For "Shop Talk", Coach Bill responds to a listener's question about two challenges that nonprofits face: 1) A declining number of volunteers 2) When to transfer leadership to the next generation. And Bill somehow relates this to football.
Everybody. It's Bill Courtney was shop Talk shop Talk number twenty seven, Vita Scott. I'd be ringing the bell that you sent, which we really appreciate it, but Alex left it at home, so I can't even ring your bell. So you know, we got a shop Talk, we got a bell. We should be ringing it now. We even had a listener sent us a bell to ring the bell to alert to shop Talk, and Alex couldn't remember to bring it. Nice shop Alex. The reason is actually I was cleaning my car for our guest I'm picking up tomorrow, so I took it out of my car to clean the car, and I forgot to put it back in. Was the bell going to upset the guest? I took everything out of the seats so that I could clean up the carbo hash Like you know, Shop Talk number twenty seven should be on forgetfulness, but it's not. Shop Talk number twenty seven today is on building your bench. We got to build a bench, everybody, so we'll do that right after these brief messages from our and our sponsors. Welcome back everybody's shop Talk number twenty seven novel Building your Bench. I was sent an email from Keith Balliquette. You think it's Valaquette or Baliquette Blaquette Blaquette. I think you just covered both options. That's right, Keith, thanks for sending it to us. You sent it to us on November two, and he said, Bill, I really love shop talk. As I've mentioned before, I have a few topics for consideration. Large companies are disappearing from our communities or are owned by out of state country firms. Out of state out of country firms, more and more are owned by private equity. Also seeing people so busy that they are inwardly focused or focused on getting kids here and there. Those situations are creating more and more challenges for nonprofits in terms of financial support, but also may be more importantly volunteer support. It's getting harder and harder to find volunteers, while more expensive to run our nonprofits. Take insurance as an example, our rage just doubled and may not want to take on the risk of children and drivers to pick come up so that we can maintain attendance above ninety percent, much better than the schools. We can control some costs by being leaner, but volunteers drive down the cost of staff, which is huge and hard to get funding for. So what do we do about getting more volunteers? And when do you know when it's time, when it's time to step aside and allow the next generation of leaders in our companies in nonprofits takeover. My brother in law once told me, you may be standing in the way of someone God is trying to develop, and bluss, I'd love to hear your thoughts. So I thought about that, and I'm like, I don't even know if I have much to offer there. And then I went to an ole Miss football game and it dawned on me, I do have something to offer on this. See here's the thing. I've been a lifeline ole Miss fan, which is, over the last four decades basically been an exercise in lost dreams, broken hopes, and sometimes futility. Frankly, and here's here's why. Ole Miss almost always had eleven starters that were just as good as Alabama's and Georgia's and the other teams. And likewise, we always played even with the national prominent programs in the first quarter and even maybe in the second quarter, and maybe even in the third quarter. But football is a game of attrition. Football is a game of exhaustion. And what really separates the top ten blue chip premium football teams every year from the other teams that are scraping and dragging and trying to get up to that level of competition is their bench. If you don't if you don't have to play your very best players on special teams, and if during the game you can take out your starters to get a quick breather at certain points in the first, second, third quarter, then by the fourth quarter, when you're really ready to win the game, your best players are fresh. Your best players don't get hurt as much because they're getting proper rest, they're not having to play special teams. And it's in the later in the games where the lack of having a deep bench actually wins the game. It's not that Ole Miss didn't have eleven great players to match up against the first team of eleven great players, But then as a game we're on Georgia and Alabama would roll in their second team players, and their second team players were almost as good as our first team players. And when Alabama did that and Ole Miss was rolling in their second team players and they were freshmen and not up to the standard of the second team, it's the bench that actually won the game. And this year, for the first time, the depth of the talent at Ole Miss allows when our first teamers need a break or to come out, that our second teamers are really very talented, almost and good. And here we are beaten teams like Georgia and raising up the ranks to possibly be in the college football Playoff. And I have a chance at really being among the blue chip programs in the country. And it's not because we have better coaches, and it's not because we have better first teams. It's because we got a better bench. In my business, ten years ago, I would have said our business was kind of a young company. I was in my mid forties, and all the key people around my company we're also in their mid forties. Well here we are ten years later, and I'm fifty six, and all my key people are in their fifties and some in their sixties. And all of a sudden, we've gone from a really young company to one that's looking at aging out over the next ten years. And it dawned on me. I got to start hiring some young talent. I got to start bringing in some recent college grides and some thirty somethings that have got just a little bit of experience somewhere to build my bench. Because as I get older and my key people start getting older, and we start nearing retirement and it's time to start evolving out of the business, we need those young guys to come in to have some time to tutor them and teach them so that when they get into their forties, they've got the requisite experience and knowledge that we've passed on to them, and then we get out of the way. Now the company has another two decade of quality people to run it, but we're not going to have those people if we don't hire them now and teach them and mentor them and foster them and bring them along. So what we're doing is we're building our bench. We're building the second team to become the first team. I think when I think about Keith's email, he asks, how do you know when it's time? When is it time to step aside and allow the next generation of leaders and companies and nonprofits take over. My brother in law once told me you may be staying in the way of someone God is trying to develop and bless. And before that, he also asks about what do we do about the increased expenses on nonprofits and increased expenses on these things we're trying to do among the army of normal folks all over our country to make life better. When we're having fewer and fewer volunteers come along and I think that's it. I think we got to build our bench. So building the bench is this, grow the army of normal folks. Find more people that care about what's going on society, Encourage them to volunteer, bring them in and teach them the ropes so that when it is time to step away, your nonprofit actually becomes better and stronger. We got to build our bench, and candidly, the army of normal folks is the bench. If you're listening to me today and you're not involved in a nonprofit, or you have time to involve yourself in another profit, or you have friends and family that have big hearts and have passions and have abilities but aren't employing them in areas of need, encourage them, recruit them, build the bench because candidly, we all have a shelf life. We all have a shelf life of effectiveness. We all are going to get older, we are all going to eventually rotate out, and if we haven't done a good enough job building our bench and mentoring and fostering and passing on our wisdom and our experience so that when we do rotate out, they're ready to rotate in, well, then whatever we're involved in is only going to be as good as we are able to work, and that's not leaving much of a legacy. Build your bench, because from one ole miss Fan who suffered three decades of broken hearts and letdowns and miseries, I am seeing the value of what a bench does. It brings you from anonymity to prominence, and I think that could happen in our businesses and our nonprofits and our lives. We have to encourage an army of normal folks across this country to continue to get involved. Build the bench, grow the numbers, and then imagine what kind of impact we can have. And we can go from toiling and frustration and constant letdowns to success across the face of our entire nation by building our bench of an army in normal folks, of volunteers, using their passions and their disciplines, and employing those disciplines where they see an area need the bench. The army of normal folks. That's shop talk to day. Build the bench thanks to our producer, Iron Night Labs. We'll see you next week.