Wayne Whitzell talks with Justin Hitt about facilities management, data-driven decision making, and innovative approaches to outsourcing and community engagement. Discover practical tips, strategic insights and future trends in FM and organizational success.
In this episode of Connected FM, host Wayne Whitzell, Senior VP Strategic Accounts, SOLID Surface Care and Second Vice Chair on IFMA's Global Executive Board, welcomes Justin Hitt, Sr. Manager - Corporate Advisory & Solutions at Lincoln Property Company, for a wide-ranging conversation on facility management strategy, service delivery and the future of work.
Justin discusses his experience leading IFMA’s Museums and Cultural Institutions Council, the relationship between operations and sales, the importance of transparency in outsourcing partnerships, and how data can help facility managers communicate more effectively with leadership. Wayne and Justin also examine the growing role of AI, productivity tools and digital workflows in helping FM teams work more efficiently while maintaining a people-first approach to service delivery.
This episode is sponsored by SiteMap®, powered by GPRS. Learn more at sitemap.com/ifma
Timestamps:
Justin Hitt: [00:00:00] I think if an organization is evaluating that, they really need to look at what does the service mean, what does it look like, and have a really transparent conversation, and your provider should be honest about how they're gonna make money. I always look at it as like, look, we're, we're getting the keys to the kingdom.
The, the end user, a school, a municipality, a corporation, whatever it may be, a museum. They're giving us the keys to the kingdom for a three to five-year agreement, and we really need to take that responsibility as a steward very seriously and be completely transparent with them as they consider it.
Host: Welcome to Connected FM, a podcast connecting you to the latest insights, tools, and resources to help you succeed in facility management. This podcast is brought to you by IFMA, the leading professional association for facility managers. If you are ready to grow your network and advance in your career, go to ifma.org to get started.
In today's episode, host Wayne [00:01:00] Whitzell, the Senior VP of Strategic Accounts at Solid Surface Care and the second vice chair on IFMA's Global Board of Directors, welcomes Justin Hitt, the Senior Manager of Corporate Advisory and Solutions at Lincoln Property Company, to talk about facilities management, data-driven decision-making, and innovative approaches to outsourcing and community engagement.
Justin discusses his experience leading IFMA's Museum and Cultural Institutions Council and how cultural institutions create opportunities for knowledge sharing across the industry. They also explore the relationship between operations and sales, the importance of transparency in outsourcing partnerships, and how data can help facility managers communicate more effectively with leadership.
Now, let's get into it
Wayne Whitzell: Hello, everyone. Welcome to another edition of the Connected FM podcast. And boy, I'll tell you, we've been getting some, some great guests here lately, and I'm very excited to talk [00:02:00] to today's guest. He's not only a, an IFMA champion in a lot of different ways, but he's also a good friend of mine and, and someone that I think we're all gonna learn a lot from today.
I know every time I sit down with him, I come away, and it takes me a day or two just to even process half the things that come out of this guy's brain. But ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to introduce you to Justin Hitt. Justin, say hi to the folks.
Justin Hitt: Hey, everybody. It's nice to meet you. Wayne, thanks for having me.
So glad to be here.
Wayne Whitzell: So Justin I have a little bit of an interesting story here. So, I have some clients in Dallas, and periodically I get out there to visit them, and then uh, Justin and I connected. We connected w- it was through the Museum of Cultural Institutions Council, and you were president- Yes, sir
of that council at the time. That's right. And uh, that, I, that was one council I never really connected with, meaning not, not that I, there was no connection there. It just meant that I, I never really looked into it and, and all the different things that, that you guys do. And, and what fascinated me was the ability for you to connect the [00:03:00] local chapters with tours and events with museums.
I said, "Wow, that's the biggest no-brainer we have at IFMA," because everybody loves to see what's going on behind the scenes there and- tell us a little bit about that experience 'cause you're now the immediate past president of the, of the c- of the council. H- how, how did you- That's correct ... in, d- tell us about that because that's gotta be you know, yeah, you can understand corporate facilities or maybe healthcare facilities.
Everybody kind of intuitively knows that, but what are some of the things you, you learned being a the president of that council?
Justin Hitt: Well, f- so first and foremost, I, I got into this because I've always had a passion for museums. I've been a bit of a nerd. I'm a self-proclaimed nerd for sure, so museums definitely when we're talking about facilities management.
T-Rex skeletons, I mean, come on man, let's go. You know what I mean? So, uh, one thing I noticed though, when I, when I came into the business it was '21, and so the pandemic really had taken a toll on a lot of these standing committees and particularly in nonprofit sectors, right? Roles, memberships, things get cut and it makes it challenging despite the, just the [00:04:00] operating environment to be involved and support these organizations.
And so, when I joined there was a, a, a bit of a gap in the existing you know, council's leadership and they needed support, as most councils do, looking for volunteers, trying to get fresh young blood into it and-
Wayne Whitzell: Preach
Justin Hitt: it. Preach it ... there was just- You know? Right. And we're still doing it. Now I'm the one banging the drum, which is a lot of fun actually.
Like you said, immediate past president. So over the last five years we did learn how to, one, just fundamentally run the chapter, prevent it from being dissolved, and then take it to a state where we're engaging the community, and it's been a really fun journey. Like we said, kind of central theme to it is engaging the local chapters, creating the fun events the ones that blend the professional operational duties and stewardship that comes with being a facility manager with the fun of the community engagement and, and being a part of, you know, those valued sites i- in any particular city.
And for us, we decided to make that into like a traveling roadshow sort [00:05:00] of, panel conversation where we can kind of bring that conversation in a very focused way to the community, to the community of professionals within IFMA, and get input from those day-to-day operators on what it takes to run the facility- you know, it's, it's, it's, it's great way to share best practices.
And we've so far completed two of our most recent series here. We did one in LA. We did one in Cleveland on the 29th, a couple weeks ago at the Holden Forests & Gardens. Facility director there is Nico Viola, who's the current president of the Museums and Cultural Institutions Council. Shout out to Nico for taking over the council and taking it to that next stage where I think now this is gonna be...
You know, wait, I actually just got an email on the way in here from your Smithsonian Air and Space you know, six to 12 months out for us to plan it, but we've got something pretty special that we're working on there in DC. And then of course here in my local jurisdiction in Dallas, Texas, we've got some things planned where I've, I've worked [00:06:00] with some museums here locally, and we're gonna get a panel involved with them.
So lots of stories to tell, lots of fun events on the horizon, and it's really just getting started for us at the Museums Council, and I'm really excited to just to have been a part of the journey and to continue to be.
Wayne Whitzell: Boy, that, what a model. That's great to take, you know, a dispersed virtual group and then have physical touchpoints in the, what you call the traveling roadshow where people can actually get together and those best practices can be shared, but you're bringing it to the real world in a physical environment.
I know that's a challenge with so many councils and communities. Some have done it pretty well. I know we and the airport council have both done it very well. We meaning, we're- not we the corporate facilities, but Workplace Evolutionaries. They've done it very well, but that's a great model.
But you mentioned you're a nerd. I, I think if you see the Borg thing behind me there and possibly the Dune book here, I, I think we're both, Yep ... uh, in that mix. And, and part of that nerdness comes from maybe a love for analytics and data and things like that, and [00:07:00] not, not, not the data from Star Trek, but the data of the numbers.
And that's something that I, always resonated with me whenever I would talk with you, we would talk about the... 'Cause you're coming from the third party outsource provider position, you know, outsource management role. And I would always- Sure ... love to pick your brain about how you use data and so forth, but what I always loved is you would always take it back to brass tacks.
And you would always say, "Look, it all starts at the beginning. How are you assessing a client on the front end, and how are you delivering to that client's KPIs and SLAs?" That's even if they know what their SLAs are or what they want them to be and so forth. And I was always fascinated by the way you described those initial meetings and days and, and data gathering periods with a client.
So I, I, I wanna just take a moment here and t- tell me a bit, little bit about your philosophy about when you come in to a client of yours, how do you start that process, and what are you looking for, and how do you [00:08:00] guide that process?
Justin Hitt: So first, I wanna walk them through How they classify or personify their organization, right? So there's a couple tools that I can use to do that.
Even something as simple as a single PowerPoint slide with some sliding scales saying, you know, "On a scale of cost efficiency to premium service," right? "What, what is your organization? How do you buy?" Right? Because when you're developing an integrated service, that's a... There's so many ways to do FM, right?
And there's so many ways you can write a contract to deliver FM services that you wanna align first on what's important to them. But to your point, they may not necessarily know that functionally in terms of KPIs or scopes of work. And so, first and foremost, I wanna go back a few steps and say, like, "How do you classify your organization at a high level?
What are the expectations of the executives?" And then also, 'cause it may be a situation where the organizational motivations are different from the end users, I do the same thing for the end users, right? What are the end [00:09:00] users' culture like? What is their expectation as an occupant within a space? And then from there, then we can kind of get into a more service-oriented conversation about, "What are you looking for functionally?
What does the day-to-day want to feel like for you?" And then we can kind of say, "Okay, here's the management resource. Here's what that management resource needs to look and feel like, get compensated at a certain level based on a certain level of quality." And then you know, we can start to have supplier-partner conversations to bring in the right partners for them.
Because to your point or to your experience, right, in floor care, you know, there's, there's, there's a, there's a standard that should be, you know, practiced to care for certain materials, and then there's the budgetary limitations, right? And so we're trying to thread that needle with them across 15 to 20 scopes of work on any particular engagement.
And so y- it's, it's a lot of conversations from that point about, you know, the cost-benefit analysis of certain [00:10:00] practices, preventative maintenance programs versus capital replacement over a period of time. And again, we wanna start where they're at, so sometimes they may not be ready to have that conversation.
Sometimes, like you said, we may need to catalog everything, get it into a system, start talking over what the maintenance practices should even be before we start you know, fully projecting the capital replacements and stuff. So we f- we, we see what they need, and then we go from there.
Wayne Whitzell: Yeah, I, I... When you were describing it, the, you were using a lot of very qualitative language.
You know, look and feel and I, I, I... It just sur- always surprises me that that's the place where you start, and not, not in a bad way, but in... Because y- we think this is a very, "Look, come in, save me 14%," or, "Get this place whipped into shape because my own internal FM organization isn't doing it. So you guys come in and do this and, you know, bring in the numbers."
But you're starting with that place of saying, how do you tie this to your company's culture, mission, vision, values? How can we deliver [00:11:00] and serve that need? And then you back into, well, if that's what you want, that's going to require a 24-hour response time here, which is then gonna cost you X. And then- Yep
well, I- X is too much. Well, how about a 48-hour response time? And you start to really Take what a company says is important, you know, on their mission, vision, value statements, and in their culture, and you start to see, well, are they gonna put money behind those things or are they going to look to externalize the cost of those things on their, their s- their staff and their vendors?
Which can happen. And, and so, so you, you go through this, th- this process of really trying to pull this out of them, and it's really a... To me, well, I wanna get your thoughts on this. I, I, h- I think that a lot of the outsource providers are suc- very successful because they go into organizations and they often will speak a language or, or provide a framework that sadly a lot of FM departments internally don't do.
Like I, I talk to some FMs and, and say, "Well, when was the last time you [00:12:00] negotiated your SLAs with your internal departments?" "And w- we don't have SLAs with our internal departments." Well, why not? Because it seems to me if, if I'm, if I'm saying to senior leadership I need two more FTEs on my team, that's gonna be a lot easier to justify if I can say, "Well, our SLAs with you say you need a three-day response time.
In order to do that with this new building you put, put us in, I need two more FTEs or th- that, it's gonna go up to six days a week, or six, six days rather of response time." And you, you, Right ... you're taking that again, qualitative to quantitative journey there and putting that in. But do you, do you find when you talk to some of these organizations that are interested in your services that it's something that they're maybe not getting with their internal teams?
W- well I see you smiling there, so you got a lot something going on there.
Justin Hitt: Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. So yeah, it's, it's something that they're not getting, but some of it is that they don't have the language. So here's something I've been working on that I've found very interesting and compelling.
So the way that we do service where [00:13:00] I'm at currently is we, we use a s- a, a system agnostic approach to kind of pull in information from the client's own systems and information from our FM systems that are relevant, performance metrics, cost allocations, and things like that. And then kinda marry the two into custom dashboards.
And you know, we create really relevant metrics that help the FM on site speak the interdepartmental language that helps them kind of move these arguments along. So for example, in a higher education pursuit I was working on, right?
We use this approach to say, "Look, what if you had a department or a new building, and that's where all the work orders are coming from, and that's where all the expense is coming from." But can you actually track it to say that that is where the expense is coming from? So then you can actually even say, "Okay, yeah, we'll give you the extra guy or person to perform the work, and we'll put it uh, against this department's P&L."
You kind of have to be informed, and you ultimately have to have the [00:14:00] department head be fine with that, but not if they don't have the compelling evidence, and particularly in a academic institution, to justify it. We can say, "Look, well, here's this level of service that you're expecting, the look and feel that you're trying to deliver.
Here's the data to support that historically." And, and then, yeah, this justifies the, the head count modification, essentially. And it's helping the FM on site speak that language to the departmental and the financial leaders of the higher education institution to move that through, 'cause it's tough, especially in a political or, or a, a public institution rather, right?
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Wayne Whitzell: Yeah, that's a really good point I know with some of the education content from FEA, they have a really good session on framing, how to frame these things. And the language is, is, is different to the different stakeholders that are in there. And how do you frame something to a CFO is gonna be different versus how do you frame something to HR and so forth.
And so how, when do you, when do you create teams to go after the final boss, right? Who do you pull into you know, you get somebody from HR to back you up on this, and you get somebody from O&M and from engineering, and then you, then you go after it. But now that's, that as- assessment part I think is so key and, I mean, in all areas of life, right, is this gets back to, you know, Simon Sinek is starting with why and, and so forth, is even in the operation of our chapters and councils, if we don't get back to what is the strategic alignment that we have here, [00:16:00] then almost everything we then do is in a vacuum.
It's the, it- it's- it's- it's gut checks, f- flying by the seat of your pants. But if you can anchor something down into a something, right, and drive a stake in the dirt and say, "Here's what we're measuring. Here's what's important to us," and then, that you could always move the stake, but right now this is what it is, and how do we measure our distance closer to or from that depending on the, the metric?
And,
Justin Hitt: Mm-hmm ...
Wayne Whitzell: I mean, people have heard me say this so many times is that so many FMs are just in a tactical... I mean, you look at FM, it's the black box of processing problems.
Justin Hitt: Mm-hmm.
Wayne Whitzell: It is. You know, the, the problem comes in, we deal with the problem, we send it on its way and fix it. And a- a- and a successful day is, well, we dealt with that fire and we, we came away with only second-degree burns, and we high-five each other and- And there's
Justin Hitt: only 20 fires left
Wayne Whitzell: Right.
Only 20. Good day. Good day. Good Monday. But that's, that to me, that's a- an interesting part about all of this and, and some of the tools that, that, that you use [00:17:00] to, to assess that. So let's talk about data and, and AI. And I know you and I can spiral into conversations of AI and start getting into some things.
One of the things you said to me a long time ago that, that still terrifies me is that we can you know, these concepts of influencers and so forth that are out there and people- Mm ... on, on, on the web, is that you kind of look down the line and say, "Well, I think we're eventually all gonna have our own personal algorithm influencer that's perfectly tailored to everything we want."
And it's not even gonna be a physical person anymore that's the influencer, but that it's terrifying to think that The, the connection that we would have together as hum- human beings and the interplay and, and interdimensionality of, of working with other people will be replaced by something that gives you exactly what you want whenever you want it, however you want it.
And, and, and then- Well, let me
Justin Hitt: flip it on its head ...
Wayne Whitzell: challenge. Okay.
Justin Hitt: Let me flip it on its head for you, 'cause that was doom and gloom. And now, just because of some stuff I'm seeing in our own, in, in our own business and in my own workflows, [00:18:00] it's kind of actually flipped on its head now. So now, you know that old phrase, like, "Oh, if I had a good employee and I could just clone 'em.
If I could just get 10 or 15 more of them, Joe or Jane, it would be amazing," right? "And I could put 'em in business development, I could put 'em in, market research or whatever," right? Well, now you kinda can do that with the whole AI and sub-agents and all this stuff, right? So historically where, you know, in my own workflow I would have to identify, do the market research, create the material, write the pricing, and do the actual, like, contract negotiation.
Well, now as long as I, I can do research I can have an AI do research and have another one take that research and draft up rough draft material in the branding of a particular client to kind of outline a value proposition, then I can use my own analysis in knowing and meeting the people and getting the look and feel to kind of insert that into what the final product should look like.
And then I can bring in my own organizational support for marketing to put finishing touches on it. But it really is [00:19:00] like, you know, versions of the person. So then now instead of everything being tailored to you by someone that's not you, it's actually you have so many ways to tailor yourself to the market and to your function that there's so many ways, as long as people are looking for that, then there's a lot of ways you actually, you as you, can be received and, and add value to various aspects of your function or your business.
And that, that applies to sales. It also applies to facilities management, and there's, there's, there's so many ways that you can use this stuff. I mean, we, like you said, we haven't talked since, I don't know, it's been a few months, but the, the industry on that has moved so fast in terms of AI productivity and, and workflows just in the last few months really.
Wayne Whitzell: Boy, how fortuitous that I have a Borg in the back here where-
Justin Hitt: Seriously ...
Wayne Whitzell: it's the, the, the many to one concept, right? You did flip it on its head, you... I mean, that's really what it is, is, is you, you w- one, a person, can become legion Because you, you can- Yeah ... you [00:20:00] can adapt and morph and, and, and in a s- I mean, in a sense that's you know, the definition of a, a gentleman or a lady back in, in the old days is, is one that makes the people around them comfortable, right?
Uh-huh. And one that ha- has grace. So if you can find a way to to do that with these tools, ultimately that's what you're talking about, is making a potential client be comfortable with you and framing, there's that word again, framing your- Yeah ... services and offerings and tailoring those things to what they, they need specifically.
And I think to where, where this goes off the, the rails so, so much, and maybe, and maybe this is the solution or the panacea for that, so many vendors, associate members vendors look at say whatever it nee- you need to say to get the business. Do whatever you need to do and then we'll figure it out on the back end.
That can be awful when it comes to a vendor maybe that's your landscape or when it's your, you know, your, your plant maintenance or something, not, not physical plant but your, your green plants. But now talk about a vendor that does [00:21:00] that as an outsourced provider across the enterprise. Because they want the business and they've got you know, sales folks that are out there selling and, and, and trying to push these things and, and if it's a let's get the business at all costs, I mean, that's starting off on a really, really dangerous foot, Seriously
Justin Hitt: I mean, I've seen it firsthand. You know, I mean, I've seen it where, you know, you're reviewing spend and it's very tempting to say, "Oh, we can save them 15 to 20%," and then just hope and pray. But my dad always taught me that reputation is everything in business.
And, you know, what, what ends up happening when you do that on an enterprise pursuit, $20 million a year or more, then it's the individual plant leadership and the teams and the end users that suffer for years potentially until either, you know, you do renegotiate and someone bites the bullet and he loses their shirt on some financial aspect or another, or they just sever the relationship entirely.
And if, and that's a lot of change management that occurred to then outsource and then remove yourself from the outsource model or [00:22:00] to a different provider. And so, you know, for putting people first, like you really do, you do need to come correct when you're operating at that level, and I've, I've seen it go off the rails.
Wayne Whitzell: Yeah. A buddy of mine Joe Selby uh, CFM he would always say, "Listen, we both signed that contract." So when there's a bad contract or one that, you know, we look at the numbers in that contract and if we just did a, a denominator comparison and say, "Wait a minute, h- how are you doing this for that price?"
You're either paying your people $2.43 an hour or you're not going to do the scope. But yet, s- a lot of organizations, demand organizations sign those contracts and figure, "Eh, you know, we'll just, we'll just make s- we'll just step on their neck and make sure that they do what's in the scope." And it's just this adversarial relationship you see a lot of times when w- you know, having these choo- I mean, let me put it this way.
There are times where you are choosing a client and you have to say, "This isn't the right thing for us. What, what [00:23:00] we s- what you've told us is X, but you want X for Y, and it just can't be done, and, and that's gonna put us in an adversarial position right out of the gate." You know, that, that's something I'm s- I'm sure in your career you've seen that happen.
Justin Hitt: Well, and so much of it, how much of it is structural as well, right? So for example, and this is a good question if you're ever considering an outsource model or your organization is, right? How is the service provider actually looking to make money, right? So for example, you know, I've seen different approaches to this, and many times it's not the base contract where they're making the money, right?
The cost of doing business may be 6 or 7%. They might charge 10, 12%. It's, it's nominal margin and if you mess up, then there goes that couple percent, right? So in those instances, really the money was to be made on the project, so it's selling X to sell Y, and that Y is gonna be the profit driver, right? But, but again, to your point about doing due diligence early on, if, if that Y isn't even there, like say the client doesn't have the [00:24:00] capital to give you Y, well, then your account teams and the end user both suffer because you're not hitting your profitary expectations, and all you're trying to do is, is get money out of the client to, to meet them, right?
And that's not serving anybody, right? So, you know, I think whenever if an organization is evaluating that, they really need to look at what does the service mean, what does it look like, and have a really transparent conversation, and your provider should be honest about how they're gonna make money. I always look at it as like, look, we're, we're getting the keys to the kingdom.
The, the end user, a school, a municipality, a corporation, whatever it may be, a museum. They're giving us the keys to the kingdom for a three to five-year agreement, and we really need to take that responsibility as a steward very seriously and be completely transparent with them as they consider it. And I think that's, that, that, that will produce better outcomes if the, if the industry follows that.
Wayne Whitzell: Boy, you're, you're preaching it today. I mean, this is... See, this is everybody. See, this is what I this is what I contend with while trying to eat [00:25:00] barbecue sitting across from this guy. A- and- I was
Justin Hitt: pretty nervous to get on this one, man.
Wayne Whitzell: No, that's fi- I mean, so there's a, a phrase I've been using for I guess about a year or two now.
I've been developing a new session. I, I, I haven't released it yet, called Golden Statues on Clay Feet: Cultivating Integrity in the Age of Manufactured Authenticity. And it's a mouthful. And
Justin Hitt: he says I'm preaching it. Okay. All right. Okay.
Wayne Whitzell: But the, the golden statue on clay feet situation to me is it, it fits so well because whether you're, like, that landscaping vendor or whether you are one of the, you know, giant outsourced FM companies, as we put our best look and face and services forward, and we have very talented people out there selling those services to demand organizations, to wh- whomever, a- a- and they're very good at that.
And there's a lot of, "This is what we offer. This is what we do. We're, we're, we're, it's... We're putting our best face forward." But the golden statue on clay feet comes to the point, well, clay feet is the delivery. [00:26:00] Are, are you... Are we able to deliver on the promises that we make as these, you know, these golden statues out there?
And in some cases they're, we, whether you're the landscaping vendor or whether you're the big, one of the big outsource providers, is you're selling something that you're then gonna throw over the fence to your operations team to execute And how is that handoff going to go? Is it going to be throwing a mess over the fence and saying, "We sold it, and now it's you guys have to figure it out," or is there a continuity and a connection between the people that are actually going to deliver these services versus the ones that sell them?
So, so talk to me about that, that very precious, delicate moment between the sales and operations. I mean, there's always tension between those two divisions, right, in general, and then that's healthy to some degree. But talk to me about how you can bridge that gap or strengthen those... Let me put it, how can you splint the clay feet?
Justin Hitt: Okay. All right. So we... I, I do see a, a good approach to this that we've used in the past [00:27:00] organizationally and we're using again. It is really somewhat unique in that our, our sales organization reported up to the operation. So it is not a separate, like, individual. Now, there's pros and cons to this, but for us, it was very easy to, to make commitments because the operators and the sales in the way I do business, have always been tied at the hip.
So generally speaking, other than the first meeting or the second meeting I'm gonna have the operator, someone in that management chain who is you know, responsible for delivering that commitment. And so then when it comes time to price the deal and move it through to an execution state, the handoff is much smoother because you can say, "Hey, look, we were on the site walk.
We met with them here. They said this was important. Here's what the price is for that. We kinda walked it through internally." That, I, I think, then allows it to Be more of a celebration when it comes time to hand off, because now we're all getting to live by the commitments we [00:28:00] made together. And I think that's a, a, a good way to go about it.
It doesn't go, always go that way but, but that's the best. I've seen it go very well when that sort of alignment is there.
Wayne Whitzell: Yeah. Well, I, think if we ran a thread through all the things that we talked about today is that a, a, an organization considering outsourcing really now has a few tips that they could employ into making that successful.
I think one of the things that stood out to me is if I were doing that, I would request that I meet with both the operational side and the sales side simultaneously and have them in the same room together. That's a requirement for us. We're not going to just- Absolutely ... i, I, I want to see this, and I, I for- I'm struggling to remember what book it was that I read, and I'm kicking myself I can't remember.
But they, they essentially said, "Look, if I'm gonna meet with anybody about who's going to manage my account, I want to meet with the person who's going to be doing the day-to-day. I don't want you to send in the gold statue. I want you to send in the clay feet. Let me talk to them and see, and let them...
I'm gonna see if they can pick holes through the, through what it is that is being offered. And that's [00:29:00] who I want to meet, meet with." So I, to me, that's a, the big sign. I mean, we try to do that internally as, as you know, people that service the built environment, is we really try to integrate, you know, sales and operations into a cohesive approach.
Not only does that shorten cycles of, of interacting with clients by having everybody there, but it also the problems can get... I mean, listen, operations is by nature meant to be pessimistic and sales by nature is meant to be optimistic. All right? Let- shoot holes through this operation so that we deliver something good, you know.
Sales, rally the troops.
Justin Hitt: The sweet spot is when they flip it. The sweet spot is when they can flip it, but that's not sustainable forever 'cause, you know, if your salesperson's worried about the deal and your ops people wanna go after it, you know, then
Wayne Whitzell: That's, that's like hitting the perfect golf shot, right?
That's where it feels like, oh, right. That'd be the sweet spot, right?
Justin Hitt: Like, you guys wanna do this, and I'm worried that we... All right. Well,
Wayne Whitzell: all right. Right. No, that, yeah, that's, I... Now you say that. Exactly. I've seen that a couple of times. So yep. Well, listen, Justin, this has been great connecting. And, and just to encourage anybody that you know, even if you just wanna pick somebody's brain about this concept and maybe [00:30:00] what you should be looking for is I'm sure you know, Justin is a, is a diehard IFMA person just like so many of us, and we appreciate that service.
And, and also, I... If anybody's here in chapter leadership and you guys are struggling to get a tour, why don't you talk to the Museum of Cultural Institutions Council about doing one of these meetings in, in your local market? For sure.
Justin Hitt: Please do. Yes. Yeah. Yes.
Wayne Whitzell: Yeah. Well, Justin, you know, on behalf of the Connected FM podcast team, thank you for taking the time to talk with us, and it was great to connect with you.
And I, I appreciate your friendship and, and your service to IFMA and look forward to doing this again down the road.
Justin Hitt: Feeling's entirely mutual, Wayne. Thanks to you and the Connected FM podcast team. Appreciate y'all.
Host: Thanks for tuning into the Connected FM podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, please take a moment to rate and review the show because it really helps us reach more listeners just like you. And don't forget to hit the subscribe button so you never miss an episode. See you next [00:31:00] time.