Episode Overview
Yes, that’s Karly Rolls’ family name on the business. The vice president of Rolls Mechanical is the boss’ daughter, but she’s never been handed anything in the trade world.
Rolls is slated for succession, but she’s learned the business from the ground up, and comes to work with heart, hustle and humility.
“ I've always wanted to make sure that I don't become a silver spoon leader,” she says. You hear about second, third-generation companies crumbling under the leadership of people who want to reap all the rewards but not do the work.”
Rolls has gone out of her way to leave the impression that she has earned her position..
I take that very personally — I don't want to become a leader like that,” she says.
She also leads by example. And Rolls expects employees to come to work with positive attitudes.
Her goal is to make good hires and not hang on to employees with negative mindsets.
“We want to weed out the ‘can't-do’ employees and inspire and retain the ‘can-do’ employees,” Rolls says.
On her journey from shop hand to VP, she’s brought positivity while also maintaining “old-school” values.
Her strong desire for leadership credibility has enabled Rolls to scale the service department from three to 80 techs and grow the company to 200 employees.
“ We've always taken a mentality that we can do anything, and that starts from the very top,” she says. “And when we have people that have that attitude, we can grow, we can scale and we can implement new things.”
Karly Rolls recently joined ServiceTitan’s Jackie Aubel on the “Toolbox for the Trades” podcast, which included Rolls’ thoughts on:
[5:54] Why having a technical background is important as a leader in the trades
[10:38] Getting out of the business to make time to work on the business
[16:41] Setting up a marketing budget and installing a branding campaign
[22:48] How to create a new branding campaign
[26:25] Hiring for potential over experience
To hear more stories from the trades, subscribe to Toolbox for the Trades on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, or anywhere you get podcasts.
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