Dave Cain: Welcome to unsuitable on Rea Radio, the award winning financial services and business advisory podcast that challenges your old school business practices and their traditional business suit culture. Our guests are industry professionals and experts who will challenge you to think beyond the suit and tie while offering you meaningful, modern solutions to help enhance your company’s growth. I’m your host, Dave Cain. Do you love what you do? I mean, do you really love the work that you do and the people you do it for? If you’re a business owner or the leader of an organization, you’re probably pretty passionate about what you wanted to achieve in the beginning of your career. But as the years go by, sometimes that passion is replaced by the need to manage people, pay bills, turn a profit, the day to day whirlwind. Well, it can be hard to keep that passion alive.
Dave: Linda Friel, CFO at Payne & Payne Builders in Chardon, Ohio is With us today to tell us why it’s important to stay passionate in your profession, what you can do to keep the passion alive and how doing so can help keep all the other responsibilities you’re managing in line and maybe just have some fun doing what you love to do the most. Welcome to unsuitable, Linda.
Linda Friel: Thank you, Dave.
Dave: Thanks for taking the trip to podcast headquarters in Dublin, Ohio. As I see you’re located in Chardon, Ohio which is a really neat part of Ohio. Isn’t that great wine country up that way?
Linda: I don’t know about wine country, the snowball.
Dave: The snowball, great snow and wine up that way. But I wanted to mention that you’re CFO at Payne & Payne Builders and tell us a little bit about Payne & Payne?
Linda: Payne & Payne is a company that was started by Mike Payne Sr. and the sons eventually came to work for him and now the two brothers, Eric and Michael, are the shareholders and run the company. We’ve got 32 employees and we have two divisions, we have a custom division and a neighborhood division. It was a perfect fit for me because in public accounting, it was always to us about the people and personal relationships and that’s what Payne & Payne is all about. Building a home which is in most instances the biggest expense-
Dave: People business, you got it.
Linda: Yeah, the biggest expense you’ll ever incur, and for us the process is not only about building your home but for you to be comfortable and happy with your home at the end and to make the process as seamless as possible.
Dave: As you made the transition from public accounting to the construction industry, again you hit it right on. That’s a people business, you’ve got to deal with customer service, client service on a day to day, it’s almost 24/7 each business.
Linda: Absolutely.
Dave: Well, good. How can our listeners find out more about Payne & Payne? Can you throw out the website? Is there a website we can visit or we just go through Rea and find Payne & Payne that way?
Linda: You could do that, we have our own website and we have different tabs on the website so you can visit to learn about either the custom division or the neighborhoods we build in. We have a tab about our people and what their roles are and the function they perform for our company.
Dave: Good. So today we want to talk about customer service, client service, and in keeping the passion and maybe we’ll start with keeping the passion. Obviously, you mentioned you were in public accounting prior to taking the CFO role. Illustrate, did you ever lose the passion along the way?
Linda: I don’t know if I ever lost the passion. I worked in public accounting for 35 years. When my husband passed away, it was just a shift for me. I still had the passion to actually at that point my number one focus was taking care of my clients to make sure that everybody was going to be okay and that’s why Rea was a perfect match for us because we had similar philosophies. When I met with Lee, I felt really good about the future of service to my clients and then being able to perpetuate that.
Dave: Right. Well, like you said, the passion sometimes you take a little bit of a break from the passion just because of circumstances but it sounded like you jumped right back into the passion part of the equation. Making sure that your clients were happy.
Linda: Yeah, actually, it was like something to keep you going, you know what I mean? You go through a hard time in life and my passion for my clients who weren’t just clients, they were friends because we had developed relationships. It was interesting in that because they were always our focus taking care of them because that was our livelihood, in our time of need, it was our clients who stepped up to the plate to return to us.
Dave: Sure, sure, and I think that 24/7 mentality with passion in the public accounting has carried over, I would think, to the construction industry that you’re now in that public accounting was a great foundation for that customer service.
Linda: Absolutely, absolutely.
Dave: Perfect, perfect.
Linda: Eric and Mike are completely committed to our customers and if we get a project that’s going sideways, they’re quick to get involved to get everything back on track.
Dave: How can you share with us or would you please share with us a couple ways of how you became personally invested in your job? Were there any specific things you did that helped that mentality?
Linda: Well, I think part of it is and one of my takeaways from this is don’t forget to be or don’t be afraid to become personally invested in what you’re doing. Because then it becomes a passion, it’s something more than something you’re being paid for. You get a personal gratification from it and at the end of the day, when you go the extra mile for a client, the client goes the extra mile for you. I say that because I bet 95% of our referrals came from clients. We could advertise all day long, we really didn’t ever get it much from advertising, it was always client referrals. How did you hear about us? It always a client’s name would come up.
Dave: So don’t be afraid to let your hair down on this thing, go for it.
Linda: Right.
Dave: I mean that the payback is tremendous, like you said, the dividends, the repeat customers and in the new business.
Linda: Yep, absolutely.
Dave: To shift a little bit of gears to the construction industry and you mentioned someone building a resident or a dream home or a commercial building, you’re the CFO of a very successful organization, how do you translate that over to working with the clients with Payne & Payne?
Linda: Well, Payne & Payne is all about a team approach. Really, we jump in and help each other when in many aspects of the business it isn’t like, “Yeah, I handle all the financial part of it.” But if there’s a need, we’re always streamlining our systems, we have a saying, “What isn’t growing is dying.” We’re constantly trying to improve our processes and if I’m in the lobby I say hello to whoever’s in there. That’s just the way we approach things.
Dave: Based on what you said earlier about, “Don’t be afraid to become personally invested in your job and the passion, it’s hard to translate to the bottom line.”
Linda: Absolutely.
Dave: I’m sure you’ve been in situations, client situations, where you’ve looked and said, “Boy, that passion’s not there.” I think you can probably there’s a draw parallel to the bottom line, maybe they’re not doing it. Maybe there’s a failure somewhere in there.
Linda: Well, we feel like that’s the difference how we can separate ourselves from other builders. That we take that more personal approach and we feel like that’s what separates us.
Dave: Over the course of your career on customer service, when you would sit down and develop goals, personal goals for the year, are there any goals in this area that you can recall or want to share?
Linda: I don’t remember ever looking like we want to make this better or we just tried to keep our cert, we tried to be the difference, we tried to be the change, we tried to make our service different than anybody else. If we felt like if we cared and put ourselves personally into the situation that that’s what separated us. That’s what made the difference, and it became a way of business for us. We really we couldn’t have done it any other way?
Dave: Well, Linda, it sounds like really what we’re talking about is building the culture within the organization to make sure the passion is there and the client service is there. Sometimes that happens naturally but other times you have to work hard at it.
Linda: Yeah, no, that’s true and I feel like we have a great team at Payne & Payne, and Rea has a good team too and that that’s part of what attracted me to Rea. But at Payne & Payne, we have a great team and it’s all about teamwork. It’s working together if somebody needs help in something everybody’s anxious to pitch in.
Dave: They’re ready to go, it’s team effort.
Linda: Yeah.
Dave: That’s culture, I mean, that’s really what this is all about. A good part of it is building that strong culture and sticking to it.
Linda: Right, absolutely.
Dave: I’ve heard you say in some of the notes that we shared, people in personal relationships are everything and it sounds like you’ve lived by that song your entire career. Any words of wisdom for our listeners on how we make that better? How do we make people and personal relationships better than ever?
Linda: I think now when I look about it and or really seriously think about it, I think about things that you do in life that you like or experiences that you had that stick through you with, you know, just stick to you or that you can remember or stick out to you. It’s always about the people, so it’s about the people you work with, it’s about the people you do things with, it’s about the people that you’re with. And at the end of the day I always feel like if you put your best out, it’s almost like a mirror, it comes back to you.
Dave: What’s interesting as I listen to that, we get training in all the technical stuff and how to build a home or take care of a general ledger, but very seldom do we get training and actual those people skills.
Linda: Yeah.
Dave: It’s just a natural process at some point for some business leaders.
Linda: Yeah, absolutely. That’s why that to young people I would encourage you to not be afraid to let people get to know you, learn who you are, learn about them, learn about their families. Because like in public accounting or even in building a home, there are things you can learn from that person that can go into your project to make it better or in accounting it’s something you can learn about a person that maybe there’s something tax wise that you can help that person out by just getting to know them.
Dave: It sounds like coaching and mentoring-
Linda: Yeah.
Dave: … have been important in your career.
Linda: Absolutely.
Dave: Maybe we can talk a little bit about some advice you have for our listeners and fellow colleagues who have a coaching and mentoring program, would you dedicate a session to this and say, “Hey people, it’s people, it’s people.”
Linda: Yeah, it’s always about the people, always.
Dave: Any words of wisdom on what you would do in a training session? Any publications to read, any discussions, any crucial conversations? Or is it just in the flow of, “Hey, this is what happened, let’s go for it.”
Linda: Yeah, I think at the end of the day, you just have to be yourself. You know what I mean? Not be afraid to let other people see who you really are and I think it’s the genuineness of like who you are and how you present yourself and your work ethic and your professionalism. At the end of the day, that all comes back to you. You just have to be an honest person and be who you are.
Dave: You’d also mentioned take care of your clients and customers and employees I would say in there, and in return they will take care of you.
Linda: Yeah, absolutely.
Dave: It sounds like you’ve lived that your entire career.
Linda: Yeah, it was interesting because I asked Eric Pain a couple of weeks ago how many of our new customers came from referrals and he didn’t know exactly but he said, “I can tell you, it’s a really high percentage.” That’s one reason we try to take care of our people because not only is it important to us and our future, but it’s important to keep your people happy so that they can share their positive experience with other people.
Dave: I’m sure you’ve had situations come up as a consumer where the other side of the aisle wasn’t treating you with the greatest client service or you could tell they didn’t have the passion. It probably impacted your buying decision.
Linda: Yeah, absolutely. I think many times I go like, “Wow, they could be so much better if they would just provide some service or just relax and be human about this.” You know what I mean, it gets too process-driven and sometimes that gets lost in the big companies.
Dave: Oh, yeah, here’s the checklist, check that off. Forget there was a person on the other end of that checklist.
Linda: Absolutely.
Dave: But we also talk on this podcast quite a bit about the why, why you do something and why you have the passion and why customer service? So I’m going to throw that back to you, why do you feel you need 110% effort on customer service?
Linda: Well, because that’s who we are. At the end of the day if we don’t have our customers we don’t have a business.
Dave: And that’s your culture.
Linda: That’s our culture.
Dave: You could probably do a seminar on creating a culture.
Linda: I don’t know about that.
Dave: Have you ever spoken at a seminar on this?
Linda: No.
Dave: Because you’re very passionate and you can tell and your resume supports that as well. I want to switch gears a bit about the CFO position and financial position. We always like to know how the economy is doing out there. Of course, we read, we see but there’s nothing like sitting down with an entrepreneur or a CFO and saying, “How is it going out there? What are you seeing? Economy good?”
Linda: Yeah, the economy is good right now. It’s been a long time coming for us as far as the market goes. Things were tight for a while and so people are hesitant to make big decisions. The market is really good right now, probably really one of our biggest challenges is lumber at this point, because of all the tariffs. But business is good.
Dave: See, I knew you were going to throw in a little political reference there about the trade, instant trade agreements.
Linda: Yeah.
Dave: I didn’t know we were going to dive into that, I don’t have any notes on that but-
Linda: No notes on tariffs today?
Dave: No notes on tariffs so we’ll stay away from that. How’s the financing world? Obviously, in the construction, you’re dealing with customers who are looking to borrow money, need to borrow money in different ways and creative, how’s the banking world out there as you see it from your position?
Linda: I think it’s really good. We’ve got several banks that we run the construction loans through and they seem to be competitive for business. So it must be somewhere that they’re looking to expand or a market that is lucrative for them.
Dave: So thumbs up on where the business is.
Linda: Yeah.
Dave: How about the new tax law for construction companies and small businesses, what’s your feel on that?
Linda: I think it might be too early to tell, we’re-
Dave: That’s why you get out of public accounting, isn’t it?
Linda: I knew that new checks law, I didn’t want to deal with it.
Dave: You didn’t like that at all. But, yeah, what’s your first thought on that? You’ve seen both ends, I mean that says you fell from the public accounting and now as a contractor in business, so let’s tear it apart a little bit. What do you think?
Linda: Well, it’s we’ve been looking at different things. We’re going to be introducing a Roth option to our 401 (k) plan. We’re strategizing W-2 income versus flow through business income so that we can take advantage of the small business deduction. I don’t know, I think once we get some, it seems like the meals and entertainment they’re still messing around with.
Dave: Oh boy, aren’t they ever?
Linda: Yeah. Still no clear path there.
Dave: Contractors don’t entertain at all, do they?
Linda: Oh, no.
Dave: Never, never.
Linda: Neither do accountants ever.
Dave: No.
Linda: CFO, so we don’t but you’re right, that’s a good point. I think we have to get a year under our belt to see who the winners and losers are.
Dave: Absolutely and hopefully-
Linda: To regear, you know, it seems like as accountants you’re always planning on how what is the best path for the current law? Now we have to figure out how to readjust to get the maximum benefit out of where we’re headed.
Dave: There’s that passion for the business again, we got to retool or regear. As we wind down the podcast, I want to highlight several things we talked about. One is don’t be afraid to become personally invested in your job. I think we can check that off.
Linda: Yep.
Dave: And we both agree there I think that’s fantastic. People in personal relationships are everything and that’s probably one of my favorites from your notes, people in personal relationships are everything. Like you said, we went to school to learn how to do the debits and credits and we really didn’t learn how to deal with people. So firsthand business in the culture that you build and that Rea built helps us to do that.
Linda: Absolutely.
Dave: So love that. Take care of your clients and in return they will take care of you. So anything else we need to cover on that?
Linda: No.
Dave: I think that fits it just fantastic. Our guest today has been Linda Friel, CFO at Payne & Payne Builders in Chardon, Ohio. But I also have to add that what a tremendous friend and colleague, always referred to as colleague of Rea & Associates.
Linda: Thank you Dave.
Dave: Again, I appreciate you making the drive and sharing your notes. Thanks again for joining us, Linda. I think you have a powerful perspective on leadership and customer and client service. I hope our listeners will take a moment to reassess their roles and use your tips to help find greater success in their future. Did you enjoy today’s episode? Let us know. Like it, comment on it or share it and don’t forget to check out videos of our podcast on YouTube. Until next time, I’m Dave Cain encouraging you to loosen up your tie and think outside the box.
Disclaimer: The views expressed on unsuitable on Rea Radio are our own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Rea & Associates. The podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and is not intended to replace a professional advice you would receive elsewhere. Consult with a trusted advisor about your unique situation so they can expertly guide you to the best solution for your specific circumstance.