REAL AF with Andy Frisella - 778. Q&AF: Part Of Being A Leader, Customers Not "Always Right”, & Questioning Potential Hires

Episode Date: September 14, 2024

On today's episode, Andy answers your questions on how to address feedback as a responsible leader, how to know when the customer is not "always right" in certain situations, and what are the best questions to ask a potential hire.

What is up guys, it's Andy Purcell and this is the show for the realest. Say goodbye to the lies, the fakeness, and delusions of modern society and welcome to motherfucking reality. Guys, today we have a special Saturday Q&AF. This is where you submit the questions and we give you the answers. Now, you could submit your questions a few different ways. The first way is, guys, email these questions into askandy at andyfrasella.com, or you go on YouTube, you drop your question in the comments, and we'll choose some from there as well. I'm just going to jump right into it because if you're listening on YouTube, you drop your question in the comments and we'll choose some from there as well.

I'm just going to jump right into it because if you're listening on Saturday, you know the rules. We have shows within the show. We got CTI. We got real talk. We got 75 hard verses. But I do want to remind you that we need your help growing the show. We need you to share the show.

All right. We don't run ads for the show. We don't run ads on the show. I don't want to say what someone thinks I need to say because they're paying me some money to represent their product to try to keep it real with you guys. Whether you agree or disagree with me, that's how we run the show. So I ask very simply, if the show makes you think, if it makes you laugh, it gives you new perspective. If it's entertaining, if it's something that you think needs to be heard,

do us a favor and share the show. We've got a little saying we like to say here. It goes like this. Don't be a hoe. Share the motherfucking show. That's right. What's up, man? What's going on, man?

Nothing, dude. A little Saturday sizzle. Yep. Trying to keep it going. I do want to remind people that MFCEO Project is coming back. And if you don't know what MFCEO project is, it was the number one business podcast on iTunes for a very long time. It was my initial podcast and it was all personal development, how to win, how to kick ass in life. And we are bringing that back. Now, if you want

to know where that can be found and where we are going to be posting that, you're going to need to go to my website, andyfrasella.com and subscribe for the Andy Graham emails, which is your daily Andy Graham. It's like an Instagram post, but it goes straight to your email. Okay. We're not going to talk about it publicly. I'm not going to post about it publicly. We're just going to do it through that email list. So if you're not on that email list, go get on it. That way you'll be notified when MSCO drops. So what's up, man? What's going on, man? Oh, not much. Well, let's make some people better because I got three good ones for you. Cool.

Shocking. Yeah. Let's knock these out, guys. Question number one. Hi, Andy. I am an eight-year veteran police officer for a department in Arizona. For context, I am a woman. Now, I've been following you for years.

I feel like I know you. I support everything you do and stand for. And so without jumping to conclusions and making quick judgments, can you give me a little more feedback on your women in law enforcement statement? I have made plenty of sacrifices. Which statement? That women should not be in law enforcement. Oh, okay. Yeah. I think made plenty of sacrifices. Which statement? That women should not be in law enforcement. Oh, okay. Yeah. I think

a couple episodes ago. Well, I think I believe I said they shouldn't be in the field of law enforcement. That's what I said. Yeah. But she says, I have made plenty of sacrifices in the line of duty, received a lifesaver commendation in 2022, and I have held my own in this career.

This is how I provide for my family and I love what I do. All right, let's talk about it. Well, first off, let me start with this. Okay. Myself, our companies, our people, there is not a bigger group of people that support law enforcement than we do. Okay. We do multiple charitable events and give away hundreds of thousands of dollars and collectively millions of dollars over the course of our business life to the law enforcement locally. It's our biggest beneficiary of the work that we do. So you're not going to find better supporters than we are. With that being said, you know, I think my comments were generalized and I think I need to clarify them a little bit. I'm fine with that. I had a couple of women here in St. Louis that

were upset with me that I know that are police officers and they were like, Andy, I love you, dude, but what the fuck is this? So we'll address it. And what I really should have said, and did I overgeneralize? Yeah, for sure. And I do that sometimes that's the nature of how I speak and you know, I'm trying to get better about it. But what I really mean is that certain women shouldn't be police officers and certain men shouldn't be police officers. And if we're going to have women be police officers, they should be capable. They should be emotionally stable. They should be able to deescalate situations and they shouldn't take advantage of opportunities where men are, know emasculated because they're in a a situation with a gun and a badge position of power and that goes for men too okay so it's not just a women thing it's a men thing and so

when i said what i said it wasn't you know it was a generalization man i should have said it differently but the truth of the matter is you know we have positions in society that are better suited for men we have positions in society that are better suited for men. We have positions in society that are better suited for women. I'm not saying that there's certain women that can't do these jobs of men because there definitely are, bro. There's women who are nearly, or if not more physically superior than most men out there. We see this in the Olympics. We see this in MMA. We see this in judo and fucking jujitsu. And then we have, you know, the same situation with men. We have men who are physically capable of doing something. We have a lot of men that aren't.

So, you know, and by the way, I'm speaking of personal interactions that I've had out there in reality. And in reality, the situations I've had have been more favorable with men police officers than they have women with women and I don't know why that is But to me being on the receiving end it always felt like there was an establishment of dominance that needed to happen When in reality I would have respected her for just asking me politely to do this or that so You know, I can understand why someone would you know? Be offended by that a little bit and you know question, question it. But guys, I love you guys. I raise money for you guys all the time. There's nobody that's out here supporting you guys more than I. You have all these, you know, people calling you bootlickers and, you know, fucking

the police are bad and all this shit, bro. I've never gone down that road ever one time. We continue to support. We continue to raise money. We continue to support. It's a very difficult job. You've got to put all this shit on and go out in the world and deal with the worst possible elements of society every fucking day. I have tremendous respect for that. And I believe that I'm probably the only person on the fucking internet that has said, Hey, these people need to be paid way more money. We need to stop shipping all this money over to Ukraine and the middle East and all these bullshit causes. We need to pay our police officers the right amount, 200, 400 fucking grand so that they can do this dangerous job and be compensated properly for it.

So like you get me in the office, bro, you guys will make a lot more money. All right. So, you know, I can understand why someone would be upset with that. That wasn't the intent of my comment. And I did overgeneralize and I take responsibility for that. I'm a big boy. I can handle the criticism. But at the end of the day i love you guys i appreciate you guys and i'd fucking uh and i have physically gone to battle for women cops in this city there was a situation about eight years ago where i had to literally save one of the female cops life

because she was in overhead with a fucking uh a six foot eight massive man and you know what had i not been there that could have been potentially bad and that's a lot of where i derive that experience from when i see that situation and i see a five foot four police officer and a six foot eight man and i have to draw my own personal weapon to control the situation that gives me some perspective about the comments that I said. I think, you know, I don't want anybody getting hurt. I don't want anybody getting killed. And I've witnessed those things.

So, you know, I love you guys. I appreciate you guys. And, you know, I should have said it differently and been more careful in my words, but it is what it is. Well, I think there's also context, too, like to your point. He's like, you know, you've had better experiences with male cops than you have a female i think there's something too and this is what we were talking about in that episode though it's like you know with men there is this like understanding it's not a conversation i don't know if it's body language like we know yes like i know

that they are going to be consequences there's potential consequences of my actions or words yeah and like women don't have that same they don't walk through life with that same because women don't naturally go to physicality when it comes to conflict and men do through nature okay and that was the point we were trying to make um but yeah man i look you had a great career there's lots of women that are fucking tremendous leaders and tremendous uh tremendous at doing things that men do i mean bro oil rigs construction fucking farming look i know women that do all of these things and they're and they're amazing at it all i'm saying is is that we have to pick the right people for the right position and not all people qualify for

that and i think we've gotten a little bit liberal with who we let to be men cops and who we let to be women cops. And I think there needs to be some higher standards for both sides. All across the board. Yeah. And by the way, people need to respect the police officers better too. We have this anti-narrative of the police that there's some bad people, bro. Listen, do you know what the fucking world would look like without the police? Do you understand what it would look like without people keeping order? These people have to go out every single fucking day and deal with people that are drunk, on drugs, having the worst days of their life. And then they're shit on by society.

And so, like, dude, to hear, you know, because I had a couple of friends here locally, like I said, that were a little upset with what I said. And that hurts me. I don't like that because that's not who I am. You know what I'm saying? I want people to be safe. I want the world to be good. And by the way, if you vote for me, I'll pay you more money. I love it, man. Guys, Andy, question number two, uh, Andy, I own a hospitality business and my career has been in the customer service industry. Yeah. Um, I'm curious when is the customer not always right? And how do you train your staff to handle those situations? Well, look, I think it's important to understand

that 98%, 99% of the customers you deal with are not malicious. They are not trying to take advantage. They just want their problems solved effectively. And because most companies do not solve customers' problems effectively without resistance, customers have this natural mentality when they ask for something now that it has to be abrasive and aggressive and they've got to demand it right away. When in reality, dude, like that comes from all these other companies and all their experiences, sort of like that last question where I'm talking about my perspective of my experiences. And we have to be careful just like that last question to not generalize all of these

customers as taking advantage because they're not. Most people just want their goods that they paid for. They want it fairly fast, convenient, and they want to be handled and treated with respect. And so when you own a business, are you going to have customers that are going to try and take advantage? Are you going to have customers that are going to try and get more, get one over. Yes, absolutely. But dude, most of the customers are just people that want their shit solved. And if you can take the mentality of, okay, I'm going to solve their problem, but I'm also going to do some extra, you'll drive so much good word of mouth because the people who are upset and vocal,

they will also be your biggest advocate and vocal about that too when you fix the problem. So I say all that to say this, are there times when you have to tell a customer no? Yes. Are there times when you have to fire a customer and say, hey, we've done everything we can. I know that you're not happy. Maybe there's another company that will be able to service you better. Here's some alternative options. And you always keep the classy demeanor. You always handle it with respect, even if they aren't, because they usually aren't at this point. And try to solve the problem the best they can. And sometimes, dude, like these people are having a bad day.

They lost their dog. They lost a loved one. They're going through a hard time. Their paycheck got delayed. Or they don't have a paycheck. Who knows? Who knows? It could be the worst day ever.

So I think it's always good in business to give those people the benefit of the doubt. And what I've found is that if you do give them the benefit of the doubt and you do stay true to solving the problem instead of getting in an argument with them, eventually they will walk away. And I can't tell you how many times this has happened to me. Eventually they will walk away and they will say, dude, I was an asshole. I shouldn't have done that. And I could tell you, dude, there's been so many people over the course of 25 years who have been very rude to me and I've continued to be nice to them. And then they've

come back later and owned, owned what they did, bro. There's nothing wrong with making mistakes. As long as you fucking own them, you what i'm saying and then what happens is that person when they come back they become an advocate because you always kept your cool and you still tried to solve their problem even though they were belligerent about it yeah now moving that into your team how do you communicate that to your team like how do you hold that as the standard with you well a lot of that is just reps and training and hypothetical situations, role playing, you know, making them understand the concept of loyalty and what it takes to create loyalty, not just satisfaction. Right. Because you're not trying to get satisfied customers. Satisfied customers means that you're you're one inch away from being unsatisfied. Okay. So like when companies say, Oh, I got a 99% satisfaction rate, that doesn't really mean shit. That means you're doing just good enough with 99% of your people to not piss them off. That's not what you want. What you want is for them to be thrilled,

to be excited, to be ecstatic about being a customer of your brand. And that only happens when you stay true to the intent, which is to solve their problem, regardless of the day that they're solve their problem regardless of the day that they're having or regardless of the mood that they are in and a lot of business owners this is where the dangerous part comes in you have one or two or three customers that treat you shitty and then you start assuming that everybody is trying to take advantage and dude that'll ruin your business because your mentality will go from hey i got to fix these problems i got to serve these problems i got to create advocates out of these people to fuck those people. And then you won't have any customers left.

It's like you start to defend your brand. Yes. And you got to realize, dude. I'm never wrong. Yeah. Exactly. And you got to realize, dude, most people have such shitty experiences everywhere else that they're not used to getting taken care of fast

or quick or in a way that they appreciate they're used to having to fight for that fucking thing or that thing right bro make it easy yeah wait so i gotta fight for this fucking yeah be cool hey listen i understand you're upset no problem let me handle that for you i'm sorry that happened to you that shouldn't happen you see what i'm saying yeah yeah man that's so fucking true yeah i call it i call these people now i'm ready to fight yeah because that's just that's that's what we deal with we deal with being on hold for 75 minutes and some fucking lady who doesn't want to be on the phone with us and doesn't give a shit if we solve our problems and that that is an opportunity for small business bro that's an opportunity for you the little guy

to do something that people appreciate. Fuck, dude. That's the whole reason we exist is because there's a hole in other companies' ability to service the customer that our companies, whether I'm selling fucking protein powder or tequila or weed or fucking any of the other shit that we sell, we fucking service the customer, bro, and make them happy. You got to remember, that person is giving you their hard- their hard earned money that they worked their ass off to get. The least you could do is appreciate them for doing so. They have plenty of other options

and most companies don't. So if you can build a company that does actually appreciate people, that's a huge competitive advantage that you're going to have as a little guy that is hard to scale as a big company. I fucking love it, man. I love it guys. Andy, let's get to our third and final question.

Question number three, Andy, I've started a life insurance agency and I'm working on hiring people, but I don't want to hire just anyone. I want to build a team that is success driven and willing to continue to grow into amazing badass people that want to win at a high level like i do what are some questions i can be asking or points i can be making to make sure people will be a good fit any advice on this would be appreciated what's what's the pre-screening like look dude let me give you let me give you the fucking whole entire key to hiring quality

people hire on character you can teach skill you can't teach character so whatever questions you're asking make the questions about someone's character hey you have to go to your friend's wedding and you're 10 minutes late but you forgot to to get a card. And as you're walking out of the grocery store with the card, you notice a shopping cart out in the middle of the thing. Do you take the time to put it back or do you jump in the car and go here? That'll tell you something about someone. You're at a gas station and you're filling up your tank and somebody walks up to you and says, hey man, can I get 20 bucks for a tank of gas? I'm far away from home and I ran out of money. Do you give them the 20 bucks? Do you put the gas on the credit card? Do you tell them to eat shit? What do you do? Okay. And whatever their answer is, which by the way, there's no

wrong answer. It will just give you insight to their character. So try to think of questions that will qualify hypothetical situations that we've all faced where people's character will shine through you see what i'm saying um and then the skill set you could teach bro skills are easy to teach it's the character that you can't teach so build your questions build your uh build your uh your interview process around the character qualities of the human and then learn to teach the skills and you'll be in a great spot. Now, when you get bigger and you start to scale out to, let's say, you're at nine figures and bigger, you have to start hiring people to have experience and skill. But usually those people have good character because they've been through the journey anyway. And they understand that if you don't have good character you get kicked off the

fucking success tree at some point anyway so build your interview process around character build your culture around character teach skill that's what you're going to want to do love that and i don't remember uh what company it was but there was like the the parking lot test like looking in that person's car. Oh, that's me. I tell you. Okay, fuck, yeah. No, I'm not even playing like that.

That's real shit. Yeah, no, dude, listen. When we used to interview people, it would be me and Jason, and we'd sit in the interview. And while we were sitting in the interview with the person, one of us would get up and walk outside and look inside the person's car. Okay? And the reason we did that was we're going to see is their car fucking full of trash is their

car totally clean what kind of car are they driving is it fucking beat to shit does it have fucking dents on the front the back the side you can tell a lot by someone's car okay mainly like do they pay attention to details and And so that's what we would do. And it usually worked out if we ever made an exception, say, yeah, the guy's car is kind of dirty. That motherfucker was dirty in the office and he didn't pay attention to details. So yeah, there's all kinds of little things that you can do like that. And there's all kinds of books and articles and YouTube videos that you can watch on trying to hire. But just remember, a lot of those are built around attracting people with skill. And if you're trying to build a culture that you're going to enjoy, that everybody's going to enjoy,

you got to hire on character and then teach skill. Yeah. I love that the parking lot test, man. I love that because I also feel too, and like everybody knows this, you know, when you're going to get a job, like you're going to put your best fucking face on. Correct. You know what I'm saying? So there's like, that's a hard thing I'd imagine to have to fucking like filter in and out. Like, you know,

because they're going to give you the best fucking self up front. Yeah. Best clothes. Yeah. So you got to look where they're not looking. Right. You know what I'm saying? Right.

Let them go to the bathroom. Go check the bathroom after dinner. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.

I love it. Yeah. So dude, look, pay attention to the character, teach the skills, look where they're not looking to see what they really are. What's their social like? Are they on social bitching about their old job?

Don't hire them. Yeah, that's not a game. Okay. Because they're going to bitch about you. You know what's funny? Employees don't fucking get that. They don't understand that when you go on the internet and cry about your old job job anybody who's considering working with you in the future is going to be like bro fuck this guy like yeah remember that because they don't feel like they have to walk on eggshells

yeah it eliminates your ability to be employed with other companies later and people don't think like that's just messy too bro and companies will dig they will go all the way back on your twitter all the way they will go all the way back on your instagram and facebook they're making an investment in you they're making a fucking the time and the money and the time to teach and bring you up to speed listen man people don't want to waste that time and that energy so they're going to look so have your shit together yeah make sure it's nice when they do i love it man well guys that was three. All right, guys, nice little Saturday.

I'm going to go to Home Depot and maybe Home Goods. No, I'm not. All right, guys, I love you guys. We'll see you on Monday. Outro Music