62. Little Things that Make a Big Difference

Andrea and Griff (and Lex!) discuss what little things we do put us in the right place for success. 

Also: washing out at Miller's, time off requests, and a survey request!

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:09

Welcome to Loaded the Hahn Ready Mix podcast with Andrea Meyer, Griffin Hahn, and producer Lex.

SPEAKER_01 0:15

Good to be back.

SPEAKER_03 0:16

Everybody's here.

SPEAKER_01 0:17

We're all here. Crazy. Oh, see? There's one out of 14.

SPEAKER_03 0:23

Now we broke open the seal. Lex is just gonna participate from now on.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

You'll get your chances.

SPEAKER_02 0:33

I'll get my chances, maybe. I listened to the podcast that you guys did last week, and I was very impressed. I thought it was very good. So well done. Now, that being said, I got feedback. Dan Berthoud in particular came to see me and said that the podcast was, I don't remember his exact words, but he said it was very weak without me.

SPEAKER_03 0:55

And I think he said it was not the same without you.

SPEAKER_02 0:58

No, no, no. I'm pretty sure he said it was objectively terrible without me.

SPEAKER_03 1:02

And so were you were in Washington, D.C. Were you influenced by Donald Trump? Your statements right now are feeling very Trump-ish.

SPEAKER_02 1:10

Uh I'm terrific at podcasting.

SPEAKER_03 1:13

The greatest, the greatest podcaster every year.

SPEAKER_02 1:16

Everybody says. So okay. No, it was really good. I uh I appreciated you guys. It was weird to, you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:23

Oh, like you wanted to chime in like you were with us?

SPEAKER_02 1:25

Well, just yeah. It's just just it's just kind of a bizarre feeling to not be here for it.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

So the craziest part was it was the quickest I've edited an an episode in.

SPEAKER_03 1:35

Oh, ironically. Probably it was just a coincidence. A year.

SPEAKER_02 1:41

I'm not gonna read anything past that comment. That's what a coincidence. Okay. All right. Should we talk about something important?

SPEAKER_03 1:49

Yeah. Well, tell us about your where were you?

SPEAKER_02 1:51

Um so I was in Washington, D.C. last weekend or for last week for a peer group I'm in. So six other ReadyMix companies from around the country. We get together a couple times a year and just kind of um share what's working and not working, and sometimes get to see somebody else's operation, which is really valuable. Uh so yeah, so we one of the companies in our peer group is uh in the suburbs of DC. So we went there and really cool to see how other people do the same things that we do, right? We have a lot of the same challenges, a lot of the same uh projects and things like that. So it's really fun to go see that and and had a good time.

SPEAKER_03 2:30

Go ahead. Well, we're glad you're back.

SPEAKER_02 2:32

Yeah. My favorite thing I took from that uh that we're gonna start working on is some training videos. One of the companies in the peer group did some internal training videos.

SPEAKER_03 2:42

I don't know. I know our people really love those 1987 NRMCA training videos.

SPEAKER_02 2:47

Yeah, with the what is the the like the electronic uh sounds that they make, like the songs? Like it's it's it's yeah, it's bad.

SPEAKER_03 2:56

There's room for improvement.

SPEAKER_02 2:57

Yes. So I think if anybody is wanting to be on-screen talent for these.

SPEAKER_03 3:01

Oh, yeah, let us know if you have ideas or want to star in a video.

SPEAKER_02 3:05

Mm-hmm. Yeah. What else were you?

SPEAKER_03 3:07

Well, while you were gone, Miller's was full, not receiving any leftovers or clean out. So that was uh I don't I can't remember another time that that's really happened.

SPEAKER_02 3:18

Yeah, they just had some work to get done on some stuff and needed.

SPEAKER_03 3:21

Yeah, so that was pretty disruptive to our normal flow of things. But the great news is they are back open. We can can head there with our leftovers or whatever. So yeah, uh it's still a message dispatch and let them know how much you have. We are blocks are a hot sale right now, too. So if we can make blocks, that's best. Otherwise, let dispatch let you know which washout is the best place to go.

SPEAKER_02 3:42

Yeah. I had something I was pretty excited about. We got a lot of rain in April, like way more than average.

SPEAKER_03 3:50

If there's something about that, like April showers. Have you ever heard that before?

SPEAKER_02 3:54

Yeah, but like so I I know this isn't rain, but I always saw a graph that like we had almost as many tornado warnings in our in our region in April than most more than most years have all year.

SPEAKER_03 4:08

I saw that too. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 4:09

Uh so just to just to kind of tumultuous weather environment. Yeah, indicator of of the weather experience we had. But even in spite of that weather, we had kind of the best volume April since 2018 when we were doing the bridge project. So that's pretty great. Very excited about that. I'm really excited for what that uh how that bodes for the rest of the year. And we kind of said we thought we'd kind of come out of the gun hot this year, and and I think that's that's showing out.

SPEAKER_03 4:38

So yeah, it's a good sign.

SPEAKER_02 4:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:40

Um, that being said, since we are busier, we unfortunately that makes us a little bit less flexible with um approving time off requests. I know a lot of people have enjoyed having a lot of Fridays off over the winter. Yeah. Um, and and a lot of flexibility, you know, last minute time off requests, we've been able to accommodate that just because we weren't as busy.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:01

Now we are very busy. So we have to restrict how many people we can have off at the same time. So my advice on that is as soon as you know you want time off, get it in the system so we can get it approved ahead of time. Be very specific. Like if you need to leave early for an appointment or you have an appointment in the morning, or I know there's a lot of graduations and school events coming up. If you can go to that and then come in later, that would be great. We'll work with you, but just get it in as soon as you can, be as specific as you can, and just understand that we're not going to be able to automatically approve every time off request that comes in going forward.

SPEAKER_02 5:35

Yeah, for sure. I mean, today's a good example. We had too many people off today. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 5:40

Lesson, lesson learned.

SPEAKER_02 5:41

Yes. Yeah. I had kind of a fun thing I want to ask everybody. So hopefully we're early enough in the podcast that not everybody's still too listening. Yeah. We haven't lost them yet. Uh, I think it would be fun to kind of get a straw poll or or get feedback from everybody on what is everyone's favorite project they've worked on in their time here. And so I think it'd be a fun discussion to do in the future. So if you would, if you're listening to this and you're a Han ReadyMix employee, uh send us an email or a text or whatever and just let us know what your favorite project you've worked on. And that could be, you know, a job, or it could be, you know, I don't know if you were worked on the muscatine plant scale project this, you know, if you're in maintenance or if it's a truck that you fixed or whatever. Um I just think it would be interesting to kind of go through that.

SPEAKER_03 6:30

So yeah, I think there's a way you can contact us right through the podcast app. It says contact us and that will that will get to us. But you can anyway, however you want.

SPEAKER_02 6:38

Yes, yes, lots of different ways.

SPEAKER_03 6:40

A couple other things. I want to plug referrals again. There is a nice bonus for current employees who refer someone to us. Uh it's kind of spaced out over time where you get a certain amount after 30 days once the new person has completed training, and then a little bit later. So there's an incentive for current employees to bring us other great employees. That's usually our best source.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:03

People like Kelsey and Trav, if you have more sons out there that want to work here, send them our way. And the last thing I had was uh we had a little bit of a mess here at Builders. Maybe this was because of Miller's being closed. Um, or who knows what happened, but you cannot discharge under the stingers, right? You have to move over to the pit. I don't know. We have a lot of new people too, so maybe they just missed something, but yeah, you you get the water under the stinger and then you move over to the pit to discharge. You cannot, it made a huge mess.

SPEAKER_02 7:33

Yeah, it's really hard for us to get that kind of debris out of the settling pits on on that side. So yeah, we want to go over to the side.

SPEAKER_03 7:40

Very good.

SPEAKER_02 7:41

Awesome. Well, I thought uh we'd do kind of um a lighter, more positive topic maybe today. Talking about small things that make a big difference. And I think there's a couple ways we can look at this. We could look at this kind of personally or internally, maybe about you know, what what do we do to set ourselves up for success every day? But we also can talk about it in the lens of what small things do we do that have an impact for other people on our team or our customers, things like that. So yeah, I just think it would be a good topic to to little tips that what what helps us.

SPEAKER_03 8:18

I like it.

SPEAKER_02 8:19

You want to start us off or you want you just want me to do that? You go first and I'll Okay, thinking about myself. I think I've talked about this before, but I'm a to-do list guy. So like my very first thing when I get in the office every day is to write out my to-do list. Um so being kind of planning ahead or being prepared and knowing everything I need to get done for me is really important to make sure I stay on task and can be productive. And uh so that that's a big thing. It helps me avoid procrastination because as soon as I write it down, then it's gonna drive me nuts until I scratch it off.

SPEAKER_03 8:54

So you do that in the morning?

SPEAKER_02 8:56

I do that in the morning. I do that on weekends even.

SPEAKER_03 8:58

Yeah, I like a to-do list too. I just like to do it before I leave every day because usually there's some things hanging out there that I didn't get done and I don't want to forget them. So if I write them down, I can at least like let them out of my mind until tomorrow. And then I when I come in, I already have a list started of what I what I need to focus on.

SPEAKER_02 9:14

I've never had work left over when I leave. Oh, you get everything done on your list.

SPEAKER_03 9:18

Maybe I need to add some things to your list. It's just another one of those coincidences, right?

SPEAKER_02 9:24

Yeah, yeah. It helps me to not be rushing. So I like to be early for things, get up earlier than I need to, just be have have extra time, you know. And I and I think that's a good idea. Obviously, with delivery of concrete, we want to not be late.

SPEAKER_03 9:44

Yeah, leave yourself plenty of time. And I think we do apply that, you know, here to uh the way we time out loading and testing and all of that. We leave ourselves time to do that when we can.

SPEAKER_02 9:54

When when we when it all comes together, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_03 9:57

The best us.

SPEAKER_02 9:58

Right.

SPEAKER_03 9:59

I actually see a lot of people around here leave themselves extra time or get here and plenty of time. You know, we have a limitation on when you can clock in, um, you know, only five minutes before your start time. But I think some of the best people are people who get here with plenty of time to like put your boots on, find your PPE. Come, you know, there's people even who help out with, you know, picking up the trash or whatever, like just giving yourself time to ease into the workday, get your coffee, go to the vending machine, whatever you need to do. Yeah. Uh, I know even like Joe's retired now, but when he was at Eldridge, he was always the first one to do that.

SPEAKER_02 10:35

He's an extreme example, right? Like giving him enough time for him was he would show up an hour before his shift started.

SPEAKER_03 10:43

Yes, but him giving himself enough time made everybody's day better.

SPEAKER_02 10:46

Yeah, that's true. You know, and and not everybody's like that, right? Um, but yeah, I I just find that it helps me if I'm not in a rush. Forget things or I get sloppy or don't do things right. And so exactly.

SPEAKER_03 10:58

And it doesn't feel great when you get in your truck and immediately have a message from dispatch like, need you to go, need you to go.

SPEAKER_02 11:06

Because you never know what kind of unknown things might pop up, right? And it may only take you a minute to do it, but then you can't.

SPEAKER_03 11:12

If the person who was scheduled right before you isn't coming in today, all of a sudden that's going to become urgent for you.

SPEAKER_02 11:18

Yeah, right. I've found other things that have been helpful for me, um, just small things or you know, trying to eat healthier, save some time to work out, things like that, that you know, are good for you and and give you some more energy and and better focus, you know, the opposite of what Lex is doing right now.

SPEAKER_03 11:37

I know I I noticed you didn't say anything about like going to sleep earlier and getting plenty of rest. I I find that uh critical.

SPEAKER_02 11:46

Yeah. I am incapable of that, but um I know. Yes, I can't like I don't think I've ever gone to sleep before 11. It just doesn't happen.

SPEAKER_03 11:56

So I wouldn't make it.

SPEAKER_02 11:58

Everybody's different, right? So uh the things that work for me are not necessarily work for other people and vice versa, right? What what kind of things do you go to bed on time? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:08

Uh one little thing that I have been working on this year is closing my door. Um, I really like to be available to people all the time and entertain questions and talk to people about what's going on all the time. But what a difference it makes when I close the door and focus on one thing for just 30 minutes. I can I can really get a lot done when I'm focused.

SPEAKER_02 12:29

Yeah, bring in some balance to your day. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:32

So just little things like that where you feel like you're multitasking and you're accomplishing so much, but if you just pick one thing and work on getting that done, you really can accomplish more.

SPEAKER_02 12:43

Yeah. No, that's a good point. I get sometimes bogged down with multitasking and working on too many things at once. And um definitely is less efficient than than focusing for sure.

SPEAKER_03 12:56

Yep. Along those same lines, I uh like to practice being a good listener. Uh it's funny when you're talking to people and you're multitasking, you're not listening closely, and the conversation can go much faster, and you can really get to the point with people if if you're actually listening.

SPEAKER_02 13:15

So active listening.

SPEAKER_03 13:16

Working on that too.

SPEAKER_02 13:17

Yes. I'm doing great at that.

SPEAKER_03 13:19

I never just This is in no way a suggestion for anyone else.

SPEAKER_02 13:24

No, that's totally totally untrue. That's I that's a challenge for me for sure.

SPEAKER_03 13:29

I think especially we have so many short interactions with people, you know, customers are on the phone or whatever. It's easy to just keep doing what you're doing. Or I'm sure as a driver, you're focused on all the tasks in front of you.

SPEAKER_01 13:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:40

Um, but sometimes just connecting with people and really hearing what they want from you quickly makes it easier and faster for everyone to move on.

SPEAKER_02 13:48

That's a good point. What about you, Lex? What little things do I do? Well, little things bring you success.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

Yeah. Well, my life kind of revolves on little things since I'm not a very critical thinker and such. So it's about being disciplined and doing the little things every day. Starts by making my bed in the morning and then having my routine. I have to find stress in the morning, otherwise I can't get my body going. But you have to know what I mean.

SPEAKER_02 14:14

Find stress? Is that what you Yeah. Well, I have a great solution for you because one of my little things is uh not taking my kids to school because it ruins my day. So you can take on this stress of taking my kids to school if you want.

SPEAKER_03 14:29

I'm so glad we talked about this.

SPEAKER_00 14:31

I'm sure we would have a great time, meaning that.

SPEAKER_03 14:32

Sorted it out.

unknown 14:33

Great.

SPEAKER_00 14:34

All right.

SPEAKER_03 14:35

I know a little thing that Lex does, that's a big deal, is he actually looks at all of the orders before the three o'clock meeting.

SPEAKER_01 14:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:42

We do that three o'clock meeting every day and it's so routine, and people just show up and kind of go through the motions. But when someone takes the time to actually review the orders and ask the critical questions, like, do we have the materials that we need? Is this the right plant? Is this for sure the mix they should be using? And taking action on some of those things, taking it out of routine and making it important every time is so good.

SPEAKER_02 15:05

You do a good good job at that, Lex. Nice work.

SPEAKER_03 15:08

Well, now the podcast has turned into Lex performance review.

SPEAKER_02 15:13

I think you know, the other lens that we I mentioned at the beginning that you can look at this from is like what what little things have an impact on others, right? And so I think a lot of that is is sometimes how we present ourselves, right? So being friendly, saying hello to people, saying thank you, right? Especially, you know, if we're on a job site, that that's it seems like you know, it could be this transactional thing where we show up and we give them concrete and they give us money. And it doesn't need to be more than that, but it gosh, it just changes the whole dynamic of the situation and the relationship that can be built with a customer by just how's it going? How are you? And and when you and when we're done, we say thank you. You know, we changed in our dispatch, you know, it's now thanks for calling Han Redimix. This is Chris or Andrew or whoever, right? So that is all about those little things and and having positivity in our interactions.

SPEAKER_03 16:10

Oh, yeah, I have a good example of this actually. Uh well, first, you know I'm not a big schmoozer or small talker. I I'm more interested in the transaction than the small talk.

SPEAKER_01 16:21

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 16:21

Um, but I just had a great example this week where we frequently have like Zoom calls or conference calls on video with different vendors, usually software providers is who I'm dealing with. But there's this like awkwardness when the videos are connecting and the sounds connecting. And there's one group that we're working with a lot that the guy that comes on is super friendly and always asking us, you know, what do you guys have going on? How's your day going? Stuff like that. Yeah. He's not local to Iowa, so he's always like curious about the weather or whatever. Then we have another one that she just like awkwardly and sort of meanly stares at the camera until it connects. And then she basically says, like, what do you guys want today? Well, first we want you to be nice to us. Like that's step one. Uh, but I can I can envision that on the job sites too, where yeah, either you say nothing or you're like walking into a bad situation. Um, but you can change the vibes a little bit by just being friendly and saying hi.

SPEAKER_02 17:16

It's a huge deal. I mean, it just it's it can it can be the difference between a successful poor and an unsuccessful poor. It can be the difference between retaining a customer or not. And so yeah, it's it's everything.

SPEAKER_03 17:28

I think another thing that we try to keep in mind is is who's coming in after you, right? Um, I love the truck-to-truck messaging that we can do on Digital Fleet. Like, if if you ran into like you need to come in a different entrance or the directions were wrong or something, like send that message to the person behind you or to dispatch so we can get them uh up to date. Same thing you know, same thing with like the wash bay or the break room or the bathroom or whatever. Like if it's a mess when you get there, help clean it up or get somebody in there to clean it up so that it's better for the next person.

SPEAKER_02 17:58

Yeah, I do think that's one of the the drawbacks to the the tablet communication that we have now versus the the radios, like it was, you know, when I started, is that there was a lot more kind of informal communication between the drivers on like, hey, when you get here, you know, go down the second road after the red barn or whatever.

SPEAKER_03 18:18

Yeah, they're actually looking for this slump.

SPEAKER_02 18:20

We're gonna yeah, right, exactly. Now, I think there's a ton of benefits of kind of decluttering the airwaves, right? And so uh I I'm not saying that I think we went down the wrong path, but we have lost a little bit of that. And so being intentional about when you have that opportunity to pass on information that would help others, uh, we let's just make sure we do it. Yeah, we still have the means, it's just a little different. I think that was just a fun little podcast. I liked it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:48

All right. Thanks for listening to Loaded, the Han Ready Mix podcast. Don't forget to message us and let us know your favorite project that you've worked on here. And we'll talk to you again next week.

SPEAKER_02 18:57

Thanks so much.