EntreLeadership - How to Hire and Scale For Growth Without Sacrificing Culture

Episode Date: May 5, 2020

Tune in to hear Daniel Tardy respond to some business owners' fears around Coronavirus.   Give us your feedback on these daily, COVID-19, bonus episodes: Text DAILYBONUS to 33444   Want to bring in Alex Judd and experience an EntreLeadership Workshop with your team? Click the link below: https://www.entreleadership.com/workshops   Get access to the EntreLeadership Weekly Report Tool, FREE, for you and your team for 3 months: Text TEAMHEALTH to 33444 or visit entreleadership.com/weekly-report   Follow us on social media to stay plugged in to everything we’re doing to help the small business owner win: LinkedIn Instagram Facebook Twitter YouTube Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right, we're going to Sam and Cayoma in Naples, North Carolina. Hey, guys. How are you? Hey. Good, Daniel. How are you? Oh, fantastic. Great to hear your voices. How's business? We're lucky. The industry we serve is obviously very essential. It's the fire and emergency services market. And those guys have been very busy. And we're trying to support them as best we can. So we're staying busy.

So tell me a bit more about the application. It's lighting for emergency equipment services. Did I get that right? You make the white lights that go on fire trucks. That's our primary mission today. We make about 25% of the white lights on all new fire trucks in the U.S. Fantastic. So who is your customer? Who do you actually sell to?

Kind of everybody. We have to sell to the fire departments. Every fire truck built in the U.S. is a snowflake. They're all different. And the department specs, how they want the truck built. So we kind of sell to them. We work with them. But who we actually sell to is the fire truck manufacturer when the truck's

being built. So we kind of have to have a relationship with the truck manufacturer, the dealer, and then the fire department themselves. Got it. Okay. Did you guys start this business? Did you buy the business? How did you guys get involved? I was building flashlights in my garage. I had been living at a waterski school where we met just kind of enjoying life. And one of the things that came of it was I was looking for something else to do. And so I joined the local fire department to learn what was happening and realized that there were million dollar fire trucks all throughout the United States that didn't have, even though they had an unlimited budget to buy the truck, they still didn't have. have enough lighting to see to do their job. So I started building some small flashlights and little

things and then the business grew and now we're producing much more sophisticated technologies for much more specialized customers, but started in the fire station. This is my favorite kind of story. I know, you know, businesses start so many ways, but I mean, here's a guy, like you're a volunteer firefighter, you see this problem and you're going, why can't we have more lights? We need more lights. And surely somebody's thought of this, like, but nobody had thought of it. And you just decided to solve this problem. Fantastic. Well, the crazy thing was, like, there have been companies that have been doing this for 100 plus years, and all of our competitors are very large, very old companies. And there was no one looking at it from a

creative and modern spin. But the tech we're working with, I mean, an LED has only been useful on the fire scene for the last 10 years. So 100-year-old companies had no experience in the tech that would have been used today. And we very quickly spun into it. And I've developed the tech, and Kambas developed the culture and customer relationship. And it's really been a great partnership to grow the business. Wow, I'm inspired. So how long have you been doing this? Almost 10 years. So we started in 2010. Okay, 10 years. And then how's business going right now? You mentioned you're scaling up and there's a lot of trying to, it sounds like catching a tidal way with a teacup a little bit. A lot of things going on right now in the world that are causing

your business to be one of those that's having to rise to the occasion. Coming into this year, where are you guys at in revenue? We're eight and a half million. So it's not a huge company by any means, but we're about seven employees and eight and a half million in revenue. So it's a little bit lopsided on the skinny side of employees. I like those ratios. I mean, you guys are really lean. That's good. Yeah, so we need you.

Okay. So what's the biggest challenge for you guys right now? We know we need people. We don't want to make bad hires. We are inexperienced at managing because obviously we're worth both 30 years old, so we haven't run a business before or hired people. So we don't want to make bad choices. We want to get really good at hiring really quick.

we're trying to take as much information in as quick as possible so that we can hire really well, grow the team, and then keep going on this growth mode. Right. Okay, good. Well, I've got good news and bad news. The good news is you guys are so healthy and you're killing it and you have a great niche and your revenue and your ratios of revenue to team size, you guys are really stable and you have a lot that you need to hang on to.

I don't want you guys to lose the growth that you guys have had and a bad hire could really screw things up. So you're absolutely, your concern of hiring the wrong person is a very valid one. And I see it a lot where businesses your size, when there's a huge opportunity you're trying to scale up to, you just start hiring people quickly. Anybody that can fog a mirror, you bring them on board. And it alleviates the pain. And it actually gets you even more lift short term, because all of a sudden you can say yes to new contracts and get more work done. But then in six to 12 months, you realize, oh my gosh, we gave away our soul because we brought in people that really aren't us. And now they're creating problems and causing issues that are bigger fires.

I mean, just use that as a pun. We're talking about. But, you know, I mean, they're creating bigger problems and you're going, ah, I wish we could go back to when we had less people and do this a little bit slower. So I want us to be moving towards hiring great people as quick as possible, but I also know we can't be looking for a microwave here because as soon as we microwave culture and we compromise in who we hire, that really is something that in a year or two years from now we always regret. What sort of advice do you have in relationship? Like we have an advisory board that's set up that has some really, really bright,

really talented minds that help, you know, that help us kind of guide the business as we're expanding. Some of the minds that are on that board have run, you know, 10 plus. billion-sized companies, huge companies, 72,000 employees-sized companies. And as we're trying to balance explosive growth mass market customer experiences and executive management, the recommendations we're hearing are, you know, hire, higher, higher. You will not be able to get fast enough out in front of the market if you can't hire. But our market is so much smaller. We're not selling to a general market. There's only, and there's only so many fire departments. There's only 5,000 fire trucks made

every year. So how do you balance that need for rapid expansion and big picture looking versus that need for cultural, you know, appropriateness. Yeah. So I want to know what's more important to you guys. Is it having a big business or is it having a business that you love and you did on purpose? Mine is a lot. That we love. We're very like, we love the culture of our brand and our customers love being a part of that brand.

And we don't want to lose that just by putting warm bodies in seats that don't buy into that. So we're building our culture and we need people to buy into that. 50% of the product we make is not a tangible product that anybody can purchase. It's the environment that we create in that cultural experience with our customer that we think act, you know, sleep and breathe like firefighters. And we really emulate the way that they operate in the fire station. We talk the way they talk. So that's what we really want to make sure that we're deeply in tune with because that's

our most successful part of our business. The product is another mousetrap. That's a fantastic mousetrap. But the culture is what's really driving our business in this market. Yeah. I mean, you guys are doing it right. and you guys have built a foundation that if you will continue to value the culture and the purpose being the filter for how you hire, even if that means you slow the pace in hiring a little bit,

10 times out of 10 over the long haul, you're going to feel proud that you did that. Short term, you may feel like you're giving up a little bit of market opportunity or, you know, what if a competitor gets in and grows faster than you guys do? But at the end of the day, you guys have a great product. you have a great reputation, you provide incredible service, you're not competing on a widget, right? You're competing on all the other things you guys bring to the equation. And I'm going to, I'm going to contend it's probably the relationships you guys have. You mentioned relationships. Your team is going to be responsible to carry those relationships

forward. And so you got to realize you guys are at this point where your relationships and your ability to connect and solve problems with your customers and be the hero in all of these situations when something comes up, you've got to figure out how you can replicate that, the thing that you guys have brought to the equation in people who are going to do it for you. And so you can hire a quick, you know, low pay person, get them in here and just have them try to do the job. But what happens when they start screwing up those relationships? Yeah, exactly. That's our biggest concern. Right. I've got a tactical question for you on that. Yeah, let's do it. So when you look at, we know that the most important thing is find the right

quality hire and that sort of thing. But how do we decide whether or not we hire doers or we hire managers? Because the doers seem not to be able to do without a manager and the managers seem to be not able to do because they're thinking very high level. How do you balance what you choose first? This is a great question. So at the stage that you guys are at, I remember when we were at this stage, it's exciting. It's a little bit whitewater. Every day is kind of an adventure, but it's working and you're trying to figure out how to kind of hang on to all of that. In that season, I want doers. I want people who have, they have a high propensity to action and getting results who also look like they can grow into leaders. You know, if I'm hiring a salesperson, and I've

already got a team of 20 salespeople and a director of sales, I probably want someone that's just really good at sales and maybe doesn't even have aspirations for leadership. But if this is my first salesperson, and I envision this being a department someday, I'm looking for someone who can, sell today and then who can probably grow in their leadership and become a player coach at some point and start hiring a team and building a team and eventually work their way into, I want that person who's the first sales person to become the VP of sales at some point, right? But I got to get results right now. I mean, if I have a bunch of managers sitting around just telling people what to do, there's no people to do anything, they can't do anything. So, you know,

it's kind of, it's one of those, you know, there's not a clear like you want this one instead of this one, but in this season, you want people who want to grow with you and who are willing to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty and do the grunt work and wear all the hats that they need to wear and who don't have a diva about the title and the comp and all that kind of stuff. They're just in it because they have passion about what you guys do and the difference you guys make in the world. They're passionate about your purpose and they're willing to grab the bull by the horns and do the work. And over time, they're going to grow and become a leader. and you talk about, hey, this is the job right now.

It's a doer role. But if you're first on the ground and you can prove the concept in this thing and you can replace yourself, then you can build a team and you can become the leader. And that's how most of us at Ramsey have gotten into leadership. I would say 90% of our leaders, we started as high performance doers and got results. And we got our street cred by making the thing happen, whether it was in sales and ringing the bell, whether it was in the creative side. I mean, our chief creative officer today, I mean, he started as an entry-level designer 10 years

ago, you know, and he was just a stud with what he did. And then he developed himself as a leader. Now he leads a whole team of designers. So you guys are in that season where you want doers that have a trajectory towards leadership over time. Are you guys finding that's changing with the current workforce? We've heard a lot of folks say that they want to stay somewhere for two or three years. And even though we would like to map that out where they go from entry level and we want to build their career and that we want them to grow with us. Some people seem to just want to be mixing it up. How do you balance that? Yeah. I mean, there's definitely, generationally, I've seen a lot of shift in the workforce and the incoming workforce of there are a lot more people saying,

hey, I just, I want to check this out for a couple years and move on. And I really want a lot of variety in my career. I'm not knocking that. It's just not us. And so I have to look a little harder and a little longer to find people that are sold out for our mission. And guys, I think it all comes back to purpose. I mean, the more that you guys are dialed in on, what is your purpose, what is your mission, what's the thing you guys, I mean, you guys have committed your life to this thing, not because it's just going to be a great income, but because you really believe in it. And so I want people on my team that believe in what we're doing and the paycheck and the advancement opportunity and all of that is secondary because those people,

they're going to be lifers. Now, not everybody's going to be with you realistically for life, but their mindset is this is the work I was born to do. And if you can find the person who's passionate about this is the work I was born to do, they're going to grow with you. You're going to look up in 10 years, and they're going to be on your operating board, and they're going to be leading teams,

and they're going to be a part of what's going to take you guys where you want to go. It's going to take a little longer in sorting through a few more resumes, and you're going to have people that say, I want to do this for two years and move on. Well, then I'm moving on, you know, because I can't invest in someone like that if they're not going to invest in the purpose and the mission that we have. And it does make it harder on the front end, but it saves so much pain over the next five to ten years. Do you guys ever hire, like, I mean, there are some things where you just need, you need bodies and seats. I might need to drive a truck to California because I got a trade show.

How do you balance like, okay, I need someone that's just a body in a seat because I have to get something done versus a mission candidate that's coming in to join. that mission versus just, do you guys hire people that are just, I just need a job done? No. We've tried that before and it still bites us. And so, you know, the guys that work in our shipping department, they would tell you, they're not shipping boxes. They're the last person that touches a box full of hope that we're pushing out in the marketplace that's going to change somebody's life. I mean, they just take it that seriously. And they, you know, they pray over those boxes. as they go out because they know that there's their souls on the other side of whoever receives that thing that it's actually going to impact and improve their life in a way that's transformational.

And so these guys would tell you, no, we're not shipping. You know, we're delivering hope. And when you have that mindset, well, all of a sudden, they're not just shipping guys. They're not just driving a truck, but they go that extra mile. They do the shipping. They do the job. But then they come over here and they help solve another problem. And, you know, they're always asking, how can I help?

And, you know, when they're all cut up in the shipping room and they're, they're, they're ready to do more to advance the mission, that's the kind of people we want in every seat in our organization. So I would say if you just have a gig, you know, if you're like, okay, this, this truck needs to be driven to California and I'm not even looking to hire a full-time person right now, then just contract it or just get somebody that just is going to drive the truck for that gig and then go gig to gig to gig is fine. But if I'm going to make a full-time hire and they're going to be a part of our family, I want everyone in our family to be committed to our family's purpose. Yeah. Well, speaking about those contract relationships, you know, the one thing we've done very successfully is we leverage, you know, worldwide exclusive contracts with people that have amazing companies, manufacturers, technologies to help us scale more quickly through their established enterprises. And so one of the things that I'm kind of curious about is how do you guys at Ramsey Solutions, or maybe have you ever transcended your culture across that contract? Because there are, we've got about 40 employees that work exclusively.

for our projects that don't work for our entity. But we try and do that management style and practicing the things that we do, although they don't actually sit on our payroll, they sit on somebody else's. Yeah, that makes sense. So there's going to be times when that's just the best way to set up the structure

where you've got contractors that are an extension of your business or your service you provide. We work really hard to incorporate any of our partnership relationships or contract relationships into experiences that get them bought into, our purpose and get excited about not just being a contractor, but actually understanding how

their work, their piece of the puzzle connects to the broader mission. So all of our national advertisers have all been to our entree leadership events on our dime as our guest, because we've told them, we want you to understand how we run our business, and we want you to run your business this way, because we're transferring trust. When we tell our customers to work with you, our customers don't care whether they are a part of, you know, whether you're part of our entity or whether you're contracted, they expect the Ramsey experience to be impeccable. And so we're counting on you guys. And, you know, if they can't, it works if they're coachable. If they don't feel like they want to listen to what we have to say about how they should do that, then we

start having a different discussion about whether we need them to be our partner or our contractor. But if they're coachable and they understand that their business is going to be better and that it's a team effort, then we put ourselves in the position of coaching them and advising about the end-to-end customer experience where they're a piece of that supply chain, if you will. You know, we get really into their business and give them a lot of clear expectations on not just the product, but how the product is delivered and how the service component works because they're an extension of our family. So, you know, when we go do a big event down at a hotel and, you know, we'll be at the

the Gaylord Resort in Orlando this summer. It's a Marriott property. Marriott, well, they're a great hotel, but if somebody at our event has a bad experience with their hotel room, we don't build the hotel. We don't service the hotel room. But you know what? They just had a bad experience at an entree leadership event.

And so it's still our brand. And so we spend a lot of time when we're working with our vendor on the front end and talking through the experience and vetting them and making sure that, you know, because there's plenty of vendors that we can just, we can write the check. They say they have the space, but it's not about the space. It's about how that experience happens for the Ramsey customers where they're a part of that thing. So we just, we put a lot of time and a lot of energy and a lot of conversations into those

relationships. And if you've got some really key relationships, you might even consider doing events and experiences where you bring them in and have family talk. You know, maybe you have a couple days where they come on site and you do some entertainment and you schmooze a little and make it fun. for them, but then you also do a little training and go, hey, look, this is what we're about, and we want you guys to be on board with our purpose and our mission. And when you put those relational deposits in like that, you're going to stand out. And no one does that. Nobody does

that. And we do it in radio. We bring our top 50 affiliates in every year into a really high-end event and love on them, the producers and the general managers and everything. And they're just blown away because nobody in the space does that. So we don't control, we don't own those stations. You know, the same thing that you guys are talking about. But, those stations broadcast out the Dave Ramsey show. And so we just got really relational, really proactive. And we chose to invest a lot of money into experiences that ensure those partnerships are really high value for them. And they're excited about the relationship beyond just the transaction of the agreement that we have. Yeah, that's great. I'd love to follow up off line

with you. I've got some fun stories and things that we've done that I think have worked well. Awesome. Awesome. So in terms of hiring, taking it back to like the interview process, We've used a lot of the resources from our All Access Pass and gone through the questions. And I don't know if it just comes with experience and interviewing a lot of people. But I'm finding people always tend to say the right things in interviews. But how do we truly draw out whether they, you know, they will say they agree to our mission. We put it in our job description, only apply if you agree with our core values in our mission. But how do you still like just make sure we have it fairly long, but I'm still just finding you just can't be sure.

Right. you never know 100%, you know, because some people are just really good at saying the right thing. So you give yourself a little bit of room for some of how we learn might be that we make a few small, non-fatal mistakes, which sounds contradictory to what I let off with, which is don't hire the wrong person. Well, most people hire too fast, and that's the reason they hire the wrong person. If you're being really scrutinous, you've got a lot of time that you put into the interview process so you can really catch things. something feels funny and you dive in on it, you know, and you go, oh, that's funny. Well, I'm glad we spent a little more time there. You're trying to get rid of the, we call them donkeys.

You want to get rid of the donkeys before they get on the bus because we only want to hire thoroughbreds. Thoroughbreds, right? Yeah, I heard the podcast. That was great. Every once in a while, you know, even at Ramsey Solutions, as much as energies we put in this, every once in a while we hire a donkey and we realize it afterwards and we have to get them out as quick as possible. So, I mean, you still have the option to prune people. And if they prove to be a donkey, you're not married forever.

But it just creates a lot of pain. And there's a little bit of tax you pay with that. I'm going to tell you the best thing that I have learned in key hires where the interviews are going good and they're saying the right things, but I still just feel like, man, they got their guard up a little bit or it feels like they're saying all the right stuff. I try to create an experience that's a social setting. We were just talking about somebody we're hiring right now for our team.

interviews are going great. They're very likable. Their resume is spot on for what we're looking for. And they're still just a little like, are we getting the real person? And we're about to- We just had that experience this week. And it was really tough because we brought this candidate into our facility. We did the interviews.

It was great. And then we thought, okay, something, we just need to learn a little more. So we did an informal get-together. And I tell you, we decided against the candidate, fantastic candidate. This person was ticked all. the right boxes, but something wasn't right. But then interpersonally, I can tell you, I felt terrible about bringing this candidate all the way through this four-week process. And then at the very last minute, it's candidate that they were hired. I'm just like, it's not the right fit. I'm really sorry.

I know. I mean, that is tough because you kind of feel like you drug somebody along. But at the end of the day, I mean, you've got an opportunity they're interested in and you guys are dating each other to figure out if you want to get married. And it's a two-way conversation. And so if you get to a point where if it, you know, one of the things we say is if it's not a hell yes than it needs to be a hell no because you're going to spend too much time with these people and you're going to invest your entire life with these people. Is this someone you want to go on a road trip with and enjoy it? She's literally like, can I ride the truck for four hours of this person? Yes. Yeah. Do you look forward to being around them? Not just can they do the job? Because that's where we get

in trouble. Well, they're great at the work. They could do the job. But I don't really like them. Well, your business is too small to work with people that you don't like. All of ours are. We spend too much of our waking hours with our teams for us to not really love them as people. So in the interview process, I think you did a great job there. I would always try to get a, you know, kind of an informal setting after all the boxes are checked and go, let's just hang out. Let's go bowling. Let's do, you know, have the kids over and do a barbecue or, you know, go out for drinks or whatever and just not be talking about work, but just see what are they like as people. And is that chemistry right? You know, they may be fine people, but y'all's chemistry doesn't line up. Pay attention to that. That should be an alarm going off. Oh, yeah. And you're like, something's not right.

I just don't feel like, how do you deal with telling that candidate that, hey, it's just not the right fit? Yeah, I just tell them it's not a culture fit. Because part of our culture is that that chemistry feels like it's right. And, you know, it's, you know, we're looking for the right people who are highly relational, who, you know, we use Pat Linconioni's model a lot, that they're hungry. They're humble. They're people smart. And in culture, it's not a right or wrong. You're the wrong person and we're the right company. It's, this is us. And we need to feel like you can be us. And if you are like us, then we're going to work really well together. But if you're not like us and you're like someone else, that's fine. You just need to be in a different family because we're going to drive you crazy or you're going to drive us crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Have you guys found, given the current time, it's really difficult to take folks out to dinner,

but I know that social setting is an important step of the interview process. Have you guys at Ramsey Solutions come up with anything creative to still kind of do that? But without obviously going. Yeah, I mean, we've kind of been slow rolling hiring right now just because, you know, we're like everybody, we're hoarding cash and making sure everything's stable. I think our hiring is going to come back online here in a couple weeks, and we'll start doing more, you know, bringing people in for half-day. And part of our half-day experience with interviews includes usually dinner with a spouse and that kind of thing.

And so as the country comes back online and different areas are going to come on, you know, different timelines as we understand each state has its own issues with what's going on. But we haven't really been able to. I mean, that's a great question. I would still try to get creative and figure out, can we do a Zoom hangout, you know, with you and your spouse? and, you know, have an hour where we're just hearing about your story. And, you know, if we can get away from work and your resume and performance things and just go, tell me about you, tell me about your family, get to know you. You know, we're a small business here. We're all kind of friends with the people we work with.

We just want to build a relationship. I think using technology to do that is, you know, it's limited and it's not nearly as good as having a meal with somebody where you're breaking bread and you really just get to feel what it's like to be with them. So I wouldn't do that a lot. I mean, I would try to, if you can avoid short-cutting that in the season, and hold out for a few weeks until you can get back into in-person kind of experiences, I would try to do that. But I also understand you guys are, I mean,

you've got a lot of opportunity you're trying to scale up to right now. Yeah, well, it's kind of a good time. All of our trade shows are stopped. So we're like, well, we're in the office for a couple of months. Let's do those hiring things, but then there's the other side to it as well. Well, the thing that you guys can do, if you got some time and you're working on doing this right, is you can build a score.

card and you can map out all the variables that you really care about. You know, if there's 25 things you're looking for in a candidate, do you know what they are? And do you have them written down? And as you're having these conversations, can you go through and check on each of these things? You know, they're home run on that. They're completely lock on that. Oh, this is kind of a yellow flag. Let's circle back on that and drill more next time we talk to them. You know, I like the idea of a scorecard because it makes sure that I don't get excited about five things. that are really awesome, and I forget to go look at the other 20 that I find out later. I cared about those, and I assumed they were okay, and I didn't check in on them.

And so you can get some of your processes tuned up right now. You can get some of your scorecards defined. You can get the key results areas figured out for how you want to grow. You can even start building out kind of your ideal org chart over the next two to three years just without feeling like all of them have to be filled in today. But you can start getting some vision in front of you of let's put some artifacts together that give us a sense of where we're going with. with this so that when we're having these conversations, we're starting to go down the list of

the scorecard and we're filling in seats on the org chart versus just kind of going, man, we got pain right now, find somebody that can take this pain away. And that tends to be where we get to and we hide. That's where we get in trouble. We hire out of desperation. Yeah. That's specifically what we're trying to avoid right now is there's so much activity, you know, that there's just need for people. And that's kind of where we feel this back and forth pull as to, I mean, luckily, we've been very financially responsible. We've got no debt. We've got plenty of cash.

So we can hire whomever we want at whatever the rate is. So it's like one of those funny catch-22s where most of the time small businesses are strapped and they're trying to figure out how they can get the maximum bang for the minimum buck. We're willing to hire the right people with whichever the budget is to get that person on board. It's just finding the people and then choosing,

do we need someone to run the team or do we need someone we can teach? Well, some of the time, we need someone to just, we need executive level players, but we don't have it. There's nobody else on the team for them to, report around. So it's just, it's a really hard environment to hire in, which maybe is, I have no idea how that that spins into a question for you, but I guess it's more of a reflection that it's

just, it's a tough environment to be in because it's a kind of a unique position, I think. I get why it feels unique. And I, I mean, I also would tell you that this is always going to be difficult and there's always going to be tension of what's the right speed and how do I know that I really have the right person. I think what I hear with you guys, guys is a lot of healthy concern about getting this right. But I also want to encourage you guys to not to not come of this from a place of fear that if you make a mistake or two, that your whole business is going to go down the tubes. I mean, you guys are. Yeah, I'm usually the risky one. She's usually reserved one. And we balance each other pretty well. Don't, don't make stupid decisions,

but you do have to go forward. You know, you do, I mean, you do have to move. And you can, I, use this phrase a lot with my team and is, I reserve the right to be smarter later. I mean, I make mistakes and I learn from them. And, you know, the cool thing about it is, you know, you get to make a different decision later once you realize on maybe I made the wrong decision. The thing that we don't want to be reckless with in hiring is these are people. These are people's lives. So with projects and initiatives, I can move fast and go, try it. If it doesn't work. There's nothing to lose. There is a little bit to lose here because you don't want to treat people that way. So we want to be slower and more intentional, but that underlying

principle still applies, which is you're going to be getting most of them right if you take your time and slow down and really think through this stuff, everything we've been talking about. Occasionally you're going to get one that's a miss, and you can deal with that one when it comes and go, all right, we've got to move this person on because we realize that they're not a fit now. So I don't want to rely on the fact that I can fire them later as like a safety valve. That's that's not what I'm trying to say. But you also emotionally give yourself permission at some point to make the decision. Yeah, you got to pull the trigger and go.

Can you touch on that real fast? I know we're running up on time. When you make the wrong choice, and it's like, all right, we've given this, we're at 90 days. This isn't the right fit. How do you guys gracefully let somebody go onto their next thing? Well, we spend a lot of time on that as well. So we hire slow and we fire slow.

And we're not afraid to make the call. and we're not afraid to get to the point where we go, this isn't working out. But my assumption is if somebody's not doing a good job, initially that's on me as the leader. And I got to look in the mirror and go, did I get them set up for success? Did I give them a clear vision of what winning looks like?

Did I give them the coaching and the training? Did I give them enough time to learn and, you know, figure out how to integrate with the team? And, you know, oftentimes it's a struggling team member. When they come out of, you know, we hire them and they come out of the gate and they start struggling, a lot of the times it's that we have failed them as a leader where we haven't trained them and set them up for success and giving them the tools that they need, intellectually, physically,

technology, everything that they need to thrive. And so I first look at that and make sure that they've had everything that they need to actually do the job, because if not, it's a leadership problem. If I can go, okay, no, they have had that and they've had enough time, then I get more clear with them on the expectations, put it in writing and I say, hey, this isn't going as great as it needs to be going. Okay, this is the expectation. Right now, you're consistently coming in a little bit below the expectation. We got to get that gap closed and we need to do it in the next few weeks or we're going to have

to have a different conversation about whether this is working or not. Okay. So I don't know surprise. Yeah, we don't want them to be surprised. But, you know, if you'll take your time and you have course correcting conversations, well then, you know, the second, so first phase is, it's probably a leadership problem. Second phase is, well, you know, most people, when they're given that level of clarity, a lot of people will actually make the turn and they'll rise to the occasion and they just needed a little bit more intensity. And then the third phase is, okay, we made sure it wasn't a leadership problem. We've given you the time and lots of clarity to make the turn. And you consistently still are not performing and rising to the occasion. And so we need to have a more formal like, hey, in 30 days from now,

if very explicit things are not happening, then, you know, this. this is not going to work out and it's going to be, you know, time to move on. So that on day 30, they know. Yeah, they know. Yeah, it's clear. And it's all mapped out. So the worst thing in the world is, you know, you kind of, it's vague and squishy and you say, hey, man, I need you do a little better job.

And then you move on. And what they heard was, no, he's having a bad day. But they didn't get any clarity on what they do different in their performance to actually get to stay. And then in two months from now, it's been festering in your spirit, driving you crazy that they haven't changed when you really didn't tell them what they need to change and you just come in and you're angry and you just fire them you know well that's that's not fair to them and you didn't get a chance to see if they could rise to the occasion and make the turn so you know we're

just very deliberate and highly highly intentional on hiring highly intentional on training and communication and highly intentional on course correction and then if we have to get to it highly intentional on letting people go with grace so that we don't know or so that we don't you know put our head on a pillow at night after you fire somebody. It's just, it's not a fun thing to do. I never want to put my head on my pillow that night and go, I wasn't really fair to them. Or I was too busy to give them what they needed.

And I just created the worst day of their life because as a leader, I fired them and I have a regret that I didn't ever set them up for success. I don't want to, I don't want that feeling. You know, I want to know if I have to make that hard call. And I have. It sucks. It's not a fun thing to do at all. But I'm able to say every one of them,

I've been able to go, they knew what was coming, they knew the expectation, and my conscience is clear because I can I can at least put my head on my pillow and go, they're, they're an adult, and they saw this coming, or they should have, based on the conversations that we had, and I made time for him as a leader going into it. That's great advice. Yeah, thank you. Well, you guys are killing it.

I mean, my feeling is you have so much going for you that the only way to really screw this up is to just get sloppy. And you guys have not been sloppy. I know it feels like a lot of pressure to capture everything that's going on right now. But you guys are going to be around for a long time. And I want you guys to really think about your purpose and start thinking about what are we trying to do over the next 20 years? You know, you're 30 years old. You get your whole life in front of you and you already have a lot of things that you've proven that you can do. What's your long game? You know, what's going to be the thing in 20 years from now you're going to be really, really proud of? Because if you can expand your vision past this initial 20 months and go out 20 years and then start to back into so therefore

this is just one year of the of the next 20 years what is that stepping stone look like you're going to relax a little bit you're going to make a little bit more calculated decisions you're going to use a little bit more wisdom and a little less desperation and how you guys arrive at that i want you to get there with peace and with stability um and not necessarily fast because fast is not always better You go up fast and you go down fast. I want you guys to be stable. Well, thank you for your advice. It's been really great chatting.

You guys are doing great. Thanks for the service you provide. And, man, talk about work that matters and supporting our first responders in that way. Such a cool thing that you guys do. So keep going, keep leading and keep learning. And you guys are going to make it. You are making it. But you guys are going to continue to thrive.

And if we can do anything at Entree leadership to help you guys more, don't hesitate to give us. a call. Fantastic. Thank you so much. You bet. Thanks guys.