REAL AF with Andy Frisella - Know When To Hold Them, Know When To Fold Them, with Andy Frisella - MFCEO104

Episode Date: November 1, 2016

While you are ultimately responsible for your success, the effectiveness of your business will largely be determined by the people who work with you. For this reason, you have to know how to hire the right people and when to fire the wrong people. In this episode, The MFCEO shares his tips for recruiting the best help for your business and letting go of the dead weight.

I want to be a motherfucking hustler. You better ask somebody. What is up guys? You're listening to the MFCEO Project. I'm Andy. I'm your host and I am the motherfucking CEO. As always, I'm here with my co-host Vaughn Kohler, the pastor of disaster. What's up, my man? I'm doing something different today. You are? I'm without the headphones. I'm trying to relax a little bit more. I just noticed, man. Yeah, I'm trying to relax. Holy cow. Yeah, yeah. I was going to get a little maybe- You actually saw him reach over for him and then he's like, nope. Oh, dude, you're becoming one of the cool kids now. Well, I want to relax a little bit more. I want to get better at being more eloquent here.

Just kind of let it flow. Yeah, the next step is going to be maybe... Headphones are that road. They are. Well, the next step is maybe a vodka or Sprite. I get the headphone thing, man. When we first start, you want to be official. Yeah.

But it's just, I don't know, man. I start sweating. They're uncomfortable. It's just not my thing. Yeah, yeah. So, guys, if this is your first time listening, we normally don't have guests. Okay. We have basically me, the MF CEO.

We have Vaughn, the holiest of holies. Right. Exactly. DJ, DJ God. Right. You haven't pulled that one out for a while. I haven't. That's what she said.

And basically what we do is we talk about issues that have to do with entrepreneurship and not just entrepreneurship from the sense of owning a business because entrepreneurial values actually help us achieve goals in all areas of life, whether it be fitness, whether it be relationships, whether it be actual, whether it be relationships, whether it be actual career working within a company, or if you do happen to own your own business, you're going to find our messages relevant. On Tuesdays, we usually come at you with practical advice, which is what we're going to do today. And sometimes it's practical advice about business. Sometimes it's practical advice about life. Thursdays, we have Thursday Thunder, which is basically me yelling at you to get off your ass every Thursday. So if that's something

that you need, something you like, you're going to like that kind of format. We have a lot of new listeners and all of our listeners come from referrals. So we don't charge anything. We don't sell anything. We don't have any programs. We don't have any courses that we try to sell you. Our only fee that we ask, and we ask this all the time, that if you're satisfied or you feel like we brought value to you, that you bring us one friend. You don't have to tell all your friends. You don't have to tell everybody.

Just bring one. Because guys, at the end of the day, this is a cultural movement. This isn't just us getting on here and trying to talk about business or money or whatever. It's about creating and, and bringing back the values that have made our country, the United States of America. Great. And with the entitlement and, and the, um, the issues that have been brought along the last, you know last 10 years in our society, everybody wins, everybody's special. You don't have to work hard. There's a quick way to do everything, automate everything. The ideals and the values of working hard and doing the right thing and

being a great person and bringing other people up have sort of been lost. And what we're trying to do is bring those back. So this is a movement. You will hear the word fuck. You will hear curse words because guess what? That's how I talk. All right. And if you can't handle that, then this podcast definitely isn't for you. So with that being said, guys, we are going to talk about some practical implementations regarding real business today. And I want to start off by basically just talking about one of my struggles I had. When we started in business, guys, and if you don't know the story about how we started in business, you can go back and listen to some of the earlier podcasts or read some of my Instagram posts. I talk about it a lot. we started a business. You can go back and listen to some of the earlier podcasts or read some of my Instagram posts. I talk about a lot. We started from nothing.

Okay. We started from literally $12,000 that we got from painting the stripes on parking lots. And we've built that into over, you know, what's going to be close to $150 million business this year. We didn't do that on our own. Okay. The first five years of business, it was just me and Chris and a couple of friends that helped out in our retail store. It wasn't like we had to hire and fire people on a regular basis. It was more like, Hey bro, can you help us out at the store for a little bit? It was people we trusted. There was no real training. It was more like, hey, bro, can you help us out of the store for a little bit? It was people we trusted. There was no real training. It was like just sitting at a counter. And when it came time to open our second store, I can remember, and honestly, this was the hardest thing for me to ever do in business, to go from one to two stores.

We had a situation where it was just me and Chris, and then we're going to open up a second store. And then when the second store was getting ready to open, we had an opportunity to move to St. Louis and basically buy out this other company. So we actually went from one store to not only the second store, but also four other stores in less than a week. So we went from one store to six stores in one week's time. Talk about baptism by fire to having employees. The biggest struggle I had and the reason I said we struggled is because me and Chris would sit in the back and literally this conversation went on for years. Yeah, dude, we should open another store, but who could we trust to run it? You know, who's good? Who are we going to trust to handle our money? Who are we going to trust? Who are we going to trust? Who are we going to trust?

And that was the conversation, right? And because we couldn't figure out and we didn't trust people and we certainly were not leaders back then from an entrepreneurial sense, um, or, or managers because it was just me and him and we were the owner operators. We didn't trust anybody because we didn't know how to trust anybody. And guess what? To learn how to trust people, you got to fucking trust people. And it's a weird, weird, weird, uncomfortable thing to get into. But that one, I would say that one aspect, we probably could have opened our second store two years in or three years in, but we didn't end up opening it till six years in because we were so terrified of hiring and how that was

going to play out. And I think like you guys have heard me speak before. I believe in the law of attraction. I believe in certain mystical forces that exist. You want to call it God, you want to call it the law of attraction. It doesn't matter me i just believe in those forces that's i have proof of it i believe that those forces knew that we wanted to grow and we didn't know how to grow so they brought a situation we couldn't say no to and forced us to grow and that was bringing this opportunity of four other stores in a totally different geographical market that we had to own or operate and figure it out basically in one week. I guess my point in telling you this story is because what we're going to talk today is about how to hire and how to fire people, practical steps. Because I know a lot of you guys

are small business operators, you're small business, you know, just getting started, maybe a year in, maybe three years in, maybe five years in, and you haven't really got this concept down yet. Because I know this is a hard concept. I can remember many, many, many sleepless nights worrying and thinking about how I'm going to have people to run our business or how I'm going to hire the right people or how, you know, how can I fire this person and blah, blah, blah. And now with the internet, you have even more of a dynamic for how to fire people because dude, everybody has a voice. So if you fire somebody the wrong way, or you treat them poorly, or you just say, Hey man, get the fuck out of here.

They're going to go bash you on the internet. And then you're gonna have to deal with that. So you even, you have to be more skilled at this process than ever before in the history of Earth. I'm really glad that you're tackling this issue because, as you've said, it's not just a practical issue. It's a deeply emotional one. I mean, the analogy is... If you have a soul. Yeah, right. I mean, it's like what you just said and what you just alluded to.

When you put your heart and soul into your business, it literally becomes your baby. And this is like a parent leaving their kids with a babysitter or off at school for the first time. It's your most treasured possession, and now you have to put it in the hands of somebody else. Right, right. Well, you know, I know that there's lots of people listening right now and that this applies to. And there's lots of people listening right now that it doesn't apply to currently. But I guarantee you, if you are on the entrepreneurial path, you will, or even if you work in a company, you will progress to a point where one of your responsibility is hiring and firing people.

Because here's the truth, guys. We can't do it on our own there's not enough hands there's not enough mouths there's not enough energy to do the work necessary to become truly successful without the effort of a real team and so hiring and firing is one of the most important skills that you need to understand from from the get-go whether you're in that position right now or not and what i'm trying to do by stating this is that you guys who maybe aren't in that position right now thinking like, oh, well, this doesn't apply to me. No, there's going to be things that we talk about here that apply to you directly. And they also will apply to you as an employee. So with that being said, guys, we're going to tackle hiring first all right there's

two aspects here hiring and firing i want to tackle hiring first and i'm going to give you three practical points on hiring and then i'm going to give you three practical points on firing so if you're taking notes one two three one two three it doesn't get any simpler all right so my first point on hiring is this guys the eyes and the stomach are much, much, much more important than the head and the hands. And what I mean by that is this. Can the people you're talking about see your vision? Are they hungry for the success level that you're trying to achieve? Okay?

Many, many, many CEOs, many, many managers are very, very, very poor at painting the picture of where the company is going and the role that that potential employee could possibly play. Okay. When interviewing people, you're not interviewing people for a $10 an hour job or whatever, which is where they might be starting. You should be interviewing people for a $10 an hour job or whatever, which is where they might be starting. You should be interviewing people for a career position in your company. All right. And that is the communication commitment that you need to make to these people if you're going to get them enthused about working for you. All right. Another way to put this is that, you know, ability isn't as important as teach ability.

So you're painting the picture to this potential person. You're showing them all the great things they could accomplish in your company. And hopefully, you do allow for upward mobility in your company. And if you haven't built the company yet, make sure that you're allowing for that. Because it creates a tremendous positive culture inside your company. With that being said, when you're talking to somebody, you know, if you're painting this picture and they're looking at you and they're saying things like, well, that's, that's not what I do. I drive a truck. That's not the right guy, right? You know, the guy, the guy that you should

be looking for should be like, yeah, man, you know, I could drive a truck. I can also do this. I can also do this. And you know what? I could see myself learning how to do this. You get what I'm saying? So you could follow along with their enthusiasm for your plans by just watching them when you talk about it. Uh, but a lot of people don't do that. You know, they hire for the position and they pay the guy X amount with no upward mobility. And then they wonder why that guy does a shitty fucking job. Well, I'll tell you why that guy does a shitty job because that guy doesn't have anything to look forward to. He has nothing to aspire to. He has nothing to grow into. And if that's the case and where he is, is where he's going to always be,

you're going to have a mediocre employee at best, a hundred percent of the time. So are you just basically saying that, basically saying that an undrafted free agent with an overwhelmingly elite approach to learning, to getting better, to work ethic, is always going to be better than, let's say, a top draft pick who has loads of talent but is just impossible to work with? 100%.

I'd rather have 100 of those guys that you mentioned than the one specialized guy. You always go for the heart over the talent. Right. Yeah. Heart wins, man. It just does. And a lot of people may not have the talent from day one, but if they're coachable, if they listen, if they're people of action, that's how you cultivate a great culture. And guys, what we talk about here is, you know, we're talking about hiring, but what we're really talking about is how to build a great fucking culture with the people you hire how to win with the people you hire okay it's real easy

to put bodies in a fucking job it's a lot more difficult to bring bodies that are going to bring 100 every single day to your company than anything else. And that's what we're talking about here. So when we say hiring and firing, I'm not talking about hiring somebody to cook fucking hamburgers. I'm talking about somebody that might start out sweeping the floor, but could potentially be upper management

or executive level one day if they work hard enough. And your goal as a CEO, as an owner of a company, should be this, and this is my goal. My goal here is that I know because of our personal development standards here at our companies that people are going to grow. They're going to develop. And guess what? Sometimes the company doesn't grow as quickly as the people grow.

And what that means is those people are going to leave. They're going to find better opportunities personally. They're going to grow. They're going to move out of the situation. And you know what? That's okay. Because your job as the CEO is really a job to develop people. And if you always develop people, you will always have a great network of people who

work for you, who spread good word of mouth about you, who love you because of what you did for them. And that's a big fucking deal. What's a better advocate than somebody who moved on and progressed and left the company and said, that was the greatest fucking thing I ever did. Absolutely. You see what I'm saying? Yeah. Based on what you're saying, I almost wonder if you probably don't even really like the word hiring. I, I, I, based on what you're saying, I would say you probably feel more comfortable with the term recruiting. Like you're not hiring to a job you're recruiting for a movement or you're recruiting for a team 100 100 and we do that too

yeah and you're really good at finding those people who have i think that you can see that they might have skills in a different area you'll fan that flame yeah like as their career you know progresses and stuff right yeah just like you you started out selling fucking supplements in a retail store and you and he was a he was a photographer by habit or by hobby you know what i'm saying and he's taking all these cool pictures making some cool videos and shit and i'm like hey dude how about you start making some of this for us you know how about you start doing this and his responsibilities went from make a minimum wage working in the store you know to fucking you know making a quality living.

That's only going to improve from here and become a big part of the company. But that's on him. I didn't sit down and teach him how to do that shit. He went home and learned that shit on his own. Right. And that's another point to bring up is you want to look for people who are interested in personally developing on their own. Okay. Um, but it was, you know, I might've, who knows what I might've thought back in the day when, uh, if I did not think right from the beginning that there was no upward mobility. Right. You wouldn't have went and did that. No. Right. Well, I, I would have, but it would have been with somebody else. Like you were saying, right. Yeah. You wouldn't have done it. What you don't know is I did that in florida full-time oh i know that

dude i googled you man you facebook yeah he saw them social media before i came here one of the many men who has social media stock tyler yeah exactly that's the truth damn that's a zinger so dude here's the thing that's's point number one. All right. Paint the picture, make sure they're hungry for success. You know, remember what I said, the eyes and the stomach are more important than the head and the hands. Point number two is this. It's better to short of help than to have shitty help. Wait, hold on. Edit there. I'm like the anchor man. Look, it's better to be shorthanded of help than it is to have shitty help. Okay. I hate to stop you again, but I was, I was laughing over when you started the new edit. So we'll have to stop. Okay. Point number two is this guys. It's always better to be shorthanded of help than it is to have shitty help.

Okay. When your business gets rolling, it's tempted to panic because you don't have the staff to cover the hours or the staff big enough to handle the increasing demand. But the thing you have to understand about that is this. If you put shitty people in those positions, that's worse than having people wait for the service or wait for the particular person to have to do the work to catch up because shitty people will turn those people away forever. They won't come back. You won't retain your customers. People are much more tolerant to

having to wait or, or a little bit slower service than they would like than they are to being, you know, treated poorly or getting bad information or having shitty help. So guys, you have to understand, you know, when you feel that, that pressure and you feel that, um, that need to have people, you have to have faith and you have to be patient and let your people develop. Okay. Because if you bring in bad help, if you bring in shitty people, what you're doing is you're compromising your standards for new hires, which tells your new, your old hires that you've had high standards to. It doesn't tell them, Oh, Hey, I'm in a pinch. So I hired these guys to put a band in on it. It says, Hey, Andy's lowering his standards. So guess what? I can lower my standards, which is the fucking killer for company culture. All right. Um, you guys can take my word for it or

not, but I could tell you this four guys killing it for you is going to always be better than 12 guys half asking it for you. It's just always going to be better. So don't freak out about being shorthanded. Just put in the extra work that you have to. I know a lot of owners and a lot of managers will bandaid hire people because they don't want to do the outwork themselves. I've had this situation in our stores, dude, time and time again, managers get in this situation where like they don't want to actually do the work. And I'm saying, you know, this is a rarity for us, but I'm just saying, I've seen it. They realize that if, guess what, if you're shorthanded and you're managing a group of people, guess who has to do the work? The manager. So they might have

plans on the weekend or they may have this or they might have that. So what they'll do is they'll hire in some shitty dudes, you know, not training properly and let them cover the hours. And then three months from then, you know, when their numbers and their business and their performance is in the shitter, they're, they're freaking out because their job's on the line. You know, guys always think long-term, it's going to be much better for you to think long-term, just do the work now than it is to try to bandaid it with shitty people. Okay. Um, this is my take. Imagine you're in, you know, a SEAL team unit and, and your commander has, has told you the whole time, you guys are the elite and you respect

him and you think he's you know he's leading you to greater and greater heights and then one day he says oh we're gonna let a bunch of people in because america really needs more seals right and uh they don't meet any of the qualifications you do i mean not only that are they not going to feel elite anymore they're going to completely lose respect for you which is what you've already talked not only that yeah they resent you they resent the organization and they resent the new guys right which creates terrible culture right so you have to keep your standards high and if that means you doing the work then you go do the work that's just the way it is um you know like i said not being able to get the work done as far and as fast and as quick as you want to is far better than getting the work done, but in a real shitty way.

And that really comes down, what I'm really talking about here is that you have to understand these people are the front line of your customer, whether it's on the phone, whether it's an email, whether it's in person, it doesn't matter. They are representatives of your brand. And if you bring these people in that are below standard, not only do the customers not come back, but you create a cultural hurricane of shit inside your business. And you don't want that, you know? And this brings me to my third point, guys. The third point here on hiring is this, is you have to do everything possible up front to prevent firing a person before you ever even hire them. Okay. So instead of like hiring real quick, because you need a guy right now,

you've got to do everything you can to basically not hire that person. Okay. To make sure they're right. All right. And what does this mean? Okay. It means things like this, clearly communicating the vision and the culture of your company and confirming that as much as possible that these people live by those same values. All right. Ask them questions that have to do with your core values of your company that might have to do with like their everyday life. Like a question that we give our guys is like, Hey, what do you do? Uh, if you you you're walking through a parking lot at the grocery store and you see uh three random carts but you're you're five minutes late for your uh niece's first communion what do you do you know what i mean and we'll see how they answer it

moral questions put them in situations exactly and and you come up with little things like that um what do you do if you're at a gas station and then uh a family comes up to you and says hey we need 10 bucks to put gas in our car to get home how do you handle it and we give them multiple choices you know what i'm saying yeah so like dude you you have to figure out what your core values are and then create situations around those core values to see how those people will react, kind of test them ahead of time. Um, you, you guys, it's, I can't communicate how important it is to clearly understand the nature of what job it is you're asking them to do, what the work requirements are going to be. You need to be up front and I would recommend being up front and making it sound overly harsh in terms of like how much work's going to be required,

what you're asking of them, you know, make, tell them the truth. This is going to be fucking hard. I tell every single person that we hire, every single one, all of them, Hey, look, there's a lot easier ways to make money. If you're in this for the money, if you're here to make money and you just want to come in and have a job, dude, there are a million other jobs that are going to be better for you. This job doesn't pay as much as it should for the amount of work that you're going to do. But there's huge upside potential here if you want to be a part of this all in for a career. And you see what they say. You know, that'll weed people out. I mean, there's been a lot of people that have come a career. And you see what they say, you know, that'll weed people out. I mean, there's been a lot of people that have come in that we thought we were going

to hire and we've told them that and they've, they've called back and say, Hey, this isn't for me. You're doing them a favor and you a favor by creating that situation. Um, you know, setting clear expectations for the work ethic and the personal conduct and what your social culture is in the company. You know, like here, we have a very loose social culture. Everybody makes fun of each other. We're like a locker room. We have, you know, a team atmosphere. Pretty much, you know, we're probably an HR person's fucking nightmare. But the reality is, is that everybody here is part of that culture. We have a good time. We're all friends.

We all hang out inside, outside of the company. And it works for us. If somebody comes in here with a suit and tie and they think this is going to be a corporate environment and that's what they're looking for, dude, that's not going to be a good fit for us or them. And you can't take somebody who wants that and make them want what we have and vice versa. Right. You know what I mean? So all these things matter guys. And, and on top of all these things, you know, a lot of people, they hire people because they think that like, Oh, you know, they see, like, I've run into this before. Like, I, I feel like, you know, I see somebody who I think is a good person and I'm like,

oh, you know, I could see like this potential in that person and, you know, we could mold them into something and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, it's usually because I think the person's a nice person or they're a good kid or whatever. But what always ends up hiring or happening when I hire these people is that they come in, they're not a good fit because I overlooked the basic negative signs about them. Like, Hey, you know, their work ethic was bad or they don't fit exactly culturally or I'm just looking at them and thinking, Oh, this guy's a nice guy. So I want to give him a job.

That's like a charity hire. You know what I mean? And, um, every time I've ever done that because I have a big heart when it comes to people like that and I want to help people, uh, it's been a bad deal, you know? So I guess like, you know, communicating everything you can truthfully upfront and not letting someone slide through below your standards based on like, cause you think they're a nice person or whatever, or they're your buddy or whatever. You know what I mean? I've had plenty of buddies apply here that I already know 100% can't hang with our work, with the way we work here. Right. You know what I mean? And it's like, it's like what you said earlier about that other situation. You're, you're not doing that person any favors. You're setting

them up. Not only that, it ruins the favors. You're setting them up for failure. No, and not only that, it ruins the personal relationship you have with them. I get asked by a lot of people who are related to me, like, hey, can I come work for you? And I know what they think work is. You know what I mean? And it's not how we work. You know what I mean? When you're part of the company here, you're going to get paid well.

I'm talking about here in first form. You're going to get paid well well but this is a fucking lifestyle it's not just a job it's a career lifestyle right you know and uh it's it's just it's different you know and it's not down for everybody you know if you're the guy who wants to come in and clock in at nine o'clock and leave at fucking 4 30 and never see anything or think anything about work ever again, this is the wrong place for that. You know what I mean? But if you asked anybody who works here, if they ever feel like they're actually working, most of them are going to say no. You get what I'm saying? Yeah. So basically, guys, my point is, to recap here, express your vision, make sure they're as hungry as you are, make sure they understand what you're trying to accomplish up front. You know, uh, point number two, you know,

always go for less help. That's quality instead of filling holes with shitty help, because that's going to cancer your, your whole culture. All right. Point number three, try to not hire the person as much as possible. Try to talk them out of working for you. Dude, one cool story about this. If you read delivering happiness, the story of Zappos by their CEO, they, Tony Hsieh, they basically, they pay people. It's like fucking two grand or 2,500 bucks or something, or maybe it's 10 grand. I don't remember what the amount was, but it was, they pay people after they're qualified to say, Hey, here's two grand to not take the job or here's 10 grand and not take the job. Because dude, you know what the truth is? That's cheaper than hiring them, having that work out. That's a brilliant, brilliant policy.

Right. Exactly. It's awesome. They got one of the, that's a great book, by the way, delivering happiness is one of my favorite books. So guys, that's my points on hiring. Now we're going to talk about the harder shit, firing people. And because unless you're like just a fucking bad person, you know, you firing people is very hard to do. It's never fun. It's never something that you should take lightly, especially like I know people who just like fire people over and over and over again, not realizing the social repercussions on that. Every single person has a fucking network, guys.

Every single person has a network of influence. They have it's in the hundreds to when you consider the aunts, the uncles, the grandmas, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And if you don't treat somebody fairly and you fire them because you think you're fucking you know like donald trump you're fired like they people a lot of people think the ceo that's how you're supposed to act oh get the fuck out of here you're fired turn your shit like if you treat people like that guys unless they're like stealing and you catch them doing something really bad you know you're gonna have a problem on your hands and people are

going to talk about you negatively. So you have to handle firing the proper way. First of all, you know, you have to care about people and you have to understand, like I said a minute ago, your job is develop these people into fucking functional, strong, you know, skillful humans. And if they, their skill outgrows your company that you can't pay them or you can't afford them or you can't find a place for them and they move on. Great. That means you're doing an excellent job. And you know what else that means? That means that that person is going to go out and be an advocate of you for your entire life. And there's nothing better than that in terms of advocacy. Hey, I worked for that person for five years. It was the best thing that ever happened to me. Still one of my great friends, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? That shit happens when

you own a company. You should never have that happen in a negative way. And, or look at that as a negative thing. You need to understand that that's your job. And if you do that job properly, you're going to minimize the amount of firing you're going to have to do. Okay. So like I said, I've got three points on firing here. The first point is this. When you fire someone, you have to consider the offender, not just the offense. And here's what I mean by that. Somebody might say, well, if I have an employee that makes a boneheaded mistake and does something stupid and he costs the company a hundred grand, they're fired, period. I don't buy into that. I don't believe in that. Okay. The seriousness of the offense is only one factor. The second factor

is the knowledge and experience of the offender. Did they know better? Why did they make this mistake? What did they do to cause this to happen? Were they being negligent? Were they being lazy? Did they just not know? Because if they didn't know, guess whose fucking fault that is? That's your fault. Right. All right. You have to understand what caused this to happen. And here's the other thing, guys. Will this person replicate that mistake again? Because let's just say he makes a $100,000 mistake, but you're growing a billion-dollar brand.

Would you rather let somebody come in and make that mistake when you're a billion-dollar brand or when you're a $10 million brand and you made a hundred grand mistake versus when you're a billion-dollar brand and he makes a hundred grand mistake versus when you're a billion dollar brand and he makes a hundred million dollar mistake. It's an easy decision. Exactly. So you have to look at it.

How valuable is this to that person's education? Are they going to keep making that mistake or did they actually learn that lesson? So just let me clarify, because I know sometimes you hear people say, well, I want to treat all people equally. But you're saying, no, you don't treat people equally. You evaluate them depending on whether they're a rookie or a veteran.

Look, man, if you treat people equally, like in terms of like what you're talking about, you know, you're going to end up with people that make the same mistakes over and over and over and over again. Right. And because like what's going to happen is you're going to fire this dude. You're going to hire somebody in your company is going to continue to grow and you're going to get to, you know, let's say you're 10, you're going to get to $50 million. And instead of that being a $100,000 mistake, it's going to be a million dollar mistake. Right. And then you're going to be in a situation where that fucking same person that made you the a hundred grand mistake, right? And then you're going to be in a situation where that fucking same person that made you the a hundred grand mistake probably wouldn't have made that million dollar mistake.

You know what I mean? Yeah. So you're going to end up keep making these mistakes over and over and over again. And then you're going to, you're going to fire this dude to make the million dollar mistake, right? Nobody in the history of our company has ever made a million dollar mistake. Well, the reason that motherfucker made a million dollar mistake is because you were too stupid to realize that the guy who made the a hundred thousand dollar mistake wouldn't make that million dollar mistake well the reason that motherfucker made a million dollar mistake is because you were too stupid to realize that the guy who made the hundred thousand dollar mistake wouldn't make that

million dollar mistake now you get what i'm saying yeah i totally you have to own the responsibility you know with with great power comes great responsibility i think that's what a man yeah there you go yeah right i was hoping you'd pick up on that so you kind of realized when i made about a hundred thousand dollar mistake yeah exactly, exactly. I fired your ass too, but that actually brings up an awesome point that I have here. Okay. Um, that's actually really funny. You brought that up because my next point on this podcast is this don't assume all firings are final. All right. And actually I'll fucking tell the story of tyler because this fits right into what my point is you fucking butcher this story every time no no i don't i tell the

truth of the story and you lie about the story that's why you got fired okay it's not why yeah so so tyler worked for me um in in our retail stores and And, uh, a lady came in, it's not funny, man. I mean, it's funny, but not funny. A lady came in, uh, and you know, you guys know Tyler, he's very sarcastic, very dry, and not everybody picks up on his humor right away because really he's not that fucking funny. But, uh, you know, a lady came in and she had, I don't know, three kids, I think with her. And she was pregnant with the fourth kid.

And like she, and you know, she was real happy about it or whatever. And Tyler made a remark to her that got her really upset. Like basically making a joke, like, Hey, how many kids are you going to have?

You're going to have a million kids. Or it was like, so butchered. No, no, no. He's like, when you,

don't you know when to stop? Like joking around. No, no, no, no. That's like when you don't you know when to stop like joking around no no no that's what she said you said what did you say it was okay i'll tell the story real quick i'll condense it she came in helped her out it was she was the only one in there with her daughter she was pregnant at the time we were talking about that and uh i was like oh cool you know my brother's actually getting ready to have uh or i'm sorry he just had a kid and they were in the conversation that already came up that they were starting to think about having a second kid. And I'm like, you know, I just don't know.

I mean, they still live with my parents. And, like, you know, I don't know if it's the best decision for him. And I know it's, you know, her kind of putting it in his ear, you know, just girls don't know when to stop, you know. Girls don't know when to stop. That's what he said. Right. So she got super offended and like, dude, it was just like him kind of like being overly casual with her. And I'm like, dude, on one hand I get that she got upset. On the other hand, I get his point of view too. But here's the point. Her husband is a very prominent figure here in St. Louis and, and well knownknown, I'm not going to say who it was.

Um, he put it out on his Facebook page, what had happened. And basically, you know, Oh, my wife went in and he, and she was insulted. And he said this and this and this to her, which was like, not really exactly what he said, but it doesn't matter because that's what the public perception was at that time. So like, dude, basically there was like, like thousands of people and I had to fucking fire them. Okay. And so I fired him. It's the way it is, you know?

So, and then the typical company, they'd say, well, Tyler, thanks for your time. We wish you well in the future. Right.

And so that's it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Pretty much. That's kind of what it was. Well,

yeah, sort of. But the thing was, is, you know, know we would him and i would still communicate we still see each other occasionally and then uh you know we saw we ran into each other at a local bar here one night and started talking about shit and i'm like you know what this dude's a good dude you know what i'm saying he made a stupid mistake and we brought him back in and something to think about as an employee is i never trash talked the company. No, he didn't. I still supported the company.

You know, you own your mistake. You say, yeah, dude, I fucked up. Well, yeah. And I mean, I was even shooting you ideas on Facebook, which you wanted nothing to do with. And you're like, did you want a fucking job or what? Yeah. Yeah.

So like, basically, you know, you can't assume that these things, what's going to come back around because somebody that, that you let go of now, they may go somewhere else, mature, become something, and then come back to you. And that's kind of what happened with him. And now he's a major part of what we do, not only a first form, but you know, with the MFCO project and, and supplement superstores. Um, so since, since Tyler, since that whole situation, have you maybe tweaked your language a little bit? Well, I don't fire people anymore, but the thing is, is that, you know, I know for, you know, our policies here, unless someone is just like stealing, which is very rare, but you know,

if they're, if it's for performance reasons and things like that, you know, we do our best to communicate, Hey, look, man, we love you as a person. We really do. Right. But we, this is a business and we do have a standard performance here. And what I'll do, and anybody who's ever been fired from our company will fucking attest to this. I try to find them places that they will excel in. Okay. And this is a good book. Good to great. It's a good book about what we're talking about here. Some guys aren't good in the store, but they're very good behind a computer talking to customers through email. Some guys aren't good through email, but they're very good talking in person. Some guys aren't good at either one of those things, but they can work in a warehouse and help distribute product. I try to find positions

that are going to help our people because I appreciate the commitment they've made to our company before I ever fire them. If it's for performance. And of course we try to work with them a long time, right? For performance. But actually it's funny. I'm about 97% sure this came out of your mouth. If it didn't, you can take the credit for it. But I remember like six months ago hearing kind of a catchy phrase that I'd never heard before. It's rotate before you eliminate. Yeah. And did you say that? I think you said that. I don't know. I feel like I said that. Yeah, I think you said it. But anyway, rotate before you eliminate. That makes, I mean, it's kind of cheesy and cliche, but yeah, but it's the truth. It's totally true. Yes.

Because dude, there's people just because somebody doesn't have a certain, like, dude, you couldn't put me behind like Sheldon, who's our web coder here. If I went and did his job, I'd be fucking horrible. If he did my job, guess what? He'd be horrible, but he's great at what he does. And I'm great at what I do. And that's what fucking works. So like, you can't ask people, you know, to be great at every single thing. They're just not going to be certain people have natural tendencies. They're just not going to be. Certain people have natural tendencies. Now, with that being said, like in our company, there's basic things you need to know. You need, everybody in our companies are certified through NASM. They're certified through sports nutrition and personal training through NASM. They're all

knowledgeable about those aspects. You know, if you can't do the basic things a company's, let's say mission is themed towards, you're probably not going to do well there. Right. But I mean, I'm talking about even our warehouse guys, like all of our warehouse guys are certified in those things. Um, so you have, you know, you have to know the basics, but after that, you as a ceo you have to like start examining people to see where they're going to fit in and now this you know a lot of companies will just hire people to be this and that and this and that like your coder your uh you know your hr your this your that and they'll just hire people from the outside to do that but dude the, the problem with that is, is it's, it's harder to instill a great culture than it is when you home grow it from the

ground up. Most of the people that work in the, in this building or any of our company's buildings started just like I did behind the counter at the retail store. Okay. And then I, so we're talking about a different way to try to build your company and it's definitely a slower way but it's definitely a more productive and more profitable way because of the culture that you create and when i say more profitable i don't mean just for me i guarantee if you compare our pay scale to pay scales of other companies these people here make a lot more money for the same job than what they will make somewhere else. And that's all because of the culture that we have here. You know what I mean?

Otherwise we wouldn't be able to do that. So, so this is a really weird analogy, but I want to, I want to, cause I think what you're saying is like, dude, there's timing issues here. Like, you know, when we say don't assume all firings are final, there's timing things like there's wonderful people that have worked for me in the past that I would consider bringing back. But like, let's say like, you know, we've had people who have left to go have a family and they went and they went through a different phase in their life. But if that if these people will come back now, you know, I would say, yeah, hey, we're a more mature place. We have a different, you know, a different spot for you that wouldn't require that kind of workload that you were. You know what I'm saying? Like there's position, there's great people who go through phases in life. You know what I mean? I mean, my wife did that. She worked for a company left. Uh, then she went back to the company. Now

she left again, you know, to do her own thing. But the point is, is that like, you can't just say, Oh, that person's a piece of shit. Cause I had to fire him. No, it's just like breaking up with somebody like, you know, you, you don't have the same nature as that person right now, but you know, in five years, maybe you meet again and things go well, who fucking knows. But the point is, is that everybody's constantly evolving and growing and, and it takes people to be at a certain level at a certain time for them to fit in with you. And that goes for your relationships personally. It goes for your, your business. So you can't assume just because you broke up with your high school employee, you know, your high school quote unquote girlfriend, that whenever they get into college

and to become the college girlfriend, that you're not going to want to work with them. Right. You see what I'm saying? Yeah. It makes total sense. So I came up, something popped into my head. It's a huge, it's a huge issue. It's a huge question that question that it would be great if you were maybe a little bit more explicit about, but it requires just jumping back real quick to the hiring thing. So I have a question. I used to work for a fairly brief amount of time for a private college, and there's two models of a private college. One is, it's called the umbrella or the systemic. The umbrella is basically where we say, okay, all the really

high up people that are in super influential positions, we want them to be completely mission oriented. But the custodian, the food workers, whatever, whatever, they don't have to be super mission driven. But then that's called the umbrella. The systemic is where they say, no, literally everybody from the president to the custodian has to be 100% mission driven and like buy into the vision and, and really reflect part of the, what the organization stands for. So when you hire, and I know I'm going back here, but when you hire, are you kind of that way? Like literally, it doesn't matter if you were hiring somebody as a custodian. I sweep the floors Okay. Okay. I might not do it every day, but at 4.30 in the afternoon, all of the dudes here from the office are out in the warehouse sweeping the floors. You know what I'm saying? If I'm here,

I'm fucking out there sweeping the floors. The point is that nobody should be above or below a certain position when it comes to culture. You know what I mean? We're all on the same team. We're all, you know, you might make more money than me. I might make more money than you, blah, blah, blah. But here's the thing. We are all working towards bettering everybody that works here. And I believe, you know, that that is the much, much, much better model for culture.

And that's pretty amazing because it's like, you know, I would think that most people are like, well, we're hiring for an upper level management position. We have to take this really seriously, but then they'll come over to, uh, we're hiring for an hourly worker. That's what most companies do. But here's the thing. That person comes in, works there for three years and then goes and finds another job. How much progress can you really make in three years? Right. You know what I mean? I, I, I don't believe in that. I believe in people that grow with the company. I believe that, you know, people, dude, if you're a young person in our company right now, like, dude, we're fucking 17 years in, right. And people are like, Oh, you guys are doing so well. No, we're not. We're, we're at the fucking bottom of where we want to be. We have huge goals here. And if you're a young person in this company, I can't think of a better company to work for than ours in terms of upward mobility,

because these people are literally in control of their future, depending on how fast they want to develop. Because our biggest problem here is shortage of people. It's not shortage of business. You know, it goes back to the point I said about hiring quality people versus shitty people. I won't hire shitty people. You know what I mean? So I don't know. I don't know if you touched on it, but when you're hiring people, uh, I know it's one of the things that you do is you ask them what their goals are as well in life. Oh yeah. That goes along with trying to communicate my vision and my culture and what we're doing here with the company. Um, and evaluate their goals versus what my, like if someone looks at me and they're

like, yeah, man, my goal in life is to make $40,000 and work fucking 40 hours a week. You're not getting fucking hired here. Right. You know what I mean? Right. Like I want motherfuckers to come to me and be like, dude, I want to make a fucking million dollars a year or more. Right.

And I want to do this. And like, you know what? Our company has potential for that. Right. So. Right. So sorry, I, I, I backtracked a little bit, but. No, that's cool. You know, it's a good segue into the third point anyway, because here's what we're

talking about. What we're ultimately talking about is you as the CEO of you or the manager of your people taking responsibility for every single person that you hire, which ultimately means that when you have to fire someone, guess whose fault it is. It's your fault. It's not their fault because you failed them at some point in line. Either they shouldn't have got hired. You didn't provide them with enough training. You didn't provide them with enough vision painting to significantly motivate them to come to work. You have to take responsibility for all those things. And great CEOs do that. They don't blame the person. They look at the person and they say, you know what? I failed you and I'm sorry. You know what I mean? I can't tell you how many people

I've let go where I've had that conversation. Honestly, you know what I mean? I, I legitimately feel like when we have to let somebody go that it was my fault, not their fault. And a lot of people are like, Andy, what the fuck? You're crazy. No, I'm not. It is my fault because I didn't either give them the tools. I didn't give them the information. I didn't give them the training.

I didn't provide them with enough understanding of how they could improve their lives. There's something that I should have done better that would have elicited a response out of that person. And I didn't do it. Right. You know, and a lot of people argue that point, but listen, it's a lot easier to go through life, taking responsibility for everything than it is to blame everybody else for everything. Absolutely. And if you go blame everybody else that, that you hired, uh, and when you fire them, you're, you're losing, you're going to lose respect to your team. You're going to lose the respect of the people who, who, you know, you're firing. You know what I mean? If you look at somebody in the eye and say, Hey, I'm going to have to let you go, man.

You know, and here's why we're in a position where we can't afford to keep this from happening anymore, whatever this is. And I've tried to work with you here. I've tried to work with you here And I've tried to work with you here. I've tried to work with you here. I've tried to work with you here. I don't know what else I can do to cultivate the response or the performance I need from you. Um, which means I failed you, you know what I mean? And by me keeping you here any longer, I'm doing you disservice and I'm doing me a disservice and I'm doing all our employees a disservice because you being here is holding yourself back from maybe going out and

finding something that you're great at. Um, you being here is holding our guys back from finding somebody who would be great here and I can't allow that to happen anymore. And, and so because of that, I'm gonna have to let you go. Right If you look at somebody, and that's the fucking truth. If you look at somebody and you tell them the truth like that, how can they not respect you? You know what I mean? Yeah. You're telling them the truth.

The truth is you have an obligation to that person to not fucking hold on to them longer than you should. Once you know, they're not going to work because you're doing what the managers do. You're fucking letting your emotional, you know, oh, we need bodies take the place of, oh, we need quality bodies. You know, and what that means is you're going to have to fucking deal with a problem. You're going to have to fill a spot. You're going to have to find a solution and you're being fucking lazy is what it comes down to. You know what I mean? So tell the person the truth,

you know, you, you, you are holding them back if you allow them to stay here when you know it doesn't work out. And if you violate that, you know, it's not a good thing to do. Right. And not everybody will understand that upfront. You know, people get emotional when they get fired. I'm not saying they're going to leave your meeting of you firing them, uh, with, you know, all excited and happy. But I think once they calm down and think about it and, and realize that you actually did them a favor, they're going to lease at a minimal, if they're a reasonable person at a minimum, they're going to respect you. Right. Right. So. I think people instinctively know.

I mean, what you're saying, you know, in the world of sports, if you have a player, every once in a blue moon, if you have a college player wash out of a program or transfer to another program, you realize that, okay, maybe that's just a miserably human being. But if you consistently have players transferring out of a program or washing out, you ultimately know, okay, that's the coach. That's the coach. Or it's the culture. Right. It could come from the AD. It could come from the manager.

Who knows where it's coming from? Right. But it's the culture. And as the coach, as the AD, as the CEO, I am responsible for that culture. Right. Okay? So if you're the guy who's saying, oh, it's impossible to find good help. Yes. Bullshit. Yeah. Bullshit. Yeah. You're not good at cultivating the right people, cultivating the right culture or helping people excel in your

program. It's not them. It's fucking you. Right. And coming to that conclusion is very hard for some people because some people have no self-awareness. They think they're great. They think everybody else sucks. Right. But if you have everybody walking out on you or saying they, you know, turning over and, you know, all these things that go along with all these, I can't find good help. That's you, bro.

You're a bad leader. Right. And what about that principle? And with that said, you could become a good leader, but it's going to take you admitting that you're a bad one to become a good one. Right. And it's that principle of like attracts like, you know, so maybe if your organization is one that you can never find any good help, maybe you're attracting people who are essentially like you.

Well, dude, it could be. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I mean, is that unfair? No, it's not. I mean, I know there are a lot of really good, there are a lot of really successful people that will say, the quality of person out there is just generally lower.

Dude, here, look. You're not going to fucking fool anybody. That's what it comes down to. A lot of people who run businesses think they can pretend to be a leader or pretend to be a boss or pretend to be a CEO and fill people with a bunch of bullshit. The core values that you lay out for your team, you have to live those. People are watching you. They are paying attention to every single thing you say, every single thing you do. You know, I use that example of, you know, cleaning the pee off the toilet seat, you know, and everybody laughs,

but I'm being serious, right? Like if I walk out of the bathroom and there's a little dribble on the toilet seat and somebody else walks in right after me, guess what? Everybody's talking about fucking five minutes later. Seriously. Yeah. They're talking about piss on the seat. So if they're going to be talking about a little thing like a piss on the seat, every big thing you do, people are going to see through. So if you're not living the values that you set out for your company personally, and I'm not talking about pretending to live them. I'm not talking about pretending to live them. I'm not talking about pretending to live them on social media. I'm talking about actually living them and standing for those things.

You will never cultivate the respect that you need to build a great culture amongst your team. You will constantly have people quit. You will constantly have people turn over. You will constantly have people say you're a bad person because you are. Absolutely. Good stuff, man. Yeah. So let's recap real quick for people just so we can get your notes straight. Yeah. All right. We have on hiring. Number one, the eyes and the stomach are more important than the head and the hands. Beat that into your head. Understand what that means. Can they see your vision? Are they as hungry as you?

Okay. Point number two and point number one, it's your responsibility to paint the real vision of what you're going to do. Point number two, learn to operate shorthanded before you put in shitty people. Shitty people are cancerous to your customers. They're cancerous to your employees. They will lower the standards of your company. They will lower the standards of performance. They will cause you far more problems than having to do a little bit of extra work because you're shorthanded. Okay. Point number three, do everything you can to try to not hire the person before you actually hire them. Because what you're actually doing is preventing them from having to be fired. All right. Think long-term. What is this person's values? How can they fit in? Can they

build a career here or are they just going to be a body for a certain amount of time and try to avoid hiring bodies. All right. On firing three points. When you fire someone, think of the offender, not just the offense. All right. Will this person learn the lesson? Will the lesson be repeated? Will the mistake be repeated? Is this person going, where are they going to be when we're 10 times as big? Is this person going to make the same mistake or are they not? And if I hire someone new, are they going to make that mistake? That's going to cost me that money. Start looking at mistakes as part of an investment and an employee, part of their education, part of their PhD in your program, so to speak, instead of saying, oh, they're fucking fired because they cost me this. Because really what's going to happen, guys, is you're going to repeat

that same mistake with the new person you hired and it's going to cost you even more money. And that makes you stupid, not them. All right. Point number two, don't assume all firings are final. Sometimes situations come back around. So when you have to fire someone, you know, leave it open possibly for, for, unless it's like something bad, like, you know, where they stole from you or the million other really bad shit things that can happen, a character thing. You know what I mean? Point number three, every single person you fire is a failure on your part. 100%.

If the person stole and did one of these real bad things, that's your fault because people steal for a fucking reason. And you know what? You didn't recognize that person's character issues ahead of time to point them out as someone who could potentially do that. If the person underperforms, it's because you didn't give them the tools. You didn't give them the help. You didn't teach them what they need to know.

You didn't do something that would actually spark that fire of becoming a productive member of your organization. That's you. That's not them. They might go somewhere else and be a tremendous employee, okay? You are responsible for those people and you have to start acting like it. And, and above all else, guys on, on this whole concept, realize this people respect people that always want the best for them. If you're the kind of CEO

that helps your people develop, helps them become skillful, helps them become the kind of CEO that helps your people develop, helps them become skillful, helps them become the kind of person that their potential will allow them to be, no matter what happens, if they move through your system and move on to somewhere else, if they stay in your system and help you win, it doesn't matter.

Good things are going to come of your goodness that you give to these people. So guys, do the right thing. Treat these people right. Care about them. I get this question all the time. Oh, I want my employees to care about the customers. You know how you get your employees to care about the customers? You care about them. That's how it works all right guys uh i just need to insert something about the contest guys uh the mfceo 100th episode contest is still going on uh go to the mfceo.com forward slash contest and just a couple of things um one is that we have had quite a few international listeners ask if they're eligible for the uh for the contest um i don't know i i would i would guess i mean i don't mind having somebody international come in

okay all right so so yeah you guys are you guys are eligible we'll just spend a little extra on your uh your flight but you're eligible hey man support support yeah exactly it's cool that we get all these people from international yeah like dude i get all these people commenting and sending me emails from you know know, I mean, from everywhere, man. Australia. We got a huge following in Australia. I just had a guy hit me up this morning from Australia.

Huge following in South Africa. Dude, that's badass. Those two places I've never been to that I want to go to. You know, a lot of UK guys, all of you guys, man, it's so cool to see. And you know what's cool is we talk about the values here in America, but these are values that everybody succeeds from. You know what I mean? If you're a hard worker, if you care about people, if you do the right thing, you're going to do well wherever you are. And it doesn't matter if you're in Pakistan or if you're in St. Louis, Missouri. What matters is that you're going to

make an impact on other people that is going to result in positivity and good things happening to you. Will you become a billionaire? I don't know. Maybe, probably not, but I could tell you what you will become. You will become more fulfilled. You will become happier and you will become a better person from listening and utilizing these values. So guys, I just want to say real quick, you know, I appreciate all of you. If you guys, if you guys found value in this podcast, please, like I said, just pay the fee, pay your dues. Like I post on Instagram, you know, bring me one person. We're trying to, we're trying to impact people. We're trying to bring people up, bring me one person and your dues are paid. Absolutely. And two other things,

guys, the deadline for the 100th episode contest is November 7th. I think this episode will drop probably on next Tuesday, which is November 1st. So you'll have a week from now, meaning a week from then. So make sure you get it in by November 7th. Go to themfceo.com forward slash contest. The other thing is, and I just have to say this, those of you who are entering the contest multiple times using various email addresses, you're really not fooling me. And I probably ought to just automatically disqualify you. But I don't know. What do you think, Andy? Hey, man. Guys, you're not going to fool us. Just play by the rules. Be fair.

I know everybody wants to win. I like the passion. I do, too. Hey, come on. All right, guys. Look, I appreciate you guys. I love you guys. We'll hit you with some Thursday Thunder in a couple days. I'll see you then.