2444 - Moving Beyond the Bottleneck Through Delegation and Smart Growth Strategies with Rechtien Consult's Thomas Rechtien

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0:46Visit podverified.com if you'd like to be featured as a future guest. I'm Josh Elledge. Let's get into it. With us right now, Thomas Rectine. Thomas, you help owner-led manufacturers, contractors, and trades build a business that runs without them. Listen, for that audience, that has got to be, you know, from your lips to God's ears kind of thing, because I happen to know a lot of folks in those areas tend to be fairly overworked. We're going to get into all of that, but you refer to yourself as a business execution coach. Very successful in your own right. And Thomas, it's great to have you on the show.

1:31Thank you for having me, Josh. You bet. Your website is rectineconsult.com. And sorry if I'm mispronouncing that, but there's a few ways you could pronounce it. The authentic German pronunciation. uh but you know thomas before we get into uh your superpowers and and what you do and love to talk about the industry a little bit uh you always love hearing what high-level leaders do for fun when they're not at work and uh you've got a great story about what you do in your free time uh i believe i do and actually i think that's one of my superpowers um i just love carpentry i grew up in my grandpa's shop in germany from age four um i built the first seat of my little go-kart myself with my grandpa i was probably five or six at that age it's still on there in my parents garage uh still doing its thing i mean it's it's yeah everybody who has anything to do with craftsmanship and doing something with their hands um they know how long these products you build can last you and for some it's a lifetime um and actually the my biggest project ever which i'm the most proud of is when we moved to houston which was during covet in 2020 um i built my own kitchen so i get to walk into one of my favorite projects every morning uh and have my coffee oh my gosh and you literally like did the like the i mean tell me more about what what went into the kitchen well i don't know how many sheets but a whole lot of plywood so i went to a hardware store and told them what I needed for the face frames, right?

3:07The rails and styles. I used maple and then I just got some birch plywood pre-finished. And yeah, I cut the thing up on a 10-inch wall table saw. So I really made sure the saw blade is kind of square. I built with MDF my own infeed and outfeed table. So I had enough space to put them on and cut them straight. And then I built a full kitchen. And I, well, I do believe that the painter was impressed too with the doors he got from me. So they came in, they painted it. They liked it. They actually asked me to make some doors for them, but I just didn't have the time to do that, like on the side, you know, semi-professional or something.

3:45So that would have been cool, but yeah. And otherwise, I mean, I will like stuff around the house. Usually we need a cabinet, we need a little building somewhere. I try to make time for that and do that. You do a lot of high-level leadership stuff. and then you know kind of the contrast now just kind of you working solo in your shop what like emotionally what does carpentry give you so what carpentry gives me really is an outlet obviously a lot of energy and and fun goes in it I can I'll still think while I do it right it's not that it's like a brain-free zone but that gives me the space because usually also So my kids, I really love them.

4:28One of them, one out of four is a little handy. And once in a while, he helps me. But in the summer, when it's hot, you know, they'd rather be inside and not in the garage. So that being said, it's my space. I'm by myself. And I really get to pour myself into these projects. And I forget about anything. Like, I don't have to eat. I don't have to drink. I'm in the zone, really. I could do this for eight hours straight if my wife wouldn't come out with a tumbler full of water. and some ice cubes once in a while. I probably wouldn't drink all day as long as I'm in there. And then, yeah, it's very satisfying.

5:01And what a great story, the fact that, you know, that's kind of your lineage coming from your grandfather, you know, being a legit, you know, German carpenter back in the day. That's just, that's very, very cool. And probably doing some, you know, some work that carpenters don't get to do as much these days, I would imagine. So, well, Thomas, thank you so much for sharing your story. So, yeah, let's talk about, you know, leadership and operating systems for growth and how you fit in with your clients. So, yeah, but what I do, I mean, you said it correctly, Josh, I help owner-operated businesses, specifically manufacturing, construction, trades.

5:50That's my sweet spot. And it's just because of my history. I speak the lingo. I claim that I know the people, I know the sensitivities in these areas, because I've spent my life there, also my corporate career with the steel company out of Germany. um so it's just that's where i started and that's where i still am and i help them to figure out what's keeping them from growing and then get from chaos to clarity if you will so from you know working all day long to really executing properly and working on the stuff that you need to be working on? My suspicion and kind of what little I know about leadership in those worlds, you know, manufacturers, contractors, trades, those, from my experience, tend to be really hardworking leaders who probably don't get as much time off as they wish they could, leads to perhaps a little bit of burnout, maybe just taking on too much responsibility, maybe not delegating enough.

7:00Those are just kind of my observations and things I've heard over the years. Can you give us a lay of the land of what your client's world is like? Am I too far off? No, you're not. You're spot on with what you've said. Obviously, there's a little more to it, like that bucket is a little bigger than that. So it's exactly how you're saying. What I find is that they are very hardworking people and they are just great at what they do. They're great carpenters. They're great electricians. They're great people in a fab shop. They work with their hands and they really, really, really have a tremendous skill that's never going to leave them.

7:43The thing is, some of them went to college. Some of them didn't. And even if they did, you don't really learn the stuff about leadership and how to run a business that you need to do it in the day-to-day, right? You'll ever learn how to run a meeting, have it start on time, have it end on time, make sure everybody is there all the time, make sure you have outcomes. And then you have outcomes. Well, what happens with those? Usually nothing. So you get together again for the next meeting. You talk about the same stuff. The meeting is not an hour. It's going to be two hours. Everybody is bored beyond belief and just hates these meetings.

8:16So how do you get it to where it takes the 60 or 90 minutes you say it's going to take? How do you make it to where, okay, we have five things we need to take care of. And a week later, people come in the room and those five things actually got done. And that's where the working on the business, instead of working in the business comes in, right? What I see oftentimes is, again, what you were describing, the owner is the bottleneck. They put in 60, 70, 80 hours a week, whatever it is. every decision flows through them to your point of delegation they just don't because they probably don't trust their people in most cases they think they have all the knowledge and other people only have partial knowledge so if somebody with partial knowledge signs off on a work order it won't get done right product goes out wrong you lose all the money you got to do it over so they rather have a last look themselves and that's where the ceiling comes in that glass ceiling that they all hit at some point.

9:13You can only go so far. You can keep adding more hours, but to what point and at what cost? So the two questions I always ask owners when I have my discovery call with them, or even the initial call is, look, what does this cost you? And I don't only mean in business sense, like on the personal side, your family, your marriage, your kids, all this time you're spending. And I bet you come home tired. You work 80 hours a week. There's not much energy for positive stuff with the family left you're drained there is no other way the other thing is really the question if you were going to sell your business today josh would anybody buy it and the answer is mostly no if they're honest with themselves and that is the situation i help them to get out of because i firmly believe every business has to be sellable if you sell it or not in the end totally a decision you can run it forever you can close it down in the end but only a business that is actually sellable, which means it's owner independent, is going to be a great business and can be scaled in the long run.

10:20Thomas, the clients that you end up working with, I suspect that they come in and they know, or at least they feel like they know where their gaps are or they know what they're complaining about. And they might be complaining about morales down output, you know, turnovers high. You know, they just they just don't see it like I do or, you know, I can't get, you know, I don't know if you hear much of that. Like what I'm curious about is the complaints you hear coming in and then what your prescription is. Again, my thesis here is that often you hear a lot of complaints and the founder, the leader might think that this truly is some sort of a frontline problem, culture problem, right?

11:12When in fact, it's, you know, they have a good deal of the responsibility for why they're having the problems that they are. Yeah, correct. And again, I mean, you're spot on. You do know a lot of these people and a lot of those markets, obviously, Josh, but that's exactly what it is. That's what they complain about. And the first solution everybody has, well, if they're an avid reader, they read a book, they talk to some people, and they try things out, and nothing helps, because their solution in the end is, I need more done. So the first thought is, okay, let me hire a couple more people. So I have more people, I have more man or woman power, I get more done.

11:50Sure. Three months in, they find out that didn't work. There's not more output, there's not more revenue, but I just beefed up my cost. And at some point, And it gets to the point where maybe they're close to not being able to make the payroll. They have the order book full, but cash flow is a problem, right? So the prescribed solution for me really, and again, I'm all about execution, but the owners are executing every day, 80 hours a week right now, but they're only working in the business. They're only working on day-to-day things that come up again and again and again. And that's because they don't have a system in place.

12:27Well, they do. And usually that's chaos. And that doesn't work in the long run. And then you can say, okay, there is people who just, who just like it works for them. They do it. Yeah. I refer back to the 80-20 rule, right? There's 20 % of business owners who for whatever reason, take the right decisions and do the right things and put the right systems in place, although they've never learned it, they have a seventh sense for it or something, I don't know, but it works. But for 80 % of the business owners out there, they don't even know what to start. And it's all fine as long as them running the business, their kids probably helping in the shop, the wife doing the invoicing.

13:04But once they hire outside people, once they hire people they don't really know, they don't trust, they get to that 10, 15 person mark in the business. The people problems start. People just leave. They have tremendous turnover every month. And they can't hire enough people to keep the seats they have defined filled. And they just don't know why that is. And that's because there is no system. Sometimes they also go. I had a discussion the other day with somebody who works with fractional leaders and positions them. And if you put a fractional COO because you think, well, I need to get stuff off of my own plate, right?

13:42So logic, I put in a fractional COO. Well, if they come in a system of chaos, they can't do much. So the first thing you have to do is you have to build the foundation. And based on that, you can start doing the work on the business and then execute better in the business. All right, Thomas, let's give some next steps for our friends that are listening right now. Your website is rektineconsult.com. And I know you've got resources. This is your great follow on LinkedIn, by the way. But what would you recommend people do? I see you've got an insights button here. When folks go to your website, what do you recommend?

14:23So for one, the insights button is the first thing to look at. That's my blog. There's a bunch of content in there. I put out another post every two weeks, and I think it's very relevant and hands-on for most owners. The other thing is growth at rectinconsult.com. that's kind of a questionnaire, 28 questions I put people through. And that leads back to the website in the end. And there's a free version. So you can go on, you fill out the questions and it'll tell you where you are in the areas of clarity, alignment, focus, and momentum. And then the next step, if they're up for it, is a free 20-minute discussion with me to just see if I can give them some free resources on top of that and help them in any way, like figure out the weekly meeting.

15:06There's a couple of things you can do, fairly simple. that will change things in your world. You know, it's got to feel great for your clients as well. You know, just, you know, because there's so many responsibilities. And in some ways, you know, kind of feels like you're coming in and helping them with some structure so that they don't have to feel like they're responsible for implementing all these things. And then, of course, you know, we just kind of get entrenched into our own cultures as well. So, you know, a fresh set of eyes. And obviously you've seen a lot of operations over the years.

15:40So, you know, perfectly well, you know, what might be working well and some things that they might be able to try internally. So Thomas is a great conversation. Again, your, your website is rectine consult.com. We've got the link directly within the podcast notes right now for folks to connect with you. Thomas, it's been a great conversation. Thank you so much for the work that you do. Thank you, Josh.

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