Hire Smarter with Tony Misura

The best step any company can take to become excellent at recruiting is to be excellent at marketing. At its roots, recruiting is a marketing problem. Scott Ericson, Owner of Wheelhouse 20/20, takes pride in having created a full-service marketing resource exclusively for the building supply channel. They specialize in developing and executing strategies that weave together the building industry, sales, and marketing. 

Listen in as Scott shares some of his most important takeaways when it comes to building a strong, successful brand with a lasting legacy. 

The greatest leaders take on the toughest challenges. Successfully driving cutting-edge innovation in the home building industry is an enormous challenge. Garrett Moore, the CEO of Agorus, has a mission of building homes from permits to keys in 30 days. How does a leader maintain the level of intensity and focus needed to tackle the boldest initiatives?

Mantras help teams effectively maintain focus through the white noise and distractions life throws at them.  

Some of Garrett’s favorite mantras:

Team, Teammate, Self – In priority order.

No one is too big to pick up a broom – Humility starts at the top.

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication – The simplest plan is the best plan.

The only easy day was yesterday – Never rest on your laurels.

Two is one, one is none – You need to have a backup.

Our guest today is Chalmers Brothers, a best-selling author, certified executive coach, consultant, and speaker. In this episode, Chalmers shares that we don’t need to be psychologists to be effective leaders - but to be emotionally literate and capable of utilizing our most effective tool, “the power of language,” does require a dedicated effort.

We all have heroes, people who have held themselves to a higher standard whose level of success and how they achieved that success earns our respect. Chalmers Brothers is one of my heroes. We met at a Vistage event several years ago and read his book Language and the Pursuit of Leadership Excellence. I found his methods to be simple, effective, and actionable. I hope you learn as much as I have from Chalmers. 

In this episode, Tony speaks with Levi Smith, the CEO & President of Franklin Building Supply, a standout independent LBM dealer. A full line lumberyard in Idaho, they generate over $300m in sales, with 750 people, 17 locations, including door shops and truss plants.

What is your best story to effectively attract bright young talent to your company?

A great story has three components:

• A cast of characters that everyone cares about
• The desire to accomplish something for someone else
• A challenging obstacle to overcome

Great leaders and excellent problem solvers create some of the most straightforward solutions. Levi’s insight and teaching are excellent.

In this episode, Tony speaks with Craig Webb, the decades-long editor of ProSales Magazine and current President of Webb Analytics, about the importance of excellent communication and how to hone in on your skills. Craig is easily one of the best speakers and communicators in the building materials and construction supply industry. 

Craig recommends we ask 3 simple questions:

What combination of media selection is the best given the outcome objective?

What is the clearest, simplest form for that message to be delivered effectively? 

What is the best feedback loop to refine the message?

Our guest today is Stuart Kliman, Partner and Head of the newly formed Center of Excellence at Building Industry Partners.  Stu’s previous experience with the Harvard Negotiation Project (think tank behind the book – Getting to Yes) and as a founding partner of Vantage Partners, a management consulting firm, has made him an expert at helping not only companies improve their performance but assisting industries to collaborate and grow together.

In this episode, Stu provides insight into the following questions:

What does it mean to be a leader?

What are the distinct traits of good leaders?

What single trait can be used to further vet for outstanding leaders?

Our guest today is Mike Wisnefski, the Co-Founder of MaterialsXchange. Mike is shaking up the LBM purchasing supply chain with a low-cost, real-time e-trading platform for the 2x dimensional lumber and 4x8 plywood and OSB markets. Anyone can access Gold, Silver, and Palladium trades in real-time, and whether you are buying $1,000 or $1,000,000 - everyone has equal access to the market. MaterialsXchange's vision is that buying and selling lumber should be no different.

In this episode, we are joined by Gary Poulos, President of Mill Creek Lumber, a $250m LBM, Truss, and Millwork dealer serving the Tulsa, Oklahoma City, and Wichita markets. Despite the issues everyone in our industry is facing with accelerated material pricing and availability, Mill Creek is aggressively growing with booming sales to keep up with demand while retaining its top talent.

Gary answers a few tough questions:

• What is your view on the current supply and demand challenges in our industry?
• What are the steps you have taken as a leader to gain a competitive edge?
• What does the future hold for our industry around the enormous inflation and supply chain challenges everyone is facing?

In this episode, Tony speaks with longtime friend and mentor, Dena Cordova-Jack, Senior Director of Leadership & Talent Development at Kodiak Building Partners. Kodiak has over 5000 people and nearly $2B in sales annually. Central to their mission is developing leaders and inspiring people to grow. With 5000 people, Dena and Kodiak are taking on many challenges facing multi-generational teams.

• What are the best practices defining, benchmarking, and feeding leadership development? 
• What are the ways to approach succession planning?
• What is the distinction between a leader in a developmental stage and a leader who is miscast?

In this episode, Tony speaks with Dr. Robert Hogan, the founder of Hogan Assessments, the leading professional assessment tool in the world. Dr. Hogan, Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, Past Professor of Psychology at Johns Hopkins University, Past Psychology Department Chair at the University of Tulsa, and author of several books, shares his wisdom on why companies struggle to make leadership hires. 

Suppose we know the top 3 traits that predict great leaders. Why do companies continue to be so poor at hiring them? It is not whether the hiring leader thinks the candidate has the desired traits that matters, it’s based on the outcomes and facts of their personal and professional lives. Adding the right psychological testing to the process helps leaders understand the innate personality tendencies, flagging the key areas for questioning to determine if needed behavioral disciplines are entrenched. 

In this episode, Tony is joined by Kendall Hoyd, President at Residential Design Services, to discuss Hoshin Kanri. Kendall, previously the president of Idaho Truss and CFO of Trussway, has been effective at implementing Hoshin Kanri in multiple business models and cultures. 

Hoshin Kanri is a methodology used in strategic planning that creates alignment and ensures that goals drive action across the entire organization.

Listen on as Kendall shares 5 best practices as well as some common pitfalls that can be made while implementing this process in your organization. 

In this episode, Tony speaks with Kyle Little, COO of Sherwood Lumber, one of the largest privately-owned lumber distributors in the nation. 2020 has been a wild year and particularly explosive to the lumber market. Kyle has dedicated his life and profession to understanding the lumber commodity markets and has one message for everyone: the market volatility is here to stay for the next 5 years.

In this follow-up episode on the colossal merger between Builders FirstSource and BMC, Tony meets up with his close friends and LBM dealer presidents, Gary Poulos and Russ Kathrein.

Having first-hand experience with BFS and BMC, Gary and Russ deliver insights about what makes these companies unique, the opportunities ahead for the now $11B business, and how this event will permanently change how the manufacturers and lumber mills interact with the national production builders.

In this episode, Jim and Tony discuss the merger of Builders FirstSource and BMC - two of the largest building materials dealers in the nation.

Joining forces to create a company that is over $11B in annual sales, this also creates new challenges and opportunities for manufacturing suppliers, general contractors, and other dealer competitors. 

Jim and Tony also give some guidance to professionals who are measuring the potential changes in their career path. 

In this episode, Tony speaks with Chris Kliefoth, current Advisor and former CEO of Nationwide Industries. They discuss how to lead during times of uncertainty, as we are currently facing the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, and the importance of considering what is factual and what is probable. 

This is a longer episode with some important information we don't want you to miss - so we've outlined some key moments below. 

0:45 - Introduction 

2:05 - Chris shares how he got into the industry

10:25 - One of Chris' greatest successes & failures

19:50 - Lessons learned from Chris' greatest mentor, Peter Dachowski

46:35 - The importance of a blameless culture

49:55 - Leading through a crisis & how to handle the current situation

54:35 How the coronavirus is different from other economic crashes 

56:06 Chris shares the most critical step to crush your competition

1:12:40 - Closing thoughts & take-aways