 Hey, good afternoon everybody Tom Stewart here with Liz Trotter our guest today. I can't believe that we have no crime in today This is smart business moves Okay, I know people are gonna be so excited that you're here today now as part of you know the the big one of the big names in our industry people that we can actually rely on when we're talking about hiring recruiting and Retention People are so stressed these days that I know they're gonna be excited, but Tom before we get started with Mel We first got to we got to do a little housekeeping. We haven't been here in forever That's the problem I think we've been gone at least two weeks. Yeah Yeah, maybe Well, we're going to be back We do this every Wednesday now, and I guess the last couple of Wednesdays we were had other commitments and things So we've been a bit slack. We used to do this five days a week Five hours a day of live streaming and this was right here when when COVID was top of mind and we decided that you know This was this was a hobby. We just had to pair back on We like doing it, but we don't like doing it at the detriment of all of our other companies Stakeholders that we're reminding us that we had real jobs Is there anything in particular that we need to to address before we get started I Don't think anything new Tom with the numbers You always bring us some good numbers about or bad numbers about hiring or got anything for us Well, I don't know about hiring. I guess, you know, the general sentiment in the economy is Going in a bad direction and you know, that actually might wind up being good news for us from a hiring standpoint It's important the future of the economy actually cools down a little bit, but Nothing nothing serious. I'm just blown away that we got Mel. Well, this is the first time you've been a guest on smart business moves And you know, I've been a fan. I know Liz has two of yours for the longest time You know that the books that you've written actually You are you're probably the most authoritative voice In the industry on this whole thing of of how to hire in an effective productive way And this is true. I don't I mean, we have a lot of guests here. I rarely say this I'm truly honored to have you here today. Thank you for being a guest. Yeah, thank you It's interesting to look when we talk about hiring today. I Hate to admit I've been doing this Over 40 years Okay, I started when I was seven I really I actually really started Probably started really first hiring people when I was 18 or 19 years old and And and my father had a business and I got involved in interviewing and hiring at that point in time and then My background from there when I went to school I ended up working for Hoover vacuum cleaner Okay, and I haven't told this I don't think I've ever told the story on the online But I went to work for Hoover vacuum cleaner And this I was not a door-to-door salesman, but I was in Houston, Texas And I was a demonstrator on a retail floor Okay, and I always remember because that's where I started and I did a pretty good job. There was my junior year in in college and They ended up putting me over hiring demonstrators and I had 14 demonstrators by the time I was 22 I had 14 demonstrators working for me all over these retail stores So I actually got back in hiring literally starting then I don't think I I don't think I've ever told anybody I started in the vacuum cleaner business I didn't know that I don't remember ever hearing that. That's for sure I wasn't a door-to-door Okay, I was I was with Hoover and the and the fact of the matter is you know It was just starting a floor and I could tell all kinds of stories about it I'm not I'm not going to go into that today, but but the interesting part And then I'm telling so long ago that I've been involved in this is I went back recently And I pulled up some things I wrote actually 30 years ago And you know the number one problem we were talking about 30 years ago hiring It used to be but the problem is it used to be a battle. It's now become a war Yeah, okay, and especially when we talked to to all of you and made central the fact of the matter is As I've talked a number of made groups over the years The the fact the matter is if you bought a friend if you're in the made business franchise Or you have your own company the fact of the matter is you are not in the house cleaning business You are in the staffing business And I think you've got to recognize that you are in the business of staffing people to clean houses So good perspective winners recognize that we're not in the house cleaning business But we're in the staffing business and as we become better at staffing We don't have a difficult time. Most of us don't have a difficult time getting customers If you've got the if you have quality people to clean houses You have no problem getting quality quality customers who want you to clean their houses So you've got to look at your business that way not as a not as a not as a made cleaning business But as a house cleaning business, but as a staffing business and I think if you change that perspective You've you're already ahead of most of the competition That makes a lot of sense Mel. You know it happens to be you know house cleaning is the service we provide But our success is going to be defined by how good we are at building a workforce Yeah, it's it's you know, it's the fact the matter is if you if you've got if you do a great job Well, I can't I won't use this as a maid cleaning example But I use this in a in a similar business as yard yard maintenance. Okay When I moved into this house 17 years ago in the subdivision I'm in a small subdivision with about 27 about 200 237 houses in our total subdivision. It's a really unique subdivision. I brought my yard man with me Okay Okay, because his family has been doing my yard for over 30 years and oh, wow This is the second generation that's cleaning doing my yard today Okay, so I was the only one he now has he parks his truck in my driveway He does the house to my left. He does four houses to the right He does five houses behind me. He now does 33 houses out of 227 And he didn't he's never made a sales call Wow Yeah, that's true, right word of mouth. You're right. If you do good work You'll you'll get calls if you have the people and you'd have good systems. You will have the business So yeah, we recognize with business. You're in that's number one And that that that's the key And that's what you've got to be that's what you got to be great at not good at you got to be great I just did another presentation the other day and I I did something I pulled up I have hundreds of quotes on hiring I mean, I can give you all kinds of you know, if you beat if you beat your competition the best employees your best employees They'll help you beat your competition Okay, I got all kinds of one-liners, but I pulled up four of them Um, I pulled up the first one interesting one off From um, I I attribute it and I think it came from sam wall Who said if you uh, the most important decision a manager makes every single day is who he allows on the door To help him take care of his customer Yeah, you know and that's the most important decision you make The second quote came from herb keller south the founder of southwest airlines And herb keller was a kind of in-your-face manager And he said bluntly the day we screw up and that was his word The day we screw up the people thing. It's all over And he built southwest airlines based on The people thing are not our customers first. There's employees first But we the day we screw up hiring people and the day we screw up motivating people And treating our customers and our employees with respect And in fact herb keller fired customers Because they were too difficult to deal with his employees Nice and literally he wrote he wrote letters to people and said since we can't make you happy We'll no longer sell you a ticket Don't even try There's united phone number. We tried to make you happy and you keep finding problems with our employees You know what our employees don't need your aggravation Nice So we're not going to sell you a ticket anymore. That was herb keller Uh, uh red arbok most winnings coach in the nba. I love his quote You know, if you hire the wrong people all the fancy management tech seek in the world will not bail you out Oh, that's good What what um team does he coach for? I'm sorry What team does he coach for? He used to call And boston red sauce every other for the boston seltix Okay, so if you look at him and then you turn around and my favorite quote Uh, one of my favorites and I have a few but it's I think it's I'm going to take a credit for it if Managers get the people they deserve they hired them Um That's the kid you hired him. Yeah, you made him in you kept them you deserve what you got And you kind of create them too if you've been with your company any amount of time, right? Yeah So you you get what you deserve. Okay the fact Here's a one line if I was if I was in this session and I'm gonna try and get I'll go back. I'm gonna try I try and deal with uncommon common sense I try and just deal with common sense ideas if they're not if they're not common sense and they don't feel right Don't buy people aren't gonna buy it. Okay. There's all kinds of these fancy management theories and all the other stuff I'm looking for things How do you deal with it? You know common sense is dealing with the limited how do you maximize the limited resources to get the most results out of them? Hmm And that's all and so here's here's the common sense ideas if I was sitting in this webinar And I would I would have go back if you hadn't done it I'd get a piece of paper and I would write those four quotes down I would write down that quote that bluntly, you know the most important decision you make as a manager Is who you allow on the door to help you take care of your customer? Remember that? I would remember bluntly that you can't screw up the people thing I would remember bluntly that if I hire the wrong people, you know what? You're not going to fix them. Why are you wasting your time? Most most of us the manager spent all of our time dealing with our problems Instead of dealing with our great people and bluntly And bluntly you deserve the people you hired because you hired them or you kept them How many hours how many hours do we spend as managers? Trying to fix problems that if we spent that time Hiring the right people and developing the right people the problem wouldn't even have been a problem to begin with Yeah, and in fact the problem Yeah, you deserve you didn't okay. Here's the one liner Okay, the worst behavior you accept from any employee Tells every other employee how bad they can be and still keep their job Yeah I I'm actually coaching somebody right now around this entire idea because He really really really wants to keep this employee that he has had working for him for three years but all the other employees keep seeing her get away with everything Doing everything she's not supposed to do but I cannot get him to Agree. I can't get him to let her go He's like no, I can't afford it. She's been here too long people love her You know, she's all of the things so I'm gonna tell him that mel climb and said You gotta let him go Let her go. You're getting what you deserve Yeah, they you I have a I just did a I did a presentation last week and and it was it was live and wonderful and in front of people and that's really what I love doing That's why I do this anymore. I just it's exciting to get to help people get better and We got the talking about the employee from hell Let and let me tell you about this employee health because it's absolutely a fascinating story This isn't in the convenience store industry Now, let me tell you about this employee this employee from hell is absolutely a fabulous employee How's that? He is dependable He is reliable He shows up for work on time. He does whatever needs to be done. He is great at training other people If you need an extra shift work, he'll come and work it. He'll do whatever it takes There's only one problem The drawer never comes up short Never the drawer always The drawer always comes up over You know what that means This employee is stealing. Yeah, it's not good Okay, we know the employee is stealing Okay, we know it Yeah, but he's really good at it because he maximizes the stuff between 35 and 50 dollars a shift But I can't find any so but as the manager's thing, but I can't find anybody else who will do what he does I'm willing to pay him an extra 50 dollars a shift To do this Yeah But what does it tell every other don't you think other employees know he's stealing? Of course What is it you can steal up to 50 dollars, but don't go over 50 dollars That's the that's the that's the employee from the hell And especially in today's world We put up with things that we would never have put up with because we say I can't replace them Okay, yeah So that's So that's that's the key just you just think about it Just think about what do you what is the message you're sending to every one of your other employees? What is the message you're sending as a manager and an owner? Out there if you're willing to accept theft that tell you know Yeah And you know what even if you do Even if you do have great employees and they're not stealing they're seeing that they feel defeated I I don't feel motivated to work for a company where the owner is letting somebody steal That's not that's not a good working environment for me. I don't want to work there I want to work somewhere else. Well, even if I'm a great employee I'm not stealing and I'm doing all the things I should you're pushing me out By by accepting that behavior I can I can you know, we could spend the whole time talking about play theft, you know We can talk about bluntly. Do you ask honesty questions in your interview? Are you literally asking honesty questions in your interview? Or you know, you can't ask people about criminal record. It's an illegal question to ask people about criminal record. Okay So, how do you ask it? I happen to love this question and I won't use either one of you as example. I won't make you answer this question Okay Thank you. I love this question To ask an employee. What's the worst trouble you've ever been in? That's the question. That's a hard question. I've been in a lot of trouble Come on now. That's hard. You're volunteering. So I'm gonna say so get so really well Give us an example. What's the worst trouble you've ever been in? What would you if you in an interview and somebody asked you what was the worst trouble you've ever been in? How would you answer? You wouldn't like my answer. I'd say well I'll tell you the worst trouble I've ever been in that I'm willing to admit to out loud I'll tell you that I'll tell you the worst thing I've ever done that I'm willing to admit to in this interview And it is I can't even think there's so many things. Um I don't know. I've been in trouble for speeding I've What else Uh Worst trouble I've ever been in I feel like it's too hard of a question because there's too many answers So which one's the worst like which one's your favorite book? Okay, so let me so let me give you a piece another piece of interviewing advice. Yeah When somebody says has difficulty answering the question. What do we normally do as interviewers? We help them we help them, right? Yeah We help them answer it When you ask the question that somebody has a difficult time answering You need to remember this line Write this one down. Okay. I understand that's a very difficult question Take as much time as you need to think about it That's a good answer Basically, you're telling them that I'm not letting you get away without answering this All day I give myself permission to be quiet Yeah, that's good Yeah, I love that. I love that answer. Um And it also like for me it would give me permission to actually really think now because in an interview You do feel pressure to give kind of fast answers but that answer is like You saying that is like, okay, so I actually have time. I'm going to have to come up with something good I can't and I'm gonna have to come up with something good. That's really bad Or he's gonna know that I'm not like being honest So the so the key is, you know, I get it gives me permission to be quiet And the most powerful questions you ask other questions of silence So I've said take as much time as you need to think about it. So liz What's the worst trouble you've ever been in? Well, we don't have that much time for you to be quiet. I've got all the time it takes liz Tom and I to get this answer. We would take the whole hour just to give him this answer um I guess doing drugs I guess that's the worst trouble I've ever been in is doing drugs Doing drugs drug. Okay drugs And you know, I could I could go expand on it, but I'm not going to ask you to But when you ask the question and you get an answer You do one other thing You say liz is that really the worst trouble you've ever been in Because it's the second answer that's even more important than the first answer And the fact of the matter is in the house cleaning business. We have to ask that question But here, well, but what about this now? Nobody's going to tell you are they maybe they are maybe they're gonna say Well, I guess the worst trouble I've ever been in was when I robbed my friend's house Is somebody going to tell you that? Yes, they will if you ask. Oh, yeah Especially if you say Is that really the worst trouble you've ever been in? I can see how they will give you a worse answer if you ask that question for sure If you never ask the question, you'll never get the answer Yeah, okay. Yeah, that's good. I love it So the and there's other other honesty integrity and honesty questions we can ask There's actually a piece of the interviewing where you need to before you start You have to set up people to tell you the truth and we could you know So we could sit there and say okay, tom Let me you know we need to set the groundwork to what we're going to do in an interview If we were if this whole program was on interviewing So, you know, you you sit there and you position people to to tell you the truth most of I will tell you that most of the people in them in almost any in almost every hourly hiring situation most people conduct interviews that are totally wasteful wasted They haven't built the interviewing to really get what they need because bluntly Most of them don't know what they need are most of them have read a book on behavior If they're lucky they've read a book on behavioral interviewing You know, how many how many of you as owners literally If the most important thing you do is hire people and build a staff How many of you have literally built a great selection? I'm not even talking about a recruiting selection Which we could go that route, but how many have really built interviewing session? How many have really built The interviewing process to find out what you really need to hire Okay Tom you look like you're going to say something. No, I This has got me thinking Mel. This is really good because the overarching problem that most cleaning businesses are dealing with right now is they do not Have enough technicians to satisfy the demand for their service so And everybody, you know The go-to thing is we have a recruiting problem. We have a hiring problem But you know, maybe it's an interviewing problem or in a lot of cases. I think it's a retention problem That's the higher ton of people. They just don't keep enough of them So if you kind of look at the whole pipeline from recruiting to Turning somebody into a long-term successful employee For all of us who are trying to do this. Where do we start? Where's the the place that we we put our energy on? You know first Yeah, well, you know, we can you know, okay So part of the problem is we're so short. We hire a body anybody If we really can get them to show up to the interview and they're almost half decent We're going to give them a try Okay You're picking the best bad alternative oftentimes well So the the key is how do you? And this if you listen to this webinar if you listen when I did two weeks ago if you listen to it tomorrow um The number one problem we have Okay, and I just got through reading some statistics right now. Let me let me explain to you That this labor shortage problem is not going to go away Okay It's a it's it's it was an ongoing problem. It is just a worse ongoing problem And statistically the number of people entering the workforce has gone down Okay, the number of jobs have gone up. I can tell you which number do you want? You want the number right now that there are 3.4 million people looking for jobs in 6.7 million openings You want the number? Okay pick I you know what that's the number. What does that mean? Do you you recognize right now? We're part of this this supply chain problem is basically the National Trucking Association says we're uh 65 000 truck drivers short 65 000 okay a six months ago the number was 55 000 and a year ago was 45 000 So it's gone up 50 in the last seven months the last year We have We have less people entering the workforce and the people who want to enter the workforce how many of them really want to work So we and I could give you you know, I can give you all kinds of numbers of of what's out there and they're It just you know that you know, you it's tough for getting out. Well, how do we get around these bad numbers mel? Okay Here's the great news. Here's the great news and here's the bad news. Okay. It's good and it's bad The fact of the matter is right now What they're reporting and this is this is not 2 000 people and this is not 20 000 people This is 100 000 people. I just did a webinar at the end of last year Focused on hourly employees and I happen to have a bunch of people on there Um had about 135 people on the webinar And they're all confidential and I said, okay, how many of you Have taken a new job in the last year. This was in december. How many have been looking for a new job? How many are offering a new job? How many if you haven't been looking you're going to start looking the first of the year 92% Wow 92% of them have either looked for a new job taken a new job going to start looking for a new job dot dot dot dot So what's the what's the great news? The great news is there a lot of people out there looking for jobs all working They're all the ones you want are working Okay, the other side the other side of the coin is you better be building and we're not we could spend the time on this one too What's your retention strategy? Who is the I talk about For years and if you've heard me speak probably five years ago I always talk about turkeys and eagles. I have a turkey and I have an eagle Okay, and I asked how many people have have you ever hired a turkey? Yeah, how many have you ever hired a turkey all the hands go up? Well, you know, have you hired a turkey? You know, what do we do? We hire a turkey train a turkey and motivated turkey. You know what you got? And there are a number of things happening with turkeys and eagles number one all the turkeys have learned to dress up and look like eagles And they're better at interviewing than most of the people out there because they get lots of practice That's good Okay, and in most cases they this is my standard shtick And in most cases they don't have to be any good because if if you've sat in an interview recently I don't know if either of you have sat in interviews recently actual interviews But I have a manager sits there and we get an applicant. So what do we do? We want to make them feel comfortable, right? So we sit them down. We offer them a drink I can say we're we're not to sit and where to sit and I could talk all positive But we sit them down with that and what do we do? We want to make it feel we tell them a little bit about our company Are we tell them Tom, let me tell you what we're looking for. We need people who are dependent rely on conscientious We need people who are hard-working need new people who'll be reliable and show for work on time We tell them what we're looking for right in that standard And then you ask them a question and then we start we know we need to ask a question So what's the question? So tom I need people dependent rely on conscientious and hard-working Tell me about yourself What do you say Tom yes, it's reliable and hard work And I'm really hard-working We told exactly what we went the answer to the answer. Wow, we got a winner Now you got a parrot All the turkeys have learned to dress up and look like eagles the other side of the coin, especially in the maids business Eagles don't always look like eagles right Right good point now really good look like eagles. How long it does how long does it take most managers? Even if they're not hard up, but if they're hard up, how long does it take you to determine whether you like somebody or not? University cargo says we determine we like somebody or not in the seven seconds or less Seven seconds they smile They came in when they came in dressed properly. They show they showed up on time Oh my god, this has got to be a winner. They're actually here on time. They showed up at all You know, we are we determined I had I I have prejudice I admit I have prejudice And somehow Weight is a prejudice to mine Hmm. Okay. Yeah people. I'm sorry. I admit it But the best person I ever hired one of the best hires I ever made was probably 250 pounds overweight She was she was large That's a chunk. Okay, but I what I did is I reckon I recognize I have this prejudice I guarantee you I recognize it every single day And when I when I saw when I when I went to interview her um I recognize it and I wrote it down Mel on a piece of paper not on the application but never write anything on application play the legal documents You have to put them on file. We're not going to talk about the legal side, but I wrote it down And then I said mel forget it Within the first 30 minutes of that interview she was on a crash diet. She lost 220 pounds Holy cow. That's how good she was And your mind, yeah Yeah, I recognize I had it. I said I've got to get over it. I've got to put it away She lost 200 pounds easily in 30 minutes Okay, but don't make the seven second mistake Either side You know what happens when we like somebody in interview? We ask them the easy questions Yeah, and we like their answers. Yeah, you know when we we don't like them. What do we do? We ask we ask hard questions. Yeah And we don't like their answers no matter what they tell us That's like, yeah, it could have been better their answer could have been better So that's that that's okay. So Eagles don't always look like eagles, you know, who's the most likely you know, who's the most likely person to sue you? It's not your customers It's your employees Sure the fastest growing area of lawsuits in this country is employment law It's been that way for 30 years And the only problem with employment laws, you know what? You're guilty until you prove yourself innocent Frustrating, but yeah And then number four Is remember That eagles come to you because they want to and they leave because they can And number five Hold on. I'm still writing Okay Eagles come to you because they want to they leave because they can Okay, I'm good. Okay. And number five Is a players only want to play on a teams? Yeah Yeah, it's totally true That's why you let somebody steal in your company if I'm an a player. I'm out of here Yeah so So you begin it looks okay, so we were gonna So we were going to talk about the the number one challenge Right now He said this this this webinar is supposed to be on recruiting and we've been everywhere including but okay All of this stuff is good. This is everything that everybody wants to hear Okay, because we all need to hear all of the things we're you know, we're trying to figure it out in this new paradigm that we're living It's this all falls into that same range. Okay, but let let's take let's focus for the last 20 minutes on recruiting Let's just focus on it um, let me let me The first again is frustrating you want to hire okay You want to hire what I call I call them star employees You can come you want to put a players on your bus if you want to go by gym college We want to hire winners Okay So here's my question In today's competitive world Why would an a player want to join your team? That's the question Good question Why wouldn't I don't care what the job is I don't care if it's a dispatcher I don't care if it's a salesperson. I don't care if so many clean houses. I don't care if it's a I don't care if it's a manager. I don't care But why would they want to be on your team? what is your unique employment proposition That's an employment proposition. That's good. You know, you hear about any value proposition. You may have a unique selling it Why should somebody Use your maid service You know, if you don't have that if you don't have that do that one too. Okay The number one question is why should I buy your service or why should I be a member of your team? Yeah, and nowadays I would say that number one is absolutely Why should they be a part of our team right that that's got to take precedence right now It is it's it's it's a bluntly is okay. What is your unique? I call it unique employment supposition, you know, I love that UEP. I already wrote it down Do you have a do you have a list? Could be five items. It could be 10 items. I use 10, you know, we like the number 10 It could be seven. I don't care how many zone I have one company That has the list um and They sent it to me the first time It was two words Why do you come to work for us? They said because we care Okay And most of you, you know, if you look at your competition Why should I come and your competition is not just other services? Okay What is your but your competition is anybody who hires that level of employee? But we care Okay, it's what what what you know, and I can tell you If you've got an organization if you already have a company if you've got some great people working for you right now I will tell you the number one Way to build the build that list is do something else which we could again spend this whole hour talking about Is having stay conversations The big thing nowadays is stay interviews. No, you're not having interviews. You're having conversations Interviews are me controlling something You and I are having a conversation It's a whole different world I mean you may think it's changed the word but people will talk about Stay interviews. No, you want to make them conversations? But you know what? That matters that that one word makes a huge difference huge The power of Absolutely It's a paradigm shift Right. How what you say how you talk that's different when you think that Uncommon common sense But you got to hear it. It's like I have words. I I get I nickel and dime some words together I'll give you another example and again. I'm going off track for a minute, but Everybody talks about their culture You know, everybody talks about what your your company culture I hate the word culture I hate it I don't understand it How about this word? What's your environment To me, that's a better word. Maybe it's not But to me if you somebody said, what's the environment like this? Is it hot? Is it cold? Is it warm? Is it friendly? What's your culture? What's the environment like? It's just me But you know interchange the word. What's your culture? What's your environment? Which word do you like better? I just like them and I like you know what I like better about the word environment Is that's not a catchphrase right now. So that's actually going to make people think differently That that's a different conversation if you say, you know, I want to talk to you about our company culture We have great culture. They've heard that they've heard that from every single person that they're applying with they're like Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know your your company culture is amazing But they haven't heard. Let me talk to you about our company environment Yeah An environment is more tangible. I mean, it's easier to see where culture is abstract. It's also, you know, it's You know, but that's that's a word. I like I'm just saying I like the word I like the word environment You know, I I'd be glad I'd love to have the conversation with you on culture environment, you know I can define culture. I finally got the definition of culture Culture is There's an old story about the Ford the four chimpanzees that were put in the cage. You may have heard the story four chimpanzees are in the cage And they hung bananas at the top of the cage And they put a rope So the banana the the chimpanzees wanted a banana. What did they do? They climbed the rope and they got the bananas. Okay So this went on for about three weeks And so anytime they went to banana they climbed up and then all of a sudden If the if a chimpanzee started to climb the rope to get a banana They would spray ice water on the on the chimpanzees all of them After about three days, guess what? No chimpanzee would climb the rope. No way. Okay. So they took one of the champion champion Chimps out and put one who'd never been sprayed with ice water and put him in the cage And he saw the rope. So what did he do? And he saw the bananas Start to climb the rope guess what the other three chimpanzees they beat the hell out of them. Yeah So what did he learn In about don't climb the rope don't climb the rope Over the next three weeks. They eliminated all the champion champion that had ever climbed the rope. Guess what? What? No chimpanzee would ever climb that rope That was the culture. It's what you do and you don't know why you do it that determines what we do around this organization Okay Cali your four champion chimpanzee But we were talking about recruiting Okay, you need to build a list Of the reasons a great employee should come to work for it and you could put benefits on there But you know what? They better be better than anybody else's benefits if they go on the list Yeah And mainly it's not the hard stuff. It's the stuff stuff that makes the difference Yeah, I took I took one. It wasn't and you go look at your other look at your competition Look at other industries. They what's that? What's their employment proposition? I took one I love Branson air This is from him. I made it part of the metric list We want to train you well enough that you can leave But treat you so well. You'll want to stay Nice. I love it. Yeah You know I added to the list. You know what I bought I got this one from somebody else one of my clients Convenience store industry. You know what's on his list? You'll never have to ask for a raise The day you earn it we pay it Yeah, and we could spend the whole time just talking about that one thing When do you give your first raise? Okay, and we could make that part of another webinar. When do you when do you give your first raise? You know when most people give their first raise 90 days But I hired Tom In the first two weeks. He was doing what most people do at the end of three months But what do I do? How long did when do I give him his raise? I penalize him for being great I make him wait I think in our industry everybody gets a raise when they get out of training as soon as they get out of training but To your point if they already have Like some previous experience and they don't have to go spend two weeks in training or three weeks or whatever Why would they be penalized have to be forced through this entire training program? and Then wait for their raise so Okay, but if you want to if you want to win the if you want to win the war for workers, you will build a list Okay, and I was going to tell you the best way to build the list is good if you hopefully you have some great employees Yeah, start your state conversations by going to them and saying look i'm working a list of tell them I just listened to a webinar and they talked about I need a list of why great people work here You're one of my great people Why do you work here? What gets you out of bed and makes you show up every day for work? ask novel idea mel just asked the question What how did it make Liz how did it make you feel in role playing if I said Liz you're one of our great people Let me ask you a question. What makes you get up and go to work every day here What makes you excited to be here Today, how do I make you feel by just asking you and putting it that way? Absolutely, you make me feel like I matter Like what I have to say is important Yeah, absolutely. We could go down a whole another path with that but that again these all take down little paths We're going down this is a past in one time What you're sharing mel is like another example of common sense. That's not very common Yeah, it's what I call uncommon common sense Yeah Okay, but the fact of the matter is I wrote out a definition of uncommon common sense Common sense is doing what needs to be done in the most efficient and effective manner With the time money and other resources available common sense Is doing what needs to be done in the most efficient and effective way Based on the time and money and resource available If you had unlimited resource you could do all kinds of things. You haven't got unlimited time You haven't got unlimited money But based on what you have You know, what do you do efficiently and effectively to do it? And when you have the knowledge But you don't have the common sense. That's nonsense When you have the knowledge Plus common sense. That's wisdom When you have knowledge and common sense, that's wisdom Wisdom I've given you wisdom today. I've given you ideas. I've given you things you can use Yeah, if you don't take action on this, that's no sense And wisdom plus action equals progress and improvement I did again. I was telling you I did a a webinar and I'll do I'll make the same offer here If we've got people listening to this If they'll send me their top 10 list I'll send them a gift If you email me your top 10 list, I'll send you a gift We'll give us your email address now because I have a feeling you're going to get taken up on that offer It's mcliman at umetrics.com and you may have a slide with it or not, but are an introduction, but it's mcliman k-l-e-i-m-a-n at umetrics.com If you send me okay, so I did this to a group three weeks ago And I said how many of you in this room in there were about 80 people in this room I said how many think that's a great idea all the hands went up I said how many are you going to do it? about 20 hands went up 80 said it was great 20 hands went up. Yeah, I only got five list Oh, yeah That's what I expected. Yeah But if you don't you know, that's nonsense Yeah, let me let me tell you what No, that's no sense No action is no sense Yes Let me let me tell you with the list You take that list And you use it to marketing your job Here's the reasons people come to work for us You know what? I like that's better about this now So I think nowadays everybody is putting like their top 10 lists there, right? Here's what we do Blank blank blank bullet bullet bullet bullet they got 10 lists whatever But you know what's different is Here's why other people come to work for us that changes it That's different. That's not the same thing as here's what we do. Here's what we have It's different when you're thinking this is why people come to work for us. It's like oh Yeah, I would like that too. It makes you think in a different way. It's not the same old thing you've read a million times Okay, let me let me okay. So you use that list for marketing I will tell you I have one client There's only three things on their list and then they they have this harder job or harder job And they're essential, but they've got three things on their list Number one is we work hard Number two is we have fun and number three is we care. That's all that's on their list If you don't want to work hard And you don't want to have fun Anyone don't come to work for us But let me tell you how well they live their values when the vedamic came They turned around And they guaranteed every single one of their employees hourly Their entire salary until the vedamic went away or they could put them back to work Okay, this location this company has this company has 300 locations And management said we will take no salary until this is over You know, that was not easy because nobody knew how long it was going to take How long until it would be over I'm just making a statement. Yeah They live their values. Yeah If you build the list, let me tell you what you want a better interviewing question than 90 percent of us ever ask Sure, take the list and put it in front of every single applicant And say this is the these are the top five reasons our employees work here And this is they this is why they stay and this is why they come to work every single day Of all the things on this list, which one is most important to you? And why Well, first of all, which it is why but which one is most important to you and why What you found out was Their key motivator and driver When was the last time you knew somebody's key motivator and driver? It's hard hard to find out for sure Okay, if you post the list on the back of every single manager's door And you make them accountable for living up to the list You've now identified your environment And you're reinforcing it This is good stuff now very good stuff really good one of the things I like about everything that you're saying here today mel is you it It appears to me that these are Are ideas that have been around for a long time But have not been acted on and they've been tweaked for our new environment We are in a new place and we have to do some things a little bit different, but Bottom line is we still need good people. We can't just hire any old bodies. We still need good people So we have six minutes left And we built the list now. Let's talk about the absolute number one best proven source of great employees Number one proven source of great employees Okay, you got my attention No, I know this one all the great people who have ever worked for you When was the last time you picked up the phone and called somebody who left you And told them you'd like to have them back What's the worst answer you get? We got another job Nope. Nope. Sorry. Maybe our how about this one and this is an actual answer No, I would love to come back to you, but I'll never come back and work for that manager Oh Really? Why not? Because she's stealing from our customers And you know what she was doing that manager What she was stealing? Oh, yeah But because we called we found out So we picked up the phone we called that person back the next week and said thank you very much We'd love to have you back and that manager is now gone Win win When was the last time you picked up the phone and called somebody who's left you and asked them if they'd like to come back When was the last time if you long and again, we think this takes a whole new path You lose a great employee. You know how soon you call them and ask if they'd like to come back right now Within one week Within one week of them taking the new job pick up the phone and call Okay. Wow. Okay. Yeah Because when they got there the grass weren't any greener And the cost of water and upkeep was too high But they wouldn't pick up the phone and call you and admit they made a mistake But what would happen if you called them and said hey, I just wanted to check how we really missed you I'd love to have you come back You know what if they're still in the honeymoon phase if there's no law that says I can't call them again in another week Or you can say hey look, you know, we'd like to have you come back if you find out that you know You know what that opening that other company had was because they really weren't as great as they said everybody They were in the first place And they don't have any friends over there yet Yeah, and they haven't figured out the system So pick up the phone and call people who've left you home within the first week. So That's the key. Yeah, we we have It's amazing how quickly an hour goes when you're having fun This was this was some really good stuff now. It's really and very timely I wanted to take just a minute and share your your your website if You want to reach Mel? We've already dropped his email and chat, but I'll drop the link to his website Mel has written some some of the most impactful books on this whole area of of hiring and building a workforce That anybody in the industry has so I would go to the store all these are I assume mel are available for purchase Like it and I So you can reach mel either through the email that was sent. Here's his email up here again as a phone number Mel is a resource and he helps businesses with coming up with These processes to to to do hiring, you know as we we've just discussed You know a lot of times we spend too much time focusing on problems that wouldn't be problems if we did a better job of hiring So this is uh, this is a go-to resource save that link reach out to mel let him help you uh One more thing about that is I talk to people all the time and they're like, yeah, but this system that i'm using it has always worked So they're just keep wanting to do that same thing over and over again Like I i'm gonna say hey stop already. It's not working today Call mel And see do something new try something different what you're doing. It's not working It's time to try something new Something better. We are in unprecedented times. What used to work doesn't necessarily work now Mm-hmm Well, it was interesting. It was interesting time just recently I had very specifically somebody in the In the house cleaning business who has a small franchise company And he's had again he was having a bit of a damage. He was he's got a more business that he can handle people People customers want him and he can't handle it because he has no staff And we looked at his marketing material and just changed it. He bought a couple of hours worth of consulting and within Three weeks. He was totally staffed Nice I mean There's things we can do so make it and then I hopefully with this you see there's some simple things you can do But we can we're here to help that's probably what I do I just like helping people do this nowadays. So Thank you so much now um I felt like this is amazing for us. So Uh, I I'm going to be passing this information on to everybody in my circles Tom, I know you're going to be passing it on and it made central so we're We're we're going to Overcome this problem that people are dealing with now Mel thank you. It's been thank you a tremendous pleasure. Thank you for letting me thank you for letting me share And mel don't don't think I didn't hear you when you said that Maybe we could talk about that on another time because you're on my list. You're going to expect an email Well, maybe maybe you can do a better job of keeping me on track next time I thought that what you did today was amazing. I have four pages of notes Okay, if you only got three if you know if I got if you got three pages of note I was successful. Okay. We we go in the direction where the inspiration is taking us We don't necessarily have to follow. I uh, we're kind of like the view for house cleaning businesses We go where the discussion wants to go. Thank you Thank you. Mel. Take care Hope to thank you for the note Okay, thank you Bye. Bye. Talk to y'all later. Bye. We'll be back next wednesday five o'clock used her Bye. Bye. If anybody if anybody has any questions reach out to me and I will be glad to help you So talk to you later Bye. Bye