Episode 188
OnlyFans for Engineers? Let's Talk Strategy
Most business owners are sitting here in early January without any real plan for 2026 because they're still trying to close out 2025.
Steve makes the case for one single measurable outcome that determines a successful year while Brad pushes back with the reality of "we just want more" thinking.
Using gross margin improvement as an example, we walk through how to get every department aligned on the same goal, why supplier accountability is an untapped opportunity, and how to turn objectives into 12-week strategies.
We also tackle why leadership is hard when you actually have to make decisions, how the Hoshin planning system creates 81 squares of complexity nobody needs, and why squirrels with shiny objects will always try to derail your focus unless pet projects directly support your singular goal.
Highlights:
- Why "we just want more" or "we want better" fails without defining what that actually means in measurable terms.
- The trust but verify approach to supplier invoices especially around tariff line items that might have been passed through five times.
- How employees come back with excuses about SAP tickets and IT problems when you give them nine goals instead of one clear focus.
- The danger of operating in a one-year vacuum where beneficial three-year projects get killed because they hurt this year's numbers.
- Why amazing things happen when you make actual decisions instead of living in "I'll think about it" mode that keeps everyone guessing.
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Transcript
Hello everyone and welcome back to this episode of the Blue Collar BS podcast. I am your cohost Brad along with the Mr. Wonderful. There you go. Hit your Q, hit your marks. How are you Mr. Doyle as we are here in early January. What's going on?
Steve Doyle (:Steve. Yep.
Steve Doyle (:you know, just enjoying the nice cold weather. Really, really loving it, honestly. I am. It's cold like my soul.
Brad Herda (:Yes.
You would. You would love it.
That is a true statement a completely true statement nothing wrong with that you are as accurate as very accurate
Steve Doyle (:It is. It is. It is.
Brad Herda (:So as this show is sitting here in early January, you know, everybody's kind of back to work, everybody's back into the swing of things. Schools are back, college is back, everybody's back. Who the fuck knows if the government shut down as we're sitting here on January, December to know what's happening. So I guess today I just want to kind of go through.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:how to deal with that noise coming into a new year. It's likely most of the audience or many of the audience really hasn't set any 2026 planning yet.
Steve Doyle (:which just completely baffles me. I'm gonna be honest.
Brad Herda (:because because you know we got to figure out what happens in 2020 we got finished we got close out 2025 before we can tell you what's going to happen for 26
Steve Doyle (:my god. Seriously? You don't. No!
Brad Herda (:Well, I understand, but that's the reality of many, many, that's the reality though of many organizations. So as we're sitting here in January, if we try to leverage 10X or the 12 week year or things like that, what would be some of the things as we sit here early January to offer the audience opportunity both personally and professionally and
Steve Doyle (:No! No!
Brad Herda (:as leaders or individual contributors to start their 2026 out.
Steve Doyle (:Honestly, simplify most of us. Overcomplicate the goals and we. And yeah, recovering recovering and yes, 100 % true will overcomplicate taking a straw out of the out of the wrapper 100%. 100 % right there. But honestly, it's a lot of times.
Brad Herda (:Says the engineer.
Brad Herda (:you
Steve Doyle (:We're so focused on having, you know, five goals, seven goals, three goals, like whatever it is, we have all these goals. We have all these objectives, thousands of strategies on how to complete these goals and, you know, more priorities than we know what to do with and countless activities that steer everybody nowhere. And honestly, I can't preach enough. Simplify what is the one thing in 2026 that you
ultimately want to accomplish the one thing. Simplify it.
Brad Herda (:All right, so what if that one thing for 2026 is just more?
Steve Doyle (:More what?
Brad Herda (:That's what I'm asking. Well, we just want 26 to be better than 25.
Steve Doyle (:More what?
Steve Doyle (:How?
Brad Herda (:Hey, now you're getting complicated. Right. So so so how so let's walk through let's walk through some some of those things so that way right people can have an idea right because it's it's resolution season it's all those things it's I'm going to do this but ultimately decisions were not made people are doing they're making those commitments because it's the thing to do when calendar flips over because
Steve Doyle (:I am I'm asking those questions. How like how like what what is you have to define?
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:Oh, it's going to be a healthier year and we're going to do this and we're going to do that. And, know, we're going to. OK, cool. By mid February. Sure. OK, here's we're back to old habits. It comes down to decision making both personally and professionally. if I. All right. So if more. So if you had to offer up your your genius. May use that word lightly, maybe an air quotes.
Steve Doyle (:Right.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Right.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Wow. Okay. All right.
Brad Herda (:to the OEM manufacturers or construction firms, et cetera, that we are targeting to talk to.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Right?
Brad Herda (:More meaning would you want them to focus on more sales, more control over cost of goods sold, more efficiency, more profit, more culture, more stability, more... What would more be?
Steve Doyle (:More culture. More. All right, so first let's just define something. I'm very, very big on defining the single measurable outcome that will determine a successful year. So when you say I want more, I want better. What is that one thing, that one outcome that will determine a successful year?
some businesses, it'd be, I want to increase revenue to 40 million. Maybe it's 3 billion. I don't know what it is, but what is that? It could be improved gross margin by 27%. Okay. Maybe I want to raise customer satisfaction to 90%. Maybe I want it to be 99%. All right. Maybe it's, want to complete ERP implementation by the end of the year. Whatever it is,
Right as funny as that is
Brad Herda (:Define, define, so you're, define a complete ERP implementation because they're never complete.
Steve Doyle (:Correct, right? But some people have that fallacy. That's kind of why I threw that one in there, right? But it's what is a single measurable outcome that's going to determine success for your year and whether you're a business owner, you're in a C-suite, you're in a small upcoming company. What is that one thing? Because ultimately everything around that goal, that's how we're going to work on all the activities and measure
and have a scorecard that we're talking about every single day, how are we driving to accomplish that goal? So number one, how are we defining that single measurable outcome that defines or determines a successful year?
Steve Doyle (:Okay.
Brad Herda (:Okay. And how, if you are the, that business owner.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:Right, because it could mean very different things to very different people at very different stages of life, correct? And too often we get scared in the, well, it can't just be one thing because everything is connected. So if I just pick the one thing, how can I, let's just use gross margin because in my belief is more people have impact organization on gross margin.
Steve Doyle (:Correct. Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:than they do on profitability because we can't control. Most employees have no control over operating expenses. The owner gets to decide, am I going to buy capital? Am I going to do things? Am I going to make all that stuff happen? So let's just use gross margin. We're going to increase gross margin by 27%.
Steve Doyle (:Correct.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:Which is a great example. And I think that is an area that many don't focus on because they focus on top line sales and bottom line profit and they lose all the other shit. And now we get paying out commissions on stupid shit we shouldn't be. And we're paying out bonuses on numbers that are fictitious. And it's like, what are we doing here? So if we use gross margin as the example, what would be some of the activities you'd want to suggest to focus on?
throughout the rest of the organization.
Steve Doyle (:Well, before we get to activities, I need to define a couple other things.
Brad Herda (:Jesus Christ. Here comes the engineer. I just defined it. 27 % gross margin increase.
Steve Doyle (:Well, I mean, well, you define the goal, but what are the outcomes for doing that? To to improve your your gross margin, like how how do you how are you going to do that?
Brad Herda (:We gotta do the act. We gotta do the thing. Just gotta go do the thing, man.
Steve Doyle (:Do the thing. Yeah. Well, okay. But what is what is the thing? Well, how would you how would you define, you know, the those objectives for the gross margin?
Brad Herda (:mean the objectives? It's revenue minus...
cost its revenue minus cost of goods sold, gives me my gross margin, what's the problem?
Steve Doyle (:Okay. it can be, but I mean, there's there, like you said, there's a lot of different things that go into and all, almost all employees have an impact. So could be maybe like if we're talking to manufacturing company, maybe I want to reduce scrap and rework by 20 % across the operation team. How would that.
Brad Herda (:That's the calculation. What's the... It's simple. Why are you trying to overcomplicate it?
Steve Doyle (:improve your gross margin.
Brad Herda (:carries through.
Steve Doyle (:Right? Maybe...
Brad Herda (:depends on where the scrap is happening.
Steve Doyle (:Mm hmm. Right, but it requires the discipline of that team.
Brad Herda (:Right? it a customer return because they've already recognized all the revenue and it's coming back as bad product or did catch it as whip?
Steve Doyle (:pens.
Brad Herda (:I understand if you want to go down this path, we can go tit for tat all day long.
Steve Doyle (:We're going to go down this path, Brad. We're going to go down this path because we both know where it leads. Right? So. It does so. It's going to get broken down a little bit further. You can re ask me the question. You're going to keep leading the witness, OK?
Brad Herda (:You
Brad Herda (:So let me re-ask you the question, Mr. Doyle. I'm gonna keep leading the witness. What would be some of the areas upon which if 20 % gross margin or 27 % gross margin increase is the opportunity, where are the areas upon which you would suggest somebody to start looking at to create those objective sub-goals, strategies?
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:whatever the activities, the things that George needs to go take care of to have an impact. How do I get every department to have an impact on that gross margin? Where are some of the areas that you would typically lead people to that have a high, high degree of impact without a high, let's go with high impact, low effort on gross margin. Where are those areas?
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:High impact, low effort. So, you know, when I think of different objectives or different areas, right? I'm going to look at my ops team, right? There's a couple of different ways from that standpoint. I can look at reducing scrap. I can look at my overall cycle time, right? More parts through, it all has an impact. I can look at my project management team with scheduling accuracy.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah, what? wow. I mean, who doesn't who doesn't like downtime? Or extra overtime? Right, but that's well, that's where that would fit into it, right? The other thing is, is look at look at all of our sales teams with our estimating and pricing. Like, how does that all come into play?
Brad Herda (:How could that impact Rose Margin?
Brad Herda (:That's what I was waiting for you to bring up is the manpower piece of it.
Brad Herda (:How about we just ask the question as to the tariff question as an example?
Steve Doyle (:rates.
Steve Doyle (:Okay, sure.
Brad Herda (:on the purchasing side. really, why is this really here? Just ask the question on your invoices. No, asking it when you get the invoice, hey, show me that this is real.
Steve Doyle (:What? Having the tariff or not having the tariff?
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:Right, show me that this is this is this is real money coming through. Don't just put it on there as a line item without any indication and just. Oh well, this has got passed through five times and it might have been $1 and now it's $75. Well, hang on, no, let's. Let's make sure that. You understand what you're paying for as well.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Right.
Brad Herda (:Supplier accountability to me is one of the big, big pieces of it. And too often I see it's an untapped market. Not that I'm trying to go down the, former employer path of gotta win every, win every battle, but there needs to be some trust, but verify along the way.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Right.
Steve Doyle (:Absolutely, 100%. 100%. So. Once we have all of our different objectives identified. Right, I break it down and I use I break it down into like a 12 week strategy, so using the 12 week 12 week year. Right? So once you have each one of those objectives, what are the strategies for each objective?
that you can take within 12 weeks. What are those things? So like if we talked about.
Brad Herda (:Don't run a drug boat because it's going to get there's going be a problem. I'd advise against it right now.
Steve Doyle (:Peace.
You
Wow. What I mean, I guess I mean, I guess it, I mean, it is manufacturing delivery, but I mean, in a roundabout way, but let's not go there. Let's not go there, right?
Brad Herda (:That could be a strategy, right? I could go do that to go increase my gross margins.
Brad Herda (:Well, the only reason I say that is because I, what would I, people will say, I want to increase my top line revenue or I want to, I want to have a million dollars or whatever. Okay. Well, one of the strategies that you could go be a drug dealer if you wanted to be, but does it fit your, but does it fit your morals and values and your other things that go along with it? So it's a bad strategy, but that's.
Steve Doyle (:It is.
Are you correct?
I mean, hey, whatever.
Brad Herda (:But there's opportunity. You could go be a TikToker. You could go be a face page or whatever.
Steve Doyle (:You can be on OnlyFans, I guess. You can be on OnlyFans, I guess. mean, sell your finger picks.
Brad Herda (:Carry on.
Steve Doyle (:I mean, that's a strategy too, right?
Brad Herda (:It is.
Steve Doyle (:But anyways.
Steve Doyle (:You got me all through it. yeah, I'll tell you to focus. Acronym included. Right, but so now that we've got, so we've talked about our goals, we've talked about different objectives that you can have for that goal of improving the margin, your gross margin, right? Now it really, and you got the different strategies to take each one. let's just, I like to focus on scrap because.
Brad Herda (:Focus Doyle, focus.
Steve Doyle (:who doesn't like scrap reduction. what are your, and the strategy would be, what are the top three scrap drivers and actually start doing some root cause analysis on what's causing those, right? And implement the corrective actions in the first 12 week cycle.
Brad Herda (:people to do that I'm too busy.
Steve Doyle (:well, it's listen. What do you want to work on? What do want your focus to be? Right, and this is how you get everybody focused on the same thing on. I'm truly driving. If you want to improve your gross margin, this is how you're going to get all everybody aligned on the team. Right?
Brad Herda (:It's so hard. It's just, it's so, that means I gotta make a decision and I gotta listen to all the whining and all the things.
Steve Doyle (:I mean
Steve Doyle (:You know, if you pulled your head out of your rear sometimes, yeah, yeah, yes it is.
Brad Herda (:Leadership is hard.
Yes, yes it is. And that's the point here folks. You need to make the decision and work on the accountability along the way so that every one of those things is driving up to that, which is why it's really important to have the one thing. Everybody should have a number. Everybody should know what winning looks like. Everybody should know how winning is defined by you as the owner, the business leader. You should have an idea on your own personal side. How are you going to win every day?
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Right.
Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:Getting up and meditating. Are you going to the gym every day after work? Are you spending time with your family? You know, taking the dog for a walk. What is what does winning look like for you? Because we get lost in all of the things and when you. Make the decision.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:It's amazing what happens in life when decisions are made. the key is you got to decide you can't live in this. Well, maybe kind of sorta ifs. I'll think about it.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:Because amazing things can happen when you rally people around you to share your vision and see your goal and get them involved.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah, and it, when we're crystal clear on what that goal, that singular goal is, everybody wins because everybody understands how to make an impact with that. When you have multiple goals, it leads to multiple times objectives and everything just keeps increasing. And then you start losing or delineating or diluting the impact that people can have and make.
Brad Herda (:Oh yeah, I remember when we went through when we were going through automotive phase and they brought the Hoshin system into the organization of all the roll down things like, oh my there's way too, way too many things here. Way too many, it's like nine different things going across. It's like a nine by nine, 81 squares to fill in type them. Like, are you kidding me? This is way complex.
Steve Doyle (:you
Steve Doyle (:Yeah.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah, you spend more time tracking than actually doing anything in meetings talking about the things rather than actually doing the things and getting the actual savings done. It's like just just.
Brad Herda (:Correct. And then your and your employees come back with all the excuses of all the things because you didn't give them the time to do the thing to make it happen. And I don't have the report and da da da da. And well, SAP needs to do this and it doesn't. So I got to write a ticket. IT hasn't done their job or there's so many ways to. You just need to eliminate that. So the simplification is spot on, sir.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Right.
Yeah, yeah. So then the whole reason for doing the simplification is just to get everyone aligned with minimal ambiguity. Right, we can't tell you how many times.
Brad Herda (:It's a big word, ambiguity.
Steve Doyle (:Now, sometimes even I amaze myself with the words I use. But I just keep coming back to the whole notion of.
When we're crystal clear, our employees know how to win.
Steve Doyle (:And ultimately all of these changes happen because our employees know how to execute on the things that matter the most.
Brad Herda (:Mm-hmm. And it helps keep the squirrels at bay.
Steve Doyle (:Mm hmm, because there's always going to squirrels or squirrels with shiny objects. Because there's always going to be something to go look at and do like, what if we went over here and did this? OK, yeah, yeah.
Brad Herda (:both.
Brad Herda (:Correct.
Right. And if you can't get the opportunity to make it match the goal, then it shouldn't be being worked on. And you have to have the kahunas and the bandwidth and the support within not only from your own kahunas, but from your team to be able to support you both up and down and say, no, we're not going to do this. This pet project and.
Steve Doyle (:Absolutely.
Brad Herda (:And if you're only operating in a one year vacuum, a one year cycle, some of those things can be very beneficial three to four years down the road. Now, all of a you start making exceptions to all that. So that's why it's important to start making sure you have a two to three year vision. So if you are going to go work on a re-racking project or a shop floor layout change or things like that in order to increase the efficiency, well, it's just not going to happen overnight. And it's going to be a detriment to the current goal.
Steve Doyle (:Yep.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Uh-huh.
Yep, absolutely. Absolutely. So.
Brad Herda (:So no one will ever make the improvement because it's a detriment to the current goal. So you don't move forward, but you hit this year's goal at the cost of the next two or three years. So you gotta be careful of some of those things as well.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Absolutely.
Brad Herda (:So, well that was fun Mr. Doyle.
Steve Doyle (:Good. That was a good topic.
I'll allow it for today. I'll allow the funness for today. I'll allow it for today. We can let this one go. We can let this one set sail.
Brad Herda (:Sure. You'll allow it for today? We can let this one go? Okay.
Brad Herda (:Alrighty, sir. Have a wonderful rest of your early January and we will talk soon. Batman.
Steve Doyle (:All right, later.
