Living with values for success with Dina Dwyer Owens

Co-Chair of the billion-dollar franchisor @DwyerGroup; author of @Values_Inc; named to @Inc’s Top 100 Leadership Speakers – Dina Dwyer Owens

Dina Dwyer Owens is the co-chairman of Dwyer Group, a large franchisor that has over 2,700 franchisees. Dwyer Group is a values-guided (their secret sauce!) world leader of franchise businesses focused on repairing, maintaining, and enhancing customers’ homes and businesses. (And…they’ve been doing this for 37 years so they know their stuff). Dina’s also a motivational speaker and was recently named Top 100 Leadership Speakers in 2018 by Today, Inc.

Here’s what you will learn from Dina Dwyer Owens:

– How to design your life and clarify your values for your business and family
– Why systemizing your values are the key to success (and how to do it!)
– Why most companies, families and nonprofits fail with their values and how to fix this.
– Training, training and more training! Why it’s a core competency of any successful franchisor operation!
– And much more…

Tune in and listen: Living with values for success with Dina Dwyer Owens

Dina’s Website:

DinaDwyerOwens.com

Transcript: Download

Video Transcription provided by GMR Transcription Services.

Jaime Masters:	Welcome to Eventual Millionaire. I'm Jaime Masters, and I am so excited to have Dina Dwyer Owens on the show. It's been months waiting for her to come on the show, I so appreciate. She is co-chairman of Dwyer Group, a humongous franchisor that has over 2,700 franchisees. So, thank you so much for coming on the show today.

Dina Dwyer Owens:	It is my honor, Jaime. Thank you.

Jaime Masters:	Well, I want you to spell out your website, so I didn't say it, so that way we can go ahead and spell it for everyone so they can check it out because you've got some cool stuff there.

	So, how do you actually spell your name?

Dina Dwyer Owens:	Yep. It's D-i-n-a-D-w-y-e-r-O-w-e-n-s at, where am I, DwyerGroup.com, no. DinaDwyerOwens@ ?

Jaime Masters:	Um-hmm, DinaDwyerOwens.com?

Dina Dwyer Owens:	.com!

Jaime Masters: 	Yes!  I know, I messed you up there. Don't worry about-

[Crosstalk]

Dina Dwyer Owens: that is it.

Jaime Masters:	I know, I'm, to saying stuff like that, too. I totally get it. Well, and thank you so, so much.

	So, you're co-chairman of Dwyer Group. So, tell us a bit about Dwyer Group, and then we're sending people to your website which is totally separate. So, how in the heck did you guys get so big?

Dina Dwyer Owens:	Yeah. So, Dwyer Group is a values-guided, those are the secret words, values-guided world leader of franchise businesses focused on repairing, maintaining, and enhancing customers' homes and businesses. So, in business for 30, almost 37 years now this March. And was founded by my father, the late Don Dwyer, who had a vision of having a collection of franchise companies serving the same customer base. And so, we just launched another great program called Neighborly.

	GetNeighborly.com is a community of home service experts, so any of your listeners, if they need, because if they're busy like you and I building our businesses and the lives we wanna live, we don't have time for fixing stuff at home. So, GetNeighborly.com is a new place that they can go, it's free of charge, to find the best service providers who happen to be our franchisees that they can trust to come in and take care of their homes and businesses.

	So, really, it started with a vision, Don Dwyer's vision.

Jaime Masters:	So, it's crazy. I was looking at the list, and I've used a bunch of them, like Mr. Rooter Portland Glass. I was Portland, Maine; I thought it was a local company.

Jaime Masters:	Yes!  You guys are in Waco, though. I'm like, okay. Well, that's amazing because I thought it was local already.

	So, how did you, when you got into all this how did you start to learn about this type of business? It's a very specific subset, right? Service for the specific avatar, which is genius by the way to just do the same marketing to the same people. But how did you start really understanding that? I know you dad did it, but how did you get into it?

Dina Dwyer Owens:	Yeah. Well, I grew up in the business, of course. Having a father who is entrepreneurial kind of put myself and my five siblings right into the business world very early on. And the thing that he probably pounded into us more than anything is the importance of a good strong work ethic based on values.

	So, I grew up in the business and what he always said is, "You can achieve anything you want to in life", like you're doing, Jaime, if you have clarity of what it is you want to achieve. So, that's a big thing we do as a franchise organization, is help our franchisees get clear about what is it you want to achieve out of your life. And how is this franchise, this business, going to be the vehicle to help you achieve that.

	So, it started off by just him doing the same thing with his kids that we do with our own franchisees; help you get clarity, and then help you understand why you've got to live with values, and you have values that will really be the driver of your success.

Jaime Masters:	Yeah. I wanna go deep into a lot of different things. So, first, the child aspect. When you were growing up I have kids, so I always wanna find out from people who grew up with parents that actually were entrepreneurial how does he actually, not make you, but how does he instill work ethic when you guys already see what he's created? Do you know what I mean?

Dina Dwyer Owens:	Yeah. And make you is probably, when you're 12 or 13 you feel like you're being made -

Jaime Masters:	I wanna make my children, exactly, but they don't like that.

Dina Dwyer Owens: - and I didn't like it either. But you know what, Jaime? One regret I have, and I love my kids dearly, is I was a bit too easy on them. Because we learn from our parents what we wanna do and what we don't wanna do, and I should have made them go to work at 12 and 13 like I was made to.

	It was a big mistake, looking back, because although they don't mind working at all now, there are lessons they didn't pick up at a young age that I did, that I look back and I'm so grateful for. But he did make me. I mean, I wasn't having the slumber parties with my friends, you know, getting up late Saturday mornings. I was going to the car wash, working at the pumps at the car wash. And I am so grateful, looking back, that he made me. I didn't like him some days, I did not like him very much, but he wasn't there to be my friend. So, make your kids.

Jaime Masters:	Okay, okay. One more question about the kid thing. Because it's true, right.

	So, my kids are stilt walkers because we're crazy and weird, so they make more money doing that then anything that I can give them for a job. And they're like, nah; I don't really wanna do that. Right? So, don't get me wrong, and they're savers and all that fun stuff. But do we, as parents, how do we make them in a way that's not, is it fine for them to hit us a little bit but not forever or stifling what they actually wanna do in life, do you what I mean?

Dina Dwyer Owens:	Yeah. I think it's just, it's being clear about what your values are. So, when you think about work ethic I think it has to be netted out.

	It's one thing to say work ethic, but let's get specific. At Dwyer Group we're very specific. We say our values around work ethic have to do with respect, integrity, customer focus, and having fun. And we can spend a day talking about these. But I'd like to dive into the degree you want to because under each one of those categories of values we're specific.

	So, what do you mean by respect. Well, we mean treating others as we like to be treated. We mean listening with the intent to understand what is being said, and acknowledging that what is said is important to the speaker. So, we're very clear about what do we mean by respect in raising our kids and raising our company. Let's be clear about what we expect. And if you wanna be a part of this family, part of this company, this is who we are.

Jaime Masters:	Okay. So, this, how did you know I was gonna go right into values? Right? So, I have my company values, like we have our family values downstairs but they're not the same. And what's crazy is it sounds like yours actually quite align for your family values also.

	So, how, tell us the rest of what each one of them means, please. Because it definitely stands for something. But also, go into a little detail on how you show not only your kids, but your franchisees to actually align with it. Does that make sense?

Dina Dwyer Owens:	Yeah, exactly. So, just going to reach a little deeper. So, we came up with our four core areas that were important to us, and, again, respect, integrity, customer focus, and having fun. And Don Dwyer lived and believed those. But we said, under each one of those areas we need clarity because your kids may define respect differently than my kids. My kids are in their 20s.

	And so, you have to say what do you mean by respect. And as I said, treating others how we like to be treated. Listening with the intent to understand what's being said. Speaking calmly and respectfully without profanity or sarcasm. Acknowledging everyone is right from their own perspective. And so, the kid should be acknowledged that they're right from their perspective as well as we should be.

	And then we move into integrity, and integrity is things like making only agreements we're willing, able, and intend to keep. And then, communicating any potentially broken agreements if for some reason we can't keep that initial agreement.

	And then it goes into it much deeper. Looking to the system for correction when things aren't working, and in franchising we're all about systems. What we do is we take what's most important in business and we create systems around it. So, when something is broken, whether it's at work or at home, my mind automatically goes to where is there a systems breakdown versus pointing the finger at people. So, that's under integrity.

	Let's see, what's under, communicating honestly and with purpose is under integrity. Asking clarifying questions if we disagree or we don't understand is under integrity.

	And my father taught me that, as scared as I was of him when I was young and working for him, he said you gotta be willing to ask me for clarity. Because he would just shout those orders out and I would go away confused. And until I learned to slow down and say, hey, boss, dad, I need more information, I don't know how to do this, I've never done it before. That was a big lesson for me.

	Probably the hardest one under integrity is never saying anything about anyone that we would not say to him or her. And our employees actually created that one.

	Then we go to, yeah, customer focus is really all about continuously striving to maximize internal and external customer loyalty. And that could be with your family too. Be loyal to your family first, and then be loyal to those around you. It's all about taking care of family first.

	Making our best effort to understand and appreciate the customer's needs in every situation. That's why we're in business.

	And then, finally, having fun in the process. And we could go all day about defining that, but fun is different for each one of us. You have fun helping other entrepreneurs achieve their first million, achieving success and enjoying life in the process. So, having fun in the process has to do with doing what you love and loving what you do, and not letting other people keep you from doing that.

	So, that's kind of encapsulating what we mean by our values at Dwyer and they do benefit us at home as well as at work.

Jaime Masters:	So, everybody asks about company values and stuff like that, and then they're like when do we really use them blah-blah. You have said that so many times before, I can tell. Or you're like I know these so well, and I live by them because it's sort of the point. Right?

	It sounds like they've evolved though. So not only are they just the words, they have so much more meaning behind the words. So, it's not ? because even when I ask people, like, oh, integrity, well, of course, everybody's gonna put integrity but the clarification makes a huge difference.

	So, how did they start and how have they evolved? Were they just the words at the beginning and you guys added stuff as you went, or did they already begin with the amazing amount of definition that you had before?

Dina Dwyer Owens:	Yeah. No, they actually started being more emotionally based beliefs. So, when Don Dwyer founded the company it was really more about things like loyalty adds meaning to our lives. Another one was, that I'll never forget, we must re-earn our positions every day in every way.

Jaime Masters:	That sounds like your father, and I don't even know him!  Yeah.

Dina Dwyer Owens:	Yeah. It was. You know, it's like celebrate the successes of the past, learn from mistakes, but what are you gonna do today to make a positive difference in the lives of your family, your employees, your franchisees, your customers?

	So, he passed away of a sudden heart attack at the age of 60, young, young guy. To me it's very young, I'm almost 55.

	So, 1993 took the company public, in 1994 dies of a heart attack. And as an organization his leadership team, we said how do we keep this culture special? Because what Don did with the values, he created this amazing culture that people were attracted to. So, one thing about having clarity of your values is you'll attract the right people because they wanna be part of what you're creating.

	So, we said, how do we do that. We took his original values, those beliefs, and we operationalized them. And that's where the rich was formed, and it was a lot of time, it took us about a year, to really get clear about those before we ever even shared them with our franchisees. As a team here at Dwyer, 1995-1996, we said we think we have what's gonna keep the culture special, but how do we indoctrinate it into the company.

	And where most companies fail, most families, most nonprofits fail with their values is, they've got them written up on the board or they've got them on their website but they haven't created the system around the values to keep them front and center in their business.

	And that's what we do at Dwyer. We're franchising. Like I said earlier, we take what's most important, we create systems. So, with our values we said, we don't wanna be guilty of what 95 percent of the companies in North America are guilty of; having written values but never implementing, never executing. So, we said let's create a simple system so that the values remain alive in this company, whether the CEO, the founder, is alive or not they remain alive as we go from $1.5 billion now to $2 billion in sales.

	And the way we do it is simple. Any time we have a meeting of three or more of our team members or our franchisees, we begin the meeting by reviewing the values. Sometimes we actually review all 15, which is a lot, I get it, only takes a few minutes. But it takes everybody to slow down and take that deep breath, this is who we are, this is how we behave, this is how we treat one another. Sometimes we just take one value and we say, look, it's the new year, this is the value I need to get better at. In fact, our CEO is off at a retreat right now, with all of our presidents, and we've got like 17 brand presidents.

	And the first thing I'm guessing that he's doing this morning is saying, let's talk about a values resolution for the new year. Let's go around the room, let's have everybody say what's the one value you're committed to getting better at this year. And I'm always so impressed by that because people are very honest, at least in our organization, about what they need to get better at. So, day in and day out, we talk about the values, we work hard to live the values, not perfect, we work hard to live the values, we work hard to hold ourselves accountable as well as holding one another accountable. And that's what's gonna take Dwyer to the next billion.

Jaime Masters:	Okay. And implementation of values, I get that question all the time. People are, yes, so I have them, and then what.

	So, I wanna dive in the systems times a thousand. Because this is where especially the newer small business owner isn't very good at it. And I don't think they even understand the level that franchisees have as far as systems go.

	Can you sort of paint a picture of what is systemized, which I'm sure is a ridiculous amount, for a typical franchisee that you've got? So that way we can show sort of the spectrum of where we could be as small business owners.

Dina Dwyer Owens:	Right. And the systems are the key to success, so I'm so glad that you're teaching your listeners all about systems.

	So, it really starts with how do we recruit, train, and retain team members. So, one of the things that franchisees have to be very good at is recruiting, training, and retaining team members. So, there are systems all around that. They've got to implement the system because we're not the employer, right? Franchisees are independent business people who are benefitting from years of systems that we've created that we train them to follow. And if they follow those, they will find great success.

	Then it goes to the whole, how do you market to the customers, how do you close the deal with the customers, and how do you retain those customers. So, the whole marketing piece is systematized.

	Then you think about just how do you make a profit. You know, we're all in business to make money. And for some of us it's not about we don't have make a lot of money, we have to make a living and love what we do, and that's really what's most important. And the more we make, the more we can help others. But we have to help our franchisees understand how to read their financial statements, how to track those key indicators and manage to those. It's that slight difference you can make in an indicator that can boost your profitability operationally. So, their systems just, from the frontline steps.

	So, when one of our franchisees come to your home and thank you for using some of our services, when they come to your home there is a system they should be following; from where they park their vehicle to the putting the doormat down before they come in your home, putting the shoe covers on. There are clear systems for the experience we want you to have as a consumer, so you go, wow, I expected Mr. Rooter to come in and fix the plumbing problem but I didn't expect to have an amazing experience with the plumber. Right? So, all the systems are operationalized.

	So, those are kind of the four core areas. And when it comes to the whole technology piece, that's another system in itself, that's the back office that helps with everything that we just talked about. So, if they utilize all the tools, technology tools that we have, that brings it all together.

Jaime Masters:	Are they internal tools? Do you guys have your own proprietary internal system that you guys use?

Dina Dwyer Owens:	In some cases, on the technology side we do, and other cases we actually work with individual companies that we find to be really great in that particular space. And we do have some proprietary connections with those organizations that are just serving our franchisees with some unique products.

Jaime Masters:	Okay. So, I have questions on this, too, especially because I'm working on a new brand with systems, all about systems. Because I see all of my people reinventing the wheel and using all different technologies, and then nobody can figure out all the pieces, and there's nobody to ask as an expert for it. So, this is what's great for you guys, is you're like, all we do is we stamp it, we know exactly what each piece looks like every single time. Which is wonderful.

	And I wanna try, more fat into so what you guys are doing into small business owners. So, if you could explain sort of some of the systems, or how you hold these systems together so that they can actually follow them and use them. Are you using, I don't know if they're proprietary or not, but if you could give me an example of teaching how to do sales better, how to do this, how do we actually train the franchisee along with looking at the systems, and do they pull up the tech and go through the videos? Or what are the pieces and how can we actually engrain it in their heads?

Dina Dwyer Owens:	Yeah. Yeah, training, training, training. So, one of the core competencies of any great franchisee organization is training.

	Here at our campus, if you ever get a chance, you're in Austin now, Waco's right down the road -

Jaime Masters:	I had no idea, perfect!  Yeah!

Dina Dwyer Owens:	- if you wanna come down and just take a tour of what we're doing here.

	So, every one of our brands has their own unique training. Now the cool thing about Dwyer is we have this amazing synergy of we're serving the same customers, as I stated earlier. So, the first day of what we call Basic Training in Waco- like I teach a class called Design Your Life. And that's, again, helping the franchisees get clarity about what they want in their lives and have a franchise that's gonna be the vehicle. Same thing with associates. How is this career gonna help you get what you wanna get in your life, you know, holistically?

	So, the first day of basic training we bring all the franchisees together, we focus on those things that are key; leadership, designing their lives. We talk about the overall Neighborly brand and how together we're gonna serve the same customer base. So, first day of basic training is very global, it's across all of our brands, and then everyone of our franchisees breaks out in individual training classes.

	So, when you think about somebody coming in for Molly Maid, which is our maid cleaning service, one of ours. We also have Bright & Beautiful in the U.K. But when they come in, they have specific training that they're gonna learn with Molly Maid. Everything from how does the maid clean the house? Believe it or not, there's a system, a written system for how the maid cleans the house. And it's not that we train once, Jaime, we've gotta train again and again and again; and just when you think you've trained enough, train again. So, the systems are all written.

	We've got expert trainers on our staffs in every one of our brands who do this training. That training can be done physically, whether it's in Waco, Texas or the Ann Arbor Headquarters we have for Molly Maid and Mr. Handyman, or in the U.K. or Germany, wherever we might have one of our headquarters. It can be online. So, a lot of our training is done just like this, somebody's calling in and listening; or we're doing a webinar, or a web shop where people are involved. They can join as many of those as they'd like because we want the franchisees to get as much training as they think that they need. And then they've gotta take that back and they've gotta train their team members to it.

Jaime Masters:	And it's all live, or is some of it recorded?

Dina Dwyer Owens:	Some of it's recorded just like you. They can go back into the archives and say, you know, I feel like we're getting a little stale, a little rusty on our frontline steps, I need to bring my entire team back through the frontline training steps. So, they can go online and they can pull that. Every one of our brands has an internet site that's got all these resources available to them so they can go back and they can retrain as often as they'd like.

Jaime Masters:	So, tell me a little bit about the internet stuff because I don't think a lot of small business owners, especially in the six-ish figure range, and even low seven figures, aren't great with this.

	So, what does the internet site look like, what does it have on it, what are the most important things you were talking about, key indicators? Where do they keep the key indicators so that way they're paying attention to them?

Dina Dwyer Owens:	Yeah. Well, and again, for a young company, most companies are not that sophisticated. Not to discourage anybody, but we've been doing this for 37 years. And so, don't get frustrated. For your listeners I would say, don't get frustrated but please pay attention to the importance of documenting your systems. Those systems then can be put on your internet site; people are not having to rebuild the wheel again. You know, the wheel's been built, so document it and put it on your internet site.

	So, let's say you hire a new team member; somebody's who out there as a young entrepreneur. You hire a new team member. To have to recreate, oh, what am I supposed to train them on in orientation? Have it already written down and maybe have somebody who's the champion of doing the orientation overview and assign that to somebody; people want those responsibilities, let somebody own it. But document it because that person may not be with you forever. And so, make sure you document it.

	The internet site can have all those tools. It even has tools on the rich values. So, I've got a whole session I teach on the rich values. They can access that on our internet site. So, all of you building businesses, if you're doing any kind of training, record it. Record yourselves training, capture it, put it on your internet site. Just make it part of your library of great training tools available. So, again, you're not recreating the wheel once you've already created it. You can always improve it because that's never-ending, but don't recreate it.

	So, anything you have that has to do with making your company better, systems related to people that need to be trained to, have that all available on your internet site, and just build it as you go. You're not gonna get it all done overnight. And that's why people join us as a franchisee.

	Because we have many people who I'll never forget Mike Evans from Montana. Mike had nine glass shops where he did glass repairs, flat glasses as well as auto glass. And he'd been talking to our Glass Doctor team for a couple of years and finally made the decision to invest in a Glass Doctor franchise. He marched himself up to my office two days after training, and he said, Dina, I am here to tell you that I was kidding myself that I could create all the systems that Glass Doctors created over the past 35 years on my own.

	So, he discovered that there are tools that Glass Doctor had that he needed that he was never gonna create, and decided I'm better being part of this organization than being out there by myself.

	Now, that may not be the case for your listeners. Maybe they're in a unique business and they're creating it, but there are still tools out there. I think about financial training tools. Maybe there's a tool you promote for your listeners to utilize; you know what, us it!  Don't build your own financial training tool. Use what's out there.

Jaime Masters:	Because you won't! Right?

Dina Dwyer Owens:	Because you won't, exactly.

Jaime Masters:	So, that's the biggest issue that I have. Most the small business owners care so much about sales and marketing. Right? So, online they're like tell me everything about sales and marketing!  And then they know they need to do systems, but it always goes to the very, very bottom, even though they know they'll be more efficient, effective, they'll probably even retain customers better, whatever the piece is. But they're so worried about top line revenue that it sort of all falls by the wayside.
	
	So, sometimes they have SOPs, or Standard Operating Procedures, that sort of sit and don't do anything and aren't updated, and nobody sort of looks at. So, that's not helpful either. So, what do you suggest? Because you're, you know, you've been in this game for a long time, you know the training, and of course you have the resources to do that.

	But for somebody who doesn't have that as far as the capacity of resources like you do, how can we actually implement this stuff as a small business owner? How do we 80/20 what you guys did in 30 years so we can actually use the stuff we're creating?

Dina Dwyer Owens:	Right. Create what's most important, and don't get on a bunch bunny trails. Because those of us who are young new entrepreneurs, many times we get excited about this and this and this and this and this, when we still haven't gotten our core where it needs to be.

	So, one of the things Dwyer had to do, believe me we went through our bumps. What we had to do is finally say who are we because we can't be everything to everybody. Who are we and what are the things that are most important to making sure that we excel in those areas of who we know we are, and as the leader, especially.

	So, the person who's listening to us right now is the leader. They're the entrepreneur, they're the one who's building this business, must take responsibility and must be focused on, if I don't wanna do this piece, the Standard Operating Procedure, I've gotta have somebody who's gonna do it for me and own it. Because as entrepreneurs we're excited about certain things or we're passionate about certain things but we don't like to do all the other stuff. So, delegate to somebody on your team.

	One of the greatest lessons I learned as a young person because my father also had me listen to people like you I mean, and back then it wasn't this cool, back then it was cassette tapes, right? But I would listen to these cassette tapes on How to be the Best Leader. And I heard over and over again, you gotta surround yourself with people that are stronger than you are, let them do the things that you're not great at, and be okay with it. Inspect what you expect but let it go, let them do it. Because we get in our own way.

	So, I think part of the problem with entrepreneurs is we're juggling all these balls and we think we can do it all ourselves, when in fact we can't. We have to say what's most important to this business, I need to stay focused on what's most important, and then delegate those things to people who will be champions.

Jaime Masters:	Okay. So, I have so many questions involved in just that piece. How do we let it go? Because that's tough.

Dina Dwyer Owens:	Yeah, I think it's a reality check. I'm only good at a few things, if I'm really honest with myself I'm good at a few things. And I have to say to myself, I can't be great at a bunch of stuff.

	So, I've gotta say to myself, what do I need, what positions do I need to fill, and then sometimes that takes a little while because it takes money to be able to invest in those positions. But go ahead and put them on your vision chart, what positions do I need to fill, and by what date do I wanna fill those. And then, make sure you don't give in to the first person that you bring in because I just need that, I need somebody in that seat now!  You know, take your time to really recruit. And I think I've got off track a little bit of your question.

Jaime Masters:	Well, it's one thing even if we have somebody we trust in the position potentially, which is sometimes wrong because I assess employees quite often. When I coach someone, I'm like, oh, no, they're, no, you should've fired them a long time ago. I'm sorry. Right?

	So, that's one reason why they can't let it go. But we, as entrepreneurs, do you think we can do it all. And we're not necessarily great managers, even if we're leaders we're not necessarily great managers. So, how do we let go and let them do the process the way they want to do it, and chop off the us being micromanagers?

Dina Dwyer Owens:	Yeah, I think it's a mental and emotional thing. It has to do with ego. We've gotta get our egos out of the way. And you know, once you allow your ego to get out of the way, you'll have a lot more fun.

	Because what I have found is entrepreneurs who think they can do it all in fact, I'll be coaching one. We're heading to a leadership summit in Jamaica with our top franchisees, and there is one young guy who is so ambitious who so knows that he gets in his own way that he's reaching out for coaching. And that's why people are listening to you because they know they need the coaching. Listen to the coaches. If the coach is saying you really shouldn't be the one doing this get out of your own way, then get out of your own say.

Jaime Masters:	Is that all it takes as a, is that what you're gonna tell him? Like, just stop doing this and you'll learn from experience? How do you coach someone in that? Like, tell the listener, because I was listening going, oh, that's me. I know it's a problem but I don't know what to do.

Dina Dwyer Owens:	Yeah. Well, the first thing I had him do was to assess his strengths and his weaknesses. And there was a tool. We had, Steven M.R. Covey spoke at our convention back in September.

	And he had a wonderful tool that I had suggested to this young man, assess yourself, what are your strengths, what are your weaknesses. And that might mean that your employees need to do some assessing too. And don't get defensive. You've ask them to fill this out, so let's face the truth about you. Sometimes it hurts a little bit.

	But once you face the truth and you take that deep breath and go, oh, that really is me isn't it? I really do do that, and I cause fires, I create fires in my own organization because of this drama that I create. Because I come up with new ideas every day and we haven't even fulfilled the idea that I came up with last week.

	So, it really comes down to as leaders saying to ourselves, I gotta be okay with this. And it takes time. I mean, I'm gonna be 55 as I said, so be patient with yourself, it does take time. But recognize your unique strengths and your unique abilities and play to those strengths, and be okay with letting go.

Jaime Masters:	I adore that. I used to be an engineer and a project manager and I realize now, I hate detail, like I hate detail!  I can do it but I white knuckle everything, and I was like, but I was a- I made six figures at 22, like I was awesome!  No, no! I hate it.

Dina Dwyer Owens:	[Inaudible] [00:28:00], yeah.

Jaime Masters:	Yes. It would make, and that's what I noticed, it would make me upset when someone would come at me with tons of details and I'd go, okay, great. Which was really, really painful to understand and a wonderful, wonderful thing because I have other people that will project manage everything now.

	So, when people are understanding, okay, I know I need to let go, I feel like my staff is good enough for now to handle this stuff, and I can feel like I can do the process besides the mental parts. How do we determine what are those most important processes for our own business to really refine and make useful?

Dina Dwyer Owens:	Yeah. As you were saying all those things you reminded me that for 15 years I actually had a coach. I was -

Jaime Masters:	Fifteen years, wow!

Dina Dwyer Owens:	- 15 years. I was part of the Strategic Coach Program the entire time I was CEO. And one of the greatest things about that was getting away from the business every 90 days, looking at the business. So, looking at the business and my personal life, and going through a series of coaching steps. It was as much about, I mean there was great coaching, but it was as much about me getting away from the business and looking at it and saying, what is most important. And we know.
	
	We really do know what's most important. And then getting all the other garbage out of the way and saying, for the next 90 days I've gotta hunker down and focus in on these things that are gonna get me closer to achieving the success that I know the business can achieve, but for me personally as well. So, it's that never-ending revisiting, you have to constantly visit.

	And the rate of the way to change is changing. So, things are moving so fast today, it's easy to get swept up by the speed of that. And I think about our franchisees, and the new franchisees that are coming to us. The world is so complex now. Just thinking about social media. When I think about people who are already out there, they're plumbers, they're electricians, or they wanna get into their own small business, and they get stuck even just thinking about what's social media tools should I be utilizing, and how much time should I spend on these? How much money should I invest in these?

	So, you need some coaching. If you don't have the answers, whether it's becoming part of a franchise organization, utilizing your tools that you already have on your website, reaching out and joining other organizations in your community, and just learning from others, getting that mentorship and that coaching that helps you get clarity about what is it I really need to hunker down on, and then, stay focused.

Jaime Masters:	Yeah. Because it's stop doing that and go do this, and you're like, oh, okay, good, yeah, I just wanna be told what to do. Because it is never-ending, unfortunately, or fortunately, I should say. If things stop growing and progressing that's not necessarily good either, right?

Dina Dwyer Owens:	Yeah.

Jaime Masters:	So, that never-ending process, how do we get okay with never-ending, like never feeling like you fully achieve what you wanna achieve. I'm sure you talk about some of this stuff, too.

Dina Dwyer Owens:	Yeah. It's just life, isn't it? I mean, it's just the reality of life is it's never-ending, there's always gonna be change.

	And even at my age, and the years that I've been working at Dwyer 37 years, I am still growing. And when I quit growing like you said, I'm gonna die. So, one of my personal values is to always be learning, and it's always reaching out, not having the fear of asking for help. Because I find that there are some entrepreneurs who want to have all the answers and are afraid to ask for help. So, with all that change go ask for help. Go attend the conferences you need to attend. We're gonna rub elbows with the people who have already done it or are doing it!  And you know that you can learn from them.

	And I find that people are so gracious. They'll just walk up to somebody and say, look, I admire you, I appreciate what you've built, I'm trying to build something here too, could you give me some guidance, and give me some help? And I have never been turned away, I've never had anybody tell me, no, I'm not willing to help you. Now, maybe they don't have the answers for me, but they'll give me some guidance.

	So, life is all about change and growth. And just understand that, don't fight it, it's just the way it is.

Jaime Masters:	Yes. And accepting it, though, is easier said than done.

Dina Dwyer Owens:	That's right.

Jaime Masters:	Okay, great, awesome. I know that logically, and then when I'm in my business going, [inaudible] [00:32:06]!  We kind of forget. And it's a never-ending, I shouldn't even say battles, it's a never-ending wonderful journey of knowing yourself better, you're getting better and better and better as you go through.

	So, give us a couple of quick tips if you can on systems. Like, what are the things that you guys found after all of this many years that have worked really, really well. Whether it be in training, or documenting, or the sweet pieces that we don't know about yet that might be helpful for us.

Dina Dwyer Owens:	Yeah. I'm gonna go right back to the specific values system. Because I think that's the one thing that I can help your listeners with today. So, there are lots of systems I could talk about, but let's just talk about values.

	As you think about your business, have you gotten clarity about your values? And I'm gonna provide a tool at the end of the talk here that will help them. But have you gotten clarity of your values? And if you have is your team aligned?

	I mean, if you surrounded yourself with a team of people who are aligned with your values you want diversity on your team. You need people who are gonna complement your strengths and your weaknesses; you need people with different ways of thinking. But the one thing you gotta have the same, is alignment on your values. Because if you don't, it's gonna be a hogdgepodge business that's gonna continue to frustrate you. We're gonna deal with change anyway, but if you wanna deal with a lot change have a bunch of people on your team that aren't aligned on their values. So, it's having that alignment of your values and then the system is whatever you wanna make it.

	So, around your values, to me it's all about keeping it simple. We can make our businesses so much more complicated than we need to. And when I think about your values and the system around your values, it's about keeping them front and center. So, as leaders, we have to lead with those values.

	Every time we have a meeting we should be talking about our values. A significant meeting. I mean, if it's you and I just having a chat about something very minor, we don't need to spend a whole lot of time talking about the values before that. But any significant meetings that you're having at least once a week, is starting those meetings off, again focusing in what's more most important to this business. It's how we lead, it's how we're leading this business into the future and focusing on those values. So that's a system.

	The system is any time we have a meeting, a weekly meeting of our team, we're always gonna focus in on the values first. And whether that's two minutes, five minutes, 10 minutes, you create it, it's your business, but create a system around that. And you, as the leader can't ever let up. So, the one thing people know when I get up in front of a group, whether it's as coach, or at a companywide meeting, at an annual convention, the one thing everybody knows is Dina's gonna talk about values. Now she may talk about some other systems, what we're doing in getting Neighborly launched, she may talk about other things like that, but the thing she's gonna talk about first are values. And so, that's the system.

	I would encourage your listeners. It's the one thing that I can help them with the most today, is that clarity of values and creating the system, and how you're gonna keep those values front and center.

Jaime Masters:	So, even if you're a one-person organization should you have values?

Dina Dwyer Owens:	Absolutely. Because you can't get to a two-person organization if you don't know what your values are. Because you might hire the wrong person.

Jaime Masters:	Okay. So, people don't understand this stuff. So, when I talk about company values people assume, well, I have to be a company in order to have values. And you're like, well, no, that's not exactly how it works.

Dina Dwyer Owens:	Even if you're a student out there, Jaime, listening to this because you aspire to be an entrepreneur, if you're a student out there I would say you need to get clarity of values. You know, if you're attending a local, UT in Austin, be clear about your values because the world can control you. If you don't control yourself and know who you are and what you stand for, it's so easy to get sucked in to a role of negativity and things that aren't what you want.

	So, as a student I would say, get clear about your values. And the same tool I'm gonna offer to all your other listeners would apply to a student, to a single mother, to again somebody running a nonprofit, to somebody running a church. Frankly, the system around these values can apply to anybody.

Jaime Masters:	Oh, I wanna check that out. I mean, even just the family values that we have is the same. We have it in our [Inaudible] [00:35:57] downstairs. I made them make it up with me. Focus attention is one of them, so people aren't on their phones. My kids are electronic people, and so am I.

Dina Dwyer Owens:	Yep, we all are.

Jaime Masters:	And so, making, yes, and so making that a really, really important value, like none of this anywhere, is something that I can point to. Hey, you guys get over this, just say it, you want me to do that? Yeah, you want me to do that, you gotta do it too. And it does, it really does make everything better because that's sort of, that's your core. And sometimes, unfortunately, we're so busy we forget about what is more important to us as we're going through.

	This has been awesome. I know we have to start wrapping up in just a minute, but I wholly, wholly appreciate it and I'm really excited for that tool. So, that way everybody can put the time and effort into company values right now. I've seen it with my clients. You know, like, oh, that's why we do this. They don't realize it until after the fact, oh, now when I hire I'm paying attention to this. And I did this wrong also, I can't say anything.

	I hired an Eeyore, is what we always said. Because I'm positive, and one of my company values is positivity and that's, you could tell. That was very, very, very easy to tell, but sometimes it's harder, especially something like having fun. You're like, oh, are they having fun, or are they that kind of person or are they not. So, I love the nuances that you said of all your company values.

	So, I'm gonna ask you a last question that I always ask. I'm hoping that's when you'll give us the tool, but we'll find out.

	What's one action listeners can take this week to help move them forward towards their goal of a million?

Dina Dwyer Owens:	Okay, this is so easy. So, they could just go DinaDwyerOwens.com, and that's again D-i-n-a-D-w-y-e-r-Owens.com. And to create your Coach Culture Workshop tool is just right there. I mean, when they get to the first screen, all they have to do is press I Want the Create Your Culture tool, and it will download for them.

	It's six simple steps, Jaime, and they're not easy, so I don't wanna kid anybody. Because if you have not gotten clarity of your values it's gonna take some time for you to be thoughtful. I'd go away to a quiet place, and sometimes I even just go to a bookstore and sit in a quiet corner of a bookstore. Everybody's got a space that gives them a chance to be most creative. I'd go to that most creative place and be very thoughtful. And if you're a one-man operation or one-woman operation, still get started. And if you're a team of four or five, then I would invite you to have your team participate in this. And that's instructions in the workbook.

	So, six steps, basically starts with clarity of your values, getting alignment amongst the teams, so making sure the team that you have, the core team especially, the leadership team, agrees with those values. Creating behavior statements. So, what are the accountability statements that tie to those values so there's clear expectations of what we expect from either our kids or our team members.

	How are you going to test those values? So, then you need to kind of take it out and test it. And one of the things we did at Dwyer that's so much fun that your listeners can do, is we gave the team members the opportunity to beep us. So, as the leadership team we introduced the new values and we gamified it. So, we said, hey, guys, here's this code of values, we want you to study them, and any time you find a management team member violating a value, just give us verbal beep. So, literally, Jaime, it was beep, beep, beep, beep. It was like the roadrunner was racing through our headquarters beeping us like crazy.

	So, give people a chance to give feedback so you can see where you've got opportunities for improvement. Create fun around it. You know, have this system to be clear about what is our system for keeping the values front and center daily, weekly, monthly in our businesses. And don't do it only monthly. It really should be daily. And then, measure your performance.

	So, survey your team members. Maybe once a year put a survey out and say, how are we doing? How am I doing? How am I doing with the introduced values? Rate me one by one.

	We ask our franchisees each to rate us on how we're living through the values. Because it's one thing to have values, but if you're not facing the truth again about how you're doing I think you're kind of wasting time.

	Your values should be so indoctrinated into your organization that when it comes to making difficult decisions your team, your mind, automatically goes to what value do we need to look at as we make this decision. It doesn?t make the decision making easier, it just makes it clear.

Jaime Masters:	And once it's a habit you don't have the incongruity. And I love the beeping, who does that? Nobody, nobody wants to hear how wrong they are on things. So, go, you guys, for doing that.

Dina Dwyer Owens:	On, bad. You know, we could've gotten depressed but we said, look, the team cares enough, they really studied these, and they beeped us right and left. And after we brought them together after, we did 90 days of beeping, and we brought them at the end together and said, what do you guys think of this. They said, we love it because you guys, you took it, you took the beeping from us. And then they added the one value I said that was the hardest, never say anything about anyone that you wouldn't say to him or her.

	And the beautiful thing about it as leaders we hold ourselves accountable and we said, we're a pretty good company already. If we really implemented these values, how much better, how much higher could the bar be. And because of that, our company has grown almost 100 percent the last three years because we have never let go of the importance of our values. We're not perfect, but we work hard to live up to them every day.

Jaime Masters:	I knew you had said the values before. Oh, you're the value person of the entire company!  Of course, you are!  That's makes so much sense.

	I so appreciate you coming on. So, everybody make sure you check out the website she gave you. We will definitely link to it. If you do not remember make sure you go to the show notes and you can click on the link and get it that way. And I will make sure we post it on social and everywhere else, too. Because everybody now is like, okay, I have to go do this, this is this important!

	So, where else, are you online, are you on social media? Can we follow you anywhere and your wise words?

Dina Dwyer Owens:	Yeah. If you'll just go to DinaDwyerOwens.com it's gonna give you access to my Twitter handle, my Instagram, Facebook, all that good stuff. And if anybody's interested, we're always looking for great people, Jaime.

	So, if anybody knows of anybody that they think might be interested in a franchise opportunity, we're looking for great people, better aligned with our values to join our team. We've got lots of, to say lots of white space. We've got some good white space in the U.S. and Canada, in particular, that we need to fill active, make sure our Neighborly brand can really take good care of customers nationwide.

Jaime Masters:	I'm sure a lot of people that are listening to this going, how much training do they have, oh, my, yeah, okay!  I don't really wanna do this. Or marketing issues, yes, please just tell me what to do.

	Because it's frustrating, it's frustrating to try and do on your own. I totally understand.

Dina Dwyer Owens:	It does simplify it.

Jaime Masters:	Thank you so much for coming on today. I so, so appreciate it.

Dina Dwyer Owens:	Thank you, Jaime. All the best.

Tags: Business Owner, core values for success, core values of a successful person, Dina Dwyer-Owens, entrepreneur podcast, eventual millionaire, jaime masters, millionaire entrepreneurs, podcast, start-ups / startups, startup entrepreneur, top entrepreneurs, values for success in life

Categories: All, Featured Millionaire Interview, Franchising, Millionaire Interviews

Hi I’m Jaime. Each and every week I bring you the top business advice from the people who know best.

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