The Grow Show: Business Growth Stories from the Frontlines

Missed Connections: The Cost of Ignoring New Hires

• Scott Scully, Jeff Winters, Eric Watkins • Season 2 • Episode 57

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Maintaining a direct connection with new hires is critical for CEOs to ensure the organization's culture and standards are upheld. Engaging with each new hire class allows leaders to personally assess and influence the quality of talent joining the team. This approach not only enhances employee relations but also solidifies the foundation of the company’s future. Without this involvement, there's a risk of cultural erosion and misalignment. Listen in to find out how this practice can transform your hiring process and overall success.

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Unknown:

All these years, but I'm still here.

Eric Watkins:

Nothing could stop me. Welcome back to the Grow show. I'm here with my partner in growth, Jeff winters. Jeff, how we doing today? We're feeling good, feeling good. We're

Jeff Winters:

headed for mid summer.

Eric Watkins:

We are headed for mid that's crazy.

Jeff Winters:

I love midsummer,

Eric Watkins:

yeah? I love the beginning of summer because there it means there's more summer. Mid summer makes me think it's already ending. Yeah?

Jeff Winters:

But again, this is, uh, you got kids versus you don't got kids to stay. I don't want summer to be forever, fair. I want summer to be just a very limited time. But we

Eric Watkins:

just have fun, right? We can't get to summer yet. Though we have some important stuff to discuss. We have some controversy in the office. Do we? There's a fake Ryan running around? For

Jeff Winters:

those who don't know, Ryan is our esteemed award winning. I don't know if he's won any actual awards, but if he if there were any, oh yeah, he Well, I meant for this podcast, yeah. Oh yeah. No, never mind. He's our esteemed, award winning producer, two

Eric Watkins:

right there,

Jeff Winters:

and we have made the choice to hire someone that looks exactly like him, and it's fooled both Eric and I, and I feel like an idiot. Yeah,

Eric Watkins:

I thought Ryan was slacking on the job. I went up to fake Ryan and asked him, Are you ready to record today? And he didn't know who I was. Well,

Jeff Winters:

we need to hire fake Jeff. He'd be better. Yeah, and real fake Jeff. Well,

Eric Watkins:

just keep an eye out. Like, if you're walking the streets of abstract and you see fake Ryan out there, don't confuse him for for other Ryan. If you know, I don't want to say real Ryan, because they're both real, but yeah, other Ryan. Yeah. Anyway, what's been going on on the LinkedIn pastures?

Jeff Winters:

We're back. Come on, man.

Eric Watkins:

He didn't get us our new sounds. He's slack. Get fake Ryan in here. I

Jeff Winters:

would think fake Ryan do a really good job. Yeah, two truths and a lie this week. Juicy. Juicy.

Unknown:

I would say, Oh, okay. First,

Jeff Winters:

this is a combo question from a content creator, and then in a comment, this is good. Gabe Larson is poses the question, in a world where remote work has become the norm, finding ways to visit customers in person has become a true challenge. I think we all agree with that. It's a whole new ballgame. So how are you breaking through the virtual walls to meet with your customers in person? And I thought this guy, David christison,

Eric Watkins:

fake Ryan, even walks like real Ryan. I just saw him walking away. Sorry. A couple of

Jeff Winters:

good ideas. One, city tours is one and the second. I think we're trying to do more and more of this. And I encourage everybody. I think it's a big truth, bringing customers and peers to your headquarters.

Eric Watkins:

Love that truth, right? Yeah, truth for sure. The one thing we're doing, too, which kind of is similar to this is we're bringing our vendors in person. Our vendors that we pay over a certain amount of money have been coming in, and we've been meeting with them, and it's been great. It's just different. It's different face to face. It's not that one meeting that's in your calendar sandwiched between 10 other meetings, you have undivided attention, and they're focused on your business, and I think it's the same like, I'm sure if we were to do that for our clients, they'd feel the same way.

Jeff Winters:

Don't resign yourself to the fact that you can't go meet people in person because we're in a virtual world. That's lazy, that's an excuse, yep, either go there and figure out a way to get people to come to you while you're there, or bring them to your shop. Yep, bring them to your house. Home field advantage. Home field advantage. Set aside some budget and do it. Don't make excuses. Next, another first, a rare double truth. Oh, comes from a list. I'm not sure which one you're gonna lag on. Latch onto Kent beerstrom. He says, Hello, summer, I have some thoughts. Take them or leave them. One thought, Red Lobster has closed lots of its restaurants lately. Maybe they need to open up small bakeries where they just sell cheddar biscuits. Truth. That's the truth. And second, and this is a really important one, is it just me or do today's water balloons hurt worse than they did when we grew up? I feel like we're just throwing rocks at people

Unknown:

now. I'm telling you, I haven't been hit by a water balloon,

Jeff Winters:

telling you. So here's what's happened in the water balloon community. For those who don't know, we've now gone from the days of taking a hose, taking a water balloon and filling it up. Old school, some of them would pop, some of them, you break the rubber. It was a labor of love. Now we're automated. We got 500 water balloons, and you hook it up to a hose and. Automatically fills them all, and you pluck them off, and you don't have a water balloon fight. You got a water balloon war. And they're mass produced, and they're industrial, and they're made of cement, and they hurt. Sounds like

Eric Watkins:

you had a bad experience, telling you, sounds like you had a bad experience. I'll take your word for it.

Jeff Winters:

I'm telling you and now for the lie, the lie. And you know what? I don't know if it's a lie, but I hope it is. And as a society, we should hope this is a lot. I'm seeing this statistic posted on LinkedIn. It's from the intelligent.com survey of 800 employers conducted in December of 2023 during job interviews. Employers say recent college graduates have number six on the list. 19% have brought a parent to their interview.

Eric Watkins:

What's the rest of the list?

Unknown:

That's not sure.

Jeff Winters:

I'm that's why I hope it's a make a noise night, a fifth, 20% this is a study. This appears to be a reputable 20% are bringing their parents to interviews. 53% struggle with eye contact, okay? That seems normal and natural. 50% asked for unreasonable comp, okay? 20% brought a parrot. What? Come on, y'all

Unknown:

that is crazy. Have you ever,

Eric Watkins:

no, have I ever brought my parents to, I

Jeff Winters:

don't know, you haven't brought your parents to what you haven't had. I

Eric Watkins:

haven't, no, I haven't even heard of

Jeff Winters:

that. What would we do?

Eric Watkins:

I don't know. Maybe you get a two for one discount. Maybe the parents gonna do some of the work too. Oh,

Jeff Winters:

you think maybe they're, they're not there to for support. You think they're there to work?

Eric Watkins:

I think they're there to help. Maybe they sit by their kid while they're working and throw a couple dials on as well.

Jeff Winters:

I'll tell you this. Our moms help. Yeah, they listen to the podcast every week and tear us apart. Tear Us Apart. All right, don't, PSA, don't bring your parents to your interview. Don't

Eric Watkins:

bring bring your parents. Man, has to be a lot. I bet we probably have in this next decade, a bring your parents to work day. That's

Jeff Winters:

fine. That's fine. Bring your parents to an interview. It's atrocious.

Eric Watkins:

Do you think they let their parents do the interview for them?

Jeff Winters:

It's a survey of 800 people. That means 160 of them brought their parents that

Eric Watkins:

that is not

Jeff Winters:

true. That's why I'm saying. It's a lie, but it's everywhere. I can't stop seeing

Unknown:

that's all right, okay, I'm really looking forward to this job. Have you met my mom?

Eric Watkins:

My mom thinks I'd be a really good fit. What would you say are your strengths and weaknesses? Well, Mom, you've known me my my whole life. What do you think you

Jeff Winters:

have any references? Yeah, I have one right here. Dad

Eric Watkins:

cuts the grass.

Unknown:

Great are we doing? All right, great job,

Eric Watkins:

Sheriff. I mean, people may take that as truth if we don't let them know.

Unknown:

I don't know if it's a lie, but I just hope it is.

Eric Watkins:

It might be. I just don't see a world where that's true. I don't know. All right, 50 for 50. What do we have today? It's hard to come back from that one. It is hard to come back from that one. You almost threw the whole show off. Yeah?

Jeff Winters:

It reminds me that famous scene in succession. You know, do you want to call your dad? Yeah, you want to call your dad? Does anybody want to call their dad? Good? Nobody wants to call their dad. 50 for 50. This week. Scott again is out. We're getting used to this. I don't like it. We need him back. But 50 for 50 this week is a something that get away from you, something that get away from you as you get bigger, and it's easy to ignore. This week's 50 for 50. Don't lose a handle on the people who are coming into your organization. 100% the entry level people that are coming in, the people your new hires, not just necessarily entry level, probably most likely entry level people that are coming into your organization. You cannot lose touch with this group of people, and here's why, because this is one of those slippery slopes where you don't meet a few new hires, and you're hiring two people, and then you don't meet a few more, and you're hiring five, and then you don't meet a few more, and you're hiring 10, and all of the sudden, you turn around, and people that are coming into the organization are different from. From the criteria, or from the culture, from the whatever that you wanted, and you lose touch with an entire generation of employees, who then hire another generation of employees. And I think it is so important as a CEO to ensure that your company is hiring the best possible talent, and you are the best person to see when that is either being lived up to or eroding. And so I know one thing that Scott does, and I've seen him diligently and religiously stick to this. Scott meets with every new hire class every month, every one of them he meets with and look, is this a great thing for the new hires to get CEO exposure day 10? Yeah, it's awesome. But he gets a chance for an hour, 90 minutes, however long it is, to get to talk to these folks. He gets to visit with him after the session, he gets to really get a feel for who's coming into the organization, and are we getting the best talent we possibly can, and are these people gonna live up to our values?

Eric Watkins:

I think this is a huge, huge point. I think it was Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos who did an insane amount of interviews up to a point when they were at like, 1000 employees or whatever, and there's something, there's something to that. And it's not a The message here is not, oh, I lack trust in my hiring manager who's making these decisions. There's something bigger than that, because you, as the CEO, you need people to really understand what you and you're all about, because you are the face of the company. And so not only do you get a chance to see the talent and the individuals that are coming on, they get a chance to see you, learn more about you, ask you questions. And I'm not saying you need to memorize every name of a 600 person company, but you need to know the faces, like when you when you're walking around, and you start seeing a bunch of faces. You start seeing a bunch of fake Ryan's walking around, and you don't know the names you need to know, like you need to know those people and make those connections. And you know, I on a smaller scale, when I ran the sales center in the director role for a while, I did every single final interview period, every final interview for probably, like, three years, and I never felt, I've never felt as connected to the group as I did when I did that. And now the numbers at this point just don't make as much sense to be able to do that. But man, especially if you're a little bit smaller and you have the luxury of doing this, I would almost suggest doing the interviews. And if you can't do that, you have to meet with the class every single month.

Jeff Winters:

Yeah, well, it would be really hard to do the interviews for you now, given that you'd have to be meeting with all of these kids and their parents.

Eric Watkins:

I don't have enough space in my office, yeah,

Jeff Winters:

should we roll up a chair for mom? Yeah? Yeah, it's I can't stress it enough, there are a few things in business when you start to get bigger that you don't want to do. Is the wrong way to say it. But kind of it's not, yeah. It could seem like this is a good meeting to book over. Yeah, that's probably the better way to say it, yeah. You know what? Book over the new hire meeting. Don't book over the new hire meeting, meet the new hires. Yep, you get connected with them. They get connected with you. This is something, if we started a business from scratch, we'd we'd do it again.

Eric Watkins:

Yeah. Well, and if you think about the list of how do I drive results through a team at the very top is what it's the right people. You can have the best process, best systems, everything, and if you have the wrong people, you're not going to be successful. And then the opposite is also true. You can have the worst systems and worst process, but if you have the right people, amazing people, they're going to figure out a way to be successful. So it's all the way at the top.

Jeff Winters:

That's the homework, either interview or if you're a little bigger, meet with every single new hire. Do not skip it, one on one or group

Unknown:

good 50 for 50.

Jeff Winters:

It's tough, man. I'm substitute teaching here. Yeah, substitute

Eric Watkins:

teaching. All right, we're heading over to mining for growth. Gold still have the same sound, freezing cold as three weeks. No new sounds. That's okay, Ryan, it's okay. Sometimes

Jeff Winters:

I want to say not having a new sound is somehow like nostalgic or a show of appreciation for you, but it's not. It's not. If you had a new sound, how would you feel?

Eric Watkins:

I'd feel a lot more motivated to do this section. You'd feel like you cared about you. Yeah, I would feel like you cared about me. Okay, no, yeah, we'll note that. Yeah, note that. I'll note that. All right, so today we're going to talk a little bit about email. We've been doing these content review sessions where we sit in a room and we review the email copy as a group.

Jeff Winters:

I'm there too. We're there too, yeah, high level content reviews,

Eric Watkins:

a high level content review session, yeah? Because. Be more important. You know, the thing about calling is there's so many different variables, and every time you have a call, it can go a million different ways. That email has come across one way, the way you write it, right? And there's a lot of things that have come out of this, but one really, really big thing that is super simple, that I think everybody should do tomorrow, and that is when you write an email before you hit submit or you finalize it, you should read it out loud. You should read it out loud every so the way we set these up is each of our content writers presents their emails and then they read them out loud. And this has happened in four consecutive meetings. They read the email, it's very jargony, very long, and they say, Wow, I really wish I would have read this before I before I finalized it, and it's just so simple, but when people are reading emails, they have 1000s of emails they're going through, it's hard to catch the attention. I don't want to hear, I don't want to see 1015, letter words in the email about in the industry, expertise, efficiency, evaluation, right? Yeah, just say, we make it better. You know, like, say it like a human and read it out loud, and if it doesn't sound good out loud, it's not going to resonate with the reader. Very simple. You can implement it tomorrow. Any copy you do, read it out loud.

Jeff Winters:

We make extraordinary motion visual representations using Play Buttons and pause buttons in synchronous fashion. Now you know you make videos exactly right. Nobody's impressed, and nobody understands exactly. Read them out loud. Read them out loud. It is striking in these sessions, the frequency with which people go, I That doesn't sound good. What Right exactly? And that's how it's going to sound to your prospect. It's it's a weird accountability thing, and it's not something you want to do, because nobody likes reading to themselves,

Eric Watkins:

and you're writing a lot of emails too. So, but it's so important, read

Jeff Winters:

it out loud and dejarify, because that's the next step. That's what's going to happen, is you're going to be reading about the visual representations of the motions with the pause. But no, we make it better. It's a video. Be simple. Make it easy. Read it out loud. And

Eric Watkins:

the point, you know, the strategy with email these days, because it's become so cluttered and there's so many emails you have to stand out, and every email I get is that it's that jargon, all of them long words, long sentences, long paragraphs, things that I am not I'm I'm reading and my eyes are glazing over. I can't even finish the email. So read it out loud, read it to another person as a bonus to be able to bounce it off somebody. But if not just read it out loud yourself, takes 30 seconds. Takes 30 seconds. All right, now that we have all these email leads coming in, Jeff, how are we going to sell

Jeff Winters:

you? What? I couldn't get it on. I told you. You told me you couldn't get it on. Man, I set that up perfectly.

Unknown:

What'd you have?

Jeff Winters:

I had a new sound effect for this section. We had it all teed up before you got here. Really? Yeah. And what was it? It was awesome. And like, I was gonna dog your sound effect. I was gonna have an awesome one, and then it didn't come. I don't know who you're talking about. Oh my gosh.

Eric Watkins:

Should we talk about accountability? What we

Jeff Winters:

haven't talked about accountability in a while? That was gonna be awesome, and now you've just shocked my entire system. Come on, man,

Eric Watkins:

Hey, Brian.

Jeff Winters:

One thing I continue to notice, from a sales perspective, and this is for salespeople, is we continue to tell ourselves stories at the end of calls, and I don't quite feel like we've done enough to have the language in our arsenal at the end of calls to ask whether or not someone is interested. Done a couple of topics tangential to this we've talked about, sort of like the New Age reverse selling to try to get out of maybe or to understand what's next? But I'm seeing a lot of people that are scheduling next steps which are good, and then those next steps are being ghosted. And what does that tell me? That tells me that people are uninterested, and we don't know that. And so I heard a phrase that I'm really liking, which isn't overly complex or overly novel, but it's giving someone permission to shoot you straight. It's the end of the call people are about to get off most of the time this is when this happens, not saying it's when it happens when it does. Yeah. Okay, I gotta go. Hey. Yeah, Eric, look, this is, this is total permission here for you to shoot me straight. Is this something you think could help your team and shut your mouth and let them talk? Total permission here to shoot me straight. Here's why this phrase works. In my estimation, everybody thinks they're a straight shooter. I'm a real straight shooter. Nobody goes, Hey, are you straight shooter? No, no, not a straight shoot. Around the bush. I

Eric Watkins:

don't tell you the, yeah, I don't tell you the straight scoop.

Jeff Winters:

Everybody ever it's like, it's like, I've said this before. Everybody thinks they're a good driver, yeah, but you could drive. Oh, great driver. Everybody else terrible. How's it possible everybody's a horrible driver. You're a good driver, but neither here nor there. You a good parent? Oh, the best parent. Yeah, these are things that everybody thinks they're good at, and everybody thinks they're a straight shooter. So if I give you permission and I change the words I give you, hey, give me permission. Shoot me straight now, it clicks in your brain, oh, I'm a straight shooter. Now I should say exactly what it is, yep. And I think this little brain trick moving the words around into something that everyone thinks they are and aspires to be. Even if you're not a straight shooter, you want to be a straight shooter. I'm going to prove I'm a straight shooter, right? I'm going to make something up, I'm going to make something up, and I'm going to get an answer. And I think shoot me straight. Those exact words, permission to shoot me straight is a really nice way to in the non threatening, non used car salesy way, get you to tell me how you're feeling at the end of the call. So

Eric Watkins:

I was meeting with our accountant. To add to this point, I was meeting with our account managers yesterday and talking to them about consulting our clients on sales. And we pulled up just a random sample of portals. And in these portals, portals where clients go in, they fill out the outcomes of the opportunities that we gave them, back to back to back. People have 6050, 30 proposals in there that we've been working with. We've been working with these clients two, three years, just sitting in proposal. That's right, because no one shot them straight. No one shot them straight. Maybes are the root of all evil in sales. So any little tidbits or tricks like this that you can get, to get a yes or to get a no and to get the truth. I mean, that's the name of the game, permission

Jeff Winters:

to shoot me straight. I think it's really good. It's a turn of a phrase. Have your salespeople. Use it. If you're a leader, CEO, you're on sales calls, use it. Hey, send it in an email to get an answer. But don't be in maybe land. Don't be looking back. Oh gosh, they love the call. Yeah, I

Eric Watkins:

killed it. I

Jeff Winters:

destroyed that guy. Killed it. You had no clue. Yeah, you

Eric Watkins:

had no clue. Great. Good tip. Good tip. That's

Unknown:

pretty tactical. Yeah, that's

Eric Watkins:

good stuff. Good tech. You can, you can use these things we're talking about tomorrow like there's no reason to wait. All right. Final section, everybody's favorite, everybody's favorite, not everybody's, but some people, 99% of people's favorite. You What is everybody's favorite? Do not disturb. Oh, I love Do Not Disturb. Do not disturb. And we are not going to attack. You're going to sleep. You put Do Not Disturb. On. That's fine. We understand you don't want to be disturbed. You don't want to be disturbed while you sleep. How there seems to be a new trend of people being on Do Not Disturb. All day, all day, all day. Do not disturb. What do you think about that to do or not to do beyond Do Not Disturb outside of sleeping hours.

Jeff Winters:

I think it's a huge flex. I think it is a huge flex to always be on. Do not disturb. I think it's awesome. I don't recommend it, but I'm like, hell yeah. Like, I'm one and but by the way, I'm the Do Not Disturb, Buster, because I know if you're on, do not disturb. If I call you twice, I'm getting through like I'm immediately calling twice. I do this to you all the time. Yeah, Eric's on. Do Not Disturb because he forgets he's on. Do Not Disturb when he sleeps and he forgets to turn it off in the morning, I get that dude, I get that Insta voicemail, boom, I'm right back at right back with that second call. I think it's a huge flex. I think it makes you look very busy and important. Part of me loves it, but probably not, probably

Eric Watkins:

not. I'm on silent all day.

Jeff Winters:

What does that mean?

Eric Watkins:

I It vibrates, but I have no I had no sounds. Ever,

Jeff Winters:

ever. Oh, you could miss stuff. You got your watch? Though?

Eric Watkins:

I do have a watch. I do have my watch. Yeah, by the way,

Jeff Winters:

you can't bust through the watch if you're on Do Not Disturb either.

Unknown:

Oh, really, no, really, no. Oh,

Eric Watkins:

calls come through the watch like even though I'm on silent, I can see the watch. I don't see text though to my phone. They don't go straight to my watch,

Jeff Winters:

don't you? Think it's a flex being on Flex? Yeah, it's

Eric Watkins:

a power move, for sure. Total power move. Yeah,

Unknown:

total power move. I

Jeff Winters:

think if you're a CEO and you're feeling a little like imposter syndrome, throw your Do Not Disturb on all

Eric Watkins:

that can't reach me,

Jeff Winters:

should I be my tip on LinkedIn, if you're a CEO and you're feeling imposter syndrome, I have a great

Eric Watkins:

tip for you. Do not disturb. You're busy, you're busy. You're busy. People

Jeff Winters:

are gonna think so much more highly of you if you're on. Do Not Disturb all day.

Eric Watkins:

Here's why I like it as well. Anything in this day and age for people to be off their phones more, I think is a good thing

Unknown:

I do too. Yeah, I

Eric Watkins:

think it's a good thing.

Jeff Winters:

I'm coming around. Yeah, I'm putting Do not you

Eric Watkins:

might be. You might you're Mr disturbed me. You want to be no you want to your phone's dinging all the time.

Jeff Winters:

Here's and this is iPhone exclusive. So to all of those that that where the texts don't go blue, this isn't gonna work, but I now have options. It's it's sleep, work, personal, and just do not disturb.

Unknown:

Oh, wow. Yeah,

Eric Watkins:

that's big deal. That's big deal. I get to select breaking news. Breaking news. That's weird is that the new update there?

Jeff Winters:

I never update my phone. Yeah, I haven't updated mine in a long time, and if you want to ask me about it, feel free to call. You're gonna have to call twice. I wanna do not disturb.

Eric Watkins:

Do not disturb. All right. Hopefully you guys enjoyed this episode. Had some good nuggets to take away until next time. Let's grow. Let's grow.

Unknown:

The grow show is sponsored by abstract cloud solutions certified Salesforce consulting services. You.

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Eric Watkins

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Jeff Winters

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Scott Scully

Co-host