The Restoration Playbook Podcast

Holly Murry: Building Leaders
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Holly Murry: [00:00:00] I would say sometimes we pick people who check certain boxes and instead we should be looking at the soft skill side of the life, right? And the cultural fit with the company. So I've been in this industry a long time. And if you're going to hire somebody who doesn't love to help other people, they probably should not work in restoration.

Travis Martin: Welcome to the Restoration Playbook Podcast, the show where we explore practical strategies to help restoration companies build stronger teams and better businesses. I'm Travis Martin, Vice President of Product and Marketing and KnowHow. Today's guest is Holly Murry, president of Frst Team. Holly started nearly 30 years ago as a technician on the front lines, and today she leads a national network of restoration professionals all while holding on to one simple but powerful philosophy.

It's not ever about you. In this episode, Holly shares what it [00:01:00] takes to build leaders at every level, you'll hear how she balances empathy with accountability. Why she believes leadership starts with self-awareness and the creative ways she spots future leaders, including a restaurant test you'll want to borrow if you want to build people first teams that can perform under pressure. You'll find plenty to take away from this conversation. Let's get into our conversation with Holly.

Learn more at www. tryknowhow. com

Holly Murry: Hi, it's Holly Murry. I'm the president of Frst Team and looking forward to discussing with you today how we build leaders. ,

Travis Martin: Holly, I'm really excited to Have this conversation with you. I think FrstTeam has a reputation of building out really good soft skills among the leadership team.

And I've had the privilege of working with quite a few people on your team. And, uh, I really just enjoy the strengths that they bring to the table. And I think you [00:02:00] as a leader one of the areas that we really want to explore with you is these areas of. building soft skills, raising up the next generation of leaders, and this whole topic of self awareness and how you can be a good self aware leader that is aware of how you lead others.

And you can harness that for the benefit of you and your teams. But before we get into all of that, uh, I know that you've, you've shared this before, but for those who haven't heard the, Holly Murry origin story. How did you get into restoration and what brought you to the position where you're at today?

Holly Murry: Yeah, so similar to most people in our industry, I did not go specifically to school to work in the restoration industry. I definitely, if you had told me 30 years ago, which is about how long I've been in the industry, that I would eventually end up cleaning people's dirty items as a living, I'm pretty sure I would have been like, absolutely not. So I answered an ad to work for [00:03:00] FrstTeam almost 29 years ago, as A technician. So I really cut my teeth. In each segment of the business, both from going out in the law sites, meeting with homeowners and clients, the job from start to finish, project management, operations, sales. There really isn't, I think, a position in the company that I haven't held at some point in my almost 30 year career. And I've had this amazing opportunity to see our industry change significantly during that same period of time. And I think what I love most, right, is when you find your true passion and get an opportunity to be working in an industry that fulfills that ability to help others. I think it doesn't feel like work.

And so I think that's why you see people who have just such a strong passion for what we do is it seems like we clean clothing, but reality is, as we get to help people [00:04:00] day in and day out, which is, I think for most of us, what kind of feeds our souls.

Travis Martin: That's awesome. And Holly How long have you been in a leadership position at at Frsteam?

Holly Murry: Yeah, so I obviously didn't walk into a leadership position. I worked my way up within the company, but I've held kind of my first management role would have been an ops manager position where I started managing a team in our Seattle office, which I think was like our first. Third or fourth office that we opened. And that was my first kind of cutting my teeth in, in the leadership space. And from there, moved on to become like a regional manager, general manager of various locations to where I am today in the president's role. Leading really just the franchise across the country as well as helping to navigate some of our company owned and operated stores as well with help and assistance.

Travis Martin: I really want to explore this idea today of how [00:05:00] you show up as a leader And I think that there's probably like two ditches that people can fall into when they think about this subject, right? They can obsess over what everyone thinks of them to the point where it's really, it's really detrimental to their leadership or the opposite, they can Land in the ditch of like, I don't care what anyone thinks of me.

I am my own person And that also is not all that that helpful You kind of need to be in like both camps and neither at the same time Like how do you think about that? And when you're chatting with other people? Leaders who were in your shoes once, like it's their first leadership role. How do you help them navigate and think through how they show up?

Holly Murry: Yeah, so I think a couple of different things come to mind. You're right, you kind of need to be in both camps and neither camp at the same time, and I think it's impossible to say that you don't obsess about are you taking care of your people? Are you the best leader for your [00:06:00] organization? I think as a leader you do yourself a disservice if you're not trying to be self aware of maybe what skills you're good at, where you have opportunity for grow, and consistently being willing to learn from that perspective, as well as not second guess decision you decide to make, and giving yourself a little bit of Forgiveness to know that you're going to make mistakes along the way.

And I will tell you in my career, I've made plenty of mistakes along the way. And I think the important thing is to be self aware enough that you can not just recognize that you made the mistake, but own it, right? Make sure that if you've wronged someone or had a bad day at work, that you take that opportunity to apologize. And really, Present the way that you want your team to present. I think. One of my favorite sayings is always treat people [00:07:00] the way that you want to be treated. And so being a mom, being a parent, um, running a business, having people that you're responsible for, whether it's a technician out in the field, remember that, they want to be treated the way that you want them to treat you.

So making sure that you're always looking at doing things in a respectful manner and being transparent and really owning that level of. Whether it's a good day or a bad day making, always looking for ways to really kind of improve who you are and treating people the way you want to be treated.

Travis Martin: It's funny when you think of a situation where you've got those two camps, right? One person is just obsessing all the time over how they're perceived and that's influencing how they interact with others. And the other person is like, I don't care at all. Uh, I can do whatever I want.

Holly Murry: My way, highway.

Travis Martin: Yeah, totally.

Yeah, you could argue that actually both people are suffering from a lack of self awareness, [00:08:00] right? They're not realizing how they're showing up is influencing how others perceive them. It's not like one is too self aware and the other is not self aware. Like it's actually both. They're in different camps, but both suffer from the same lack of self awareness.

Can you help me understand how does, how you show up? Influence your ability to lead others around you, like get others on board with, you know, have, uh, show vulnerability and have your, your staff show vulnerability to you. Like what is, uh, what difference does high self awareness and high introspection versus low self awareness and low understanding of how others perceive you.

What does that, how does that affect your ability to lead well,

Holly Murry: Yeah. I mean, I think we can all look back over our career and our days and think there's days that I did not show up for my team, right? I had a million things going on. Maybe something was going on personally, right? Not even maybe related to work. Um, a loss of a family member [00:09:00] or a close friend is diagnosed with cancer, whatever it is that causes me to get out of my kind of correct emotional state, then and I want them to forgive me for that, right?

So I think when somebody is having a bad day, to always make sure that you're prioritizing the person over the situation, right? And understanding that we're all human and we all have good days and we have bad days and we've got stuff that impacts that. And so I think being self aware is realizing that somebody is having a bad day, being connected enough to really focus on the employee and say, Hey, Pull them aside and say, Hey, what's going on?

You seem not yourself, right? And if you can do that, then I think the opposite happens with your team. My team will pull me aside and say, hey, is everything okay? You seem out of sorts today. And I think that level of transparency goes up and down [00:10:00] versus a situation where you act that way, they're not comfortable enough, maybe coming to you and telling you, hey, you're out of sorts and vice versa. Then you run into a situation where all of a sudden somebody doesn't really enjoy where they work and they're quietly quitting, I think is the newest phrase term, right? And because you're not communicating, you're not really checking in with your team and being self aware and really having a conversation. Not just always amazing, positive discussions, but even the hard ones to say, hey, things aren't going great, let's talk about it because you ultimately really do care about them. And I think some of that comes with training. Not all of us wake up and think, Oh, yeah, I'm so great at this. It takes work and it takes really having to care enough that this is really important, making it a place. I think the founder of our company, many years ago, Harry Meekma said to me when I first started, you [00:11:00] get an opportunity to make this a place that you want to come to work to every day. Nobody else will ever Do that for you. So if you want to have this amazing culture and this amazing, you're going to have to put in the work for that, and it's not easy. And there's so many amazing tools available to help you build your emotional intelligence and, and really kind of become self aware of when you're having a bad day and whether it's apps that are available. We do the OG system where I can check in about how I'm feeling during the day so that I can be more emotionally checked in when I'm having different challenges.

Travis Martin: I've got like three threads that I want to pull on there. cause that's, there's a lot of really interesting stuff, but the first one, I just want to, this, this quote that you had was great. Prioritize the person over the situation. Holly, I'm wondering if you have any examples, uh, that come to mind where things were blowing up [00:12:00] and, you know, it would be very easy to say, hey, like, you know, we just got to like resolve this and maybe not throwing someone under the bus but it's easy to do the opposite, prioritize the fire that's burning without paying attention or giving the adequate amount of care to the person that's in the middle of the fire. There are other situations that come to mind where, where you were able to strike that balance and how did it affect that employee's satisfaction with their work and, and the commitment to the company.

I just want to explore that a little bit more.

Holly Murry: Yeah, absolutely. Right. And I think it can show up in a lot of different ways. So, I mean, a couple of things come to mind where you get an employee. Maybe we didn't take the time to check in with them that morning and realize they had a lot going on. The schedule blew up. Now we're asking them, right, to put in some extra hours. And their response, right, isn't professional or the communication response isn't [00:13:00] Like communication is so important, right? And you can read an email or a text and there's not a lot of context. And you can read it and be like, wow, really? Like that's not an appropriate way to respond. And instead of coming to the employee and immediately getting in that emotional situation with them to say, seriously, like you can't communicate that way, coming at it and saying, Hey, I read your text. So out of the norm for you. What's going on? Are you okay? Is there something going on? We maybe didn't take the courtesy and response to say, hey, we've got this large job. We need you to work some extra hours tonight. And, is there anything that prevents you from doing that? Right? What we don't know is, Oh my gosh, my kid had their last game of the season and I was really hoping to make it to that. We're humans, we have lives outside of work. And I think if you can take that pause and focus on the person that isn't out of the normal, [00:14:00] Instead of reacting to what feels like an attack back and just take a breath, take a pause. There's lots of tools that you can do, right? Um, I heard one of our amazing leaders today talk about sometimes we communicate, whether it's with contractor clients or carrier clients who sometimes are also having bad days, right? And they send us a short rude message. And there is this natural tendency to respond with like, and so I always encourage people like write the nasty email response, but just don't send it. Then take a moment, take a pause. And if you can't get out of your own way, You have amazing other leaders on the team, right?

Like if you're not sure about a communication, send it to somebody for a soft check. If I'm emotionally charged with a situation and I know that because of my passion for our industry, [00:15:00] I can get super defensive of our people and our staff, right? Especially because I know how amazing they are. Instead of responding that way, take a pause, ask for somebody's assistance. And I think it, it can make that situation deescalate and become resolved. And then you get buy in from your staff that, wow, they really took the time to really care about me and not just barter orders.

Travis Martin: Hmm.

Holly Murry: And I, I think those are things that really, When I think about how we text or communicate and email this is a 24 seven business. We're calling people at all hours of the night, even though that's what they sign up for. And what we all commit to doesn't mean that at some given day or time, they're always capable of doing that. That's why you have large teams. I, for one, have actually been on, you know, met a contractor at a packout at 2 AM because it was a large loss and my team had stuff going on.

And, [00:16:00] um, those things happen. That's part of what you buy into as a, as an owner or a leader within the organization is to be there for your team as much as we are for the homeowners that we help day in and day out.

Travis Martin: You talked about just the the plethora of tools that are available now to help, you know, just understand, Hey, what's going on below the surface. And you, you mentioned something called the OG system. Can you, for those who haven't heard of it could you just give a brief synopsis on what that is?

Holly Murry: Yeah. So it's O J

Travis Martin: I

J I

Holly Murry: Um, so it's O J I and it is an emotional intelligent, it's an app, they have a class you can go through. And it really, as a leader, it was something that my leadership team rolled out and encouraged all of our leaders to go through from an intelligent. And you check in with yourself multiple times during the day. And it really kind of, you know, opened your eyes to what most leaders [00:17:00] need, which is a sounding board to talk through challenging situations as they come up and really help you become more self aware on how others can perceive you when you send an email or a text or just even a verbal conversation.

And what kind of, cues do we give each other, verbal and non verbal? We've all walked in to try and have a meeting and somebody's sitting there and they're, they look

mad and frustrated and, you know, and some people are like, okay, well, I'm just going to ignore that and hope it happens and goes away versus take the minute, maybe not right then, right?

You'll have to learn how and when to kind of diffuse those situations, but pulling somebody away and truly caring about. They're health and wellness, I think is critical.

Travis Martin: The vibe that I'm getting, Holly, is that [00:18:00] there is. I think there's this, uh, culture of understanding and empathy at FrstTeam among the staff, but that doesn't mean that there's no accountability as well. Right. And I think that people could believe, Oh, hey, like we're just always, you know, sympathetic to each other, but like, like you still have to have accountability.

Like, like, could you help me understand how do you bridge that gap well, and I, I would think in the right environment, actually, Giving the context and having a place where people trust each other could actually lead to higher levels of accountability. But how do you square that circle in case people feel like maybe those are on opposite ends of the spectrum, understanding versus accountability?

Holly Murry: Yeah, I think you know, in the recent conference I went to, there was a great keynote speaker, and he talked a little bit about systems and processes as well as caring. Right. And so and there's got to be a balance between the two. You can't just be all care, all sympathy, [00:19:00] all empathy. And then not get a job done, right?

So we all have responsibilities to the business and, and what we do in day in and day out. And the caring part comes into that same aspect where you can say, listen, you're not meeting your job needs. And Why? Let's talk about that. And it, do we need to level set? Are you in the wrong seat in the bus? Right?

Those are all, you have to care enough about somebody to support them in their growth, as well as make sure that they're meeting their career goals or their career paths. And in order for us to do that, right. In order for a company to give promotions and increase wages, we have to continue to raise the bar from a performance level. And. We can only do that if we work together and follow the same processes and systems. It doesn't mean that we don't care when something comes up. I think, again, it goes back to those, you know, the number one soft skill in [00:20:00] communication and knowing that you're in a safe space to be able to ask for help when you need it. And I do agree with you. I think that When that happens, then you get people who are really there for you when you need help and vice versa. And it really does build a culture of high performers because they know when they need the time, they get the time and they're all in when they don't because they know, Hey, my life is, it's humming really good right now, right?

Kids are great. Family's great. Things are good. And I'm knocking stuff out. I now can help somebody else that maybe needs a little extra help right now.

Travis Martin: What I hear you saying, Holly, is the standards continue to get higher and higher as the company grows. And when people fail to hit that standard, the first thought is not like, okay, we need to discipline them. We need to punish them. We need to let them know that they're on thin ice, as we [00:21:00] say up in Canada.

But instead that there's this culture of like, let's understand what's going on. Let's understand why. And the more context I can have, the better we can help diagnose and build a path to them hitting and exceeding those expectations. Is that correct?

Holly Murry: Yeah, I think that you said it perfectly. I think the reality, right, too, is that not all of us are set for certain positions. And I think, you know, just my own career path, I can speak to. And I had positions that were in operations, I had positions in sales and customer service. And over the years, there were some things that I really excelled at. And there were other things that I'm not any good at. So I think it's important to say, Hey, this is something I'm not good at. And so I struggle with it. And most of us either try and figure out how to gain that knowledge. If it's going to be a part of what we need it to be a [00:22:00] part of, or we get into a number, maybe you're in the wrong seat in the bus. I can think of several on my leadership team who have been in different seats on our bus and they were in the wrong seat. They were still amazing. Employees, they had phenomenal cultural and skillsets, but we needed to change them seats in the bus to really give them the opportunity to excel. And then obviously over the year, we had people that, they maybe weren't the right culture or right fit for us. And at some point we needed to part ways. That's okay too. It doesn't mean I don't love them any less or care about them any less, but in order for them to succeed in life, It doesn't always mean that it's here at Firsteam either. And that's got to be okay too.

Travis Martin: We've talked a lot about communication already is probably like the most important soft skill that you need as a leader. [00:23:00] I think a common mistake that restoration Leaders and owners make is we identify someone who is really good technically in their role. And then we say, Hey, we want to give you increased responsibility and promote them into a role that just requires a completely different set of skills than what they needed to succeed in their original role.

Can you help me understand from your perspective, what are some of the most important soft skills in addition to that communication piece that you really think, Hey, if someone wants to move into leadership at FrstTeam, this is what we need to see, or at least this is what is going to be all over the development plan as we get you ready.

Holly Murry: Yeah. I mean, I would say sometimes we pick people who check certain boxes and instead we should be looking at the soft skill side of the life, right? And the cultural fit with the company. So I've been in this industry a long [00:24:00] time. And if you're going to hire somebody who doesn't love to help other people, they probably should not work in restoration. Our entire lives and careers revolve around helping others. And yes, you of course can be a technician or a project manager, an estimator, or even make it all the way up to like a president level or an ownership level. without necessarily always having a drive and passion to help others, you will just have to really struggle because it's still going to come down to helping others. And I think when I look at this, if that, if there's a disconnect, eventually we will part ways. If it is all about you, the, my mentor growing up, basically. Very early in my career, reminded me, it is not ever about you and you should come to terms with it now. Um, whether as [00:25:00] a coworker, because it really does, if you want to move into leadership, it can never be about you.

It has to be about your team. It's got to be about your people. And it, and if you think it's about you, you're, you're wrong. You've got to take a pause and go, nope, it is about. It's about the homeowners whose belongings we're handling. It's about the employee who has entrusted us with their career path. And I think that's why I have ex employees who I still have strong relationships with. Because somewhere along the line, we had to say, listen, this is about you and your path to where you need to find your passion and what you're going to be good at. And that's, it's a disconnect. And so the path for you isn't here. I'm sure it'll be somewhere else down the line. And you'll be great when you find that path that leads you to this kind of passion and success. [00:26:00] It just may not always be with your business or company. And you have to care enough about your employee to help them through that path. And not to say that I haven't had some real dingers that have really pushed that over the years, because I'm obviously not great friends with everyone that I've parted ways with over the years. But when you find that there is a cultural disconnect, you have to make that disconnect quickly at your brand. And I think that's why we've been so incredibly lucky here at FrstTeam is, you know, when I look at our FrstTeam leadership, they care immensely. They care immensely about. our franchisees success, our employees success, our homeowners positive experience with communication with our business. And we unfortunately have to make sure that if that doesn't happen, that we end that relationship as quickly as we can.

Travis Martin: I just think that we should [00:27:00] all probably print that off and put it above our computer. It's not ever about you. I think that that's an important, you know, we all, I think probably have main character syndrome sometimes. And so that's a great reminder, especially for leaders. Holly, when you are assessing whether, uh, What the roadmap is going to be for someone who you identify has leadership potential to them, like really stepping in and thriving in that role.

Do you have any tools or methods just to like assess where their soft skills are at? Or is it mostly gut check? Like what you've built up over the years? Like how do you formally think about bringing people and giving them the skills and the training they need to be successful leaders?

Holly Murry: Yeah. So probably It's my age, but I'm a little slow to like different tools. There are some phenomenal tools. People do employee assessments, right? There's tons of different systems that you can utilize to help gauge somebody's emotional intelligence, their soft skills, their communications. I would [00:28:00] say that, for us, we really use some varying You know, we do use the OG tool to embrace that. But I am definitely an old school kind of gut check, right? So if it doesn't pass the smell test, I guess, so to speak. Um, and we used to do a thing in our early years, right? Where we would do an interview at a restaurant and I purposely ask the wait staff to make something go awry to see how somebody reacts, right?

How do you react with other humans. Do you snap? I used to say, like, you want to see how great somebody's emotional intelligence is, screw up travel, get them stuck in some airport they don't want to be, and you will see the best and the worst of our human nature coming out for sure. The other thing is that some of that is trainable. I think if somebody has a willingness to work on themselves, some of that you can train. I mean, most of us didn't just wake up, you know, when you look at babies, babies cry for needs and you have to [00:29:00] train them to use communication skills. And so I do think some of that can be trainable. And it's important, I think, if you truly care about your people, you'll give them that opportunity to learn some of those soft skills and some of the training that's available.

Travis Martin: Awesome. Yeah, that's, that's great. I couldn't agree more. On the air, on the airport thing, we actually have this internal, uh, thing that we say at KnowHow when we're like looking at candidates, which is like, Hey, do you think that you could be trapped overnight in an airport with this person and still like them on the other side?

And you know, that

Holly Murry: That is awesome.

Travis Martin: That's where you see the real, and like, Hey, is this not only someone who you could have like a amicable relationship with, but like, would this be a person that in, bad situations and you're both tired and a little stinky, you know, that you could be like, all right, we're still going to go shoulder to shoulder here on out.

Holly Murry: And I think, you know, it always makes me laugh a little bit because I've traveled [00:30:00] with so many of our staff over the years that sooner or later there's a canceled flight or something goes awry. You know, the higher the status, the more demanding sometimes we get when it comes to travel. And it's, I think that's a great thing is, is this somebody that you want to spend time with?

Because you are going to spend the majority of your life, right? Not just with the significant others in your life, but also with your work team. And I, you want to be surrounded with people that you really enjoy spending time with because you're going to troubleshoot different challenges that come up. And so if you feel like you can't communicate or learn each other's kind of love language, so to speak, then I think you're going to continue to have challenges with your internal communication. So I do think that's a really And I think that's a really important thing to talk about is, is this somebody.

And I also think like when you're hiring and you're looking at expanding your team, it is [00:31:00] really important to have people of different personalities, right? I don't want a team full of people who are like me. I want a team of people who are very different from me. So that we can really troubleshoot different challenges that we come up and they come at things from a different perspective and thought process.

And I think that's important, right? So that we can really look at how do we get better as a business, as a company. We do that by looking at varying personalities and different things that are going in to everyone's kind of idea and thought process on where we move forward as a brand.

Travis Martin: That's great. Holly, I've got two rapid fire questions for you to close this out. The first, you've talked about a few of the slogans that have really stuck with you. It's not ever about you as a good one example, but I'm curious, are there any Timeless truths, mantras, like just those things that you have really held on to as a [00:32:00] leader that have served you well and worked as, as North stars as you've navigated different situations.

Holly Murry: Yeah, so, I, you know, the team will joke that I say teamwork makes the dream work all the time, but I truly believe, right, that we are a team. It literally is in the, our brand, its FrstTeam. And so I think for me, teamwork really does make the dream work. And I believe that with my whole heart, that if we can take a bunch of people with different areas of expertise and skill set, and you can get them all. you can go incredibly far as an incredible team. And then I would say the other thing for me is, make it a, a world and a place and a business that you want to live in. It really does start with yourself and only yourself. So if you feel like your culture isn't where it needs to be, or. You're not going the right direction. Sit down with your team and talk about it and say, Hey, I'm going to start with me. I'm going to talk [00:33:00] about what I need to do and what, how, what I need to work on from myself to try and make this a better place and, kind of start with you. And I always say, like, if something's not working, I'm the first person to be like, okay, well, I need to fix something about me that is causing this to happen within our brand. Nobody else. It's gotta be me. I've got to take that onus. And when you're truly building leaders, a great leader understands that. A great leader would never say, Oh, so and so. It's always, you know what, thank you so much for bringing my attention. I will definitely need to work on that. I'll work with my team and make sure that we can really turn that around and get that to a better place. And you gotta own that. You gotta own the mistakes. And give away all the credit. I would say that at First Seam, all of our success has really been led. I mean, even our connection with KnowHow, I would love to take all the credit and be like, you know, we started this amazing training system, [00:34:00] not because of me, but because Kaylee and I think Kristen, one of our franchisees in Florida, like they all, the franchisees suggested we needed a great online platform for training.

How do we better. You know, kind of hold our team to a high level of standard. What does that look like? All of those were great ideas by somebody else. I just got to make the decision to execute on them.

Travis Martin: Awesome. Hey, and I mean, I think when you have a dynamic where your team really feels the ownership to identify opportunities and drive them forward, to me, that's, that's what healthy leadership looks like, where it doesn't all rely on you.

Holly Murry: Thank goodness. Cause if so, I mean, I'm just a mishmash of stolen ideas. So

Travis Martin: Well, that's actually a perfect segue into my last question, which is, uh, I wonder if there's been a particular piece of advice or feedback or lesson that a leader gave you at some point in your [00:35:00] journey that's really resonated with you as you've moved into the role of leading others.

Holly Murry: Yeah, I mean, I think Courtney Nicholas is one of the founders of our business. One of my old business partners and I think between her and then like my parents advice growing up and my upbringing, right, Courtney's advice was always like, it's not about you. Uh, just come to terms with it now. It's not about you.

And and I think like my parents, uh, just from a work ethic perspective, and one of the things that my parents always, I think taught me is, uh, it doesn't really matter what anyone's title is. I think it's important that. Whether it's the person that's cleaning the bathroom every day, or it's the person that is the brand president and sitting what looks like at the top leadership level, everybody kind of puts their pants on the same way, and everyone has value, and if you can Really find the value in each [00:36:00] individual and love them for the value that they bring in your life. You can go incredibly far because you may miss opportunities especially in restoration. Uh, the adjuster that you were not so nice to yesterday becomes the brand leader at the largest carrier in the country. So, the same would be said for a technician out on a law site. They're the business owners of tomorrow. So I do highly encourage people take time to get to know all of your people, because you'd be really amazed at what they could do from a value standpoint. So I would say like, between my mentors and my family. And, and then of course, all the franchisees that have given me incredible advice over the years and even my own team and staff, I think there's just so much that I've been able to really get from everyone. That really helps just me. Try and be a better human. So I'm super blessed.

Travis Martin: That's so great. Holly, I am so [00:37:00] convinced that the restoration industry of the future is one where a lot of these hard skills that the path to training people up is somewhat well documented and understood. And it's the soft skills. where companies really make a name for themselves. And that's where they develop those longstanding relationships with the clients and the carriers and the vendors.

And so I think just the work that FrstTeam has done to instill leadership and train them up in those soft skills, the communication and every other aspect, the empathy, the understanding. Uh, I think it's one of the things that makes FrstTeam so successful and unique. So I appreciate you sharing your wisdom and expertise with us today.

Holly Murry: Yeah. And thank you guys so much for having me. I really, it's been an incredible journey with KnowHow. Um, just even the training platform has really helped make us better. I think we all have an opportunity to learn and I'm just super excited that we get to continue this relationship [00:38:00] together.

And anytime I get an opportunity to meet people and spread the word. And hopefully if there's a nugget or two, somebody took from it and it helps them be a better leader. And whether you're a technician today and you look and think, gosh, I want to do that someday. Just know that the opportunity is completely possible because I certainly entered this industry with not the experience, not all the boxes checked. And it is definitely a passion and a labor of love to be able to help people. So hopefully somebody gets a little nugget or two out of this.

Travis Martin: I'm 100 percent convinced they will. Yeah, absolutely.

All right. That's a wrap on this episode. A huge thank you to Holly Murry for showing us what it means to lead without ego and what it takes to build a team that cares, performs, and grows together. If Holly's approach gave you fresh ideas for your team, or challenged you to reflect on your own leadership style, take a second to subscribe.

We've got [00:39:00] more conversations like this coming soon, and if you are looking for practical ways to help your team perform at a higher level without adding head count. We've got something just for you. Join us for a free live webinar on July 17th, 2025 at 1:00 PM Eastern. It's called Same Team, more Horsepower, how KnowHow Increases Revenue and Productivity Per Team Member.

In this 50 minute session, you'll learn how leading restoration companies are unlocking more output from their teams, cutting, onboarding time, and reducing costly mistakes. Register using the link in the show notes or visit tryknowhow.com slash resources to secure your spot. Thanks for listening to the Restoration Playbook Podcast.

See you next time.