Ep 168 - Inside Modern Leadership with Skye LaJaunie

Skye LaJaunie: Everybody's looking for great leaders. They're looking for great employees. What if I was to say, “You know what? They're not out there to be found. They're out there to be developed.” 

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Patrick Baldwin: Uncle Paul. 

Paul Giannamore: Yes, sir. 

Patrick Baldwin: Based on the Mexican fashionista over there, my speedo is packed. I'm bringing my speedo down in Puerto Rico. 

Paul Giannamore: PB, please leave your speedo at home. I'm looking forward to you basking down here in the Caribbean sun. Definitely looking forward to it. It's going to be exhausting. Every time we do one of these things and we get a dozen-plus people through here, it's a lot of work but we're going to have a really cool group of people down this time. Even Andrew Klein is coming down now. He took on the role as CEO of Douglas Products and he'll be coming down to spend some time with us among many other interesting guests. Looking forward to it. 

Before we get into our guest, PB, I did get some feedback on our previous episode. I'm always surprised, sometimes when we do these Q&A sessions, I don't think they're going to turn out to be that good but we did get a lot of positive feedback. I did get a question from a listener who works for a private equity firm who's investing in the pest control space and he came to me and said, “You talked about what defines a door-to-door business but what's one metric? What's one thing we can hang our hat on as to what's a door-to-door business or not?”  

Patrick Baldwin: Is this a fair question to ask? I remember we talked about KPIs and you said you should never have one KPI. I feel like we're going for Six Sigma one answer and I'm not so sure about this.

Paul Giannamore: I don't know if it's as simple as, “Are you a man or a woman?” That's pretty binary. You can figure that out pretty easy but in the United States today, you cannot. For the most part, historically, you've been able to determine that. With regard to door-to-door, if I had to choose one metric, it's the one that I talked about where I said whether or not the business is a wasting asset. If a company is doing door-to-door sales and it terminates the door-to-door program, it just stops doing door to door, will it continue to grow? If it continues to grow, it's not a door-to-door business. If by terminating door-to-door the business starts going backward and it becomes a wasting asset, it's a door-to-door business. 

Patrick Baldwin: Threshold at 0%, like, “I'm going to pull off the doors and my new net clients need to exceed my attrition.” If I'm positive, then I'm not door-to-door. If I'm negative, I'm door-to-door or I was door to door. 

Paul Giannamore: That is the new international standard. 

Patrick Baldwin: Is there any time component to this? Is this short term, long term, or eighteen months? 

Paul Giannamore: Let's say a year. If you terminate door-to-door, I’ll make this up, on January 1, by December 31st, is that business growing or not? If it is not, it's door-to-door. 

Patrick Baldwin: I like it. 

Paul Giannamore: If you can continue to grow that business in the absence of door-to-door, it means that you're either not doing a ridiculous amount of door-to-door or you've actually dialed in your inside sales, you've got organic sales and marketing going, you've got all these other capabilities so you're able to fight against the torrent of attrition, and you're able to do that without door-to-door sales. We're coining that as the new international standard. If you terminate door-to-door, does your business continue to grow? If it does, you are officially not door-to-door. Congratulations, you should get a higher multiple. If you start going backwards, you've got some work to do. 

Patrick Baldwin: Are you going to number that? ISO, ISO-D2DPG, what is it?

Paul Giannamore: I'm not sure where the ISO table stops. We'll have to get back to you on that. 

Patrick Baldwin: We do have a wonderful guest, Skye LaJaunie, from LaJaunie’s Pest down in the neighboring state of Louisiana over here. Fascinating. Skye is definitely one of the best people, if not the best in the industry, a tremendous business owner, friend, and colleague, and just enjoyed to get into chat with her, very awesome time.  

Paul Giannamore: Patrick, it was a fascinating discussion with Skye. Everyone has got a lot to learn from her, myself included. What shall we do? 

Patrick Baldwin: What do you say we stepped into The Boardroom with Skye LaJaunie? 

Paul Giannamore: Let's do this, Patrick. 

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Patrick Baldwin: Glad to have you, Skye LaJaunie, here in The Boardroom with us. Welcome, Skye. 

Skye LaJaunie: Hey, Fat Pat. How's it going?  

Patrick Baldwin: Love it. Got you. You've called me Pat more than anyone else I know and I'm glad to finally see you come around so thank you.  

Skye LaJaunie: I'm getting it right. 

Patrick Baldwin: Skye, I was thinking, we hung out in Orlando at the WorkWave Conference. It's official, I know more of your employees more than any other business in the whole industry. I love hanging out with you. You've got a great team. It was this family environment that you adopted me into just for dinner with your group there. I was like, “Skye, you would be fantastic for The Buzz.” We're glad to have you here. 

Skye LaJaunie: Thank you. I'm honored to be here. 

Paul Giannamore: What did Fat Pat eat at that dinner, Skye?  

Skye LaJaunie: I did get to hear about his gluten-free diet. I do remember telling the server, “He needs gluten-free.” Now, I can't remember what he got but he ate healthy, didn't drink, and take super good care of himself so that impressed me. 

Paul Giannamore: Everyone's on a gluten-free diet nowadays. He's actually one guy who, if he does have gluten, PB, what happens to you? 

Patrick Baldwin: It's not good. It's not for public consumption. We're not going to talk about that. It's not good. Skye, really fascinating watching you and Jared grow LaJaunie’s Pest. You got a great team and I've seen a lot of them and they are definitely, I want to say, drinking the Kool Aid but you know what it is. You've got a defined culture. I love your people. Back at NCOA, with Frank and Heath, two of your new wildlife guys, all of a sudden, the way they talked about you all, it was me and the two of them at the airport leaving NCOA. All of a sudden, they were so ecstatic about working for the two of you. It was like, “There's something different that Jared and Skye do that empowers their employees. I've got to figure this out.” You're doing something different. 

Skye LaJaunie: We love people. Jared and I love people and we love to grow business. We love business. We're both unique as a married couple because we're both entrepreneurial but we couldn't be more polar opposites. We definitely function as a yin and yang team. One thing we always meet together on is loving people and wanting to care for people. We both get some of our purpose and a lot of gratification out of creating opportunities for others and genuinely running the company and our decisions and passing them through a filter around the people that we're in charge of leading and stewarding. That's something you just can't fake. 

When people know that you're thinking that way and they see you consistently make decisions along that line and they know the motivation of you growing the company isn't just to grow equity or to make more money, which, of course, we want to do those things. We're also thinking in the terms of we're creating opportunities for others. I get excited when I see someone come and work in our business and they grow financially or they grow in their leadership ability or they get to accomplish a skill that they wouldn't have otherwise had. That is the key to why people are excited about working for us and working at our company.  

Paul Giannamore: You're right about you and your husband couldn't be more different, he talks funny and you don't and I was wondering why that's the case. He sounds like he's from Louisiana and you do not. 

Skye LaJaunie: Thank you. I'll take that as a compliment. We both have the same Cajun heritage. He grew up on the Bayou and I grew up in the city of New Orleans. You can travel twenty miles in one direction anywhere in South Louisiana and there will be a difference in dialect and accent. I love that you think I don't have an accent because I talk to my other colleagues on the East Coast and they tell me I sound like a Redneck. 

Paul Giannamore: They haven't spoken to your husband yet, have they? 

Skye LaJaunie: There you go. There it is. 

Paul Giannamore: It's all relative. 

Skye LaJaunie: My great grandparents actually did not speak English as a first language. They barely spoke English. They were French-speaking. 

Paul Giannamore: Reminds me of the Mexican, except for the French. 

Patrick Baldwin: Jared is going to listen to this. Your whole team is going to listen to this. Hopefully, you can tell us the truth but what's it like working with Jared? What's it like working with your husband and you all being very yin yang?

Skye LaJaunie: Jared and I are the unicorns of spouse teams. Normally, if you talk to other people and you ask different people in the industry what their opinion is of a husband-and-wife team, there's always usually some toxic, high tension dynamic. Jared and I are super fortunate because while we do disagree, and all business partners will disagree at some point, healthy teams have disagreement, we genuinely have mutual respect for one another. 

We have learned that we have so much more success when we're working together than when we're not. I've had my own businesses, he's had separate businesses, and we just fit together. He always has an idea. We do projects together. I make a little joke that I love solving problems and he loves making them and, weirdly, it works. We do these different projects together. If you've never met my husband, he's a larger-than-life character, on-fire visionary, and he comes up with ideas. 

I love processes, systems, and finding some way to make things more efficient. We do projects together. An example, I asked him to write down in his notebook 500 ideas of how we could sell more pest control. We have a great time doing this. We'll sit down, we'll go through the ideas, and he'll say ten things and I'll be like, “That's all crap. Keep going. Next idea.” He'll say something and I'll go, “I can make that work. That's a cool idea.” We go and do it. That's really unusual. 

Most married people don't have that level of candor. I also think that it works because my husband is one of the most humble and kind people I've ever met, which is why I married him. Most men would not be okay with allowing their wife to lead or run some area of a business that they founded and he is so cool. He teased me up for the win all of the time and I'm always taking his ideas and making them go. When we do have conflict, it usually results in something great. We've recognized that and we work together really well.  

Patrick Baldwin: Are you all ever not talking about the business?  

Skye LaJaunie: We do have boundaries. Usually, weirdly enough, if we're not talking about LaJaunie's, we're talking about some other opportunity or another business idea or another investment and we just love that. We connect there on that and it works for us. 

Patrick Baldwin: I'm curious how you all deal with conflict. It sounds like you're both into friction is not necessarily a bad thing and you can actually work through that. If there's some ground rules that you all set up to say, like, “This is how we're going to deal with it. That's how we're going to talk. Suck it up, buttercup.” 

Skye LaJaunie: That's pretty much how it goes. I'm super direct. I was raised by my father who was what we would call a solopreneur today. He had a construction business, he had a hobby shop business, and he always had a business idea. I was his sidekick and I would go around with him all over. One of the things he taught me was how to communicate very clearly, how to talk to people, and how to not be over-sensitive and have a tough skin. It’s benefited me and it's helped me in my marriage and my relationship and how to relate with men in general. 

Patrick Baldwin: Paul, you've worked with a lot of married couples over the years. I don't know if you have any words of wisdom for Skye and Jared or if it sounds like they've got the ground rules figured out.

Paul Giannamore: I actually have some questions on this topic. Yes, I've worked with a lot of married couples. You do have a lot of family businesses where husbands and wives are both in the business. Sometimes the man is more involved in the business and sometimes the woman is and there's every iteration in between. Over time, I started to think about natural gender differences and pluses and minuses to the business. I wanted to proffer a couple thoughts to Skye and see what she says. 

When you think about women, they clearly have more emotional depth and the ability to express emotion. I'm making generalizations but I do think women have the ability to express emotion better than men. Men tend to be more logical a lot of times than women from a solutions-focused perspective but sometimes men can be hampered to a certain degree in dealing with other people. 

I want to talk a little bit about gender for a second. When you think about what women naturally have versus what men naturally have and you guys are in a business together, do you think there are any gender-specific capabilities that you guys each bring to the business and what those differences might be? Can we generalize like this? 

Skye LaJaunie: Yeah. 

Paul Giannamore: I do think there is something to this. A lot of people don't like to admit it so I want to talk about it. 

Skye LaJaunie: I agree, women are completely different creatures. We're wired completely different than men. I have a tremendous advantage to be a woman. Being in a mostly male business as a woman, this is my observation. Most men, today, especially if they're under 30, don't have a father in the home. We're employing younger men. They mostly have been raised by mother, aunt, grandmother, and that's been the dominant parent figure in their life. I find a lot of the younger men relate better to a female leadership and taking directives from women. 

I also find that I can probably be more direct with people because I'm 5'3 and about a $1.50 and I'm a nice lady with a nice soft Southern drawl and I can go in there and tell things like they are and be super direct and everybody can be a little bit more comfortable with that versus, “My husband is this big, strong macho guy with broad shoulders.” If he comes in there and starts really getting fired up, people are going to start to get uncomfortable. 

Women have the advantage of getting to be more direct and women have the power of influence in an organization, whereas men are going to come in and they're going to have the ability of authority, if that makes sense. Not to say that women can't be assertive or authoritative but men have a more commanding presence, they can overwhelm or intimidate. Especially younger generation, you're trying to lead younger people or women or other women for that matter. It's a leadership advantage. Some people would disagree but it's worked very well for me. 

Jared and men in general, this is going to sound derogatory and I don't want it to, but men have more of an ego, whereas women are more inclined to be okay to let someone else lead or to not get offended. When there's a bunch of testosterone in the room, the whole climate is different, the whole way that people are going to communicate is different. When you have men and women together on a team or a female leader leading the way, some of that ego gets tampered down a little bit, less competitiveness and more collaboration. On the flip side of that, competitiveness and getting fired up, that's an essential part of growing and competing in business. 

One of the things I find my husband is fantastic at is he's a great sales leader. He can go in there and use that male energy to really pump the room, get our outside sales guys going, and that's not my thing. I'm not going to go and get them as pumped up. That's also the thing, when men and women work together, knowing what you're good at, staying in your lane is super important, and having that mutual respect and recognizing, “She's better at this,” or, “He's better at that.” 

Paul Giannamore: You raise some extremely interesting points. You often hear that men grow through criticism and women grow through praise and positive reinforcement. Clearly, the dialogue is very different in the men's locker room than it is in the women's locker room. Do you tend to see that play out in real life that men would grow through criticism versus women with praise?

Skye LaJaunie: I would disagree about the men growing with criticism. I've raised two sons. I have two boys. I was raised by a man and I work with men all day. I will tell you, at least as a female, I'm always going to get further with honey than with vinegar. People enjoy being praised if they're a man or a woman. If they enjoy getting compliments in sincere coaching that comes from love and not a critical place, you're going to go further and that's with men or women. 

With that being sad, men respond better to a challenge whereas women can take that more personal. I noticed when I'm leading men and I'm giving different challenges to men, I'm going to be like, “Can you do it? Show me that you can do it.” Whereas if I'm working with a team of women, I'm going to take more of an approach of, “I believe you can do it.” 

Paul Giannamore: “You can do this.” 

Skye LaJaunie: I do think that there's a different approach but either one comes from not a critical place. We did our quarterly all-day meeting with our leadership team and my business coach, at the end of the meeting, put on this hilarious video. It was a movie with Alec Baldwin and it was a sales scene. 

Paul Giannamore: Glengarry Glen Ross. 

Skye LaJaunie: He says, “Only closers get coffee.” Our business coach puts that speech up there. Alec Baldwin is carrying on. He is cursing. He is insulting them. He's doing all this kind of stuff. I thought it was so hilarious because I thought, “In no way would anyone ever respond well to that.” In my thoughts, I was like, “This is ridiculous.” That movie was from the ‘80s, maybe late ‘90s. 

Paul Giannamore: Yep. 

Skye LaJaunie: I was like, “That's the way they talked then.” Today, in today's generation, in the way we lead, we would be talking to an empty room. I told my team, I said, “Everybody better hit their goals and start selling or I'm going to reenact this behavior.” They said that they would pay to see it. 

Paul Giannamore: You raised another very interesting point a minute ago when you said that a lot of young men now under the age of 30 grew up in a single-parent family largely raised by mothers. You also said that they're more used to taking orders from women. I can't remember exactly how you phrased it. Outside of the business realm, we're living in a different world now, whereas in the ‘50s and ‘60s, it was always two-parent family, men and women got married, birth control didn't exist, and a woman was in a really bad spot if she got pregnant and didn't have a husband. 

We live in a different environment nowadays. What sort of impact do you think growing up in a household as a young man with a single mother, is this becoming very prolific? Outside of business, how will that be impacted? I'm talking about from a personal relationship perspective because men now are different. What's unfolding before our very eyes? 

Skye LaJaunie: This is a controversial topic you're asking me. 

Paul Giannamore: No one gets on The Buzz to not talk controversy. 

Skye LaJaunie: I prefer to work with men, I enjoy working with the men I work with, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for them. Generally speaking, most of the young men in our society are in crisis. There's been a lack of male leadership, a lack of family structure, and most men feel a little lost, especially young men today. Statistically, if you go read about this, they're behind in education. Women are doing better than them socially. Most of the time, men are getting married less often. 

This does tie back into business and part of the purpose of entrepreneurship in our country is it's an opportunity to lead people and connect them with the purpose and connect them with a level of mentorship and help give them support and encouragement and guidance that maybe they didn't receive growing up or didn't get enough of.  

I would love to see more men be men. My husband and I privately have discussed this because we both lead young men and we're like, “I can't believe that this particular individual had this response. That was the least masculine thing I've ever seen anyone do. What's going on?” In my opinion, I have two young men that are in their early 20s and you talk to them, they're super proud of themselves, and they have a ton of confidence. Any young man under 25 should be overly confident and have to be told to calm down on a regular basis. 

Paul Giannamore: They have nothing else. Under the age of 20, you've got nothing. You've got to prove yourself. 

Skye LaJaunie: Correct. There's some kind of like fiery thing happening inside of them and that's normal and healthy. It makes me sad that I don't see that more, especially as we employ and bring young men on. I like to see that develop in the men that work for me. I like to see them get excited or have an idea or assert themselves or get overly confident. 

I have a new manager on my team and nobody is trying to guess who he is and I'm just getting to know him. He is so super cool and calm and I'm so glad because I am not, I'm the polar opposite. He's brought so much balance to our team. I was talking with him and I was giving him some directives and it was clearly some things that he had already known and he had this flash of annoyance in his eyes and I thought, “I like that. Good. Be annoyed. Tell me you know what to do.” I want to see that. 

When I'm working with other people, I don't want to dull down their confidence. I want them to fully be who they are and take charge and run. I like that quality. Men should have it. When men are in a good place and they're feeling that way and they're having that, it makes everyone else feel better in the room. 

Patrick Baldwin: How did you take that response from him of being annoyed without taking it as being disrespected? 

Skye LaJaunie: I didn't feel disrespected at all. I felt relieved. I had a little celebration inside. I was like, “Yeah.” He doesn't need me to tell him what to do, he's got this, and it made me feel more confident in that moment, I was like, “Yeah, I like it. Keep it up now.” I like mutual respect, I wouldn't have wanted anybody to mouth off to me, but I want everyone, men and women, around me to say, “I got this.” I have that as a leader and great leaders are going to think and feel and respond that way. 

Patrick Baldwin: Are you all intentional with mentoring? You're talking about leadership. I'm calling it next generation but these younger men and women are coming up with different parental figures. Do you have something formal or do you have certain employees you spend extra time with and are intentional with or it just happens? 

Skye LaJaunie: It just happens. I have a little saying I say frequently in my organization that God assigns people to me. Sometimes I'll see or perceive something, an area where they need to develop or grow or an opportunity, or maybe something that they don't realize they're great at and then I get to help develop that in them. 

We have 63 employees. I don't know all of the team members but the people that I directly lead, I'm always intentional in trying to develop them into the best versions of themselves. I feel like that's my responsibility, that's good stewardship. I also get to benefit because that builds great teams, great people, and then my company runs better. We make more money and they get to make more money. That's what I'm really great at and I like that I get to do it. Business is a great outlet to do that. 

Patrick Baldwin: I love it. You've grown to 63 employees. You have four branches. You have a wildlife division. As you think back, are there certain moments when you thought at the time they were big decisions or small decisions but they had big impacts now looking back on those?  

Skye LaJaunie: Jared and I have such humble beginnings. Jared founded the company with just himself. We had zero customers, day one. When I think back about all of the things that happened when we first started the business and when Jared first started the business, we were both so ignorant. We didn't have a really great strategy. We had a lot of grit and a desire to change our lives. 

A lot of times, when I look back at the decisions that we made, we were blessed and fortunate. As we began to get around other people and be mentored ourselves and people taught us about business and contributed to us, then we were able to develop and execute great strategies. Some of it just happened and some of it was good fortune, good blessing. As we learned, then we became more intentional and then we had momentum.  

Paul Giannamore: How did you learn? How did you guys intentionally educate yourself over these years in order to become more effective managers? 

Skye LaJaunie: I learned from other people. I don't have a lot of formal education. I don't have a college degree. That's going to mean less and less as time goes on, especially as I hire and employ people. Some of my degreed employees are not as competent as my non-degreed employees. I also think it's a blessing because we live in the information age. If I want to know more about how to solve a problem in my business, I literally can pull up a podcast like this one or go find a YouTube video or read a book or as my network has grown, I can call someone that I know that has that skill and then I learn. 

We first sought mentorship with other people who were more successful than us. Fortunately, people were kind enough to sit down and talk to me and share information and then that began to make me hungry to be better, to be great. I'm an avid reader, I probably read 12 to 15 books a year and I've always loved to read and I have the ability to read quickly and retain what I read so that's been a huge benefit for me. I'm intentional about the books I read. I don't read any fiction books. I don't watch TV. Those are unusual disciplines but it's opened up the space and time for me to learn and become better. 

Patrick Baldwin: I want to go back to management. Do your employees ever experience watching you and Jared walk through conflict together? Here they are coming out of maybe single-parenting household, in that case, there's not a lot of parental conflict that they know. All of a sudden, they might be looking at you all as parental figures based on, and I’m not saying that you're old but Jared is, looking up to you all. Did they get to experience that, like, “Here's a healthy way for a married couple and business partners to walk through difficult situations together.” 

Skye LaJaunie: We're pretty intentional about not letting anyone see us have conflict if we disagree. We run off the EOS process so we have same-page meetings and we have our disagreements in private. Even the slightest bit of tension, my team will pick up on it. One of my administrative managers says, “I hate it when mom and dad disagree.” She literally says that, which is funny because she's much older than me. 

We have a pretty good solid role, we don't disagree and not that we never have, but whenever we have, it's never been a good thing for us or the company. Honestly, the funny thing is, usually, we're only together in one meeting a week. The rest of the time, we're working in our own space on our own projects. If we're going to communicate about business, we're usually going to do that privately.  

Patrick Baldwin: Was it intentional to not office together? You have your own space. 

Skye LaJaunie: I have shared an office with my husband and no, it doesn't work. It does not work. He talks really loud and he makes phone calls all day and then he'll start turning around and trying to task me with things and I'm like, “This doesn't work.” We definitely have our own space and our own lane.  

Patrick Baldwin: When did you all adopt EOS?

Skye LaJaunie: About three years ago. 

Patrick Baldwin: What was the point in which you said, “We have to do something and have some kind of system like EOS.” 

Skye LaJaunie: It was just chaos and I do not like chaos. I like a disciplined, well-run organization. My husband was just selling. He created such a great outside sales team. They were just generating so much revenue. They were doing so many things really great but all of that growth created chaos. There had to be structure. There had to be organization. There had to be something for it to flow through. EOS was a perfect solution for us to do that so that we could scale and grow our business and have cooperation.

One of the things I'm super obsessed with right now that I'm reading and studying a lot about is how to have synergistic performance in a team. Getting people all together, moving in the same direction, executing their jobs well, and thinking positively as they're doing it, I have to do it. I have to see that happen in my organization. 

I've been gradually making some changes, trying to increase discipline in certain areas. I had to make some changes with who was leading in the company to try to get to that place where everyone is feeling great love vibes. Everyone knows what they're supposed to be doing and is doing it with excellence. I have to accomplish that. That is the biggest challenge for me because people are people and they have their own ideas and they have their own motivations and they're wired their own way. There still is something so powerful and wonderful if you can get everyone wanting to go in the same direction. 

I find that when I talk to people who have had a lot of success, they understand how to do this in their organization. The ones that struggle and that can't scale past, they just can't break the code of how to get people to unite and move together in the same direction. We have one important piece of that solved, which is caring for people and being able to show and communicate that effectively. There are some other parts of the puzzle that we need to improve and get better at before we can hit the mark there. 

One of those things that we're working on right now is just making sure that we have data that we're following that makes sense and is true and is sound. I love numbers. I'm a numbers person. I love data. I always say numbers don't have feelings, they just tell the truth about everything. We're very data-driven. We have 40 different metrics we track as a leadership team. I honestly think it's too much. We had a fantastic conversation about which of those metrics were valid and which ones still mattered. 

Sometimes we track things in a business because there's a problem and we want to track the problem and then at what point does it stop becoming a problem and then it's not important anymore? That's something that we're looking at because I get so in the details. I'm tracking all these different things. What number really matters? If that number is off, then I can go look at the fifteen other metrics behind that one number. Getting to a place where all of our data and numbers are aligning and we're understanding what they mean and what actions need to be taken if they're not within the range we want to hit. 

Paul Giannamore: I want to take a step back for a second, Skye, into your problem solving. Your husband creates problems and you solve them. It sounds like the dilemma for you is you want to get small teams to be working together better to move the ball forward. You've identified this as an issue, a problem that you want to solve. You sat back, I don't know what you guys drink down in the South, sweet tea maybe, I'm not sure, you're on the deck, a straw in your mouth, and the breeze is blowing. How did you sit back and think about that and what was your plan of attack? “How am I going to address this? What do I do?”  

Skye LaJaunie: I'm very analytical and I like to write things down. I will think about a problem. For me, it's fun. I will sit and philosophize around a problem sometimes for hours and maybe even obsessively think about it a little bit. 

Paul Giannamore: Where do you do that?  

Skye LaJaunie: I usually do that in my office.  Sometimes I'll sit out by the pool. Sometimes I wake up with solutions from a dead sleep. It's a terrible curse but it's cool because sometimes I'm just processing things literally as I sleep. I keep a notebook on the side of my bed for this. 

Paul Giannamore: Pen and paper? 

Skye LaJaunie: Pen and paper and I write it down. The first thing I like to do is I like to list the ten things that are around the core problem. For every problem, there's a root issue. What is the real problem? For example, someone may come to me and say, “Our technician's routes, they're just not efficient enough.” I'm getting this feedback from the technicians that they're just driving and the technicians are unhappy about this. I'll say, “That's not the problem. What's the problem?” 

Paul Giannamore: That's the symptom. You've identified a symptom. 

Skye LaJaunie: Yes. I'll just reverse engineer that. “Why is this happening? Where in our organization is this going wrong?” I'll start from that technician's experience or complaint and then I'll go all the way back, “Let's go to the scheduler. Let's see what the scheduler is doing. Let's see how much growth we've had in this region. Can we be more efficient? Let's create a routing project around that.” I'll just keep on and then I'm breaking those tasks down through my organization one department at a time to solve for the issue. 

For bigger issues like wanting to get everyone working in the same direction and creating synergy, then I'll just sit there and I'll think, “What is creating friction? Where am I feeling tension? Where is there disconnect? What can I do to communicate better? How can I teach people what they're supposed to accomplish? Am I motivating every team member in the way that would best motivate them?” I'll then start looking at the people component. I'm a prayerful person so I use prayer meditation a lot. If you work for me and my organization, I have prayed for you at some point. I have thought about you. 

Sometimes I get worried about that because I know that's not a scalable idea but I'm looking at people as individuals and then I'm thinking, “How can I get all of these people together in one accord?” A lot of that is vision and purpose too. Am I communicating the vision and what everyone can receive if we all accomplish this one thing? I'm building that skill better within myself and within my organization. I have so many tasks to get that accomplished and then I'm dispersing those tasks out amongst the team.  

Paul Giannamore: Your thinking process, how solitary is that versus you going out and soliciting advice or commentary from any of your other team members? When you're thinking about, for example, the routing situation, you got your pad, you're sitting there, and you're like, “What are the schedulers actually doing?” You're trying to break this down. Are you heading over to the scheduler saying, “How are you doing this?” Is this something that is really just going on in your mind?  

Skye LaJaunie: It's definitely starting in my mind first because I know the processes. If I have a question about the processes being executed, I'm going to that administrative manager and I'm saying, “Are we executing these processes? What needs to change?” I do solicit advice. I'm notorious for calling people and asking for advice. I have business coaches I work with. I have mentors that help me. Most of the problems in pest control have been solved so someone has solved them so I don't need to reinvent the wheel for a lot of the tactical, practical daily operations. I need to find the person that knows and then I need to do the work to execute it. 

Patrick Baldwin: You talk about getting the team to row together and then it seemed like the negative words, the way that you just said it like friction, tension, and disconnect were almost bad things. Did I understand that right? Are you looking to eliminate those, getting rid of friction, getting rid of tension, and looking to reconnect the team to row together? Do you ever see those as healthy emotions or experiences for your team?

Skye LaJaunie: There needs to be conflict. If I'm ever in a meeting or if I'm ever sitting with team members and they never disagree, I know something is wrong because they either don't feel safe enough or they don't like each other enough or they don't trust each other enough to say, “I don't agree with you. You're wrong.” If I don't see that happening, I am concerned because trust is the key component to synergies and cooperation. 

I don't always think it's bad but I don't like it when the mutual respect goes out the window, which is why most people avoid conflict or speaking up or disagree because they fear that there's going to be this negative response, they're going to be insulted or embarrassed, or they're going to create an enemy they don't need. People are always trying to be accepted and they're trying to be loved. They're trying to build alliances. 

If you have an ambitious person on your team, which good teams will have ambitious people, they have a lot of ego, they want to be superior, and they want to be the best. Having to get people with that mindset to be willing to take the risk to disagree or to assert themselves, it's not easy. It goes back to what we were talking about earlier, Paul, where's the fire in people? Where's the confidence and the belief that they can be right? It's hard to get people to step out on the ledge. 

I do encourage some conflict and I do make space in our departmental meetings for people to have conflict but it is a dangerous balance because it can quickly go the other direction. People think in patterns. If you read about how the brain works and how emotions work, the human being has thousands of thoughts in a 24-hour period. We think that, every day, we're waking up and we're having new and original thoughts. 

They have studied people and they find that people just generally have the same patterns and emotions repetitively over and over again. That's why it's so hard. If there's a team or department in your company and they're negative, even if everyone else is having positive and great and energetic meetings and then this team is having negative complaining and they're not as productive, usually, it's because they're in a habit. They're in a habit of complaining and not being constructive in their criticisms and ideas. They get in a habit of negative emotions around work. 

This is deep because I would probably say maybe as much as 40% of American workers have negative ideas and emotions around work. They come to work and they don't know how to be happy. All their brain does, it's pre-programmed, “I'm at work. I'm unhappy. This is negative. This is bad. I wish I was home. I wish I was watching Netflix.” They're just trying to get through their day. 

The challenge comes, how can we get people into a different thought pattern where they start having repetitive, positive thoughts? “I'm at work. I'm grateful for this job. I'm getting to learn something new today. I'm getting to earn money. I can't wait to go for the next challenge.” It’s getting people and recognizing when people are stuck into these negative patterns. 

For some people, you just can't turn it around and you have to get that person out of your team because they'll eventually start to influence everyone else into their thought pattern, which is generally negative and not to solve problems but just to reinforce the same thought pattern they've had around work for the last ten years of their life, which is, “Work sucks. The boss is bad. I hate this place.” 

Patrick Baldwin: I can see the two extremes. You just talked about conflict avoidance very bad. You don't want yes man. I know we've had a very gender happy episode here, yes men and women. On the other end, you have negative. 40% of the workforce doesn't like to be at work, that's a very negative ultra conflict, negative feelings in a branch maybe. How do you model the healthy balance? 

What you and Jared have is a wonderful thing. You all have a great relationship from everything. I know about you all. You've modeled a healthy conflict if you said, “When we have conflict in our business, we're going to do that behind closed doors, if you will.” How do you do that at least in front of your leadership team? What is the healthy balance and how do you model that?  

Skye LaJaunie: We make space. When we meet and we've discussed, I'm known to do this, I will call out a person's name and say, “So and so, do you have any strong feelings about this?” I'll ask them, “What do you think? Tell me what you think. You've been quiet. Why aren't you talking?” I intentionally am trying to stir up and get people's opinions. 

I call my leadership team the collective genius. Whenever we decide to do something, hit a challenge, and take on something, I'm always going to meet with them and say, “If this was your business, how are you going to solve this? What would you do in this situation?” I love it. I asked one of my leaders, she's so super smart. We had a problem with some of our marketing and I said, “What would you do if this was your business and you were in this situation?” 

She says, well, “First of all, Skyee, I wouldn't have made this decision.” I love that she said that. I thought, “Great. I did so let's go. What are we going to do now?” It was cool that she wanted to tell me that and it was okay that she told me that. I said, “The next time you see me making one of those decisions, tell me beforehand. Don't let me make the wrong decision if you think it's wrong. Do you promise me you won't do that again?” She said, “Okay, I'll tell you.” I said, “Cool.” 

Patrick Baldwin: You've made her feel safe to do that. You opened that door. 

Skye LaJaunie: It's funny because I do have a reputation as being tough and being hard. Jared is definitely the more approachable of the two of us. People will go to him with the problem before they'll come to me. You do need to have space for an invite, feedback, constructive criticism, and new ideas. You have to guard your culture well because the truth of the matter is someone is always going to be unhappy. You're never going to please everyone on a team. If you give too much of a platform for that, you'll see your culture shift in a nasty direction very quickly. 

Patrick Baldwin: People have bad days. I understand, perpetual, this person is bad, anti-culture, or different values. How do you deal with that?  

Skye LaJaunie: We fire them.  

Patrick Baldwin: No coaching? It's like, “Come into my office,” and you're gone. 

Skye LaJaunie: Absolutely. We talked about this. We meet on a quarterly basis and we talk about who's on our team and who doesn't fit our core values. We analyze our people, everyone. I task all of my leaders with analyzing the people on their team and we have an open conversation, “Who's not fitting the bill?” 

Patrick Baldwin: Do you ever go up earlier in the process and say, “What is it in our hiring process? Are there things we could have done differently in hiring?” How do they get on the team?  

Skye LaJaunie: Our recruiting process is a little unique. We're winning pretty well in this area. It’s not that we never have staffing challenges because every entrepreneur has experienced that in the last 3 or 5 years, for sure. First of all, when we recruit people, we do use ads and we use Indeed and all those regular platforms. When 

we're recruiting people, we're also searching databases for people with certain work history, certain skillsets, and we're soliciting people who maybe otherwise wouldn't apply to pest control company. That's helped us tremendously with building talent and getting great people on our team. When we're hiring people, before we hire them, we invest in assessments. Everyone who's worked at my company, we're looking at their cognitive ability and we're looking at their work habits. It probably takes them about an hour to complete the whole pre-assessment.

We have people who are great at their jobs and we take their assessments and we say, “This person is wonderful in this position. They're an ideal fit. Let's find this profile again. Let's go ahead and hire that person that has the same profile and a similar assessment as this other individual who's rocking it in their space.”

We are intentional around who we bring on the team. We also take risk with people. It's a little bit different, I love an underdog. I think of myself as an underdog. I'll give people chances and opportunities that maybe other more traditional employers would pass on. I think that's a great opportunity to build loyalty. When you give someone a chance when they're not deserving of it, it's a principle of grace and then giving them the opportunity and they appreciate it. It's worked very well for us as well.  

Patrick Baldwin: When you talk about underdogs, I love it, rooting for the away team at times. What are you looking for? Is it certain skills or where previous experiences no one gave them the opportunity to move up in the company? What do you see? 

Skye LaJaunie: I love to hire young people with little experience. They're super cool. They usually don't have a lot of soft skills but we can develop those soft skills and they get the purpose of work. Every person needs work. Work is a very faithful friend, it's always there for you, and you can always apply it to get what you want. We teach people how to work and we let them experience the joy of having a productive job with a livable wage for the first time. 

Sometimes it goes sideways and we have to quickly offload those people but more often than not, it works very, very well for us. That's almost better than trying to hire people who have worked at four different places in the last 24 months. Sometimes that just works better. I also like to give people opportunities that otherwise just couldn't find them. It's part of our culture. If you haven't taken an untraditional approach to recruiting, staffing, and hiring, in the last few years, you should. 

The world is different, people are different, and society is different. The entrepreneurs, in my opinion, are the frontline leaders of our society. We're going to have the solutions for a lot of the problems this generation is facing. We're going to have the solutions even this country is facing. Entrepreneurs have always been the problem solvers, the pioneers, and the fixers. I believe that about myself. I believe that's an awesome responsibility. The way you're going to do that is through people and building people and giving people opportunities and doing the hard stuff that no one else wants to do. 

Everybody is looking for great leaders. They're looking for great employees. What if I was to say, “They're not out there to be found, they're out there to be developed. They're created. They're not discovered.” That has been my approach. It's served us well. It's not been without its problems and challenges as well. There's always opportunity when you're willing to do the hard things that other people don't want to do and when you're willing to take the risk that the other person wouldn't take.  

Paul Giannamore: On this topic, Skye, you raised some interesting points and it made me think about my discussion. I went and met with the CEOs and some of the senior executives of the publicly-traded pest control companies and we got off on a lot of tangents. One of the things that we covered in depth was operating in today's world with the young Millennials, Gen Z's, or whatever you call them, the super young folks that are just coming into the workforce versus us old timers. I don't know if we're just getting old but they just seem very different. 

I was hearing all sorts of stories about in our grandfather's generation, our grandfathers could dig ditches, change roofs on houses, fix cars, and make a Thanksgiving dinner. It wasn't going to be great but they could do that. They can do everything. Whereas a lot of young men now can't even change tires on vehicles. I’m hearing stories about one kid tried to change his tire and ended up breaking the lugs off the wheels, a total disaster. I'm curious, you have some young men in your own household. What are some of the bigger differences that you see now with this generation versus folks that are a little bit older? What are the challenges that you have as a manager and integrating these folks into the work world?  

Skye LaJaunie: Mostly the biggest difference is that they're so connected to their devices. We all are. If you work, you're connected to your device. The younger generation is more intimately attached to their phone, their devices, and the way that they socialize and communicate is through the phone. I'm 43 and I grew up in the in between. I'm a Gen Xer, as they would say. I experienced childhood without a phone. I even had a rotary phone at one point. I was able to learn technology and embrace technology. 

These kids, they've had everything instant. If they have a question, they type it in the phone and they get an answer. If they don't know something, they pick up the phone and they get the answer. If they're sad, they pick up the phone, they look at their social media, and they get a hit of dopamine. If they want to hear a song, they don't have to wait for it to come on the radio. On the internet, they're going to get what they want. 

It goes back to how your thoughts are patterns, they're not going to have patience. They're not going to have the same level of communication skills face-to-face that we're going to have because they were never required to develop those things. They just did not use those skills and those muscles in the same way that we did. With that being said, that's an opportunity. One, you can connect with them through the phone and you should do that and communicate with them through the phone because that's what they expect. 

Also, it's an opportunity to teach them the joy of actual personal connection, tangibly getting things done, the gratification of heart, and getting them to view that gratification of heart, executing a task, actually getting something done, and actually looking someone in the eye. You can light something in them. Most people don't understand that they just look at them and they get frustrated and they go, “They're just ridiculous. Can you believe they don't know how to change it? I can't believe that they didn't know how to do that.” 

It's an attitude and approach because those kids know what you think and feel about them. Are you going to care about that kid and you're going to help develop that kid and you're going to have the patience? Are you just going to get aggravated and make five other hires and have the same experience over and over again? 

This is a leadership question. I don't care if you have a privately-held company or if you're the CEO of a corporation. In fact, if you're a CEO of a corporation, you even have a greater responsibility to say, “This is my problem. This is my great challenge. How am I going to get these young people connected, working, skill building, and enjoying work?” 

We are in, essentially, a crisis. We're in a labor crisis in this country. We can sit around and complain and go, “Nobody wants to work these days. It's so hard.” I would grow my business more,” or, “I would have more profits if I could just get the right people.” We can sit around and have a big complaining fest or we can just go ahead and deal with the reality of what it is and pivot and make adjustments and be accepting and figure out how to solve the problem within our organization. In the next ten years, those are the companies that are going to win. 

Everyone's saying, “It's AI. It's automation. It's this embrace. It's that embrace.” Yes, you have to bring automation. Yes, you need to embrace AI. The people component is never going to leave business, particularly service business and the pest business. It’s understanding how to lead and train this next generation of people and cracking this code. 

If you can't develop that skill, then they should just call you up, Paul, and they should put their company for sale and go ahead and retire if they're not ready to conquer that challenge. It's possible and we're doing it at LaJaunie’s and it's messy and it's difficult but we're getting it done. That's how we're going to bring this next generation into a place of greatness. That's how we're going to win in business. 

Paul Giannamore: What's one piece of advice you can give folks out there for how to deal with the younger generation from a recruiting and training and retention perspective? 

Skye LaJaunie: I would definitely say be okay with repeating yourself. Be okay with customizing things for individuals. As business people, we love to have a plug-and-play, “This is our 90-day training program.  This is how we're going to do it. This is the reward you're going to get. You're going to get X gift card. You're going to get X amount of money. This is how we motivate people. This is what we do.” 

That’s just not going to work. That's not going to work for this next generation because everything is customized to them. Their ads are customized when they're served an ad. All of their whims are catered to. They're wired to receive information that way. They don't have the same tolerance for difficulty because they just haven't had the same level of difficulty and challenges at that point in their life that we had to go through.

Paul Giannamore:  That's true, they don't even have to wait till Thursday at 7:00 PM for their TV show to come on. 

Skye LaJaunie: When I was a kid, I would go out in the street. If I went three blocks up the street in New Orleans and we went to the park and another kid bullied me and pushed me down and I scraped my knee, I had to get up and I had to walk back to my house with a bloody knee. I had to push myself through the pain and discomfort of that. 

Today, if that happened, they would call their mother and their mother would come and get them and there would be a meeting about how bullying was wrong and everything would have to be justified and rectified. They would have never had to suffer through the pain and humiliation of walking up the street with a bloody knee. They never had that experience. We have all had some experience like that and they're just not. 

This is their first rodeo to grit and adversity and what it takes to develop that. Also, being able to understand and cater to that and customizing how they're motivated because this younger generation, they're not motivated by money. We were all money-hungry. I don't know about you guys, I wanted to make money when I was young. I did not want to be broke. Most of us in our 40s are pretty wired, we're always motivated and want it to be accomplished and have finances. 

Now, that's not so important, that's not a value that people hold. They might want to have experiences. They might want to be off every Saturday. They have their preferences so finding out what that is and being able to make a workaround and accommodation for them. They will come to work for you and be loyal to you and be excited and be a champion for your business because you were willing to make an accommodation that they couldn't get somewhere else. There are so many arguments you can have around that. I could hear the critics right now going, “That's ridiculous. How can I build a business? How can I grow around that?” You can and solve the problem. 

Paul Giannamore: It's brilliant. We've talked quite a bit, PB, if you recall, in earlier Buzz episodes, the subjective nature of value and how it's less expensive for a firm to sit back and say, “What does this team member value? Do they value vacation days? Do they value extra money in their paycheck? What do they equate most subjective value to because I can give that to them.” Skye, we grew up in a generation where we got to make money, “Pay us more money. Let’s get this done.” 

If you're not so motivated by money, let's say that you're a single mother and you need more time with your children, you might not care for that extra bonus. What you might care for is more time off. By determining what the individual values most, it's a more valuable transaction to give it to him or her than the cookie-cutter approach. 

Listening to you, it sounds like that becomes more and more important now as we have this generational shift where these folks do value things differently than us. Are we like our grandparents now? Are we just old and we don't understand the younger generation or is there these seismic shifts going on? I feel like this younger generation is very different. To your point, they haven't had to suffer like us. 

Patrick Baldwin: Whether it's compensation, Paul, like you said, what they value or how you train them for the first 90 days, are we supposed to be psychoanalysts and think about, “What words are they saying and figuring out what they value most?” Is it very direct? “What do you value most? How do I need to train you? How do you learn best?” 

Skye LaJaunie: I ask people what they want. I always ask them what they want. That's a key interview question for us, “What do you want?” We leave it open-ended because they'll tell you. A few people will even ask for context. Sometimes, they'll immediately say, “I want to make this much money.” You know, “They're driven by money.” Sometimes the first thing that comes out of their mouth is, “I hated how I had to work past 7:00 at my last job. I want a good schedule for my family.” They'll tell you, or, “I want really great healthcare.” They'll always tell you what's important to them. 

We then start the conversation right there. We know what we're good at and what we provide well in our company. If they don't want to drive a lot and they don't want to operate a vehicle and be in a vehicle all day, you don't need to work here. Helping them understand what they want and making sure that it's also going to get you what you want, that's the key. 

Patrick Baldwin: Is this your first interview question?  

Skye LaJaunie: No. 

Patrick Baldwin: I don't know if I shaped everything else you asked in the interview or not. 

Skye LaJaunie: We usually lead with work history conversation. Although I have different managers that like to have their questions in different orders. 

Paul Giannamore: Fat Pat, to Skye's point, that's not necessarily an interview question as much as when I was out and I sat down with Tommy Mello in his house. We're probably not going to publish that interview for another few weeks. One of the things he was talking about is, and this is what he does prolifically now throughout his entire organization of 300 plus people, he would sit down with these guys and say, “This is your job. Hopefully, it's your career. Hopefully, you're going to be with a company for a long time. It's my responsibility to help you get what you want and need.” 

“Let's talk. Do you have kids? Are we saving for college? What are we doing here? Do you own a home? Would you like to buy a home?” Dig deep into what it is that they want to do. Are they the type of people that want to work hard but they want to spend a lot of time with their family? What are their individual goals and objectives? If they want to save for college and they want to buy a house, he's like, “I literally put together a program where I will help them open up different bank accounts.” 

He's friends with Mike Michalowicz so he's taken a play from Mike Michalowicz’s book about helping these guys set up bank accounts where they can automatically deposit money into those specific accounts. He looks to attempt to try to get buy-ins from the spouse like if they're a team, husband and wife trying to do this together. What can they do so that the wife understands, “Dad has got to work on Saturday because we're saving for the house and this money is going right into this account. This is going to benefit the family.” 

Also, bringing in the kids involved into it, “Dad is going to try to be at as many games as he can but he can't be at every one of them. This is what dad is doing in order to move the ball forward for the family.” To Skye's point, I agree 100%, asking them directly and there's a lot of ways you can do it, you can do it verbally. You can put together a survey and you could pepper the survey with responses, like, “What do you value? Do you value time off? You want extra money? Are you looking to buy something in particular? What sorts of things do you value?” 

You can get those responses because as the guy said, “They will tell you one way or another.” Especially if they realize you're asking them with respect and you're going to attempt to do something with it, it's valuable and meaningful to you, they'll tell you.  My team tells me. A lot of it, I don't like to hear but they do tell me. One individual, in particular. 

Patrick Baldwin: I know what he values. There's one thing on his mind. 

Skye LaJaunie: Make sure you're okay with the answers when you ask those questions. 

Paul Giannamore: Skye, you did meet the Mexican in Florida, did you not?  

Skye LaJaunie: Yes, I did. I loved his designer glasses. 

Paul Giannamore: There's something. 

Skye LaJaunie: I was trying to make sure that they weren't knockoffs because I love fashion. They were real. 

Paul Giannamore: Are they real? Interesting. 

Skye LaJaunie: I assessed that they were real. 

Paul Giannamore: He was with me and we went into Rollins and sat down with Jerry, the CEO of Rollins, and he had those glasses on with his hair all sticking up. He went to the University of Florida. I try to humble Jerry and knock him down a peg. I introduced Jerry to other folks and said, “This is Jerry Gahlhoff, the CEO of Rollins.” He went to the same school as the Mexican. He's less proud of that university now. 

Patrick Baldwin: Hopefully, he wore something better than swimsuit. 

Paul Giannamore: I can't remember what he wore. I'm so desensitized to it now. I don't even pay attention. 

Skye LaJaunie: What exactly does the Mexican do in your organization? 

Paul Giannamore: That's a great question. The Mexican runs our execution team and his main focus is dealing with acquirers when we are negotiating transactions. He is absolutely absurd and the stuff that he says to them. I can't even repeat it on the air because he is nasty but that's what we use him for.  I recognize where I have weaknesses and I tend to attempt to be thoughtful and have discussions and he doesn't do that. He just tells them what they can do so I use him as a tool. He's a very blunt instrument but that's what he does. He negotiates transactions and that's what he does. 

Skye LaJaunie: Is he the unofficial tough guy out here? Is he the enforcer of Potomac? 

Paul Giannamore: He is the enforcer, that's what he is. It's funny because we were at Bones in Atlanta and we were sitting there having dinner. A private equity firm that we had done, we closed a transaction with them. We've done 3 or 4 deals with them. They actually walked in for dinner. We weren't getting together with them and they just happened to be at the restaurant. They came up to our table and one of the guys said, “I didn't know that you existed. I thought you were like a Keyser Soze figure.” 

He's like, “We've seen you on video and we've heard your voice but we didn't know you were a real person.” I stay away from the buyers. I don't deal with acquirers anymore. I'd let him deal with as the enforcer. That's what he does. He offends everyone. I'm sure, he was offensive to you and your husband. I'm sure Jared must have been offended in some way, shape, or form. He's a gentle giant and he probably was like, “This kid.” You'll have to ask him. 

Skye LaJaunie: I will. I'll make sure to ask him. He didn't offend me. I'm usually candid, I'll tell you. 

Paul Giannamore: You didn't spend enough time with him then. 

Skye LaJaunie: Yes. Maybe I've been warned. Maybe I'll make sure not to get too close. Maybe I'll try on those glasses next time, they're pretty cool. 

Paul Giannamore: PB, you did mention something about Skye visiting a variety of different companies to learn different things. Did I remember this correctly? 

Patrick Baldwin: Yeah, that's right. 

Skye LaJaunie: One of the goals that I made for myself in 23 was to visit seven pest control companies, have seven onsite visits with seven other companies that were my size or larger so that I could have a learning experience about their operations and see how they were doing things. I only visited five. I couldn't get to all seven. It was one of the coolest learning experiences I'd ever had. Some of the people I had known that I had met a few times, maybe through different industry events, they were gracious enough to host me. A few people, I said, “I’m this lady from New Orleans and I'd like to come see your company.” I was waiting for them to tell me no but no one that I asked told me no. I didn't learn that much about business. It built my confidence. I'm like, “I know more about operations than I realize.” 

Paul Giannamore: You're like, “If these people can do it, I definitely can.” 

Skye LaJaunie: Maybe I may have thought that. 

Paul Giannamore: That's a normal response, I get it. 

Skye LaJaunie: I'm very disciplined and intentional when someone gives me time or they are willing to contribute to me. Before I would visit these companies, I would research them, I would go look at their online presence, and I would go learn about their founders or what they were good at. I had questions prepared for when I would meet with these CEOs and founders of these companies. A lot of times, as I would go through them, I would think, “I'm going to make this suggestion because this could probably benefit their business or they're missing an opportunity here.” 

I might ask them, “Have you done X? You could get a gain from this area.” I would sit down and I would talk with people and there were basically two types of people that I met on the journey. One of them, I'll give a general description. I'm not describing any individual but they’re high-strung. They're constantly thinking about how to be better. They're maybe even slightly overwhelmed. They're full of energy. They're moving very quickly. They're making decisions. There's like a buzz and an energy and an activity that's happening within the business. Usually, those were the companies that were growing. 

There was another type of entrepreneur leader company where everything was routine and it was very calm, rhythmic feeling when you go into the business. You talk to the employees. No one was in a hurry. There was no urgency. They knew what they had to do. I would talk to some of the people that were leading there. 

I would talk to some of the employees. They would have this attitude, like, “Why is she here? Who's this person?” Some of the businesses I would go into, they go, “We knew you were coming. How are you?” They were excited and they were like, “Let me tell you about what I'm doing.” All of the businesses I visited were wildly successful and had done very well and were super profitable and doing great things. There were two different energies and it was very distinct. 

In my business, I have the crazy urgency business and there are a million things buzzing around. Sometimes that can be too much and you don't want to be too crazy over there on that side. I've definitely experienced that as we've grown our business over the years. We've had years and times and seasons where it's like that but then you don't want to be the company at stasis either. There was the super relaxed owners that were like, “I'm there at 7:00 with my notebook and 15 questions to tell them about what I learned about their business and they don't show up till 11:00.” They have a tan, they're easy going. 

It was an interesting experience because all of the businesses were doing well and performing well and were doing certain things in great excellence. I was expecting to go and learn about operations and maybe have people share some information about how they had succeeded in profitability and things like that. 

What I really learned was you can choose the type of entrepreneurial journey you want to take and you can shift your company into different seasons and you can create different cultures and feelings. It's all up to you, which led me ultimately to that mission that I have, which is to get people into a certain level of synergy and cooperation. The key component of visiting all of those different businesses was seeing how people interacted and how they behaved and how they felt about their work created a different environment. One was more of a growing environment and one was more of, “We're at this stasis place and we're all happy.” 

Patrick Baldwin: Did you have bigger takeaways from the companies that were similar to yours or more different than yours? 

Skye LaJaunie: I had takeaways at every place I visited. I was super grateful. I learned something from every individual. I just took the one big broad lesson away from that, which is depending on what you want to accomplish in your business, you want a certain feel, culture, and rhythm going on. The leader, John Maxwell, Everything Rises and Falls with Leadership, is the one who sets the tone and conducts that. 

I have an internal conversation I have with myself, which is if there's something I dislike in my business or there's a problem that I want to correct, I can usually look at myself and say, “How has my behavior influenced this problem? Where do I need to develop? Do I need to do something to round myself out or add another person or personality or another dimension of leadership to the team to correct this or improve this?” I was not really looking for that lesson but that's what I got from it. 

It shouldn't be surprising because business is numbers and processes and finances and understanding that but at the core, it's people, managing human people, time, and energy. I got a real high-level look, even though I was looking for the granular stuff, it was a cool experience. It really helped me grow and helped me realize how much control I do have an influence and I do have within my business and how much my business is a reflection of me and what I'm going to make it. 

Paul Giannamore: That's totally awesome that you did that. It's one of those things where I've effectively done that now hundreds and hundreds of times over the last 20 years because every time I do a transaction, I go in, I have to take tours, we're doing diligence, and meeting a bunch of different team members. I get to see hundreds of companies, pest control companies around the world, not just in the States, all over the place. 

When you were talking, I was thinking about, “I've been in some of these places, they got cool furniture, there's a buzz in there, and people are writing on the whiteboard and yelling and doing all sorts of stuff.” You go into some other ones and it's like almost heaven's waiting room. Folks are so quiet and almost sedated. Since we had Chase on The Buzz, a lot of folks have talked about the way Chase does things in his business, how he deals with his employees. I've gotten questions, Fat Pat. I know you've gotten questions on that topic because he does a lot of things differently. This is to choose your own adventure. There are some fundamental principles here. 

At the end of the day, you can build a successful business. There's just a million different ways to do this. People listen to shows like The Buzz and we have the guests like you, Skye, and we have other folks that talk about things. There are some fundamental truths or some first principles and things. I do think the buck stops with the owner. As far as operations and the organization of work and all of that sort of stuff, and it's to choose your own adventure and it's what sort of culture you want to build and what relationship you want to have with your team members. It's totally awesome that you did that. It's a massive learning experience to do that. 

I always challenge people, you can go into pest control companies and do that but if you want to do something cool in 2024, you should go and do non-pest control companies and crazy separate industries to get a sense for how they're doing. I always think there's a ton of crossover from other businesses in the pest control. 

Skye LaJaunie: For sure. I'm a huge Tommy Mello fan. 

Paul Giannamore: Do you know Tommy? 

Skye LaJaunie: No, I just listen to his content. He's a phenomenal entrepreneur. I love listening to his podcast and hearing what he says. He has garage doors, right?

Paul Giannamore: That's exactly right. 

Skye LaJaunie: He does all kinds of things. 

Paul Giannamore: He does garage doors and he just moved into this massive house. He sold half of his business or close to half of his business to a private equity firm and he wants to take it to a billion and he's super stoked. I was out there with Dylan and the team and we went to his new place and we filmed an episode right in his living room. The Mexican came out with the sunglasses on, insulted everyone, and basically got kicked out of the house. He's a very interesting guy. He's certainly very driven and he's done something special with his employees and I appreciate the growth path that he's been on. 

He's very similar to you. He's learned things by having discussions with other people. His philosophy is like, “There's nothing new under the sun. All of the problems I'm having have been solved by someone in some way, shape, or form, and I just got to figure out who did it and who was the best at it. Track them down and figure out how they do it and figure out how I can provide value to them.” 

Skye LaJaunie: For sure. One day, you're going to have to introduce me, Paul. 

Paul Giannamore: I will, 100%, introduce you. I got dinner with him in Dallas if you want to come down. You're welcome to fly on over. I will say one thing about Tommy is he does practice what he preaches. He's a guy I've known for years and he calls me and asks me for introductions to this person or he wants to do this or he wants to find out about an offshore trust or how all this sort of works. He also gives value too. It's not like, “I need a bunch of things from you. How can you help me?” He calls, he asks, and he says, “I was thinking, Paul, you need X, Y, and Z. I want to take care of this and get you into that and do this.” He's a good dude.  

Skye LaJaunie: That's cool that you say that because one of the principles I live my life by, and I've taught this to my children and I teach this to anyone that I lead, is healthy people. If you want to have good mental health, you want to fulfill purpose and feel good about yourself and your life, you should have three key relationships. One is someone that you're mentoring and helping that you're ahead of the road on that needs your help. That's key to helping build your self-esteem and build your worth. 

You should have a colleague that's on equal playing field with you appear that you trust that you can call on a hard day that can empathize with you and you can empathize with them. That's going to help you have confidence. Thirdly, you should have someone who is more accomplished than you and that person and that relationship is going to guide you, teach you, and give you humility. 

If you want to have some balance in life, you need to have those three key relationships and develop them and invest some time in them and you'll get a great reward. I've always tried to maintain those positions and those people have changed in my life over time. It's been one of the most impactful principles I've ever implemented in my life and I've seen it also serve other people well. 

Paul Giannamore: Skye, it's always brilliant having conversations with you. You, Jared, and the team are doing something very special down there in Louisiana. The folks that I've met from your company always seem to have big happy smiles on their face. I know they don't live their entire lives like that. At least in public, they seem happy. 

Skye LaJaunie: We give them cocktails. 

Paul Giannamore: I love the fact that you're so thoughtful in your business and you sit down and think about these challenges because I think that's one area that it gets very difficult for business owners are constantly on the move and they need to solve problems. We tend to sometimes abdicate our duties to our team members instead of actually sitting down and doing the hard work of thinking about the problem. One of the most important points that you made, at least for me, is your ability to sit down, get that pen and paper out, isolate yourself, and think about the problem. More of us need to do that on a more regular basis. 

Skye LaJaunie: Yes. It's hard to do that when you're in the day-to-day and you don't have the right people around you to help you. If you're struggling to take a moment and think because you're so entrenched in the chaos of growing your business, that's usually a good indicator that you either don't have enough people or you don't have the right people to help carry the load. 

Patrick Baldwin: Thinking is hard. 

Skye LaJaunie: It is hard and I have not always had the time to think and I'm always less effective, less productive, and less successful. One of the books that I'm reading and is one of the best books I've read in about a year is How to Make a Few Billion Dollars by Brad Jacobs. I don't know if you're familiar with this but give yourself the gift and read it. Brad Jacobs is a brilliant CEO. He talks in his book about what he does to train his brain and change his brain and his thinking. 

He's been able to accomplish amazing feats as far as building businesses, bringing them public, and building shareholder equity. He's the man. He says everything begins with just his ability to meditate, think, and pull himself out of the problems.  One of the most profound things I read in his book and I thought I identified with this is he said he loves problems. 

As human beings, we want to run from the problem. We want the path of least resistance. We want ease. We don't want to have to rise to all of the big challenges. Generally, we're going to try to make plans and processes to avoid those things. He says he loves a problem and he loves to solve a problem and he runs towards the problem. How and why could he do such a thing? It's because he has learned how to take himself out of the day-to-day, think, meditate, reflect, and problem solve. 

I was like, “Yes, this is the key.” This is the thing that people are often missing when they're having trouble navigating the difficult task of scaling and growing a business. We think it's the people around us and we think it's the task we need to do but it's the thought work that's missing and the ability to reflect and think and calm ourselves and control our angst in the midst of all of these overwhelming task and challenges. 

Paul Giannamore: That's a very good point. What else have you been reading of late that you found interesting?  

Skye LaJaunie: A book that made me uncomfortable but I thought was really genius is The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene. 

Paul Giannamore: He's written the book on power, the book on seduction, mastery, and those things. 

Skye LaJaunie: It was the book on seduction that I read. At one point, I got uncomfortable reading the book and I thought, “This guy has sat down and talked to Satan.” It was so dark but it was so true about the inclinations of people and what motivates them and how they operate. I got to thinking about it. If you lead people, I've had a business and had employed someone for over 25 years now, you encounter these different characters that you bring on your team and you think that you know them. 

Every entrepreneur has a story where someone betrayed them or stole from them or did something they weren't supposed to do. You thought, “How could my judgment miss so deeply? How could I be so wrong about someone?” In many cases, I've had that happen with people I really liked and that I really cared about so that makes the betrayal even deeper. The book revealed that there's a lot of people that do a lot of things and say a lot of things and they don't even know how dark their motivations are and how to be self-aware about that, especially when you're making decisions about who's going to be around you and influence you. 

You're making all of these decisions about people if you're leading in business or leading in anything. Your ability to assess people and bring the right people around you is one of the key factors to having any success or it can also be a key factor into tremendous failures and mishaps and difficulties. I thought the book was useful but it definitely brought my mind to places I don't normally swim in. 

Paul Giannamore: That's probably a good thing. 

Skye LaJaunie: It was a very good thing and I learned a lot about how to be a better discerner of people in their dark intent. 

Paul Giannamore: Did you learn anything about seducing Jared? 

Skye LaJaunie: I'm a master of that already. I have years of marriage. I don't need to read a book on that part. I got that down. 

Paul Giannamore: You were talking about friction. One book that I'm struggling with right now, which I think is actually a brilliant book, is not an easy read. Patrick, there's a reason why we get hate mail at The Buzz about any of my book recommendations because we talked about Thinking, Fast and Slow and I got an email. It was basically like, “I listen to the episode. I ordered it off Amazon as you guys were talking. I got it and it's going to make great kindling for my fireplace this fall because it is an impossible read. I can't even get through it.” I always have to give the disclaimer. 

This one is called The Art of Action: How Leaders Close the Gaps between Plans, Actions, and Results. It's largely a commentary and critique on Carl von Clausewitz’s On War, his book, where he talks a lot about friction and the fog of war. I find it a fascinating book. It is not an easy book by any means. I'm still getting through it right now. I'll provide perhaps some commentary on it but it is very well done. It is not an easy read by any means. 

Patrick Baldwin: Skye, take the challenge. I'm out. 

Skye LaJaunie: The Art of Action, I'll read it. 

Paul Giannamore: I'll certainly let you know how it is. I gravitate towards books that are extremely hard to read for some reason. I don't know why that is. It's a punishment. A lot of the popular books tend to be like a bundle of cliches and maybe those things are fun to read but I like to read books that are tied to actual research, there's real thought behind it, and it's going to be a struggle to read but hopefully you get something more profound out of it, which has been my philosophy. 

Patrick Baldwin: Skye, this was awesome. You're definitely one of my favorites in the industry. A sincere thank you for all you do. 

Skye LaJaunie: Thank you, Fat Pat. You're one of my faves too, friend. 

Patrick Baldwin: Huggable. 

Skye LaJaunie: I know. 

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Patrick Baldwin: Paul, I didn't know where this conversation was going to take us. I definitely didn't see the whole gender conversation coming up. 

Paul Giannamore: I, 100%, anticipated the gender conversation. 

Patrick Baldwin: You did? Was that your idea?  

Paul Giannamore: I asked.  

Patrick Baldwin: Were you planning this all along? 

Paul Giannamore: No, I wasn't planning it. It just came out in discussion. I love the fact that she got on the phone and tracked down other pest control companies and went on a tour. That's awesome. 

Patrick Baldwin: It's a real investment, the travel and the time away, especially with how she's very systematic in how she runs her schedule. She invested that time to work on the business so I love it. They were all companies that were bigger than her. She could give us a quick summary but she was able to take away a lot more than she was able to tell us today.

Paul Giannamore: When she was talking about that, I often think about the fact that I've been into hundreds of these things. For me, it's not just a one-day visit. I don't do that nearly as much as I used to but for years, I was the guy out on the road. I would go to meetings at the company prior to selling the business. 

If you go back twenty years, we weren't using Zoom for stuff. I would be going in, working with the owners, planning for the sale, and putting together materials. Of course, we would have meetings and then we would have site visits. Of course, there's due diligence. I remember many evenings in companies around the world, after everyone goes home with acquirers going through stuff. That was back in the day, they used to do onsite audits. A lot of it is digital now but years ago, we were in those offices after hours. 

Of course, back in the day, I used to go to a lot of the acquisition announcements and I used to go to the first day meetings and I used to do all those things, not necessarily because I had to, but it was a great way for me to learn the business, learn all sorts of stuff. I can see how a lot of companies will model themselves. If you were an Orkin guy and you started a company, you would model your business off of Orkin. Bobby did that, modeled his business off of Terminix. It's very easy to do. 

Of course, if you own a business and you become close with another owner and you want to learn stuff from somebody who's further on down the road, it's easy to just model your business and your culture after that other person. You start going into five 15 or 20 of these different businesses, you quickly realize that there's a tremendous amount of diversity inside of a pest control business. 

Everything from the culture to the operating procedures to man, how they answer the phone, and the office decorum, everything is very different. I think to myself, if you've got a small sample size that you think, like, “This is the way it's done so this is the way I need to do it.” When you start looking at a lot of different players, you start to realize there's an endless assortment of ways that you can run one of these businesses. It was great that she did that. 

Patrick Baldwin: I love it. I'd strongly recommend it. There might be more in the works as far as other onsite visits here. Other opportunities to learn coming up. 

Paul Giannamore: I think so. You and I have talked about one that we're going to do hopefully soon that will be a really interesting on-site visit. We've got some other ones here in the works. What I'm going to try to do is take some of these on sites on to Potomac TV because we haven't done much of that. We just did the Terminix Puerto Rico acquisition by Rentokil. 

What I wanted to do is put the Mexican in a Terminix outfit and put him in a Terminix truck and then drive over and watch him do some services and then maybe spend some time enlightening our audience as to how pest control is done in the Caribbean. The problem is that's a big publicly-traded company and I'm not sure they're going to let me do it. We'll see how this works. There are some local players here. We can do like Jose's Screen Door Repair and Pest Control but it’s not nearly as interesting so we'll see. 

Patrick Baldwin: The Mexican could start a pest control company down there, give you your little sandbox. 

Paul Giannamore: He certainly can. 

Patrick Baldwin: Try not to think about him doing service. 

Paul Giannamore: He would attempt to kill the insects via insult, pesticide-free. Insult them to death. I love the fact that Skye is a constant life learner because I do think that's important for the success of these businesses. I'm impressed by the fact that she reads, that she talks to people, and that she goes out and visits companies. That's huge and it's very underrated. It's lonely at the top for a lot of owners. You can listen to podcasts and I think that's all well and good but you have to do some deep thinking. You've got to be reading. 

I love the fact that she spends time thinking. That's also very underrated because as executives, I'm as guilty as everyone else, you determine a problem that needs to be solved and you want to delegate it to your team. That's important. At the end of the day, sitting down and thinking about obstacles and then forging a path through them is probably not the best thing that should be delegated by the CEO. The CEO should probably take control of that. I love the fact that she does that. 

She is very impressive. I did get to meet her husband for the first time they were at Energy in Tampa and he's just a super nice guy. He's friendly. When I met them originally, I didn't know that they were husband and wife because they sound different. He has that Louisiana accent. He sounds like he's from Louisiana. To me, she didn't sound like she was from Louisiana. 

Patrick Baldwin: I think she was hiding it. 

Paul Giannamore: Not that somebody from Louisiana can't marry somebody from outside Louisiana but I just wasn't sure how that all worked. I didn't realize they were husband and wife at first.

Patrick Baldwin: I'm picking up more of what you're putting down when you talk about thinking and it was interesting watching the conversation with you and Skye as we did this and the observations that were made both in going and observing on site, other pest control companies, all the reading that you do, the listening podcasts, and so on but then forcing yourself to sit down and think about it. 

I thought about with you, the books that you are inclined to read are less pop culture because those tend to give you a kind of easy button and they do X, Y, and Z, and that's not always what's best for your business or your situation. It might work some of the time, don't get me wrong. When you can sit down and diagnose and think about the best solutions, it was interesting to see that in Sky's perspective and how she executes on that as well. It's like thinking and sitting down and being quiet and still and doing that exercise is a big gain. It makes you think. 

Paul Giannamore: Writing a book that's deep is probably not the best idea for an author because they don't sell well. Everyone wants spoon-fed solutions to them. We hear a lot about Buzz listers will just listen to some of the things that they hear on the Buzz and just turn around and implement it. I've walked into conferences and people thank me and say, “I've literally built my business based upon things that I've learned on The Buzz,” which is great because what I'm hoping to do is give you appropriate shortcuts and keep you from making stupid mistakes but there is a lot more out there. We're just scratching the surface here. I want to go deeper in that in 2024. 

I had a really good idea. I went out for a morning walk. I had a brilliant idea. I'm not going to talk about it on the air but it's something that I haven't seen done yet in the pest control industry that I think could provide tremendous value. You and I will talk about this and if you think it's a good idea, I'm going to kick this off. 

Patrick Baldwin: We’ll let the Mexican test it out. Based on exactly what you just said, though, that is a word to the wise, there are a lot of universal or general answers or questions that come out on The Buzz. A lot of these thoughts might apply in a lot of situations. There is something that was said in Skye's interview that I wanted to give a disclaimer and I'm not big on disclaimers. What was said about using personality profiles in employment, some states look on those differently and those are getting scrutinized right now and might be against your hiring laws in your state. Check your state laws, do your due diligence in researching that before you use any personality profile or Kolbe or whatever it is for pre-hiring screen. Word to the wise. 

Paul Giannamore: It's unfortunate, PB, the government continues to get more and more involved in commercial enterprise. 

Patrick Baldwin: Skye was great having her on. I love getting to chat with her. Our readers will definitely appreciate it. 

Paul Giannamore: Sounds good, brother. 

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Dylan Seals: Thank you so much as always for supporting us at The Boardroom Buzz. We know your time is valuable and the fact that you spend 45 minutes or an hour with us means the world. All the media that we put out from Potomac is meant to honor and celebrate you, the service industry owner. As Paul would say, “Yee who toil in the pest control vineyards.”

As part of giving back, we have this podcast, but more than that, Paul and I have been working our tails off over at POTOMAC TV. We've spent a tremendous amount of time, energy, and resources to build out that platform to bring you market updates, to bring you visual breakdowns of the merger acquisition process, and to tell stories and present information in ways that, frankly, it's not possible for us to do on The Boardroom Buzz.

Adding the visual element takes it to the next level. I want to invite you to go to YouTube and find us, it's POTOMAC TV. Potomac.tv will get you there. Go there and subscribe. Check out some videos and leave some comments. Let us know what you like and let us know what you don't like. Let us know what you want to see more of and we'll see you over there.

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