to be done.

Speaker A: I'm really glad that you put an emphasis on just kind of the, the repetition of making sure your clients understand. Because half the battle here is, Is education. Right? It's, um. And clients come to us, business owners come to us with a variety of levels of financial understanding. And in order to properly plan and strategize and vision for, and hire, we, we have to know what these things mean. And so the job of your coach is to educate you. If you don't understand what you're seeing on your KPI sheet or your balance sheet, what do these things mean? This is that time for that conversation. And no question is too silly to ask.

Speaker B: No question. Seriously, I'm gonna, you know, every people who know me know I was an English major. I love words. You know, I'm, I'm a, I'm a talker. Um, but if I, if I feel like this is something that's so vital, if I can understand it as an English major and a lover of words, you can understand is it's a matter of repetition. Right. Repetition is the motor of learning.

Speaker A: Who said that?

Speaker B: John Miller?

Speaker A: Maybe this is why you are determined elite, because you are able to, um, uh, very clearly explain financial sheets, uh,

Speaker B: coming from a place of knocking on people's doors and saying, yeah, can you just explain it to me one more time?

Speaker A: Yeah, you, I mean, in your, in your time here, in your time coaching you again, you've been entrenched in so many things, you've learned so many things, but you have a way of being able to, to speak, to kind of speak on the level of which your. Each of your clients.

Speaker B: Right, right.

Speaker A: Uh, right. And that, that means something.

Speaker B: It's, it does.

Speaker A: You can be really smart financially, but, like, just be going over the head of the people that you're talking to and be so ineffective.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And, and, and that's what I desire for us to be as a group that, you know, we're, we're, we're comfortable getting. And, and you know what? We have different people at different levels coming to us. We have financial experts coming to us, and we should be able to speak at their level just the same as we should be able to speak at somebody's level who, who's like KPI. What?

Speaker A: Right. What are you. Yeah, right.

Speaker B: Um, probably a good place for me to say for those who are clients of ours. You know, we've started this year quarterly doing the financial workbook essentials. Um, and something that, uh, Eamonn and I are preparing for right now. Our next one is going to be at the end of June.

Speaker A: Um, and just before this is released, because this is going out the beginning of July, but there will be another one in September.

Speaker B: There will be another one in September. We've got them, we've got them scheduled quarterly and so keep an eye out for them. And that's, that's where you know you have so much that you want to cover with your coach. Um, I mean there are things that I feel passionately about, like the current ratio and debt ratio and what it means for us. Um, Brian is as passionate about gross profit per labor hour. You know, there we all have sort of those numbers that we feel passionate about. And you're, you're not going to be able to learn every single thing about that workbook in one moment. So join us, we'll have fun.

Speaker A: Yes. Um, financial piece aside, I want to make sure we spend just a couple minutes on the culture and the safety piece. We've hit safety a little bit, but I think what really rounds out the certification is the fact that it's not just, again, like one function of the business exactly. Is really about kind of how you show up to your customers, how you show up to your team.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: What does this piece of the cert look like?

Speaker B: So we're looking at, um, a couple of things. So we want to understand your customer review process. Um, we're also looking to ensure that we have, uh, enough reviews, um, that are positive. So if you do, I don't know, 500, 500 jobs last year and you've got two five star reviews on Google. While that might make you a five star review on average, um, what it tells us is that we're not asking the customer for feedback on how our jobs are doing. So we want to understand your review process. So first of all, how are you soliciting, how are you getting information and what are you doing with that information? You know, so if somebody, I'm not going to ding you so much for a poor review, but what did you do? Um, so we're looking at that and how people are feeling about you and the business. Business and the job that you do. Because you could run a, ah, very tight financial ship. Like I was saying before, you can, you know, you can manipulate your numbers and get a great gross profit and a really decent operating profit and be making people angry from one end of your town to the other. So I, I want to make sure that it's a rounded experience for the client and that they're getting an opportunity to weigh in on how the job is being conducted. Uh, the Second piece of that is uh, some kind of an employee feedback. So we've got businesses who contract with uh, organizations, um, and will do a formal best place to work survey or other employee satisfaction surveys. And in those cases we're just looking at um, how many people do you have employed, how many people responded in the survey and if there was any negative information, do you have an action plan around making sure that you're looking at that again? I, ah, people are people and you're, you're not going to be able to satisfy all the people all the time. Right. So, um, we haven't gotten to the place where we're saying in order for you to qualify for business excellence, your employee satisfaction score has to be X. We haven't gotten to that place yet because I'm more interested in. You've asked the question and you got some responses and maybe somebody was dissatisfied and that's okay. What's important is how you responded to that. So are you meeting with that person? Are you giving them the feedback that they want? Have you talked with crew leaders to say feedback is an important part of what we offer? Are you, you know, what is it that maybe you need to do differently in order to uh, be considered business? Excellent.

Speaker A: Fair. I think it's, it makes sense that, you know, just from the start, this kind of looking, you know, top down at all, kind of the important parts that make a business um, really succeed ultimately in a market.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Let's talk a little bit about the um, 2025 results and this year's recipients of business excellence. Um, when you look at the 2025 results across the board, even just from a benchmarking perspective, was there anything that stood out to you, any, any surprises, anything that you know, or anything that just made the team proud of, of what you saw?

Speaker B: Well, I think, you know, we're always proud of Kennedy painting. Um, you know, Sean Kennedy and his team. I think that Dee told me that we're, we're maybe on year six for them in a row of them qualifying for this. Like, I could be wrong there, but you know, so um, what I, what I like to see are the repeat performers. You know, that tells me that we're doing something right because people who are, are running a tight ship, um, are able to continue to hit these metrics. Sean Kennedy and his team, by the way, they're one of the businesses that are summit highest honors. So, you know, you know, he's doing it right.

Speaker A: If I could, if I could, um, insert an audience clapping here, I would just Round of applause to the Kennedy painting team, who. I'm trying to get Sean on an upcoming podcast.

Speaker B: So maybe you'll hear from it. Right? Yeah, he can talk about that. Um, uh, so seeing people who are qualifying for it year over year always makes us feel like we're, you know, we're doing something right. Um, I always love to see when we've got new businesses who are qualifying. So Olympic painting, this was, you know, I think their first full year in Summit and they qualified. So it was amazing to see people who are newcomers who fall into this category. He also took it really seriously. And, you know, we. We have our own internal Google survey that we would, uh, if you don't contract with somebody on the, uh, on a. On a service level to do this, we have a Google survey that we can do with you. And, you know, it was important for him and he made. He asked his team to participate. Uh, and, you know, he's working with Sydney to make sure that those things that were. That came up are going to get addressed. And we love to see that.

Speaker A: Um, good job, Luis.

Speaker B: That's right. Um, I think, you know, the. We have a handful of businesses who qualify and who maybe don't understand the benefit of this. You know, when we're. We're talking about a safety certification, we know that there are some. Some hard dollars that are wired to this certification. And, you know, you can take the process to your insurance company and say, see, these are the things that we're doing to be a safer business. And, you know, what kind of a. What kind of a deal can we get? Um, you know, maybe. Maybe this. This is harder. You know, a best place to work survey or another employee satisfaction survey or understanding the impact of continuing customer reviews and how that can influence customer traffic to either your phones or your website. Maybe it's a little harder to qualify. So I'm always. I'm always feeling like there. There's, you know, maybe five or six businesses who choose not to do this certification process. And that. That's. That is disheartening because I know that it's important and I know that other. Some businesses look at those who are business excellence and think, wow, they got to be doing something right. I got to talk to those people. Um, so, you know, yay for the people who do it a lot. Yay for the newcomers. Um, sad about the people who are maybe not seeing why we keep pestering

Speaker A: them, like, why you've hit the financial piece. We can. Let's just get the other couple pieces

Speaker B: in just do it. Um, we did have two other businesses right now, and we've got a handful of others that are in the certification process right now. But a shout out to River Butch, River Birch Builders and Jay's team. And then of course, Michael Murray with textbook painting. I mean, you would repeat for sure.

Speaker A: Textbooks.

Speaker B: They are a repeat. And you wouldn't expect anything other than that from Michael. You know, Michael and his team are also just, you know, so deliberate and so good at what they do. And so it is not a surprise that they're on this list.

Speaker A: Well, well done to those four and to the few who are maybe currently in process.

Speaker B: Yeah, hopefully this can't say anything about who they are because we don't, you know, what happens if the mod rate comes back wrong or something? So.

Speaker A: Well, we hope that, um, we can add some more, more company names to this list. But what. This also shows that this is a select group of business owners. This is not, this is not easy to achieve.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Um, but it can be done.

Speaker B: Yeah. And, you know, I think, um, I'm going to use that word elite again. Right. This is an elite group of people. Love that word. Um, it's an elite group of people. And you know, I always feel if, if, if we have 120 businesses and we're whittling it down to maybe a dozen, and that was, I think our field was a dozen. It may have been 14 this year. And then we whittled it down further because there were things like safety metrics that somebody wasn't qualifying for. And then there are people who self select out. You know, if you think about that, you've got a really good group of people here, a good group of businesses. And it's, it, it. I don't know, I mean, maybe somebody would say, what, only four people? And I would say, wow, we've got four, four businesses right now who qualify for that. Right? They qualify. They are in that category, heads and shoulders above others.

Speaker A: So well done, well done to those, to those four. Um, for somebody, for a client listening, who is thinking, I want to be a part of this conversation next year, you know, where do they start? And obviously I say that now, as you know, this, this episode is being released, you know, essentially halfway through the year, July 1st or the week of July 1st. What, what can we be doing now to be putting ourselves with the best foot forward?

Speaker B: I would look at that, um, uh, tab on your financial workbook and identify which category you would fall into. If you have any questions about that, talk to your coach. Um, just as, again, like I was saying, I think our commercial. So we break it out in painting. In specific, we break it out residential, residential, commercial, and then industrial. So that residential commercial has to be a 60M commercial, 60% commercial, at least in order to qualify. So figure out what your industry is. Take a look at where you are. Um, maybe have a conversation with your coach about where you are now and historically where you've been in December. Uh, you know, it's, it's never too soon to make decisions. If, if you are working with an accountant who regularly tells you to spend money at the end of the year, get a tax planning conversation on the calendar in August so you are aware of what it is that's going to happen. And so you're protecting that cash and reserve money in December, which is of course, when we're looking at it. Um, so look at the tab. Do you know an internal comparison? Talk to your coach. Always talk to your coach about it. Um, ah, also, if this is something that you want to be really deliberate about and you're feeling like you want to reach out to me or to somebody, another coach on the team, send us a quick email or a text. You know, uh, I do love numbers and the stories that they tell and I'll talk to anybody about them.

Speaker A: So don't reach out to me. I'll point you right in the direction of somebody else. This is what I do. I podcast, I host, I don't do, I don't do numbers. But I always say if I don't know the answer, I'll point you to somebody who does. There you go.

Speaker B: And that's really the name of the game. Yeah, Team is one of our values and we have a strong team, so.

Speaker A: We sure do.

Speaker B: You'll point us there.

Speaker A: And I would say, you know, for listeners who are not clients, because I know that there's a lot of you out there. Um, I mean, two things. One, again, check out the website. Um, the metrics exist. Um, you know, if they're not there, it means that we're updating them, which will be my next question here for Catherine. Um, but two, if this is something that kind of inspires you to think about, oh, like metrics, like goal oriented industry standards. I want to go after these. It's a great opportunity to, you know, open up the door for a conversation about coaching and financial coaching.

Speaker B: Absolutely.

Speaker A: We'd love to talk to you about that.

Speaker B: Absolutely.

Speaker A: To kind of close us out here. Catherine, do you expect any of the current metrics, you mean, especially the ones that we, you know, looked at against 20, 25 to change over this year. Are we making any changes to that?

Speaker B: You know, I, I don't expect that we will. Um, I, I do however, say that with a level of adaptability, um, you know, depending upon what the latter half of the year looks like. So first, let me say we're not going to change the goal post mid game. So if you're working towards a gross profit goal at this point that we've identified in our workbook as being the goal, we're not going to increase it by 3% and then say, too bad for you, you didn't make it. Um, but we may need to take a look if, if, if we, um, you know, if we have a difficult economic year, are we looking at a gross profit number that's too high? Um, so we're not going to change the goal post, but I'm not going to close the door to evaluating the numbers. So right now, no, we're not planning on changing anything.

Speaker A: But I think that that's good context and ultimately we recognize, uh, that there are things that we cannot control. Right. As much as we can, and we don't want to kind of be slapping the hand of people who've worked really hard to achieve something and then the world kind of throws them. The world throws us a curveball. That's not, that's not quite right. Um, well, this was great. I, I really hope, um, that this kind of lays the land as to why this was created, what this is about. Um, again, congratulations to Kennedy Painting, Olympic Painting, River Birch builders and textbook painting on achieving 2025 business certification excellence. Hopefully, um, we'll be able to add a couple more names to that, to that list. But Katherine, just thanks for bringing us into your financial world. We always appreciate it.

Speaker B: Anytime. Anytime. That's just so funny. Anytime. I'm always have. Always happy to talk.

Speaker A: Well, until. Until next time then. Katherine, thank you so much.

Speaker B: Thank you.

Speaker A: Thanks for listening to this episode of out of the Hourglass. This podcast is recorded and produced by the team at Nolan Consulting Group, a nationwide coaching firm built specifically for leaders in the trades. If today's conversation sparked some ideas and you're curious about what coaching could look like for your business, we would love to connect. Visit nolancg.com to learn more, have a question, comment or idea? A future podcast episode, I want to hear it. Subscribe wherever you listen and we'll see you next time.