Hi, and welcome to Power of the Network. I'm your host, Tim Locker, Vice President of Broadband here at CBM. We're fortunate to be able to take this show in so many different directions. And today we've got a special guest, Mr. Sean Van Slyke from CMO, Southeast Missouri Power Co-op. I've come across Sean from some of his posts on LinkedIn, reached out to him, and I'm super excited that he agreed to come onto the show. He's got a very dynamic way of leadership and such a great guy. So let's get right into our conversation with Sean. Well, Sean, thank you so much for joining us today on the show. I know you've got a busy schedule and I really appreciate you coming in here to be with us here today. So thank you so much. Well, I appreciate the opportunity. Absolutely. You know, it's interesting to me how people get connected. I came across some of your stuff on LinkedIn and, you know, honestly, something just drew me to you. You know, I watched a lot of different leadership stuff. And there was just something about you sincere that drew me in. And I've just been taking in a bunch of your stuff here lately. So thank you for that. But what would you say is something unique to you in terms of your leadership skills? I think I appreciate you. And I'm humble the fact that you found me on LinkedIn and you're following that stuff. But I would have to say at the end of the day or... Ultimately, it's just me. I'm just authentic. I have nothing to hide. I have nothing, I'm not trying to win friends or make friends necessarily. I'm just trying to help people push forward because I see a lot of people out there struggling. I see a lot of people doing great things, but I think a lot of us carry around imposter syndrome. No matter what we're doing, we're still doubting ourselves. So those who are willing to step out like you are, Tim, and doing these podcasts and putting yourself on YouTube. I'm sure at times you say, am I doing the right thing? Right? You know, I've doubt myself all the time. So absolutely. And so I think LinkedIn, especially as a place where we're connecting with business associates, maybe not just business, but you make friends. And I've been blessed to make a lot of friends over the last four or five years because of LinkedIn. Yeah. One time we drove seven hours out of our way just to meet somebody because we're LinkedIn friends and we had a chance to meet and we just did it. Yeah, that's awesome. Just glad we did. Yeah, you never know where the world's gonna take you. And I think you kind of have to have an open mind and open those doors. And like I said, thanks again for being here. So I really appreciate it. Tell me about your Friday feature. Looks like you started that maybe right around the COVID era. We started right in March. I saw a lot of people with fear and uncertainty in their eyes. I saw it in our own organization. I saw it outside the organization. people just needed something that was gonna tell them it's gonna be all right, we're gonna get through this together. Yeah. We started the Friday feature, and now we're up over 225 episodes, consecutive weeks. Yeah, so four plus years. Yeah, four plus years, yeah, we don't know how to stop at this point. Yeah. But every day that I, every Thursday, Friday morning, I wake up and I think this is gonna be the last day, I get a note from somebody, and it's just a little note that says, thank you, I needed that today, I needed to hear that today, and so it's one more week. And so I don't know how many times one more week's gonna happen, but we're gonna keep going until that time comes. Well, I hope it keeps going for sure. So when you, when you get a note back from somebody like that, where, where you've made an impact, uh, I mean, is that what it's all about for you? That's a great question because I don't know the answer to that one. And we didn't rehearse this, so it's just, it's just off the cuff. But I think it's just helping people at my age, getting later in my years, there's nothing for me to gain. except for me maybe retaining my job that I have. But I think one of the biggest things too is, I wish my grandfathers would have taken time to record something like this. And I have a seven and a nine year old grandchildren. And I think ultimately perhaps I'm archiving our travels, our trips, the people that we meet, maybe someday 30 years from now, 40 years from now when they're older, maybe they can use that to help themselves. Yeah, maybe get something out of that. My wife, her grandmother passed away here about a year ago. She was 105. Wow. She actually lived alone and even drove, up to over 103, very sharp. And I look back, one of my favorite days was sitting in the kitchen and she was going through all the old family photos. And this is way back, back in the horse and buggy days, in the late. 1800s, some of those photos were from. But to sit with her, we sat there all afternoon. I remember my son's laying on the couch and it's at grandma's house and it's hot and he's just rolling, just what are we doing? But just to hear those stories and let her talk about who this was and what they did. And it was one of the best days I can remember. So leaving that legacy is. is obviously something that's pretty important. So think about if she had the time and the way that we do today to document all the changes that she got to witness. That's incredible. Yeah, it was a lot. It's a lot, right? I remember my grandparents getting the first microwave. That was a big deal in the late 70s or something like that. And I'm not gonna use that microwave. And then how many times do we use it today? Yep, absolutely, for sure. So I kind of look back through some of the earlier Friday features and your very first one, tell me the story of Johnny the Bagger. Well, ironically enough, Johnny the Bagger is actually the book and I brought you a copy of it. Oh, awesome, thank you. So you can see this is from our 77th year. We're on our 86th year now. So you can, I just happened to find this in there. Oh, that's awesome. Johnny the Bagger is about a young man who was challenged, but he took the time every day before he went to the grocery store and he cut little slips of paper with a message on it. And when you checked out on his line and he bagged your groceries, he'd put that piece of paper in it. It got to the point that nobody else went to any other line except for Johnny's. And it's all about customer service. It's all about taking what you have and making the best of it. And this young man, true story, it is a great story, but this is a book that we gave to all employees at SEMA Electric and everybody has a copy of it. Well, that's awesome, thank you. We use that to just say, no matter what talents God's giving you something. figure out how to use it and make it the best out of it. Yeah, that's a great message. But I brought you that. And when you get a chance, you can take a look at that. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. So I was interested in your story when you first started there at CMO and you'd ask questions of the company of what did they want from you or what questions did they have for you? I think some of the couple of questions you got were maybe not what you were looking for. Can we wear jeans to work or, trivial things. And then finally somebody spoke up, was it Becky? What did she say that moved the needle for you that day? After all employee meeting on the first day, I'm asking those questions. And one's about, can we wear jeans on Friday? And another one is, can we take equipment home to work? you know, at home, trim trees, and I said no. So I didn't, jeans are fine, no to the equipment because of the transmission breaks on a Saturday, whose fault really is it? So we just don't want to mess with those. Our jobs are too important. But Becky finally raised her hand and she said, Sean, we just want to be able to go to Walmart and wear our CMO electric shirts to Walmart and not be embarrassed. And so that- And be proud of where we were. And be proud, they just wanted pride, right? They just wanted to feel good about where they worked at. And I didn't know that going into the position. I learned that on the first day that I met with them. And at that point I knew that we had some work to do. Was there something you think that was maybe lacking before you got there that, or was it just poor leadership or, how does the culture get to that point where they're not excited about coming to work or not proud of where they work? I think my predecessor, he was really good in finance. He was a veteran and I appreciate what he did. He did a great job for the co-op, getting us ready and we'll talk about broadband later. But you know, the people before me built a cooperative up so that we could do fiber today. But I think when you drill it down, it's about communication. It's about sharing. It's about being transparent. It's about including people. We talk about inclusion. Inclusion has a lot of different definitions to a lot of different people. But inclusion to me is just bringing people along on the journey with you. And I think that was probably lacking a little bit. And I tend not to work in my office. I tend not to be in my office very often. And so I like to be with my folks as I call them, like to be the chief shepherd, and help them get to where they need to go. Make sure you have a pulse on what they're feeling. Yeah. And that's one thing that, as I grow into more of a leader within our company, I'm always trying to learn more about it and look at different techniques. One thing that I've kind of keyed in on lately is understanding everybody's... individual needs. You know, what is everybody's unique reason for being here? What are they trying to get out of life? And, you know, I think that's important to know what their vision of success is so that we can help them get there, so. Yeah, and you know, I just got to meet the president of your organization, Ryan. And if I sat down with her a little bit and talked to her a little bit, I would probably enjoy that. But she has to have certain things that she's bringing to your organization. And I think so many times as a leader, we forget why people are coming to work. They're coming to work to take care of their families. They're not coming to work necessarily to make the place better. They're not coming to work necessarily to make other people's lives better. They're coming to take care of themselves. And I think sometimes as leaders, we forget that. And we have to remember the reason they're coming to work is to take care of somebody at home probably. And if you're lucky enough, you can build an organization where they do come to work, want to come to work, and take care of other people outside of their family. Yeah, no, that's a great point because yeah, it's everybody, we've all got necessities, you know, at home and in life and we have to meet those needs first. So yeah, there is, there's always something behind it. I think sometimes I maybe take for granted that, that people are more willing to improve themselves and, you know, always trying to challenge themselves. And maybe not everybody's that way, but. I think you make a solid point there for sure. I'm sure my staff will see this, they'll watch this. They all know they're gonna get a book for their birthday. They're gonna get one at Christmas. We give a lot of books away. I work with publishers and try to get, so I don't spend a lot of money necessarily, but we'll buy books and a lot of them roll their eyes because they'll never read them. But I encourage them to give them somebody else. And they hear me talk about the books enough that they get what's in it. But it's just an opportunity because a lot of people never read a book once they leave high school. Yeah. I believe reading is fundamental to leadership and reading is fundamental to growing. Yeah. There's, I mean, there's all kinds of research on that, that any high level leader reads a lot of books. That's something I'm working on myself. I don't read many. I probably, maybe a half a dozen a year, you know, which is certainly not enough, but. But I bet you're scrolling and reading. Well, I do a lot of that. So a lot of people say they read, right? Because they're scrolling and they're reading. To sit down and just get into a good book is a challenge for me. It's hard. It's not easy for me sometimes either. Sometimes I fast read them. I look for the core of it. Do you read a lot of leadership stuff or what's your genre? What would you, what do you look for in a book? Probably business fables and also success and failures. Okay. We learn a lot from our failures, right? I've had so many of them that I can tell you a lot of them. We could spend all day. But I think failures and especially the, like Kentucky Fried Chicken, how old was he when he started that business, right? You know, he was in his 60s. Look at McDonald's. Look at these people who have world-class organizations today, some of them weren't. you know, 25 years old like they are today, starting social media companies. Yeah. They were older. And sometimes it takes us a while to find our dream. Takes us a while to find what is exactly that I want to do. Yeah. So I'm always looking and just, and I don't, you know, I go through a lot of books, but I have a book of the month that I highlight in our membership magazine that goes all to all of our members, our consumers. Yeah. I do that. And sometimes it repeats. Sometimes it's the same quote out of the same book because the book is really good. Yeah. And so there's a lot in it, but I think it just keeps you motivated. So what do you say to a, for example, I have a son that's, he's got one more year in college. He's going to Iowa State and he'll be a senior this fall. Doesn't know what he wants to do in life. What do you say to a kid in that position? Is it so confusing? Cause how are you supposed to know what you should be doing? What do you say to a kid in that position? Well, congratulations, because you're getting close to the end there. At SEMA Electric, we actually bring our high school students and our college students in. We put them through mock interviews. We put them through the SHARE method, which is situation, hindrance, action, result, and evaluation. We bring them into the room. If they don't come into the room and there's a group of people around the table and they don't shake hands to start off with and work the room, I make them stand up and walk them right out of the room. Now, what's interesting is my wife and I both participate when we can. but also the parents in the room. But the parent has to act like they're just an interviewee, or they're just part of the table. They can't say, but tell them about when you did this or tell them when you did that, right? Yeah, no helping. Right, so we put the students through that so that when they get to the position that your son's at, trying to figure out what he wants to do, regardless of what he interviews for, because the biggest thing is just doing something. He just, he has to take a job somewhere and do something, right? Or hang a shingle and stay on your insurance till he's 26 or whatever. Let's hope not. But they got to do something, right? Yeah. And so we bring them in and we talk about it. And after we do that, we really talk about what do you want to do? And then we try to piece out of that interview, what interests you? What is it that drives you? What would make you get up in the morning? What do you like to do? And we go through that process with them. A lot of times something will come out. And so it's just asking. Maybe it's sports. Maybe it's... So you do that for everyone in the high school? If they want to do it, yeah. High school and college students, and I know several of them, five, six of them, have wonderful jobs now. And when they walked into that first professional interview, they were not blindsided. They knew what to expect. And some of them would come back and say, Sean, they didn't do it very well. Right? Because they expected more. And so it's setting the expectations. But I think I would sit down and make a T-chart with him and say, what do you like to do? What drives you? What's he done with his phone? What's he looking at all the time? You know, if I look at people's phone and what they're going through on Facebook or Twitter or... You'll find- It's pretty easy to find out. It's pretty easy now. It used to be a lot harder, but I'll tell you, Tim, I still haven't figured out what I wanna do. So good luck with that. Yeah, that can be a challenge for sure. But no, that's a great program. What other programs like that are you doing? We do a lot of things. I brought you a card, you know, when we talk about the youngsters and I will go through it in a minute, but... We've got posters around the office and they all say these six tips. They say, be early, smile, act safely, move with purpose, don't gossip and give thanks. And a lot of times I give that card to younger people as well, because when they walk into a job environment or if they want to start their own company, if they follow these six tips, their life will be so much better. Yeah. Because I see so many people who don't want to show up early, and that doesn't mean an hour early, it just means... And if it starts today, be there earlier. I was raised in a house. If you weren't 15 minutes early, you're 10 minutes late. That's one thing my parents gave me is we get there early and we work, right? And the second one is smile. You're gonna have a bad day, but the person you're looking at, you have no idea what they're going through. And you may have a sucky day too. You may just be trying to get through the suck, but you may lift somebody else's spirit, which in turn will usually lift your spirits, right? And then act safely, especially in our business. We just have to be safe. We have to be safe all the time. And then move with purpose. Sometimes people get that confused and say, Sean, if you want me to move with purpose, then maybe I'm not acting safe. No, you do both, right? But we're just not gonna be sitting around and waiting for something to happen. We're gonna be proactive. And the other one is don't gossip. If you can't say it in front of their face or you can't tell them, let's just leave it alone. And the last one, be thankful. I think people that are probably watching this YouTube channel at least have a phone in their hand. they have an opportunity, right? They're doing something so they can do something with that. And so many times, myself included, I get down in the dumps just like everybody else. I have my bad days. And unfortunately, I'm married to a great lady who helps me pull myself back out of the ditch or she'll pull me out of the ditch. But it's hard sometimes to always be grateful for what we have. Yeah, no, that's a great point because I think too, so many times it's easy to focus on the negative. And frankly, for most of us here in this country, we are. very fortunate when you compare ourselves to the rest of the world. So that's a great tip. Well, and I think social media just drives that, right? We see our neighbor on vacation, we see him, but we don't see they had the bad day, right? They had the flat tire, they had a blowout, or maybe they do, maybe, but I don't spend a lot of time looking for that information, but if you focused on it, you could get yourself down the dumps pretty bad, comparing yourself to other people. Yeah, you're looking at their highlight reels and not reality, so. Do you see... I mean, it's been a while now that we've had the, you know, the Facebook and all the social media. Is that taking our culture in the wrong direction? I think we need to be concerned about it. And I think with AI on top of it, I was blessed in January to speak to a room full of CEOs about artificial intelligence. And somebody asked me the question, what was my biggest concern? Overall, in the workplace, my biggest concern is gambling with artificial intelligence. because if you watch TV and if you like sports at all, especially like your young son, I have a 22 year old too, draft kings, you name it, whatever it is, they're just enticing you to be part of that, right? And I've known a person who was fired because they were playing fantasy baseball. And this goes back to five or six years ago. Today it's on steroids, it's beyond steroids, right? Because people can see it, they have access to it. I can remember when we first got phones in the workforce. when I was managing probably 20, 30 years ago, the iPhones, what, 2007, before that was Blackberry or something like that. We were worried about just putting TVs in offices. Well, now they're carrying their TV around. I've caught myself many times trying to find my phone. Well, I'm actually watching it, right? I'm watching TV on my phone. I'm looking for my phone. So I know if you think about that, right? I can't find my phone because I'm watching TV. But now we're getting to the point where this targeting. You know, we could talk about something here and have our phones out and we walk outside. And it'll tell you to go shopping for it, right? And I just think that's something in the workplace that we have to be careful of, that people aren't spending time on their phone doing things either illegal or legal, but just taking something out of the workforce because it's going to be easier and easier to spend time on your device. Yeah, I mean, certainly it's costing employers, you know, time that folks aren't working, but it's also, you know, damaging the individuals and the gambling. I know a lot of younger people now that are hooked on that because they've made it so easy. So in Iowa, where I'm from was one of the holdouts, but now it's legal there now too. So it's legal there. And I think the other side to artificial intelligence is especially people who want to pretend like they're writing or they want to submit something. I think we're going to get caught down the road. Okay, I produced this, here's this, and I ask, can you do it again? And do it with a piece of paper and a pencil. They're gonna freak out, right? And I'm hearing now teachers are actually having classrooms where they're asking the students now, no computers, no devices, pen and paper, we're gonna take this test. And I think that's coming faster to a lot of places, and it may be based on the teacher doing it, rather than trying to use technology. Yeah, no, that's a great point. That's a great point. I mean, I'll use, you know, a chat GPT or whatever, once in a while, try to look for a better way to word something. You know, my vocabulary is not the best, but yeah, when you're taking a test or you're claiming, you know, that you've created something, I think that crosses the line for sure. Yeah, and I use chat GPT for clarity. I'll write it and I stick it in there and ask it to, you know, clean it up. simplify it because I don't use big words. So the last thing I need to be doing is using big words on my LinkedIn post, right? As I just don't do it. I can't, my tongue doesn't allow those words to come out. Even though I can think of it, I can't get it out. Yes. Yeah, for sure. As an employee-owned company, CBM is proud to represent manufacturers in communication, utility and commercial industrial spaces. We really value our relationships here and we've got a great team of people that are out helping our customers every day. If we can help you with a project or you need representation for a quality line, look no further than CBM. That's cbmrep.com. One of the things that you do there at CMO is your camp CMO. And I really liked that because, you know, I'll touch on it and let you go deeper into it. But basically you're taking, you know, people from all walks and all positions in the company and kind of forcing them to live a day or two in everybody else's shoes, right? Yep. I mean, what has that done for the organization? That comes back all the way to the beginning. They wanted pride and the only way to instill pride in this organization is have empathy within the organization. And so we started Camp SEMO actually with somebody outside of the industry. It was a politician who got a new job within the industry and she just wasn't sure what she was gonna be doing over this association. So we brought her in to show her the electric side and that kind of started Camp SEMO. And now every new employee, after they've been there about six months, they go through Camp SEMO. And then we've had bankers in, we've had our insurance companies in, we've had people from our generation side, if you, you know, generating power, they've been in. People from all walks of life have come in, well over 100 people at this point. But it's a two-day intensive camp. And we start at 730 on Monday with safety. And at eight o'clock, we go to member services or consumer services. We go to the counter where people come in. Then we walk through every department, every 30 minutes. And then at lunch, we talk about vegetation or tree trimming. And then at one o'clock, they get in a truck, one-man truck, which is odd because sometimes we'll have ladies in there and we're pairing them up with men or women or vice versa. Well, I don't know this person, so we have to have this get along. It's unique. They're trying to be gender equality. We're not, right? But they go out for three hours in a one-man truck and a one-person truck in a rural area. And then they come back and then we give them a bucket ride. Then we take them to dinner that night. And the next morning they come in, we go on construction. We put a shovel in their hand, we put a pole on the ground. And then the afternoon we do fiber, we do broadband drop and we do an installation. And they get to go into somebody's home and they see what it's like. And it's really intensive. And by the time we're done with them at four or five o'clock in the afternoon on the second day, they're ready to go home. Yeah, but they've got a good understanding of what- They have a better understanding. What to do, yeah. And so people from our national organizations, they come in. And so what we get back in return is a much better product because they know what we're after. They know what we need in order to make our, to reach our consumers, our members. Yeah. And they have a better understanding of the other people on their team when, if I call in and say, I need help with this or whatever the situation is, then they understand what's behind that. So. Yeah, and I've challenged a lot of people. I think it can be done in all organizations. You just have to have the sustainability because a lot of people will have a great idea and then fewer people will execute and then even fewer people will sustain that. And so we've had to cut it down because we get so many requests. We're sitting on several requests right now from outside of our organization that we, people say, let us know when you're having your next one so we can bring our folks in. And we've tried to monetize it and we've tried to do some different things, but ultimately at the end of the day, it makes them understand our business better. And on the backside, our folks are teaching it, whether you're a union or non-union person, because we're at 50% union, we're all part of it. We all take a part in Camp SEMO. Yeah. And that's what makes it great, because as you teach people, you learn more. Yeah, that's awesome. So you touched on the broadband piece. When did SEMO get into the fiber of the home? We started doing feasibility studies, started looking at it in 15 and 16. We did our feasibility study then March of 2017, our board approved the first phase. And it was gut wrenching, it was tough, it was hard. You know, we had our consultants in that gave us our feasibility study and we took a break. And we went to the boardroom, it was just the 12 board members and myself. And I had one holdout and he finally caved in to the rest. His biggest concern was we've built something here for 80 years and now we're gonna risk it by going out and doing this broadband. And I totally understand his feeling because I had the same feeling. And I'll tell you, and I don't get as emotional about it now as I used to telling it, but we all stood up and gathered hands and we prayed over this thing. It is really tough to take something that somebody has built for 80 years, it's a great electric cooperative, and then tell somebody you're gonna borrow $40 million and we only owed 38 million when we started. Now we've already, we've borrowed 70 million. And so we've grown almost double what we anticipated doing. And there are days that you question yourself, but there are days that we get letters back from people and say, thank you for helping us. Cause now we can do healthcare, now we can, you know, education, now we can go shopping, now we can watch movies, now we can do things that they're doing in the cities. Yeah. Well, and especially, you know, in your part of the state there and... Southeast Missouri, that's a very difficult area to get fiber to and to get broadband to. So, you know, it makes sense for a company like yours that's got the infrastructure and the ability to do that. So I mean, I'm sure all your customers are thankful that you did that because that's a big step for them. Well, you're not going to win them all, but we try. We run between 60 and 70, up to 80 or 90% take rate, just depending on where we're at. Some places are close to 100, the more rural you are. But you know, we had one section that had 60 locations, and that's give or take a few, because there's not that many houses down there. So it's probably more like 40, but it costs us $1.2 million. And so if you divide those numbers, it gets hard to do it. But we made a commitment to reach all of our members, and we have. Now we're growing outside of a little bit with some state funding to go into our neighboring co-op, but it's still tough because now we're doing underground because we've learned in our area that dove shooting, they shoot the lines. And it costs so much on a holiday weekend, especially first of September. It's really expensive to go out and fix an overhead fiber line that's been shot multiple times. I spent many years working for McLeod USA back in the day in, up in Iowa. You know, that kind of got started with the ICN network. They were building that state network. And a lot of that was done aerial. And it was just a handful of years ago. It might've been six, eight years ago already. I had left, but I still have friends that worked there and everything. And one of my friends, when they finally passed the Iowa dove season, he sent a message out to all the techs. He's like, be ready for all the fiber cuts this weekend, dove seasons on Saturday. And everybody's like, this guy's a quack, you're conspiracy theorist and whatever. And I forget how many it was, but they had outages all over the state, all weekend long, because people were shooting doves off of the fibers. So I was just glad that I wasn't still working there, having to deal with that weekend. It's hard to find a section of line and find where it's at. And I remember our first time was a Labor Day weekend of... of 2018. And I said, what? Because nobody warned, you know, you don't get a little book that says, here's how you do this. And especially we were kind of the second wave in the cooperative world, but now it's so mature. The business is so mature. People know what to expect a little bit more than when we started. Yeah. Well, and I think, you know, the public, you know, if you're not in the industry, I mean, most people aren't gonna know the difference between a fiber line, a copper line, you know, a power line, you know. Telephone pole versus electric pole. They don't care. Yeah, it's all the same. So it's just a good perch for a dove. That's what I know. But we encourage, and we work with the Missouri Department of, you know, hunting, whatever. I can't think right now what it's called. Conservation Department, sure. Yeah, they'll come in and educate. So if we sit in one area, for example, they'll come into that school and talk to the youngsters and encourage them to shoot does off the line. Yeah. Not off the line, but. away from the line. Yeah, no, that's excellent. What were some of your biggest challenges, obviously being able to sign off and borrow the money to do the fiber, but I'm sure to the financial side of it, what were some of your bigger challenges when you got into fiber? I think when you jump into the fiber business, one, you don't know what you don't know, right? And we were blessed enough to go visit a few cooperatives that had fiber, but we didn't get to see under the hood. if you will. And so we learn under the hood mint. We got into it, we built our own network. We had a few consultants, but we actually raised, our leaders for the fiber side came within the electric side because they knew our members, they knew our service territory, they knew what to expect. So the first thing I did is I asked two of our key leaders to go to Dallas, Texas and learn to be a fiber installer. I said, let's work our way backwards. So figure out what we're supposed to do inside the home and then we'll work our way out. I've had a natural gas background in the investor-owned utility world. I'd been in the natural gas and electricity business. So I knew what it was like when you have a natural gas outage and it's your fault. You end up lighting all the pilot lights, you go into people's homes. It's not a pleasant experience sometimes. And so I knew what it would be like to go inside somebody's homes, but our folks had never done that. You know, in the electric business, you stop at the meeting, right? But imagine an electric business and when we bring people in, I said, imagine programming their microwave. Imagine programming their stove. Imagine having to do that, right? Yeah, that's a great comparison. Yeah, and that's what happens on the broadband side is we're asking you to go into a home. So they went to that class, they came back, and then we started building the network backwards. And so we approved it in March. We did our first test customer in January of 18, and then our first paying member was somewhere in February or March of 2018. and now we have close to 11,000. And if we had more territory, 11,000 subscribers. Wow, that's great. And almost 15,000 services because we do phone, television and internet and we're gonna get out of the TV business at the end of the year. Yep. That's a whole nother subject. I don't think there'd be anybody that's gonna try to argue into that. That's a whole nother subject. But I think the fiber business is a lot of hard work and it's expensive. I does put pressure on, I'm gonna share it here, I've got. Simo Electric and Go Simo. And when I'm in the public, Go Simo or Simo Electric took a second mortgage to build Simo Electric. And that's the easiest way or the most efficient way I explain it to people. So we have many, many years in front of us to learn how to claw that money back and pay those loans down and build our equity back. How much, you know, our ownership in the organization. Yep, yep. No, I think that's awesome what you've done. And, you know, we've, you know, we work in... communication space, utility space, commercial industrial space. And for the last, I mean, it's been the last 10 years we've seen that kind of transition where the fiber market itself is not just for phone companies. And so that's, one of my goals now is to work with our utility team and help them become better experts on fiber. So with customers like you that we've, done things with over the years in the utility side, we can bridge those gaps on the, you know, on the fiber side as well. So, yeah. And you know, there's a lot of, and you know, we go back into that time and talk about when we got to go to co-ops, we started doing fiber fly-ins in 2019 and inviting other co-ops to come in to see us. And we've had about 40 cooperatives come in and we bring them in at 12 o'clock at noon on a day and we give them a Subway box sandwich and we break them up into groups. We put them through the finance and through the operations, the construction. We take them out in the field. And then by the time we're done with them the next day at noon, they go home. We've had people bring a bus from Mississippi. We've actually had a couple of people actually fly into Saxton airport and picked them up there. Smaller planes, we've had people, cars, trucks. But now that's slowed down because now you have neighbors across the country who you can go to a neighbor now and learn how to do the business. Yeah, people have them a lot closer. But I think that's great because I think From my perspective, in utility companies, anything new like this in fiber is relatively new in that space. So I've seen that they probably need more training and more understanding than my traditional customers So we have to look at it differently as how we serve those customers when it's new to them and they don't know what, you know, what they're getting into. So. Right. And it's more hands-on too. You know, we used to think when electricity went out, people got upset with us. They don't, if we can keep the fiber going, we just had a big storm Memorial Day weekend. We had our generators in our fiber huts and the fiber was working and the power wasn't. Yeah. But we're still pushing fiber out. They're okay with that. Yeah. Right. We'll get the power on when we can, but some magical way. They still had fiber. And so- Yeah, it's become critical. Yeah, it's just interesting, but they do get upset when they can't stream or do business or what they need to do. Yeah. It's on steroids compared to being a power outage. Absolutely. So I noticed, Sean, you brought some other things with you. I noticed you've got a wrench there. There's gotta be a story that's behind that. There is, because you had talked to me and asked me about culture and things and I- Even when I was coaching, you know, if I go back 30 years, I can't believe my daughter's going to be 35 this year. I think that's right. When I coached U18 soccer, I just encouraged my team to be flexible, be adaptable, right? And I finally came up with a thing and I use this in the business too, the Crescent wrench. I don't need a bunch of half inch wrenches. I don't need a bunch of nine sixteens. I need Crescent wrenches. And in our world, and I use this a lot for people to understand, maybe even going to your son, what he's going to get into and what he's going to do, the more flexible he is, the more opportunities he's going to have. Absolutely. And if he just puts up, you know, he's this, and that's the only thing he's going to do, it's going to be tough. Yeah. But in our work environment today, you've got to be flexible, you've got to be adaptable. And you know, there's a story about Charles Lindbergh when he flew across the Atlantic, he asked for a tool. He wanted a crescent wrench, and it's a great story. because he felt like he could fix anything on that plane that he needed to fix. And I think that just, it resonated with me and I share that often. And I take this with me when I go, when I talk to big groups and this is actually one of our crescent wrenches from one of our linemen who retired and he left it. Oh, that's great. He gave it to you. I don't know that he left it exactly for me but it ended up in my office. It had a purpose. It had a purpose, yeah. So there's some meaning to this one, but it's just something that, you know, the more we can be flexible. the greater opportunities we'll have. That's awesome. What a great message. And, you know, along the lines of the cultures, you've brought some books in, and I think you've got some notes there that you wanted to touch on. Yeah, and I think, you know, I talk a lot about books, but if you came to SEMO on your first day, we're going to read out of three books for you. The first one, it's not about coffee. It's about Starbucks, actually. But when you open it up, it just says in here, think about term... And think about safety in terms of a fishing line. And it doesn't say safety in here, but I put safety in there, right? And I read this one too. If it's the first day, it's usually I'm reading this book. A big goal like a big fish puts tension on the line. You've got to have tension to succeed. If you can't, you can't catch a big fish without it, right? If you don't have any tension on the line, you don't have a fish on there, right? We're always going to have tension. We're a place that we're a dynamic place. We're 24 seven, 365. We're in the electric business, we're in the broadband business. It's not for everybody. But you got to be aware of that tension too. You've got to be aware, right. And manage the tension properly or you're going to lose a fish. And safety move with purpose, right? Yep. The other one is Andy Andrews, the noticer. And it simply says this, and usually our HR person reads this. You can tell a lot about a person from the leaves they drop. You don't have to be around someone to know what their life is about. You can just examine the occasional leaf they drop. Believe me, that'll tell a lot. All we have to do is watch people and listen to people. If they have a concern at home, if we just listen to them, not everybody wants us to solve their problems. I haven't learned that in 36 years of marriage. Sometimes my wife just wants me to listen and not solve or fix her problem. I just need to listen and I'm still trying to master that. But that's- Yeah, that's one of the differences I think between male and female is we're built. to, oh, there's a problem, let's conquer that and fix it. Get the crescent wrench out and fix it. Yeah, exactly. So. And the third one, so if whoever your supervisor was going to be, they read this book, that's Pat Liccioni about the ideal team player. And all of our folks have heard these books, but you can't just go fire a bunch of people. But when you figure out who the jackasses are, you should tell them the only way they can stay, the only way they should want to stay is if they can stop being a jackass. Or more constructively, if they can be a team player. 95% of the time they'll do one of two things. They'll change their behavior and love you for making them do it, or they'll opt out on their own and they'll be relieved. Yeah. And either way, everybody wins. Yeah, everybody wins because not everybody's happy. And just this week, real quick story, we had somebody start two weeks ago and we have an intensive interview process. You go through a phone interview, a personal interview, we take a job shadow, and then we take you to lunch and make the offer. We get to know you before we hire. Sometimes we miss. Two weeks ago, she started, she was excited. Just Tuesday, I sat down with her to do a next interview. She said, I love the organization, I love my supervisor, but I'm chasing peace. This isn't my type of environment. And she offered to pay for a drug test, she offered to pay for all the things that we did to help her get, and we gave her a sweatshirt and said, you know, promote. Seymour Electric Force, go Seymour Fiber while you're out there. She walked out, but I gave her a lot of credit for having the courage to say, this isn't my type of place. And I think when you build a culture, we're very intentional about what we talk about and what we do and what we want to see done. And it is challenging to work at, but also I think it's very rewarding. Yeah, and I don't think I've ever seen any leadership piece that recommends having the wrong person on the bus or... person in the wrong seat on the bus. And it's all, but you're right. It, that's a very hard, I think it's hard on both sides. You know, if, if someone's not, not satisfied or they know they're not in the right place, it's hard for them to admit it. But it's also hard as an employer to, maybe not be hard to recognize, but sometimes it may be a hard place to, to handle as well. You know, so I think sometimes as an employer, you kind of sometimes will tend to let things go. And that's not to the benefit of either party either. So that's a tricky spot to be in. You're exactly right. And it's really hard sometimes. And I know, I believe just all leaders should be walking around, managed by walking around. They should be looking their people in the eye. They should be talking to them. Now, I've been in an organization where, you know, there's dozens and there's 70, there's 300 or 3000, right? When I was in the IOU world, my goal at one point, I had 1,700 people. that worked with me, coworkers, and my job, I was trying to get to know all of them, right? Then we merged with a bigger company and just got harder and harder. But you just have to be so intentional about trying to do that. And just on the way up here today, we had a young man in our office. He had all four wisdom teeth cut out yesterday, right? I texted him a message and said, how are you doing, Ryan? Last week we had somebody who's so nervous about passing her CDL test. She's a new supervisor in our warehouse. She's gotta get her CDL. She was so nervous, but I believed in her. We believed in her, she didn't believe in herself, but when she got there, she passed the test. And she said it was the hardest thing she's ever had to do in her life. Now she has her CDL, her commercial driver's license, nobody's going to take it away from her. And seeing people do things that they don't think they can do or overcome, that's incredible as a coach, as a leader. And I think ultimately, that's what we should be trying to get done. Now that's awesome. Any last thoughts, any... Any specific mentors that you've had over the years that you want to shout out to? That is a really hard question. And because I'll say this, my parents had a big helping with me by getting up every day and going to work, right? My grandfather's one was a brick layer and one was a dairy farmer. So I wear khaki pants and red man boots or red wing boots because of my brick layer. I wear long sleeve shirts and carry a hanky because of my dairy farmer grandfather, right? So when you think about mentors or mentors, I've had a lot in my life. Chad Stebbins in college, when I was trying to go through, I ended up dropping out with a 1.8 GPA. I worked a lot. I liked to work. I didn't care so much about the studying. Now later on I went back. I had that course, you know, go back in school. Early in my life, I had a female mentor who taught me not to cuss in the work environment because you never know who's listening. And I call that always interviewing now. I have a thing, you're always interviewing, you never know who you're meeting. And I had Rick Bormaster who took a chance on me when I walked into a job at eight o'clock in the morning in a new leadership role when I was 25 and I walked out at noon. It wasn't for me. It was fishy, it smelled fishy. It just wasn't for me. And I had been a warehouse person for that person for Rick Bormaster. And I went back, I went by there on my way home to tell my wife I didn't have a job. And he said, come in at eight o'clock tomorrow. We'll put you in cells. And you know, you have people. Scott Cecil out there taught me to run my race, and not get emotional about it and stick to the facts. I just, I've been blessed to have a lot of people in my life. And now I have 12 board members who all care. And I have a lot of employees who I work with. And we have a saying at CMO, I'll coach you, but you have to coach me back. So if you want me to coach you, then you have to coach me back and tell me if I'm doing things that I can do better. Yeah. No, that's great. I can't thank you enough for coming in and being with me today. It's great. Super glad I finally got to meet you. Super dynamic, dude. I'm just, I'm proud to have you here on the show and I can't thank you enough for coming in. I appreciate what you do. And CBM, you know, helps us through our partners. I don't even know some of them probably, but watch your leadership journey, watch what you're trying to do. Keep pushing forward because you are making a difference in other people's lives. Awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks again to Sean for joining us today on the show. He's got such a great perspective on leadership and perspective on gratitude. There's a lot of things that we can all learn from Sean. So thanks again, Sean, for joining us today. Remember, if you like what we're doing here, give us a like, give us a comment, subscribe, share with all your friends. And if you need expert advice on a project or representation from an excellent sales force. Reach out to us here at CBM, that's cbmrep.com. And until next time, we'll see you power the network.
