Let‘s Talk HR - Humanizing the Conversation

Let’s Talk HR has been an amazing journey. A special thanks to all my audience for joining me on this journey and supporting me. We are ending this, the same way we started, with a good friend and fellow podcaster Robb Conlon, Owner/Founder of Westport Studio. Join us for an great conversation about Robb’s journey into entrepreneurship and close the book on Lets Talk HR.
 
But don’t be to disappointed, because this girl is not going anywhere, coming January 2024 we are launching Love Your Sales – The podcast that will be breaking down all the sales tips, tricks and objections that stand in your way to the golden, YES.
 
Contact Robb –
Website - https://www.westportstudiosllc.com/
E-mail - westportstudiosllc@gmail.com
 
Leighann Lovely  00:20
HR professionals, business owners and operations at all levels are struggling to figure out what needs to change. Our system has been shocked practices have been questioned, and conversations are finally happening. We all know there has been a huge shift in what people want. inclusion and diversity are common phrases. But often misunderstood generations are coming together more than ever on what's important. Mental health has been brought to the forefront of everyone's mind. Let's humanize these conversations. Let's talk about what's important for employees to be successful in life and at their job and how companies can create an environment to allow them to do both because successful people will make up a successful workforce. I'm Leighann. Lovely. Let's get this conversation started. Rob. Thank you for joining me today. This is absolutely awesome.
 
Robb Conlon  01:15
It is a bit of a full circle moment here, which is fun, and I always love those.
 
Leighann Lovely  01:19
Yes. So for my audience, I have Robb Conlon joining me today. It is bittersweet as I am announcing that this is going to be the final episode of Let's Talk HR humanizing the conversation. And for those of you who have been on this journey with me, two years ago, I launched bloodstock HR, and Rob Conlon, who has over the years now, I think about four years, three, three and a half, four, somewhere in there. He actually helped me launch this podcast by joining me on my first ever episode, to interview me on why I wanted to launch this podcast. He has been a great friend, he has been somebody had gone to for advice on how to even do a podcast. And it's just been such an amazing journey to, I guess, get advice from you and watch you on your entrepreneur journey. And so I'm so thrilled that you've agreed to join me today and to talk to me about this
 
Robb Conlon  02:30
completely my friend. And it's one of those things where I can't believe it's been two years since we kick this thing off. And now we're, we're closing it up. It's like, wow, that kind of was a snap. You know, I
 
Leighann Lovely  02:43
know, when I look back at you know, originally launching this, and I get I'm getting goosebumps, because of you know the story behind why I originally wanted to launch let's take, or let's talk HR. And now the reason that I'm decided to sunset it, which makes sense for my own personal journey. It truly is bittersweet, but it has served its purpose. But you yourself, have also since we met had a podcast that you invited me to come on. And sunsetted that podcast, started a new podcast, started a business. So let's talk about it.
 
Robb Conlon  03:34
Sure. Well, you mentioned that, you know, sunsetting a podcast No, originally you and I met when I had you as a guest on recruiting hell, which was my podcast that I made during the pandemic, to help the world get back to work. And I thought, okay, I can go be a content creator and things like that. Welcome. Everybody did that. Let's get one of the unintended consequences of starting that show was we actually helped a lot of folks get some jobs, we found over 1 million, sorry, one and a half million dollars in Job salaries and benefits for people. Plus it got me plugged into an incredible network on LinkedIn. So I'm so happy that I I started that but much like every customer journey, every business journey, there's a beginning and there's an end and sunsetting this show for you. I know exactly what you're going through because sunsetting recruiting Hell was a very emotional moment because it was one of those things that when I had very little going for me in my life, that was it was one of those things and I know that you have a ton going for you right now with your business journey, but it taking away something that's been kind of one of the main engines, if you will, for a while. That can kind of hurt so you know, for sunsetting recruiting Hell was what's necessary because I had lost passion for it. And I don't think for you it's changed a passion thing. It's just the the mission has changed, if you will, as to what you're doing so she said her purpose, and we would give her that Viking funeral, you know, on a burning boat. Right? But, but that's kind of where I went with my show. And, you know, it was, it was kind of a sad thing. I actually, not too long ago remove the bumper sticker for my car, because I replaced it with my new company logo. And it's like, oh, okay, like, it's, it's kind of this, like, not quite paving over, but like, upgrading almost in this case. And I think that's a great way to look at it for you as well. Yeah,
 
Leighann Lovely  05:33
yeah, you're right. And I haven't looked at it. Like that. It's, but as many entrepreneurs will say, there are seasons, you know, seasons to business, there are seasons to life, and we have to, you know, recognize it. First off, if we don't recognize it, we get stuck, right, we get stuck, and we can't move on from that. So it's it is time. And, you know, I've had a lot of people, you know, come up to me, as I've launched my business, I've talked about this, you know, love your sales, people are like, Wait, I thought you were an HR lady. And I'm like, Well, I was, I am at, you know, my core. HR is part of every business. But for the last decade, I have been on the sales, side consulting, you know, HR, you know, for HR, I suppose, it'd be the right thing. So, you know, now it's time for me to, to move forward and no longer, you know, I guess, branded myself as the the HR expert. So
 
Robb Conlon  06:41
you can always keep that going a little bit. A lot of times I tell a lot of folks out there that I am. I'm not a founder and entrepreneur, I'm a salesperson in disguise. But that's one of the you know, we share that skill in this case. And I think for, you know, a founder led company, which is what yours is like, just like mine is, as a founder led company, you have a very good skill set that you can, and I use the word masquerade in a way of like playing in a different role, not you know, being shady or anything like that, you know, you can put on that different face and say, Hey, today, I am your HR person. But I'm actually, you know, I'm a salesperson at heart. But today, I'm HR today, I am your marketing person today, I am your IT department, things like that. And I've had to wear a couple of those hats lately, that's for sure. So
 
Leighann Lovely  07:33
let's talk about that. So let's you you, you know, you had an amazing podcast. And now you have a new amazing podcast. But let's let's talk about you know, you, you started that journey, because you were you're experiencing something, you know, most people who start a podcast, whether unless it's really a b2b, you're in this company, you're doing it for that company, they start but, you know, unless it's that they start a personal podcast, it's usually driven by something you're experiencing something that's bothering you, or a personal message you want to get out. You were experiencing something when you started recruiting? What? What was going on that, that you went, I got to start this podcast,
 
Robb Conlon  08:23
you know, it was, it was one of those things where if I look back at it now, I was not, I was not happy with who I was, I was not happy with where I was in life, I was not happy with how the world worked in this case, and I needed to teach myself the new way of things working, if you will, you know, my, my folks used to always tell me when I was, you know, younger and looking for jobs and things like that, play the game, play the game. It's like, well, the game is kind of broken mom and dad, like, I don't want to get to generationally, you know, like snarky here, but like, okay, Boomer, you know, like that kind of thing. But like, but applying for a job or grabbing a job was very different than in years past 20 3040 years ago, you would walk into a department store and say, Hey, I'd like an application and things like that. Well, when I started recruiting, how Yes, online applications existed, you really didn't go into places to get things like that. But it was such a frustration to do them. Things like Taleo and workday and like I still get a little fired up when I talk about these these application codes because I hate them. I literally hate them so much. Like it like the user experience design is terrible. The the fact that I've entered things twice, come on guys, like it's at the time it was your 2019 and things like that. It's like this shouldn't be this way. So the essence of recruiting how it was distilled out of a joke I made to my My wife one night after being incredibly frustrated one day of job hunting, and it was, it was a very emotional moment for me because it was kind of like, I don't want to say, you know, losing it or anything like that, but just kind of like that, like, ah, like, I'm really trying to hold it together here, and it's just not working. And so I made I made the joke to her that it's like being trapped in hell. And why wouldn't we be great. It's only been a podcast about what you call it recruiting how blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I kind of kind of waltzed off back to up here and just sat down on my computer. And I said, I got to actually make that. So I got this. I don't know if I still have it. I don't think I do. But I had this microphone that was just awful. At the time, it was it was some corded thing. It was like a lapel mic. That wasn't a lapel mic. It was ported. It said Blake, like Epson on it or something like that. And I just kind of held it in a tucked into it with a free recording software for an hour. And it was this rant. It was this rant of like, This is so stupid. This is so unfair, I actually found that that file, like two or like a year or two ago, it's still on my old computer. And it's like kind of unhinged, honestly, like you can feel the pain, you can feel the frustration and things like that. And I look because I listened to it as though we are really not in a good place when we were. So that was that was the impetus for the show. And it started. You know, I look back at my show. And I oftentimes we go back and and listen to episode one. And I listen to episode 40. And I listen to episode I think it's 68, which is the last one. And between those three, you can actually hear the entire evolution of the show, the way that I grew as a content creator the way as I grew as somebody who was you know, kind of taking this a little more seriously as like a business thing. And the the way it just started was literally sitting down and that rant. It got rerecorded, but it was split into three episodes, which is kind of great so often take to was much less emotional, if you will, and much more informative. Actually, episodes one and two were some of my most listened to episodes, because they were they may not have had the quality that people expect from a podcast nowadays. But they had great information for people so
 
Leighann Lovely  12:27
well. And they were probably very, they were probably very emotional and raw. Because you were you were feeling it. You were authentic.
 
Robb Conlon  12:40
Right. Yeah, I think a lot of people who say I'm this guy, I am this guy, this guy is me. So
 
Leighann Lovely  12:49
great, because we've anybody who's ever sat down and tried to apply for a job. And trust me, I've I, and it's been a really long time since I've really sat down and I found a job through applying and doing the application process. Because again, I'm an HR sales lady. I stopped doing that. And I started going directly to the hiring manager through connections in my network. The last job I think that I had, they came directly to me and recruited me directly in and I think that I mean, so it's been a really long time since I've been in that game. But I know what people go through. And it's so frustrating. Spreadsheets, people are like, well, let me see my check my spreadsheet to see where I am. And it's like, oh my god, if that it's a full time job. So yeah. So now let's talk about the next job you had after that. Because if I remember correctly, the reason that you ended up getting this opportunity was tied very closely to the work that you put in to the podcast that you created. Yeah,
 
Robb Conlon  14:08
you're absolutely right. Because as you know, I was putting that out on LinkedIn, and to your point a moment ago about touching your network and things like things like that, like I had heard that people could do that. But I didn't really know how to do it. Number one, much less virtually. Because again, a lot of this was happening right when you know right before COVID are right at the time of COVID. Just to give people a frame of reference here. The unhinged our rant was recorded on November 30 2019. The first episode of recruiting hell came out I want to say April 20 of 2020. So again, there was that time, but in that time you know, I was almost unemployed for most of most of 2020 in this case. So at the end of that year, I actually ran across something through promoting my show online and interacting with people on LinkedIn that the marketing director for a An agency that actually produce podcasts for businesses, you know, came across my path. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, there's somebody out here who actually like, like, these people are looking for people who know how to make a podcast, holy crap, I should probably, like, reach out to these people and say, Hey, maybe I can I'm maybe I'm your guy. And we had that interview, which was fantastic. got the job. And that was really kind of the the key turning point to where I said, Okay, I guess I'm kind of jumping into this with both feet, if you will, as far as taking a look at at content and continuing to network on LinkedIn, in the way that you described.
 
Leighann Lovely  15:45
That's awesome. That's, I mean, that's absolutely amazing. And you spend quite a bit of time with this organization. And then I remember when we talked, and you're like, I'm not with him anymore. And we talked again, and you said, I'm gonna get my own thing going?
 
Robb Conlon  16:02
Yeah, there were a couple couple steps in there, things went very well, initially, with that organization, you know, I got an employee of the month twice, fantastic. twice in a row, actually, we got to a quick upgrade to a higher position, things didn't quite work out the way that they were supposed to there. So we got busted back down to private, which wasn't as much fun. But at that point, and I will, you know, if somebody's listening to this, I'm sure you know, let's be authentic, let's be real. Like, if you get demoted at work, you kind of check out man, you kind of check out. And I I don't think I blame younger myself for that. I think if I had this, I was presented with the same thing today, I would probably just skip a bunch of steps that we're going to talk about here for all in a moment. But you know, it was one of these things where I just, you know, kept my head down, did my work and things like that and said, You know what, I've got to find something new. And so it was, it was good enough for the time being kept my head down. And then early 2022 rolled around. So during this time, I had a very good chance to meet a lot of wonderful people in the marketing and digital marketing world and who had their own shows that I managed and things like that. But if you fast forward to March of 2022, that's where this kind of all really comes to a head. There were some decisions made at my former agency that were we'll just call them unwise in this case, to, to say the least. And those unwise decisions resulted in a quarter of the company being let go at once. Now, you're an HR person, I do want to I do want to bounce this off of you. If you're firing people, do you call an all hands meeting and tell them that, hey, we're going to fire 10 of you, you might receive a phone call after this meeting?
 
Leighann Lovely  18:02
Oh, God, no, no, you don't do that.
 
Robb Conlon  18:06
But that's what happened. That's what happened. In this case, which I again, sometimes you learn how to build a better company by seeing what people do wrong. In this case, so that happened, we we got one of those 10 phone calls. In this case, we lost Russian Roulette, if you will. And it was about about noon, when I got that phone call on Thursday, March 3. And I said to myself, well, I can do one of two things. I can either literally just walk away, because what are you gonna do fire me? Just be like, Alright, see you later guys. Bye. Or I can take the time to shore up and do the best for people who are bystanders in this. And those will be my customers. I had 10 accounts at that point are 10 shows under management under seven accounts, I should say. And I had about five hours to tie off all of this production work and that not a lot of time per customer to be like, Hey, guys, here's what's going on. Plus, at that time, the business that I was working for did not communicate in any way shape or form to the customers that we were departing. A lot of them really liked their producers and things like that. Insofar as that one of my colleagues when they informed her to you know, talk to her customers, she I believe she dropped a four letter word in there, but she said you effing do it. You go girl, read it, read it. If you're listening to this, go, Hey,
 
Leighann Lovely  19:40
and here's the thing about that. Most companies, once they have terminated somebody, they don't say go to your customers and communicate to them. That is not absolutely positively not the way you handle a situation like that. Usually when you turn Need Somebody 10 minutes before you? Do, you cut off all of their access to their email to any proprietary information that they have? Because you these are people. And when people get really bad news, like, I don't know, how am I going to pay my rent? How am I going to pay my mortgage? How am I going to, you know, pay all of my bills, they have an extremely emotional reaction. Yes. And quite often, there are two people in the room or two people on the call, usually one of both sex, if there is, you know, a female boss that's doing this, they will have a male boss also sitting there, if you're a male employee, so that there can be no allegations of sexual misconduct, blah, blah, blah, if it's a female employee, and it's a male boss, vice versa, for all of that all of these precautions are all laid out in any HR department, if it has to be done virtually because you have a virtual workforce. The same goes is that you have a secondary witness, usually, if at all possible. Just in case, this employee comes back and tries to have any allegations of misconduct of the of the company. Never do you say, Hey, Rob, you're fired. Sorry, we gotta let you go. Now, if you could go and call all your clients, and let them know. I mean, unless they don't care, because now you are extremely emotional, extremely, at this point, because anytime you're dealing with the livelihood of somebody, there is emotion involved. And you're now putting your company at extreme risk for lawsuit. Because technically, even though you've just been terminated, as soon as they say go contact our employees, you are still acting as an employee of the company.
 
Robb Conlon  22:08
Right? They're not paying you for the time you're doing it. Yeah.
 
Leighann Lovely  22:12
And if you go and tell the the client to eff off or do something to that client, that client is not going to sue you rob, they're gonna they're gonna sue the company. So
 
Robb Conlon  22:28
yeah. It didn't make a whole lot of sense. If they said like, hey, today's your last day, you know, at five o'clock, you're done, which, okay, fine. That's kind of like a caveat there. But like, again, what are you going to do? You know, it's one of those things, but the so what I did and I don't believe in, in poaching people, I don't believe in any of these things like that, you know, but one thing I did was I really loved my customers, they were, they were, it's a very strange thing in business and in sales and things like that. Like sometimes you actually kind of like get to be friends with your customers and that, yeah, it's really, it's one of the most unique relationships in humanity, I think of like, hey, we do business together. We really like each other. We're like, business friends, I guess, I don't know, which I don't know what the relationships called. But like, it
 
Leighann Lovely  23:17
should be that way. If you are a salesperson that is constantly in communication, yes, you have to keep a level of professionalism. And that person is paying you for a service. But it's inhuman for you to not become empathetic to their needs at times. And to their you know, if you call them and you're talking to them like this, and you see that they're having a bad day. It would be very inhuman for you to not be like, Hey, you're right, like is you're doing okay? And you know, if you just completely ignore that they're gonna be like, he's kind of an asshole like, he doesn't care he doesn't. I personally have clients like that I have clients who tell me everything about their life, everything. And as much as as much as I as much as I want to be able to be like, How can I help you? What can I do? I have to make sure that I don't get completely involved. Because at the end of the day, I still one day may have to fire them as a client one day may have to sue them if they don't pay me. One day may have to a million and they may have to fire me as their business. So you Yes, they can become friends. But there's always that business aspect of I like you a lot. But,
 
Robb Conlon  24:57
right, we have to keep some of these arias in place? Correct? Not all of them. But yeah, so you know, we that was tough because you know, where do you overstep where you not overstep but what I did was for, for as many of my customers as I could I sent them just a little LinkedIn message. And I said, Hey, I'm done. You know, here they are, they don't have any work in here anymore. I've done everything I can with the time I was allotted. And I, I think that there's a, because I could have just walked away. And there were colleagues of mine that did and I no shade thrown their way for walking away. What happened to the 10 of us was, was not kind of his case. And I don't blame them for being a really upset and be being like, No, this is your frickin problem. Now, like you deal with it, like you, you made the best deal with it. So the, you know, what I simply said to my customers was, you know, I won't be able to really contact you via the normal channels. And just in case, I can't get a hold of you, or you can't get a hold of me on LinkedIn. Like, here's my email address. And that was the only thing I presented to to any of them before leaving, and again, no solicitation, nothing like that. But once I had sent that last one about 5pm, that day, I said, All right, I am done with this company that I just got fired from. Cool, let's unplug everything. And then I said, I think I can do what they did. And I think I can do it better. And that was a slightly cocky moment. But also a nice, a slightly confident moment. And so I went to bed that night. And I said to myself in the morning, we are going into business and betting on ourselves. And so the next morning, March 4, command day 2022. We opened Westport studios, for the first time. And as I was doing this, again, when you open a business, you know, this Leanda the first day is like, there's like a trillion things to do. And I like where do I start? There's, you can read a book or two and like, what's a man? You know, there's a couple little like, manuals, but it's like, for the most part, it's like, well, I need a website, I need to talk to people, I need to get sales going, I need to like, get a domain name. You know, there's all there's a list of
 
Leighann Lovely  27:25
a million Yeah, number I need an accountant.
 
Robb Conlon  27:31
Right, exactly. So I'm working on this for like the first two or three hours of the day, and all of a sudden, my phone rings. And I'm like, I look at it. And it's one of my old customers. I go on No, like, he didn't either get the message or he's wondering about something and I can't really help him. Now, caveat here, I could have helped him because they left access to the systems and us for two
 
Leighann Lovely  27:57
weeks, two weeks, which is ridiculous, which is ridiculous. And And technically, technically, if you did help them, they could have come back to you and reprimanded you. Or you could have gone back to them and been like, you should owe me money for helping your client. I mean that all that gets like to be really messy.
 
Robb Conlon  28:25
Messy, messy. But so this phone rang and bad back to the access thing for just a moment. Like, I also looked at how these things were stored on the drive space that we had access to. And again, I would never ever damage somebody's business. But I did a couple little clicks to see what could happen. If somebody had had the mind to just sink the ship, they could have, they could have just wiped it out. Because I now know because I for a time use the same type of file system. I now know that had I just gone and wiped everything out that it would have been a mess to get back. And, again, no hostility on this but just like you play you pay people to hack your your, your website, sometimes as a company, right? Like, is our website secure, right? But just looking at that going oh my gosh, there's like there's 100 customers data on here. There's there's 1000s of episodes of podcasts that could be gone with the click of a button. See
 
Leighann Lovely  29:32
now you and I have to have a conversation to make sure that I'm doing everything right and then
 
Robb Conlon  29:37
it's all good things you don't know as a brand new entrepreneur. Right? Exactly, exactly. And actually I'm fixing part of one of my mistakes of where I got in with like data storage at first right now it's actually I had to pause part of it while we're on this recording because it takes a lot of my internet connection but But enough of that, you know again, never would even as as upset as I was would never even consider harming somebody's business like that. No, no, no, not at all. The two wrongs don't make a right. But like just seeing that there was like, the big red button to hit was like,
 
Leighann Lovely  30:10
Oh my god. So,
 
Robb Conlon  30:12
back to that phone call. Yeah, lots of mistakes. Back to that phone call, though. It's turned out it was one of my customers. And I said his name is His name is James Robert Leigh. He's a wonderful guy. He's amazing. If you're not connected with him on LinkedIn, or something like that, go find JR. He's incredible. I pick up the phone and say, Hey, James, Robert, how you doing, man? And he goes. So Rob, my team told me I needed to call you and I'm part of he's like, in the back of my mind, like crap. This is really actually about something he needs. He's like, he says, they said, We should move our show to you. And like back of my mind, like my little little like, lizard brain is going. He said, What? Like, and I said, you want to move your show to us? And he goes, Yeah, what's gonna cost? And, again, voice in my head? Dude, we've been in business for three hours. I don't even know what my website is like, pricing. What's that? So. So I threw out a number for him. I just wrote a number. I'm like, hey, maybe we could make it work at this. And he's goes, Great. See, on April 1, I was like, Oh, okay. So now I had a side hustle at that time with another, another customer. And I'm like, now I got two customers. Now I got 4000 bucks a month coming in and revenue. And then like, this is day one, this is our three. And so I'm looking at this going. This might actually work. I have a lot of stuff to do. Yeah, that was it was a very like, a moment right after it. And so that was a very humbling moment, to number one have been sought out so quickly. But it was a moment that was repeated for every single one of my former customers.
 
Leighann Lovely  31:56
So you didn't have a non compete of any kind put in place.
 
Robb Conlon  31:59
They had a non solicit in place. They solicited you, they solicited me, you know, it's one of those things is I really, I took it to an attorney, I took it to it was a little bit laughable, because this this particular non non solicit was four sentences long and did not have the company name on it. And was not drafted by an attorney. To which my attorney said, Is this really it? And I said, Yes, it is bred, because this isn't worth the paper it's printed on. So now again, I don't believe in poaching people's customers, but I if they want to walk in the door of my shop, I'm all for that.
 
Leighann Lovely  32:39
And it comes it boils down to one simple thing. Service, great service and relationship. You You proved to them that you were capable. And despite the fact that you had no team, you had no business name. You had no website? Name that was it. Oh, you had you did have the name, okay. You had a name. They were they were willing to hitch their wagon to you, because they knew you were capable of servicing them. And you had the relationship and that outweighed any other concerns that they could possibly have. And that's all that it boils down to. Because when when it when you're working with a company, and people get so hung up on an I work with small entrepreneurs, I work with people who have been in business for a long time. And this is where people who are in marketing, like will completely go like bonkers with me. And, and I'm like, they're like, oh, yeah, you have to have a business name that really has a statement, you know, you really got to make sure that your business name is in line and people understand it and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, I beg to differ. I'm like, Yes. Is it important when you're out there marketing? Yes. But when you start a business, it's not about the business. It's not or it's not about the name of the business. It's not about your logo and marketing. Yes, fine. I understand. It is when you get to the sound of the marketing portion. But when you're starting out people get so hung up on Oh, what is my business name going to be? What is my logo gonna look like? What is my website going to look like? None of that matters. In the first like, very beginning when you are solopreneurs selling a service. What matters is your reputation and the relationships that you have people will flock to you. If you have a network of people who know you, like you and trust you. Yes, that's it. And
 
Robb Conlon  34:53
it's so funny because you know I I love my brand I feel my brand is very much in line with The way I want to run my company and things like that, and again, as a founder let you know. It's named after the street. I lived I live on the bike my wife came up with that. She's like, why don't you call it Westport? And like, that's pretty damn good. So let's let's go with that. But it's one of those things where it's been a very interesting journey of evolving that brand from Robins Westport westward as Rob to Westport is Rob and Adam and Kristen, and Abby and Emma and Isaac now, and there's, there's a half dozen of us now that this is all, like, if somebody asks them, you know, who do I work who you work for? You say, I work for Westport studios now. And that's a really nifty transition. But you have to really game that transition tightly, if you will, because a lot of times, you know, I'm still the primary salesperson here. I'm still the person that people you know, bring, you know, Hey, Rob, I've got this person who may want to meet you. And it's been a very interesting shift from the brand is Rob Rob is the brand to just peeling away from that ever so slightly, and kind of layer by layer. Of now the brand is Rob, the brand is not quite all Rob, Rob is is part of the brand, that the you know, incremental things back towards, you know, we are Westport Studios, which I kind of like, a little bit more anyway. So
 
Leighann Lovely  36:17
well, and that's hard for some people, some people, you know, go into business, and they're like, and I can't let go of this, I can't let go of that. But you are a true, you are you've become a true business owner, and not a solopreneur or just simply an entrepreneur, you are now a business owner. Right, have a successful business. And so now I have some questions about that. Go ahead. So as you got those clients rolling on, when did you know that it was time like, okay, we're scaling, I'm growing? When did you know it was time? Like I need to? I need to hire? Well. And you're a little bit different? Because you, you, you, I'm assuming you could you had two clients like right then? Right? You needed people to help. So when was that that you hired your first employee? When was it that you hired a bookkeeper? How did that growth happen? Growth
 
Robb Conlon  37:20
has been really interesting in that I love that you use you ask this question, because this is a super HRV kind of thing, right now, because one of the interesting things is, is it costs me a lot more to produce, like per podcast to produce one podcast than does produce 10 podcasts, there's a lot of stuff that overlaps on that, you know, there's there's a baseline cost of running the business, and then each additional customer you stack on makes better use of that baseline. So when I started this off, I really did, I didn't necessarily do the fiber deal. But it was one of those things of like, hey, I need to get XY and Z done for people. And I'm going to use resources that are not as permanent in this case. Now again, they the nice thing is that they've become permanent. But they are they was generally all just like contract project work initially, like, hey, I need you to make these two videos. They are a minute and a half long. And please make cuts here, here and here. You know, things like that. And so I started off with with Abby, who is my longest tenured colleague here, she's fantast. I just started doing a quick meeting. She's She's delightful. She's a student at Concordia here in Nozaki County, but Abby did some design work for me right off the bat, because I asked a connection of mine. I said, Dude, I don't know how to do graphic design. I can write, okay, I can mix audio. I can fumble through video, but I don't know how to do this design crap. And I said to him, his name's Greg. So Greg, is there anybody at your university? Who's looking for a job or, you know, super part time? And he goes, Yeah, let me go to the comms department. That sounds like where this should go. And sure enough, I got one email. From a wonderful young woman. Her name is Abby. She is now the student body president at Concordia University. She is incredibly successful. She's graduating this year. I'm super proud of her. I am so happy she's come on along. She has designed some of our most fun brands for this. And she's and again, a lot of this was like, hey, I need you for two hours, like this month at first. And so again, like this, these little project based things were really, really far few and far between. But now, you know, she and I talk basically have a one on one every two weeks in this case, but there's usually two or three things going on right now. And again, she doesn't work, you know, 40 a week or anything like that for me, but you know, she'll put in 567 hours and it's these, these sort of partial full because and I should say, to folks who are listening who are in HR and things like that, I believe in what I call a thriving wage. And this is something that's very deeply ingrained in me is that for much of my life, I worked for a wage that was underneath what I would say even not to say poverty level, but like, we couldn't do a whole lot with it, it was called Well, we can pay the pay the rent, and we can pay the power bill, and we can buy groceries. And that's pretty much it. And so that you can call that I suppose, a living wage. But is it really living if you don't get to have any fun or do anything else? No. So I believe in, I think it was FDR who came up with this concept of a thriving wage. So the minimum wage at Westport studios, so long as you're not on a, like a 90 day probationary period is $30 an hour. 30 bucks an hour. Wow. Because I believe in making sure that other people thrive to one of our core values at this company, is that the company works for all of us, not just those in charge. And that's, that's the greatest way I can show that to people is that, yeah, I could pay everybody 1250 an hour, I get lesser work, I'd have unhappy people, I'd have people bitching at me all the time about their wages. Or I can pay them a thriving wage, and help them try to focus on their development, and making themselves better and doing more as in like, Hey, can you do you think you can do this thing that is upcoming, you know, we're gonna pay you for it, obviously. But like, I'm really excited to see what you do with this brand, or, Hey, edit this audio this way, this time? What do you think, you know, so you get a lot more buy in. And this is for anybody who's in the in the HR realm. I learned from one of my former companies that I worked at that if you pay top, top third, you get some hella good talent, man. It's absolutely,
 
Leighann Lovely  42:01
and I'm in awe. First of all, because often people get to a certain level, a certain level or a certain threshold. And I'm not saying that you've gotten there yet. You know, it's usually when you get to you. I guess, I don't really know what that threshold is, is also and again, I don't want to pick on the age, you know, I really don't want to pick on No, you know, play the ageism card or whatever. But people who have experienced what you just talked about, you know, working at just that minimum of surviving, not being able to experience, you know, the, the going on vacations when you want to and being able and I I've experienced both, I've experienced just being paid enough. I've experienced working at a company where, you know, I kept getting promoted, but they were like, Yeah, we can't quite give you an increase yet. And I'm like, okay, so this promotion doesn't come with a wage and right, like, is that really a promotion? And then it was okay, we're gonna, we're actually gonna give you more responsibility. It's not a promotion, but and it's like, and eventually when I said, Well, I'm going to leave, and they're like, Well, why? I'm like, I, I've been here for three years, you've given me double the amount of work. And my pay has never gone up. And you're surprised?
 
Robb Conlon  43:32
Yeah. Good work should not be rewarded with more work.
 
Leighann Lovely  43:36
So at all, and then there's been jobs that I've had that I've made a ton of money. and been like, Oh, my God, why? Why are they paying me this much? And somebody's like, because you deserve that much. Because you work hard, because you're, it's not that much. And I'm like, oh, it's not. Because then I hear what other people and again, I know, I'm, you know, I'm in the industry, and I'm like, I'm finally being paid what I'm worth, yes. So for you to remember, for you to offer the opportunity for people to come in, learn, to have a voice to get the experience and to pay them in a way that allows them to still be able to, you know, thrive financially. That's amazing. Props to you. Because it's really easy for an entrepreneur to be like, Oh, I, I, I want to keep all this money for myself. Right? Because we're still you know, I mean, for me right now, I'm still in the feast or famine either I'm like, oh my god, I got a really good you know, this is really good client. I'm making a lot of money. And then I'm like, Okay, I gotta shove all this money away. And then I'm like, Yeah, but I gotta pay this person. I'm gonna try to Heroes least as possible, because I really got to keep that money just in case. It's, it's really easy to get into that mentality of, well, I didn't always get paid well. Right? You got to people have to stop thinking that way and start thinking in the way of pay them for what they're worth. do right by them now. And they will do right by you.
 
Robb Conlon  45:28
Yeah. And you know, this harkens back to one of the best pieces of advice I ever got was formed from a retail manager I used to work for he ran one of the most, most, the highest sales amount. Walmart's in Wisconsin. Interesting gentleman got paid a lot. Decent manager, decent manager. Well, one of the things he told me, I didn't get a lot of one on one time with him. One of the things I remember that stuck with me big time, was that investing in people is incredibly important at the beginning, because he told me that at that store that we both worked at, that it cost the company $3,000 to train a new cashier before they even scan one can of soup. And so I took that forward to say, you know, what, I saw what a revolving door that front end of cashiers was, I was the cashier supervisor. It was just like you'd have sometimes you'd have people last a day or two. And it's like, well, that you just flushed three grand down the toilet. And I'm looking at this for my own business of like I you know, training and onboarding and hiring and things like that. This is super important, because I can't afford to do that when you're a multibillion dollar corporation. Sure. 3000 bucks is a pinprick but like, but I can't do that. That's why I believe in investing in my people actually have a meeting that I am cooking up tomorrow with a connection of mine on LinkedIn to bring him in as a coach for my team to say, hey, here's how you make podcasts better. Here's how you edit better, here's how you what you can listen for, here's how you can, you know, make better and more enticing video and things like that. And I think that that's, you know, not only does that benefit me, they sit down, you know, he sits down with me. But if I have my team there with that, that's, you know, because I have to be careful too. Because, you know, if you have contractors, and if you're having people, you know, you got to follow the rules of the state, which I do. But it's one of those things where if I can just have them tag along and pay them to be at that meeting, like, they're gonna get so much out of it, even if I'm just asking the questions. So to, to go back to what you had asked earlier, I apologize, really a little bit windy on that first part, but like, what eventually then happened with, you know, bringing in additional people was that one of the things that I do not like to do, and if my team listens to this, it'll be really funny is that I just can't stand reading or whatever we call our episode blueprints. It's basically the layout of all the content, I just, I haven't had a ton of practice at it. I'm not very good at it. I, I have a, I have a different skill set. I can do it in a pinch. But I actually tapped a very good friend of mine, who had spent most of his life as a warehouse worker. And he is writing for me now. And you're like, what, what will what does what does a guy who drives a forklift have in common with writing? Well, he's always been a very good guy, he was great in English class, and he always has had a panache for storytelling. And it's kind of funny because we, we, when we were in college, we'd play Dungeons Dragons all the time, he would read the Dungeon Master telling the story for the rest of us to play with. And it's been really interesting to see him grow and evolve as writer, he's now a completely freelance writer, he works for me 35 hours a week, but he still goes out and blogs for other people that started his own business, which is incredible. At some point, you know, I'm gonna reach a point where I need him 40 hours a week, it'd be like, dude, just come on board. I don't know if that's as a contractor or as a W two. But that's, you know, that's I brought him in. And then over time, we found different ways to streamline our operations inside of the company. And that that oftentimes meant that, that Abby and Adam, who's my buddy, and our writer, and myself kind of had to work as a trio like, Hey, we're making this video. Like, after you make the frames, Adam, you edit the video, I'll slap it together and make everything you know, make it look great. But we found that earlier this year, that we could bring a whole bunch of things in house with some special tools that we have to edit these things. And we grew to a point where eventually we had so many customers now, you know, we've got about 12 In this case, that my time during the day is not best spent making videos or audio or things like that. So we hired Isaac, who is our audio and video engineer. And so it's then this wonderful little kind of like, almost like leaping onto a new platform kind of thing. Like if this other platforms to crumble away, you know, you're kind of jumping to that next platform and on that next platform is that next person. And so that HR has been kind of a challenge for us. Because, you know, it seems like having people being contractors is kind of at odds with the some of the things that I've preached earlier about making sure that people are taken care of, and things like that, because it doesn't include health insurance or anything like that. It's, it's a goal. It's a big goal, because that's if I can't take care of the people that work for me, that's a big problem. And somebody I met recently at a conference says, I need my dreams to be big enough to fit everybody else's dreams inside them. But
 
Leighann Lovely  50:53
you've done I mean, one, I believe that everybody, everybody has a superpower within them. And sometimes that is being a forklift driver. Totally. Sometimes that is a hidden, you know, hidden, something that they just have not had the opportunity to express because sometimes your path doesn't take you down, meeting the right person at the right time, or getting the job that you want at that moment, because you have to pay your bills. And that means becoming a forklift driver. And the fact that you're willing to see that superpower and give them the opportunity is amazing. You know, my husband, for instance, he works, he works, he's a printer. And the other day I said to him, I, I cannot for the life of me create a video, I am not good. I can I can create contact content. I hate editing it. I mean, I used to like it. But you know, after you do it 100 times, you're just like, Okay, I'm over that. I'm a little over listening to my own voice. I used to like it because it was you know, I get to listen back to it. And anyways, video, I've never done video. And so I engaged my husband in it. And I said, Will you do this? Now my husband is a DJ, he's in the DJ world. Okay, they do videos, they create videos, he creates the artwork for his for the music that they produce. And he's very, extremely talented. So I gave him all this, all this junk, all these recorded things. And I said, just, I need to get something out on YouTube about my business. And it would have taken me hours upon hours upon hours to do this. I gave it to him. And like 20 minutes later, he goes come on into my into my studio, and I was like, Okay, why? And he goes, Well, I want to show you the video. And I'm like, what, I just emailed that stuff to you. And he goes, Yeah, I put it all together. I'm like, wow, how, like, how did you do that? And I walk in there, and I listened to it. And I'm like, Yeah, I like it. And he goes, and I'm like, It's too long, isn't it? And he goes, Yeah, way too long. And I'm like, okay, and he goes, I told you that you can't have it be people stop watching if this, you know, video if you put it on YouTube, and, and so he's giving me all these suggestions. And I'm like, Oh, okay. And he put music in the background. And he puts, you know, all the stuff that I'm just like, you know, and then he goes now and so we fixed it. And he goes now when you have it put on YouTube, you have to do this because it's royalty free music and it's blah, blah. And I'm like what? Because you have to make sure that you it's royalty free. But if you don't, you know put who created it, then YouTube will bob and I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about. He has a superpower. But he can't. He can't go to a company and be like, Hey, I have a superpower. I've never done it in a corporate setting. But I can do this. And I'm like, yeah, how do you how do you give somebody the opportunity?
 
Robb Conlon  54:08
It's nice, right? I know.
 
Leighann Lovely  54:10
And the fact that you've done that, it that's awesome. And one day, one day when I have you know my thriving 20 plus 10 plus team and I you know, have to have somebody edit my podcast. He has all the tools. He has all the tools. Instead of hiring somebody else, I will probably just go okay, you're gonna work in my business, and you're gonna create all of my content, because he has all the tools to do everything. And he can do the DJ thing that he loves to do or find something else to do at maybe he doesn't want to work in my business. Probably not. He probably doesn't want me as his boss but sometimes
 
Robb Conlon  54:55
to making your hobby your your work can be he'd be a big thing. And it's funny, you mentioned that because that's exactly sort of what I've done. For, you know, you mentioned bookkeeping earlier is that that's always been, you know, fractional, fractional fractional. Well, my wife's really good with numbers, like, it's one of those things where it's like, it's her thing of like, she's the queen of budgeting to the point where, when I talked about those hard times earlier, when I was out of work, and everything like that, we actually gained money in our bank accounts. Like, we cut things so hard to the bone that we gained money in bank accounts on one income and an unemployment check.
 
Leighann Lovely  55:33
Wow, so she needs to come over to my house, and she
 
Robb Conlon  55:36
will, she will get your stuff straight, that's for sure. Well, that's fine. You know, I bring her in. And actually, she and I just had a nice afternoon on Saturday, where we went through the books of the business. And the neat part about that was was that when we looked at everything that was, you know, kind of at the end of the day, you know, we're we're looking at good margins and things like that, and being able to say, like, okay, we're actually running this business in a decent way. Now, again, I'm not an accountant. She's not an accountant, you know, just want to make sure we have enough set aside for taxes and whatnot, but like, taking the business to the next level of Hey, is it stable, hey, can run for a time without me out in the income and things like that, and hiring very slowly. I'm a big, big, big believer in hire slow fire fast. As far as you know, bringing people into the organization. And yes, when you're the founder, and that's your wife and things like that. It's kind of like, get over here. But at the same time. It's been, you know, being a little bit selective with that, and I've made mistakes in hiring. I, we had, we had one gentleman and this is no shade at him. This was me getting this was me taking him and putting him in the completely wrong position. 100% my fault, there's, there's no way like, almost set them up, I would say 90% set them up to fail. Like that, like that. Just, I still feel bad about that. Because he was going through a real rough stuff at that time. And we'll just say that the month of May and June here. We're really interesting. From a people standpoint, just because like, I can't I can't fault somebody for having a massive family event, and not getting things done. Like, I just can't. So it's it's one of those things where we learned that sometimes you have to really seek out that one talent that people have, like you mentioned that superpower, right? And that is what you hire for your hire truly for that skill set. Not just the the attitude. Yeah, in this case.
 
Leighann Lovely  57:44
Well, we are coming to time, I could talk to you forever. But Rob, there are no words to thank you for taking the opportunity to, again, wrap up the entire series of Let's Talk HR. It has been a wild ride. You helped me launch this, you have helped with advice throughout the entire podcast. And it's and it's life. And I you know, from the bottom of my heart, I truly appreciate that. And you have also helped with and this is my first real announcement. And there will be announcements. You know, coming out soon, shortly, even before this actually episode launches about my new podcast that will be coming out. The love your sales podcast that is tied directly to my business that launched in January, which is going to be much more in line with my brand still bringing in my quirky personality, and you know, antics and rants about random stuff that I always seem to bring in, in, you know, the people that I interview with. But, again, Rob, Your journey has been, like many entrepreneurs, not a straight line. But a successful one. And I thank you again, for being a friend. Oh,
 
Robb Conlon  59:17
absolutely, absolutely. And it's, it's neat to see these new chapters come up because every one of them has been better than the last in this case. And it's just, it's fun to see this growth over time for you and I'm really, really happy with what you've you've made for yourself so far. And don't ever get too hard on yourself with this because this whole entrepreneurship thing is is a lot like kind of hrs you have to do it right. Not everybody has the the roadmap Yes, there are best practices out there. But what are best practices may work for some but not for all so I know that you'll find you'll get your bag as they say this case. And you know, at the same time I'm looking at it myself and I think I came to the Just before we hit record here too, I was like, You know what, at some point in time I'm going to step into a true like sea level role at my company. I might need a fractional.
 
Leighann Lovely  1:00:10
So I'm here I know yeah
 
Robb Conlon  1:00:13
absolutely fantastic so I appreciate you my friend thanks for having me on and thanks for bringing me on to again bring this full circle and closer off.
 
Leighann Lovely  1:00:21
Well this is LeighAnn lovely signing off for the last time of Let's Talk HR humanizing the conversation. Have a great day. Thank you again for listening to Let's Talk HR. I appreciate your time and support without you the audience this wouldn't be possible so don't forget that if you enjoyed this episode, to follow us, like us or share us. Have a wonderful day
 
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Music from Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/cruen/family-time License code: 2330NZD3BLNDKPY
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, company, podcast, customers, work, hr, case, business, started, rob, linkedin, pay, entrepreneur, recruiting, years, episode, westport, superpower, brand, abby

Jill Lublin, an international speaker and author with expertise in publicity, networking, kindness, and referrals. Jill, a best-selling author of four books, including "Profit of Kindness," shares her passion for real-world publicity, emphasizing the importance of visibility and credibility for businesses. Learn about Jill’s latest book Guerrilla Publicity and the misconception that publicity is only for celebrities. What an amazing conversation with Jill!
 
Contact – Jill
Website - https://jilllublin.com/
Free Gift -  publicitycrashcourse.com/freegift and jilllublin.com
Website - http://PublicityCrashCourse.com
 
Leighann Lovely  00:20
HR professionals, business owners and operations at all levels are struggling to figure out what needs to change. Our system has been shocked practices have been questioned, and conversations are finally happening. We all know there has been a huge shift in what people want. inclusion and diversity are common phrases. But often misunderstood generations are coming together more than ever on what's important. Mental health has been brought to the forefront of everyone's mind. Let's humanize these conversations. Let's talk about what's important for employees to be successful in life and at their job and how companies can create an environment to allow them to do both because successful people will make up a successful workforce. I'm Leighann lovely. Let's get this conversation started.
I have an amazing guest today. Jill Lublin is an international speaker on the topics of publicity, networking, kindness and referrals. She is the author of four best-selling books including get noticed get referrals and co-author of guerrilla publicity and networking magic. Her latest book profit of kindness went number one in four categories. Jill is a master strategist on how to position your business for more profitability and more visibility in the marketplace. She is CEO of strategic consulting firm, and it has 25 years of experience working with over 1000 people plus national and international media, Jill teaches a virtual publicity bootcamp and consults and speaks all over the world. She has spoken on many stages with luminaries such as Tony Robbins, Jill also leads a conscious kindness community, visit the link below in the show notes to get your free gift. Or you can go to Jill lubalin.com. Jill, I am so excited for you to join me today.
 
Jill Lublin  02:25
I'm thrilled to be here, Leighann and thank you so much for having me. Why don't you start out by telling me and the audience a little bit about yourself? Well, I know you did this great intro for me. And I would tell you, you know, my some of my proudest accomplishments are my books for them. In certainly helping so many literally 1000s of small business owners get more publicity. And I look at it as spreading your light to the world, your gift to the world. And so that's exciting. And I run a conscious kindness community. And those are the things I'm I'm happy about and proud of. And, you know, like everyone, I've had many steps along the way, some switchbacks, some fall downs, you know, and most importantly, doing what I love and loving what I do now. And that's awesome. I love that phrase, loving what he or say that again, loving what I do, and doing what I love, that's, I absolutely love that. Because what if you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life. And that, you know, I recently went to an event and the speaker spoke about finding your true purpose and being able to match that purpose. You know, align that with your life. And if you can truly identify what your purpose is, then, you know, you everything else kind of falls into place. And it's, it's completely true. So, absolutely love that. So you are a best-selling off author for books for books. You're a speaker, you're a teacher, let's talk about it.
 
Jill Lublin  04:02
So, you know, the thing that I'm big on has is helping people get real world publicity because listen, a big PR agency is going to cost you four to 5000 a month and more a month and more. And you know, I know how to get this stuff done in looking like the big guys as I like to say but without spending a fortune. So that's that's really always been my jam and I stayed in my lane I you know, I believe and liked for me stay in my lane. That doesn't mean I mean, I'm multiple interests and but I've just I've just found a groove, you know, and I think sometimes when you find a groove, it's a good thing to keep that groove going.
 
Leighann Lovely  04:46
Absolutely. So your most recent book. That's the publicity,  the Gorilla. Yes. Yeah. So tell me a little bit about that without giving away any trade secrets. Oh, you know, I
 
Jill Lublin  05:03
Love gorilla publicity. That's this one here. Yeah, it's actually my third book to be exact. But the truth is, it just came out as a third edition again. So every time a new book comes out in a new edition, I consider it new. Right? Right. And it's filled with great, easy things to do to get your publicity done using time and imagination. And to do things the right way, how the media appreciates it that gets you seen, heard and paid, using publicity as a primary strategy. So great fun to write. And it's part of the Jay Conrad Levinson, guerrilla series. For those of you familiar with guerrilla marketing, this one's called guerrilla publicity. And it's really the focus of get it done publicity. I'm, I'm a practical kind of woman, I want people to get things done, to have ease with it to be consistent and persistent in the marketplace with publicity. So gorilla publicity is oriented toward those actions.
 
Leighann Lovely  06:07
So let me ask you a question. When I hear of publicity, I think, well, you know, publicity is for the, the rich and the famous for the stars for the public speakers for so let's let's talk about publicity at its at its core, you know, who are your target audience? Who are the people who need publicity?
 
Jill Lublin  06:29
How about listening right now all of you need publicity. If you're a business person, if you're in business, whether you're a solopreneur, or have one or two people working with you, which by the way, is most of who I work for. The reality is, people need to hear of you. Because you can be doing great work what, you know, whatever area you're in. And if no one knows about you, then what good is it you know, so, to me, that's fine, if you want just be heads down all the time. But if you want an easy way to attract, and that is it's an attraction, strategy, and monetize as you publicity monetizes you multiplies you and magnifies you. So that's why I love it. Because it's really about, you know, kind of a gift that keeps on giving. And what's beautiful is that the reality is, when you stand out in the marketplace, because you got an article, it could be in your small town newspaper, in your chamber commerce newsletter, it could be radio, TV, in blogs, and podcasts, all of that matters, and everything counts. And so really, what I encourage everyone to do is create what I refer to as visibility building activities and put them into your calendar 30 minutes a week, if you do that, consistently 30 minutes a week, I promise you great results in your publicity.
 
Leighann Lovely  07:57
So that you intrigued me. I don't know if you saw my MeeGo okay, what is that? So what was the phrase that you just used? 30 minutes a week, you put? What How did you say
 
Jill Lublin  08:08
that? Visibility, building activities,
 
Leighann Lovely  08:11
visibility building activities. And so what is all entailed in that?
 
Jill Lublin  08:18
So one thing would be, go to Google Alerts, okay, Google Alerts and put your name in there. So that way, when you're spoken up in the press, you will know it, because sometimes, you know, something will get picked up, and you want to know it necessarily. So Google Alerts really helps handle that. And even more exciting in Google Alerts. For instance, when the Prophet of kindness came out, I put in the word kindness. Now I know when any of the media is talking about kindness and being a kindness expert, because I wrote the book on it. You know, I can comment. And the other piece of that is, by putting the word kindness in, do you know, I found out that world Kindness Day is November 13, I didn't know that before I wrote a book. So um, kindness. And what I would recommend to all of you is, put that phrase put that what you help others with, and that way, you know, when the media is talking about that, which is very helpful for creating more visibility, that's a great place to start with a very specific PR strategy.
 
Leighann Lovely  09:27
Very interesting. So, you know, I regularly google myself because I want to see like, where am I at in my, in my visible am I? And because of you know, because of the podcast because of you know, I'm everywhere you can you which is wildly weird, you know, as it's built up over time, but actuation it's really cool right where you can but to in order to drive it properly. What you just said was putting the phrase or alerts towards when people are talking about, for instance, you know, my business, fractional sales or that kind of thing. That is, is an idea that I never thought about so that I can understand what's happening in my industry and then shift or cater, you know, my marketing strategy, Marvin, Mike my publicity strategy to what is really becoming visible to the general public, right?
 
Jill Lublin  10:30
That's exactly it, you got it perfect. And, you know, to just broaden that, and like, in your case, you could use do sales you could do, you know, it doesn't have to be the word fractional sales, although that's very specific. So I always encourage people to think broadly, and then sometimes go very narrow, and that that's powerful. But no, there's multiple ways to, to wonderful to different aspects and showing up in publicity. And so I like to think I'd like you to think of yourselves like an octopus, you know, with beautiful tentacles, and that's you're reaching your tentacles into multiple places to be seen and heard. And, frankly, publicity builds that trust, and that like no factor that people think they know you, which is great. And they want to do business with you, and they see who you are. And they make good decisions on that.
 
Leighann Lovely  11:24
Right. And it's kind of creepy when people you know, think they know you. And I'm having a podcast you there's a lot of people who know a lot of facts about me, and I'm like, Wait, how do you know that? And I'm like, oh, yeah, right. Right. Right. And you listen to my podcast. Great. But that is totally true. And you do want people to feel like they know you. Because yeah, the know, like and trust factor. No. Hopefully they like me from listening to me, and maybe they hate me. I don't know, probably not gonna get business from that right.
 
Jill Lublin  11:56
Now, but you will, you know, frankly, engage people and that that's really what's most important here is engaging people to be engaged with you. It's really about oh, I call it the I've heard of her somewhere syndrome. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Luckily, yeah, I've heard of her somewhere. And that's what we want for each one of you. And the truth is, sometimes they won't remember where they've heard of you. Let's see. What's it at a local meeting? Was it at in a national article? Was you on TV or radio where you heard from on a podcast? The reality is, it doesn't really matter. What matters is they've heard of you somewhere. And when you get publicity, it will create that ongoing, powerful I've heard of you somewhere syndrome. You know, it's interesting Lambie, it teach a publicity breakthrough boot camp, and we do you know, every person is in there. We want to know, where did you come from? Did you hear me on lands podcast? Did you? You know, did you see something or saw me speak somewhere? And we do really ask and you know, what's fascinating to me, about 20% really that high? Up people cannot remember where they've heard of me. But they can view and that's all part of me somewhere. Right? And you know, sometimes it's a referral. Sometimes it's it's they did see me speak, just don't remember. But does it really matter? They saw an article they heard a podcast, right? And can you know, it's also good to know where people are coming from listener? I had a woman who sold 42 books and a 15 minute podcast, so wonderful. Is that right? So? Also want to know what what's working? Well,
 
Leighann Lovely  13:32
and has you ever? Our first meeting, we talked? And I think one of the first questions I was was Joe, hey, it's great to meet you. Weird. How did we connect? And both of us went? Um,
 
Jill Lublin  13:46
we don't know. Don't know.
 
Leighann Lovely  13:48
But we heard of each other somewhere. Exactly. It was probably through a, you know, a referral of somebody saying, Hey, you should check this person out. You guys should talk. But you're, you're so unbelievably Correct. There's so many times where names are thrown out there and you, you LeighAnn lovely, or Jill want your name to be the name that somebody heard of somewhere. Exactly. You know, I'm to the point where I'm like, Hey, if you write my name on a bathroom wall, that's okay. No, just gets a little weird, doesn't it? Okay. So I want to talk about you know, because we have a finite amount of time, I want to talk about the the kindness What did you call it? I was going to call it
 
Jill Lublin  14:37
called a kindness circle or kindness circle, kindness community,
 
Leighann Lovely  14:42
The kindness community. Let's I want to talk about this and and let me preface this by saying that the world needs that the world needs it ever more with so much negativity on so many different social platforms? Because people feel like they can Just be negative and harassing and, and having more people come together and say, Hey, let's, let's try to be kind, let's create kindness in our group I just commend you for, you know, talking about that and creating, you know, even just using that word reminds people that they need to be kinder to each other. So, now, let's talk about your kindness community.
 
Jill Lublin  15:33
So first of all, you know, when I wrote the prophet of kindness, I felt that whisper in my ear, I want you to do kindness circles, like that was a an instruction for me. And I was busy promoting my book. I mean, I'm an expert in publicity. And, frankly, I was getting on Fox News Network talking about kindness. I got on seven of them in the first 30 days of the book coming out. In Las Vegas, in Los Angeles, in San Francisco at CBS Morning News in Virginia, I mean, great stuff was happening. So I was busy promoting and frankly, spreading the message about kindness is what we were really doing. I've been in Ink Magazine and Forbes magazine twice talking about kindness in business, and what sort of what is its effect. But here's so here's the cool thing. Through all this, I thought I gotta get those kinds of circles going right. And then COVID happened, I thought, one now's a good moment, and, and actually started putting out the call, you know, come on, in, let's spend an hour with conscious kindness and help each other. And by golly, the first one 660 people showed up. And now we've got over 1000 people in the community, and we meet at the third Wednesday of every month, and we spend an hour, we have two networking circles, and everything's on Zoom. And 110 minute speaker, amazing people, I've had Marcy Shaima, who wrote Happy for No Reason and Chicken Soup for the mother's soul. And I have the gentleman who did the kindness diaries on Netflix, I've had amazing people who are in multiple environments of kindness. And we're going to celebrate what Kindness Day, November 13. We do that every year. And we celebrate kindness every day, through what I call conscious acts of kindness. And I always ask people just do one a day one conscious act of kindness a day, imagine the difference it would make in our world, like, Wow, and so again, third Wednesday of every month, please, I'm going to post for you and please put it in the shownotes. We invite your listeners to come it's completely free. And
 
Leighann Lovely  17:42
That's amazing. Because I've I you know, a past actually, I don't know if it was past guests or not, but I've had, I have somebody else who has actually created the kindness bucket, where it's a community that that intentionally goes out and, and makes comments on Facebook, it's a community, because they're trying to combat such negativity, you know, and that's it. Here's the funny thing about kindness, and about just creating doing one a day. You do that one consciously, once a day, within 30 days, maybe 40 days, you will start unconsciously doing that on a regular basis. And I will tell you that when even something as simple as somebody opening the door and holding the door open for me, it gives me that Oh, thanks. Like it puts a little smile on my face. Because it's somebody's thinking of somebody other than just themselves and in our society. As busy as we are as much as we're hustling. People get so absorbed and so and I'm not saying that people are mean oh, how dare you not open a door for somebody else. It's the world is busy. But for somebody to stop for a moment and be outside of their own head and recognize people around them and do those little things. It spreads so fast.
 
Jill Lublin  19:15
Yes, and you know, such simple acts like you suddenly it's opening the door for someone, it is smiling, having a smile down the street, sometimes I'm trying to smile at someone and they're I don't even know where they are. It's like, just smile back. It's really a simple thing. But even if they don't I know that I've done that. And perhaps that changed something. And of course we are kind just because right there's a reason it's just an act that comes from your heart and that is authentic and sometimes yes, it's gonna require something of you. Listen, my neighbor who I hardly knew and this is one of my things is get to know your neighbors. That's a common thing, right? It's such a simple thing, but so many of us actually don't even know our neighbors anymore and cluding me He who lived next door to this wonderful woman, and frankly, I found out her husband went into dementia, health dementia care. You know, and, and I just remember I found out she fell in her driveway. Okay, so I brought over food. We've been friends ever since we go out to dinner every week, we she makes me meal, she's a really good cook. We, you know, go out to lunch together. We just, we, we just help each other, you know. And it's really sweet. And it's amazing to me how many years I didn't know her and took something. But that something was me also practicing an act of kindness and reaching out, you know, I do think the busyness factor is such a big thing. So, you know, honestly, if I'm so busy, by the end of the day, I'll just look to see who can I send a nice text to, right? You know, who can I write a handwritten letter I actually have on my calendar, it's on my calendar. Every Monday, it says right to handwritten notes. Okay, now I have to do it on Monday. But by the end of the week, I will have written two handwritten notes to somebody. So that's something I don't know about you. But I love getting handwritten notes. Now,
 
Leighann Lovely  21:18
I yeah, I do I enjoy opening them. And I'm like, Oh, my god, somebody was actually thinking about me enough to sit down and actually hand write it versus just sending an email or a text or whatever that might be. And, you know, bringing up the neighbor thing,
 
Jill Lublin  21:32
I think, I think what we're talking about this, so I get this these cute, little I'm a cute, the happy face stickers, the happy face stickers. In my kind of circle, she sent this to me, just you know, a role of kindness of happy stickers, right? So when people ask me to do book endorsements and testimonials, which I get that requests a lot, I'll do it. And I'll put a little happy sticker on their envelope. So somebody who's in a mastermind, and he comes up to me goes, I can't believe you put that happy sticker on it, I really needed to see a happy face the day I opened your envelope, you know, and so it keeps going, right? It's just simple, fun, and not fun, or whatever things including a smile, including just make a difference. But go ahead. I'm sorry,
 
Leighann Lovely  22:18
No, and I was gonna say I think, you know, during COVID, I think that, especially for me and my community, I live with a lot of first generation homeowners. So they're, you know, in their 70s, some of them are even older than that. And, you know, I was going out to the grocery store, you know, when I needed to, but I would call my neighbors and say, Hey, I'm making a trip to the grocery store, do you need anything, and, you know, and they would email me back, they gave me a little list, and I would pick up what they needed. And I would deliver it, because they were trying to stay, you know, in their homes as much as possible, because they were up, you know, the higher risk. And that has just, I mean, they are so good to me, they are so good to my husband, my daughter, my daughter is five and I mean they every single holiday on her birthday, they come over and give her a hand delivered gift. I'm like, Wow, you guys are way over the top. But I mean, it we had moved in, right, right before COVID Hit like literally a couple of months before COVID head and it was like, wow. And we've just become so close. Because of that those small little acts of kindness. Like goes so far?
 
Jill Lublin  23:33
Oh, that's so beautiful. You know, the COVID did a very interesting thing for us that, you know, sort of a good news of it. And that was to, in my opinion, make us more conscious of those around us. And how could we reach out? How could we be more kind? How can we be more flexible? You know, I think it taught us that if you paid attention, and one of the things I talked about an in the profit of kindness is what I call the return on kindness principles, rocks, right? And one of those rocks is is compassion, like what you did right? And asking how can I help you?
 
Leighann Lovely  24:08
Yeah, absolutely. And that's that that is one of the rules of I think in business networking. It should always ask first, but if we then lay in the principle of kindness in into that, look at how powerful we could be as humans. Well,
 
Jill Lublin  24:27
that is the point it's like, imagine this, you're great already in business. Wonderful. Now add on that because guess what kind companies get more publicity. In everybody. I interviewed kind companies or the CEO or the main person. If they were kind guess what else? Everybody who worked for them was happier. The people, their clients and customers happier they were more profitable. Right and across the board. Everything was elevated in terms of measurement. It was due to kindness. Right? And
 
Leighann Lovely  25:04
I've talked with I've talked to people on previous episodes about, you know, having actually having an entire sales force at your fingertips as a business if you only treated your people extremely well paid them. Right you would and you know, treated them. With kindness, you have an entire, you have the ability to have your entire workforce, literally acting as little mini marketing people out there talking about oh, I love the company I work at Oh, really? What company do you work at? Oh, I work at XYZ company. Oh, should I come in work there? Oh, my God. Yeah, we're hiring. I mean, right there. That's simple sales pitch if, again, you know, and it goes on all different types of levels. Anyways, I digress. I'm not gonna get into that. But what I do want to know, a little bit more about your publicity bootcamp? How often? Do you do that? And how does that work? How long is
 
Jill Lublin  26:03
it? Oh, I my policy breakthrough boot camp is a get er done. Short days, I'm in to short, I think people are busy. And I want to honor that. So I don't go these long days, that just short focus, we have a media panel, like real people in the media, who actually tell our participants what works and what's hot and what's not. So that's really good. They actually get to pitch them. And everything is live and interactive. There's constant breakout sessions, I give people real things to do that are important for publicity messages. And, and we're, we're really focused on using publicity, to drive sales and to get leads and to create visibility, credibility, and trust in the marketplace. So it's all oriented toward that. It's all on Zoom. And it's very affordable. And I'm spilling all my secrets, and really empowering people to get their publicy done. And they're held like once a quarter usually.
 
Leighann Lovely  27:03
Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome. Because I think that any any business or any, any brand new business owner could use a better understanding of how to really hit the market hard, especially when they're on a budget, and to use that budget properly the first time versus having to reinvent the wheel multiple times to try to get it right the first time. Right.
 
Jill Lublin  27:31
Exactly. Exactly.
 
Leighann Lovely  27:35
Awesome. Well, awesome. So I have a question of the season that I would love to ask you, before we wrap up. What do you think will go down in the history books from what the world has experienced over the last three years?
 
Jill Lublin  27:52
Hmm, well, certainly a time of I'll call it, hibernation, you know, I, I actually saw it as that. And I think those of us who were able to adjust and recreate, like, I put all my programs on Zoom. And I think what will go down in history books, of course, is the sadness of it. And, and yet the also the ability to see a new way. And I think that has happened in major companies now that they've got workforces that go, I like working from home, and I can be very productive. And I don't need to do things the old way. So to me, it's about turning the tables into new ways of doing things. And we have been now trained on Zoom, we, you know, are comfortable people are training, all kinds of things on Zoom yoga, and classes and healing and, and doing things business that we never did before. And I think we're far more efficient in certain ways. If you know, if you're able to use it, do it and recreate. So I think to me, that's been a big lesson, a big learning that we can do things differently. And that it's all possible.
 
Leighann Lovely  29:06
Yeah, that's absolutely I completely agree. You know, the world was sent into shock, but I think that we've proven that we are able to prevail, regardless of the circumstances. So it's awesome. So if somebody was interested in reaching out to you, how would they go about doing that?
 
Jill Lublin  29:29
Well, I would love for you to go not only to the kindness circles and come and join us, but also go to my free gift, which will be also posted in the show notes. It's my publicity Crash Course action guy and it's really fun more tips to get things done and also in it is an invitation to attend a live free masterclass with me where you get to ask questions and be present and get things handled for yourself so that that's what I'd love to give you And of course, Jilllublin.com You can find me too and just reach out. It would be great.
 
Leighann Lovely  30:07
Wonderful. Jill, thank you so much for having this amazing conversation. I really appreciate your time today and yeah, definitely check out I will put those those links in the show notes so you can go and check out you know, all of the things that that Jill just listed and get your claim your free gift. Thank you again for listening to Let's Talk HR. I appreciate your time and support. Without you the audience this would not be possible. So don't forget that if you enjoyed this episode, to follow us, like us or share us. Have a wonderful day.
 
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Music from Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/cruen/family-time License code: 2330NZD3BLNDKPY
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
publicity, kindness, people, talk, book, jill, great, put, write, google alerts, create, love, podcast, community, work, marketplace, zoom, heard, visibility, happy

Maria Kellis shares her insights on the significance of HR and the often-overlooked value it brings to companies. Drawing from her diverse background as an MIT graduate, international speaker, bestselling author, and business professional. Maria emphasizes the integral role HR plays in fostering employee engagement, motivation, and overall company success. She advocates for a non-judgmental approach to understanding individuals within a team, highlighting the importance of emotional and human support alongside business considerations. Throughout the conversation, Maria emphasizes the need for balance, self-leadership, and a holistic view of human potential in the evolving landscape of leadership and AI integration.
 
Contact Maria
Linkedin – https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariakellis/
Website – https://mariakellis.com/
 
Leighann Lovely  00:20
HR professionals, business owners and operations at all levels are struggling to figure out what needs to change. Our system has been shocked practices have been questioned, and conversations are finally happening. We all know there has been a huge shift in what people want. inclusion and diversity are common phrases. But often misunderstood generations are coming together more than ever on what's important. Mental health has been brought to the forefront of everyone's mind. Let's humanize these conversations. Let's talk about what's important for employees to be successful in life and at their job and how companies can create an environment to allow them to do both because successful people will make up a successful workforce. I'm Leighann Lovely. Let's get this conversation started. Maria Kellis is a sought after leadership coach, intuitive business consultant, inspirational speaker and best selling author. With experience that spans multiple continents. Maria's journey is one of resilience, passion and a dedication to elevate individuals and organizations in their pinnacle, an MIT graduate, she seamlessly merges her business acumen and spiritual insight to offer transformative strategies, particularly in transmuting adversity into triumph. Maria firmly believes in the transformative power of inner work to facilitate external success. Maria, thank you so much for joining me today. I am very excited to talk with you.
 
Maria Kellis  01:57
Thank you for having me.
 
Leighann Lovely  01:59
So why don't you start off by telling my art or the audience, a little bit about yourself, and you know who you are?
 
Maria Kellis  02:11
Absolutely. And to start with, I'm excited to be here, I feel that the conversation around HR is incredibly important. Because HR tends to have a bad rap. It's almost that they're the people that everybody says, Who cares about HR, or they're like, oh, we'll just use HR is like, it's a thing. And we forget the value that HR has in our lives in our companies, I believe that our companies are stronger, because of our human potential. In fact, a company can go down, because the employees are not working to sustain the company and the company can survive or thrive, because the employees care. And HR plays a central role in that. So I might my background is that I used to be an engineer, I graduated from MIT then I was in business. I actually graduated from Stanford School of Business. And at MIT. So I used to be in startups have always been startups, and we've always had hire people. And that's when my respect for hires came in. Because I realized that we, in the beginning, we always talked about the A players, and how to hire those. And I realize it's not just a player's team, everybody has a role. And it's not about looking at somebody as an individual, but looking at the team as a whole, that makes a difference in the company. So I have had my own personal journey that got me to be who I am today. And this journey has been, I'm gonna say difficult. In 2004, ended up being in a wheelchair. And I had to learn how to walk again, which is not exactly as easy as it sounds, while actually it's as difficult as it sounds. And I remember realizing that everything is a perspective. At the time, I had a tremendous amount of pain. And I realized, oh, I have a tremendous amount of neuropathic pain. So instead of thinking, I am broken, I realized, oh, I have something to work with. And I started saying that pain is not bad. It's just something I need to remap. And so I started remapping pain. I'm like, huh, that pain was hot. That pain was called that pain is movement. That means pain is done. hang out, that pain is falling out. Pain is hitting something because I didn't pay attention. That pain is way too close. But that's when I realized that when we make things good and bad, we are judgmental, and we're not really looking at what we have. So coming back to HR, when we look at people who say, well, that person is good, and that person is bad, well, are they? They're just people. Are they motivated to work? Do they have good heart? They have, like, realization? If they're there to clock in hours, okay, maybe I will agree with you. But if they're there to do work, it's not so much a employee prom, but it's really a management role. Did we train them properly? Did we give them all the resources they need? are we supporting them? Are we taking care of more than just the business side? Are we taking care of the human side? The emotional side? So all those questions are kind of a non judgmental way of looking at people and, and just really being human?
 
Leighann Lovely  06:09
Yeah, there's so much Well, first of all, I agree with everything that you just said. But there's so many nuances to a lot of what you said with, you know, nurturing, and it's really about putting people in the right seat on the bus, making sure that they were have the proper expectations for each human individual, we can't put somebody in a spot and expect, you know, a certain level of work if they don't have the proper training, the proper tools, the proper, you know, support, if we're not providing that to them as managers, right.
 
Maria Kellis  06:53
And I find that we, were I, I'm gonna just spell it out, we're in an age where AI is everywhere. And it's only the beginning, still AI more and more, it's going to be taking care of the repetitive analytical tasks that we may or may not need anymore. So we need humans to be humans more than any other time. And we need humans to be the strong humans that they are. So if we're just making them trying to replicate machines, like there are little machines that do things repetitively, it's not going to work. Because first we have tools that right now are supplementing that, and will become better. When I was in college, I remember I had written my thesis in a Mac, and the Mac crashed at the time. And, and I had to like I thankfully had a printout and had to retype the whole thing. So this does not happen anymore. Right? The we have cloud recordings and everything saved automatically and you don't have to remember to press Ctrl S it just saves and things like spell checking. We have Grammarly and we have native tools in Word and Google Docs. I use Google doc these days, but English, and we have charged up when I want to write something and I'm like, give me five versions of this. And any does. So jobs that used to be not so glamorous, are sort of disappearing. So I believe that now we're really seeing the value of human potential which is the humanity and that's what we get to nurture. Absolutely.
 
Leighann Lovely  08:54
And, you know, you say we have Grammarly. We have spellcheck we have you know, spellcheck is one thing but having tools like Grammarly, that that checks, you know, that checks everything. Like I remember when I was younger, and I was I was at a early in my career at a job and my boss was an English major. And I would type up an email and I would send it to her and she would email me back with the reply. And then below, she would fix all of my grammar errors. I'm like, you've got to be kidding. Okay, well, this is you know what, I took it as a learning you know, opportunity. I was horrible. Horrible at spelling, horribly grammar. I still am still am to this day, but you wouldn't know because now we have. We've got Grammarly. We've got all of these AI tools that basically can make the worst writer in the world look like the best writer in the world.
 
Maria Kellis  10:00
And in a sense, it's even in the field, I feel that as we are becoming more and more international, as we are opening up our companies and ourselves to international pool of talent, that people are not native English speakers, and that's okay. It's sort of now I am not a native English speaker, and probably not the best writer, I use chargeability daily, I have an email, I type sort of what I want to say, and I'm like, Okay, make it this job. And then it does. And I don't have it, it changed my life, I used to say, there's two technologies that changed my life, cell phones, and GPS, and I'm adding charge up to that, because up to now the tools that we had for so ghost writing, or I'm gonna say, like, just writing tools that they were okay. But they sounded like machine. And now, it's about coming up with ideas. So I wrote an e book, that's actually I can give to the audience, which is the AI and became young, so kind of marrying felt older wisdom with modern tech, and for enhancing leadership. And I purposely wrote that book using chatting for fun, because I'm like, let's see what happens. It took me on less than two weeks to write the book, which is to me tremendous. And I could see how, if I wasn't in charge, if I wasn't telling the AI to go one direction or another, then it will just go somewhere else. And I was like, I don't know that this is what I want to say. Yet, when I was really clear in that direction, really clear on what I needed really clear where I was going, then it became a tense, it became an incredible experience, collaborative experience. It's like I had my own personal writer that was available for any time, I needed a writer period. And, and that was a game changer. And more than more than that, when I, at one point, I had done my own research, and I'm like, oh, based on this research, and this articles, can we talk? Because I was writing about case studies. And I'm like, Well, can we talk about this study? And, and it replied, I'm an AI. I have access to the web. I don't actually need your research.
 
Leighann Lovely  12:45
Oh, is that funny? Oh, I
 
Maria Kellis  12:49
was laughing. I'm like, Okay, I guess I don't have to really do research or just like saying, Well, okay, look at different articles and tell me what's happening.
 
Leighann Lovely  12:56
Right? That I mean, see, and that's, that's amazing and scary at the same time. For it to come back. Because you almost feel like you're talking to a person who's actually getting, you know, snippy or snarky, or we, I don't know what the right word is, you know,
 
Maria Kellis  13:15
I'm gonna go with with a, but in a sense, that is the magic. Isn't that amazing, though, like to realize that we have built tools that make jobs that used to be sort of a boring, sort of, like, repetitive become a nice thing. Right? It's almost like the sky is the limit. I feel that we are at the time when the humanity of us is in the forefront. And that is what we need more than anything else. Right. And in a sense, I believe that it's not scary, when on the contrary, it's exciting. Because finally, we can look at human potential as real human potential, right? It's about really saying that we don't need to make humans feel that they're not important or that they can only do one level job that we can really elevate and connect at a whole different level. When I was in China for a talk in Shanghai, and in my hotel, I had done I had given my laundry to be done. And I called downstairs in the in the reception and said, Oh, can I have the laundry stand up? And said sure, certainly. A minute later, I got a call or colleague is at the door. Okay, so I opened the door or do I see a little robot it was a machine and looking Like a big trashcan, I guess with a window, it had like a little face bandit. When I said, when I opened the door, it opened that little door, little window and it had my packet and says, you know, your packet has been delivered. And I speak the package, and then the little, like, robust start started going towards the elevator, call the elevator and left with the elevator. And I was like looking at this, and I'm like I am living in the future.
 
Leighann Lovely  15:31
I think it was, we wouldn't want it, I probably would have followed it and been like, we're just sick go now
 
Maria Kellis  15:39
be elevated to probably go to his next job. But I definitely took a video of that. But I was so impressed. Someone's asked, because this is a job that somebody will have to have done. Otherwise, like remember the bell boys, right? And wants to give out boy, right? Right.
 
Leighann Lovely  16:01
Right. And, and we always talk about, well, robots are gonna replace us, but somebody has to calibrate that somebody has to monitor it, somebody has to make actually creating higher paying better jobs for people. So that they have the ability to learn new and better things. Because I mean, the way of the world is just
 
Leighann Lovely  16:34
it's just simply the way of the world. The more advanced we get, the more you know, the more we here's an example. And I use this example, when I talk all the time. When I first started to read, I'm pretty sure I was, you know, like first grade ish, you know, kindergarten, you start learning to identify your letters, you start to learn to count, and it's about playing and socialization, right. My daughter is five. And she's reading. She's writing. She's using computers in a way that I never, I mean, at will show my age, I didn't have a computer in my home until I was in high school. I mean, we didn't have that technology. But now kids are growing up, where my, when she was two, she could open up my iPhone and take pictures and play games. And I'm like, How did you know how to do that? You know, like, they watch you do something once on technology, and they can repeat it just by seeing. And that just shows the intelligence already in our kids abilities to do things with the use of technology. Now, some would go you know, some would say, Oh, that's so bad. You know, we want our kids to be outside playing the way we did well, the world is constantly evolving. They're not going to go outside and play with sticks the way that we did because, well, they now have so much more to play with. We now we're creating toys that our learning tools, the way that we didn't have we had sticks and Rottweil okay, I'm exaggerating a little bit I had more than stuff to play with. But you get the point. Like,
 
Maria Kellis  18:27
hey, I played with sticks and rocks because it was fun. I love what I was literally like my favorite game was to go into mud and become like me this poor mom, she had to wash my clothes, but I just like enjoying being in the mud, like the whole space. Right? And I would like make big money and make like little like things with my hands. And I thought it was like the cutest thing in the world. Like, and I thought it was making food right? Because I was watching my mom make foods. I was like, Oh, do you want like some some food that I made? And they were like, oh, laughter that like oh my God, what did she do again. But you know, there's a pleasure in that interaction with the ground, for example, and the earth but there's also fun to to evolve. And I remember toys that we my mom was obsessed with having smart toys for us. She will like track the whole entire. I grew up in Athens, in Greece and sociopaths the entire city to find like the one store that had like educational toys. And as a result, by the way, I went to MIT and my two brothers also went to MIT. So I'm just here to say that educational pillars are very useful. And in a sense, when we those toys are available now to to In case everywhere, when my first job out of MIT, Bernard was working for MIT at the MIT Media Lab as a researcher, and there was a group next to mine, that they were creating music using drawings. So I literally took the notes, and they very literally composed music. So you could draw lines and create operas, and so many a little kid today can open up an application to a few lines and create music without having to learn them instruments, right. So that creates an incredible ability, where we can have new digital learning, and I remember back in the day, like, yo, yo, Ma, was coming to, to the Media Lab to play so they could track his that once the machines learn how to do it, then they could just compose music. Of course, of course, we really smart programmers were behind it. There was an I give them full credit for incredible chars. Yet, what I'm saying is that something that moto was able to play 10 instruments by this time. And so yeah, he became Mozart. But we haven't had composers since then are not incredible composers are well known, because it's not so easy. And who's going to spend that time, right? Whereas today's little kids, if they're musical, and they have the the amazing creativity that they have, they can compose music without having to remember, right?
 
Leighann Lovely  21:46
Yep. So I'm going to shift us back. So we don't go too far off.
 
Maria Kellis  21:55
I can talk forever about AI is so fascinating.
 
Leighann Lovely  21:59
So I've been really excited to talk to you about your teachings and how you use your background and experience to lead businesses. So let's talk a little bit about that. Absolutely.
 
Maria Kellis  22:11
I believe that I take a very human centric approach. I believe that everything starts with us. And also, I believe in the way, not so much to me. So when we create leaders, so my job is my my focus is on leaders, and leadership. And I work with leaders, but I always say leadership always starts with self leadership. Because if we can lead ourselves, then how will lead an impulse. And it's not about control and manipulation, it's about vision and inspiration. So standing in our power today means very different things than what it meant in the past. We're no longer in the time of the fires when we had slaves, buildings, appointments, machines, were doing that. So now we're at the stage where we can understand leadership at a different level, understanding the nuances. And when I talk about the yin and yang leadership, this is really the pinnacle of my work, I have a method that I use called existe. Maxim's because I always say if you're at your center, just rotate around your center around Praxis as it were. And it it really uses the idea of balance. So the first step is awareness. So we have the awareness of who we are what we're doing and the awareness of the problem. So we go in a very mindful way introspective way really understanding and taking perspective, then the second part is execute for the x axis. And when we are executives or we execute, literally what we do is we take into action and are inspired action is really what drives the results which and then we integrate the two that's the i and b axis by integrating awareness and execution will really create extraordinary success, which is really the essence the axis and this access method may seem simple, but those steps are very vague. And every step is years and years of understanding and training in my life. I personally started with the export, because while I was in technology and also I learned how to do the things using more structure approach the the young approach we wanted call it God. And the rest of my life, especially after the wheelchairs, bashing, understanding life in a much different level was to understand the flow would we call the flow, the amazing ability that we have. This, by the way is incredible and sales as well be in sales, if we understand the flow, we can increase our results. So this is something that I want to say that we as humans have access to something called the flow that is so much better than what we ever had before. And this is really our human potential. So when I work with leaders, even they may be managing a small team. Okay, you may just only be managing yourself that I talk to them about this access method that allows them to have bombers leadership, and create extraordinary results.
 
Leighann Lovely  26:00
Now, may I ask, because you've brought up the wheelchair? Yes. Now, did you? Was that before? Or after you founded? Inspire Leadership Academy?
 
Maria Kellis  26:16
That was it. That was 2004?
 
Leighann Lovely  26:20
Yeah, it was okay. So it was quite a bit before all
 
Maria Kellis  26:23
it was quite a few years ago, it took me It changed my life. If you speak to people who had very difficult experiences, very often, they will say all best thing that happened my life. And I can tell you the best thing that happened my life, I probably have forgotten the pain and went through that. It was truly something that changed my life changed the course of everything for me, because I had to see the world in a way that I wasn't trained or willing to do before. And I want to say, I am truly grateful that I am now walking not not not to say anything for those people who are still confined in a wheelchair. I mean, I was in a wheelchair for 18 months. So I have a lot of compassion and, and memories of that time. But I do want to say that, to me, it would start with the decision. And it's almost that it was after I had graduated and my base assumption by age two. And I it was the beginning of my career. So I was reading startups, I was reading tech companies. And it was almost like a game, although for me, and I had to be reinvent life based art, everything.
 
Leighann Lovely  27:48
You know, and a lot of people that I have spoken with a couple on my podcast, have had traumatic events that have changed the trajectory of their life. And having gone through that, they look back on it, and they will say that it was while going through it was, you know, horrible, that it was painful that it was you know, everything that it that it was at face value. But that, you know, when it's all said and done, and they look back on it, that they wouldn't change anything. Because they come out the other side, in a different, you know, like any human would, right? You experience something either traumatic because we have traumatic positive experiences where they are, for all intensive purposes, something that's traumatic, but at the end of it, you go oh my gosh, that was that was quite amazing. While be it traumatic. And you have the traumatic events where it's like, oh, my god, I can't believe I survived it. But you do walk away, altered.
 
Maria Kellis  29:12
And the pupils, oh, I'm sorry.
 
Leighann Lovely  29:15
I was just gonna say the people who can walk away and learn something, you know, are are just usually so much more powerful in their own right, because they have the ability to learn something from an event that took place. Because if you if you don't learn anything, then it was all for naught.
 
Maria Kellis  29:45
I do want to say I'm gonna start by saying that I do work a lot with trauma, and people who carry trauma and I just say that most of us carry some form of trauma. It doesn't have to be as dramatic As I had crazy neuropathic pain, and I was in a little chair, but it can be all, you know, like I was bullied at school or I. So trauma is, unfortunately, a part of every human experience. And I believe that it is God's
 
Leighann Lovely  30:19
they say changing, you know, changing careers changing a job is a form of trauma. I mean, we have little traumas throughout our life. And then we, you know, unfortunately, some have large traumas.
 
Maria Kellis  30:34
And I do want to say that I have, because I have been in this field, and because I studied this trauma is an intense event, where we were not able to process the emotion. So there's a difference between drama, and trauma. So an intense event is only becomes traumatic and stays with us and unfortunately, is something that we have to carry until it releases only if we are not able to process our emotions. So I encourage people to always process their emotions in grief, if they have just one of my incredible slides, who's also a rock star, she's amazing. She just had a miscarriage. And we've been taken two months to help her through that pain. And that grades, because most, most women don't talk about miscarriages, let alone go through their grief. And then 20 years later, they find themselves finally addressing the trauma. So I'm like, Well, you know, because of single women 20 years later, how but we let you grieve. And it's been such an incredible growth experience for her. I'm not saying that this is something that she will have chosen. And I'm not saying that this is one. But it was something that could be very traumatic, but because she's passing the grievance taking her time, and we're doing smoothly, she's really able to grow as a human and as a leader in ways that she has never been able to do before. So in a sense, now she's starting to have the gratitude and the appreciation for the event, even though it was extremely difficult to go through. I mean, I don't wish it on anybody, although it is very common. For men, miscarry.
 
Leighann Lovely  32:34
It is extremely common. But most women don't realize it until they've experienced it themselves. And then have the courage to tell somebody and with me, and it's amazing, because when you acknowledge something that you're experiencing, and people see that you are authentic, and that you are experiencing something, people are more likely. And I've experienced this in my own life, more likely to say, I understand what you're going through. Because it's also happened to me. And then you go what, and you realize, I also experienced a miscarriage. And I was told that I couldn't have a child. And you know, my husband and I were like, oh, okay, we can't have a child. We went, we were considering it, and my audience knows this. We were considering adoption. But when you, you know, in my, my employer knew I was pregnant. And then so when I wasn't it was kind of all of a sudden, like, oh, it's not I can't keep it a secret. They're gonna figure it out. Right? Yes. And it was it was amazing. The amount of women that I was working with at that time, that called me and said, I know what you're going through. And I'm like, well, and you think, right, you kind of do but and they're like, no, no, you don't understand. I know what you're going through. And I went, Oh, and then you have that outpour of people who have gone through it and you go, wow, this is way more common than is ever, ever talked about because it's not a conversation that comes up unless you know somebody who's going through it.
 
Maria Kellis  34:38
Absolutely. And it's also something that is almost like a stigma when it shouldn't be risks. Okay, but but we were talking about trauma and trauma. So, yes, it is very dramatic and very difficult to go through this experience. And so So for my client, I said, Well, let's not let would be a trauma for you. Right? So when, when they first when they first went to the doctor, and the doctor said, oh, there's a problem, you need to have an abortion. And I was like, okay, is this really what you want? And she said, No. And I said, Okay, how about you love your baby? And then let it have its course, let it be natural. And, and she did. So for three weeks, we were not sure what it was going to happen. And for three weeks, she learned to love her baby, even it. It's funny, because it's her learning experience was about learning how not to be perfect. And I said, Okay, so your baby's not perfect. Can you love it anyway? And she said, Absolutely, I can do. And she had the most loving experience. And this allowed her to go through some serious trauma that she had from her childhood that she never addressed before. And she's becoming a better leader, a stronger leader. And her company, by the ways, was doing amazing. She's like, I don't know, how's it I keep having sales? I'm like, okay, Tori. You in a sense, it's almost like, she didn't even have to work like, she has her own company. So clients will just come to her while she was going through one of the most difficult experiences of her life. And she was. And that realization that is that it's okay to take the time we need to grease to take the time to process our emotions to take the time we need to heal is extremely important. I find that sometimes we forget that we're human, and that we have emotions. And it's almost like a badge of honor. Oh, when I was in school, it was a badge of honor not to sleep to pull an all nighter was cool. To to work overtime to not to work weekends. But why would I need to do that. So it's almost like today, I see those things that was considered amazing. I'm like, well, that's a very efficient way. I realized, and I pushed myself so much sometimes I think that the reason I ended up in their wheelchairs because I had my body just shut down from being abused for so long. And I remember there was one week where I had never realized this. But there was one week it was finals, I had final projects and I managed to stay awake for an entire week. I think I passed out before hours, but the entire week that it was and I saw my intelligence and productivity go down. For the first time I saw what this means to humans, we don't often we stop functioning, right. So now I honor my sleep, I want to sleep I am so excited and I let myself sleep and I wake up with a fresh mind. I used to be able to oil call the night out. I will work like throughout the night. And now I'm like, I wake up at three o'clock is on time or four in the morning and I work that's after a good night's rest. And my mind is fresh. So I find that this is something that we cannot ignore that our physical needs are and it's okay to take care of ourselves. It's okay to give ourselves permission to be human. So when I talk about this access method, a for awareness stands for being human This is our humanity that gets to be stressed.
 
Leighann Lovely  38:48
That's That's amazing. And I I talk about this a lot for about you know, I'm a first year entrepreneur, you know being the workaholic that you know I shouldn't be because I talk about you know we need we need to have our rest we need to take care of us wellness wise we need to end it and you're right it for so many it's a badge of honor. Still and there has been a huge shift of people going yeah, no five o'clock I'm done. Don't expect me to answer the phone. And that is rule with you know, my family, no phones at the dinner table all of that stuff because you are completely and totally correct. We should not live to work we should work to live. Hands down. The most important thing because if we are only living to work then what is what is the point and I remember hearing a speaker talking about To, you know, finding the purpose. And if your purpose is not with your family or with your health or with whatever that is that's personal. Then what is what is the point?
 
Maria Kellis  40:17
Is it okay to take one step further, and I believe that we're here to create, I believe that we're here to produce extraordinary effects. What I'm saying is that this balance is not about doing less is about doing more with less time. The one constraint that we have is time. So when I'm exhausted, and I can't function, and I have no idea, like I'm sitting there, and yeah, maybe physically, I'm present, but I'm not present. So if I'm well rested, and my mind is sharp, and can do things really. I remember it was one day, I had this very difficult problem I can solve and I have a commitment to exercise. So I went swimming. Well, guess what, it has such incredible ideas while I was streaming, I came back and I was like, Okay, I solved the problem. And a friend of mine was like, Maria, yes, of course you did. Because what is such a nice element to be in, and I was like, I should do more of my thinking in water. And, and that was because I had the commitment that I'm not going to miss exercise, even though I have something that I didn't finish, because I value my exercise very much. And, in a sense, self care has become something that I do. So when I, I don't always cook, but when I, when I eat, I always eat healthy, I may order in, I may eat a certain bar, but I know that whatever I put in my body is going to determine my statements. And so I no longer think of this, I don't want to take my body for granted. And I no longer take my life for granted. What you're talking about our families, our families, we are social animals, we are our happiness is very much a function of the happiness in our time. And so having a well balanced family with beautiful ways of communicating is, in fact, nurturing us and making us become more productive. One of the problems that companies face, especially in the tech sector is innovation and creativity. And they're like, Oh, well, how do we induce that? The humans do that. Which you do is you nurture the human so they can be creative? Innovation is I always studied geniuses, and how, how do we get those genius models to those moments, they're not ordinary, but they're extraordinary. And those happen, by allowing ourselves to be in this creative state of flow. And that happens when we have less constraints, constraints, when we allow ourselves to be more free. And yes, I always describe the yin and the yang as the, the river of life. So the young being the riverbed, so the container, and the yin and the water. And both of them are required to not have the flavor. If you don't have a bunch of water, it's not going to go into line unless you have a river that maybe at best will become a lake or we'll just get reabsorbed in the in beta. Even when we sold, I think you were talking about purpose, our purpose is to choose the direction where our rivers can flow. And when we do that, we're streamlining or our resources, through systems and processes into that action. And that's what creates our life, our direction, where we're going. Absolutely.
 
Leighann Lovely  44:11
And we are coming to time, I wish that we had more time to have this. This has been an amazing conversation. But the question of the season, what do you think will go down in the history books from what the world has experienced over the last three years?
 
Maria Kellis  44:29
So many things, definitely a chatroom. The taste as I said changed my life so I'm gonna put it up there. And I believe that charge a bit fee members because of what Elon Musk said, but but because it has come to the forefront. It is something that will finally discuss AI. And some people are scared. The Badgers Guild of America is on strike for months because of it. And some people are realizing Wow Like me super happy because suddenly, I don't have to worry so much about the slide about how to write simple things. And so I'm gonna say the first one is going to be the, the rise of AI. In the last three years, I think we can still include COVID, because it was the first time that we had a global response to pandemic. And it was scary. And he was extremely controlling. This whole idea of isolation, forcing people to stay in their houses, was very difficult because our freedom was attacked in a way, yet, what I'm going to say is that someday we saw the advent of working from home, we realized that people at home in fact, are producing better. And we are letting people stay more at home where they can have their home life. So our, our home life balance is become more important. I mean, yes, some people are asking for employees to go back to work to the office, but it's not really happening, people are quitting rather than going back to the office. And this has really changed the way we do business. Because we realize it's not about having somebody in a seat. Being there clocking hours is not the point. The point is, can you do the job, and people in fact, have a better job than they have to deliver results, as opposed to clocking out? And so am I working from home, and we'll get there. The difference in travel, we, I used to travel so much. And with with a I will change a lot of how we with aim sorry, with COVID, we changed a lot how we travel. And we it's almost like we went backwards, but also in a more quality way. So for the first time, in many years, I was reminded that there's borders, that there's countries that I had forgotten that I will just hop on a plane and go to three countries in the day that I was totally fine with. And this I mean, there was one one week where I went through 10 countries. So I remember it was like in Thailand I wanted to make I went to the United States, I went to Belgium's Gliese Cyprus, I don't remember that. But it was just like, one week. And I now see the borders again. And in a sense, it's, it's good and bad. The good thing is that I'm seeing the difference. But I'm also seeing that people are coming together in a way to bridge through cultural gaps that I had never seen before. We're all doing everything online. And yeah, it looks a little bit different in every country. But you know, every country has now gotten through this. And in Thailand, for example, it was always hard to buy things online, online, let alone European things. And then I believe that travel has changed. And we have changed as we are. So we are almost creating homes that we have forgotten. Like, I know so many people whose home had to be the car, because they will sleep in their car, they will eat in their car, they was changing the car. And in a sense, we're reclaiming our homes. And I feel that that's a shift as well.
 
Leighann Lovely  49:03
If somebody wanted to reach out to you, how would they go about doing that?
 
Maria Kellis  49:08
Absolutely, the easiest way is to go through my website, Mariakellis.com. That's M A R I A. And Kelllis with Double L so K E, double L L I S Maria Keller's dot com. And they can actually pick up the book the ebook goes describing the AI and the Xeon. So this idea that this balance idea that they can find there and they can also reach out to the team and say happy to accommodate I am always excited to talk to people who have listened to me to answer questions of talk to them about how this can help them in their lives so they can absolutely book a time to talk with.
 
Leighann Lovely  49:52
Excellent thank you so much, Maria for this conversation today. It's been absolutely amazing. Thank you again for Turning to Let's Talk HR. I appreciate your time and support without you the audience this would not be possible so don't forget that if you enjoyed this episode to follow us, like us or share us have a wonderful day
 
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Music from Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/cruen/family-time License code: 2330NZD3BLNDKPY
 
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, work, human, life, maria, ai, changed, talk, trauma, wheelchair, job, amazing, realized, incredible, hr, call, grammarly, toys, pain, mit
 

Join me for and amazing conversation with William Vanderbloemen We discuss the importance of being able to articulate yourself during an interview. It's not about just saying what you think the interviewer wants to hear; it's about being genuine and demonstrating how your unique experiences and qualities align with the position and company culture. Having a level of self-awareness can set you apart from other candidates and help you make a meaningful connection with the interviewer.
 
Contact – William
Website - https://www.vanderbloemen.com/
Amazon – Be The Unicorn – By Wiliam Vanderbloemen
 
Leighann Lovely  00:20
HR professionals, business owners and operations at all levels are struggling to figure out what needs to change. Our system has been shocked practices have been questioned, and conversations are finally happening. We all know there has been a huge shift in what people want. inclusion and diversity are common phrases. But often misunderstood generations are coming together more than ever on what's important. Mental health has been brought to the forefront of everyone's mind. Let's humanize these conversations. Let's talk about what's important for employees to be successful in life and at their job and how companies can create an environment to allow them to do both because successful people will make up a successful workforce. I'm Leighann Lovely.
 
Leighann Lovely  01:07
Let's get this conversation started. I'm very excited to speak with William Vanderbloemen, CEO and founder of Vanderbloemen search group, a top executive search firm. In his upcoming book be the unicorn 12 data driven habits that separate the best leaders from the rest. William reveals how job seekers, employees, hiring managers and company leaders everywhere can stand out from their peers and become irreplaceable. Building the careers they've always wanted. William, thank you for joining me. I am very excited to have you here today.
 
William Vanderbloemen  01:48
Leighann it's, it's it's a fun thing to get to be with you. I appreciate you taking time and go packers. Yeah,
 
Leighann Lovely  01:56
Go Packers. So William, why don't you start off by telling me a little bit about yourself.
 
William Vanderbloemen  02:02
Oh, this sounds like a job interview, Leighann
 
Leighann Lovely  02:06
I know, I know people are I actually had one of my guests say you can't ask me that question. And I'm like, well, then how do I start? Like, do I introduce you, do you? And I'm like, Fine. I won't. We'll we'll just jump into the first question. But I'm sorry, you gotta answer. Let
 
William Vanderbloemen  02:22
Let me give you let me give you the Podcast Answer. And then if you want, I can give you the oh, if I get asked that in a job interview. Here's how i How's that? Yep. Okay. So I have the privilege of serving a company that I started. We're an executive search firm, we help teams that are values driven, find their top talent. So it started as an idea of helping churches find their pastor, I think you're in Milwaukee. So like, Elmbrook Church, which would be a church that is fairly well known in town, that'd be but then also grew to schools. What's the charter school, they're in Milwaukee. That's so good. St. Augustine Academy, okay, we so we help them. And that's, you know, not necessarily faith based, but it's values driven nonprofits that are trying to find their C suite. And then to some extent, I don't know how to say this. But like, the Chick fil A is of the world, the companies that are small businesses, large businesses that are family run, and they have a very particular set of values that drive that family. And they want a search firm that's going to hire based on value and cultural fit as much as competency. Does that make sense?
 
Leighann Lovely  03:34
Yes and finding cultural fit, you know, saying it like, and again, I work in this space, saying, hey, I really like to find somebody who's a cultural fit. It's one thing to say it, it's another thing to do it correct. Because to try to explain, Well, what is your culture, you can't just sit and have a conversation and be like, Oh, here's what my culture is. You have to actually dig in and get to know the people to figure it out
 
William Vanderbloemen  04:02
And it's an archeological dig, not a correct backhoe, done in 30 minutes kind of thing. It's slow study of the organization. I tell people when we do a search, it's kind of like an organ transplant, you're hiring us to go find someone outside your body and bring them in and run a major system of the body. Right? And so we live right by that Medical Center here in Houston. We have a ton of Doc's in our neighborhood, and I was talking to transplant dog and I said, What's the difference between the good transplant doc and the best? And he said, that's easy. The, you know, donor lists are a big part of the equation, who can we go find that has a kidney or he said, you know, but honestly, that's not as hard as it used to be. What separates the best transplant dogs from the rest is their ability to do a tissue match? Oh, and I thought about what I do. And he said, Well, I said and he said, Well, you can take a hell If the heart and put it in a healthy body, and if the tissues don't match, it's a bad ending for everyone. And I just thought about HR and staff and like, adding to the team. So we really focus on the tissue match, which requires a deep study of each as if it's the only client we've ever had. So that's,
 
Leighann Lovely  05:18
that's a really great analogy, because I mean, you're right. And if that tissue doesn't match, eventually everything around the heart is going to Yeah, it's gonna die. It's and you
 
William Vanderbloemen  05:29
know, the whole search world, people don't want to have to pay to help find stuff. I think they feel like there. Am I the admitting some level of incompetence, by hiring someone to help me find this person? And it's just like, you know, man, it's all right. And then if they say, well, I'll get some help that it's like, I don't want to spend a ton of it. And I've kind of gotten to the place Leann where I look at people and say, if you needed a kidney transplant, would you Google discount transplant doctors? Right.
 
Leighann Lovely  06:01
But here's, here's something that I grew up in a in a sales, or, you know, sales, entrepreneur, spirited type family, and I grew up with the understanding that if you are not the expert at what you're doing, then go hire the expert at what you're doing, because it makes you that much smarter. I'm not, I'm not the smartest person in the room. But here's where I stand out, among other people, I am smart enough to know it. I don't know how to do accounting, I run my own business. Okay? Do I want to do my own books and screw up and in the end, have to pay the government that much more money? Or do I want to admit that I am not smart enough to do it, and then go hire the person that is smart enough so that at the end of the day, I don't end up having to pay 50? Grand to the government because I screwed up my books.
 
William Vanderbloemen  06:52
That's this is so we have more in common than I realized, tell me about yourself actually starts with I will, I'll keep it short. I am a recovering preacher. So I go on and on and on. But a lifetime ago, I was a pastor, it senior pastor, lead pastor, the head guy, whatever you want to call it at all, mostly large churches. The last church I served was First Presbyterian, Houston, which is where Sam Houston went to church. So like it's fairly established and ensconced, great place, they shouldn't have a hard time hiring. They took three years to find me, I stayed six years, it took almost three years to find the next guy. And I went from there to we don't have time for all the details. But I went from there into the corporate world, worked for a fortune 200 size company oil and gas here in Houston, the CEO had been there nine and a half years, which is a lifetime for a company that size, and said time to find my successor and they hired this thing called a search firm. Never heard of such thing. I just, you know, Wake Forest, undergrad, Princeton seminary, straight into church. And 90 days after they started, they had a new CEO. And I'm like, wow, you know, first person in Houston, they get 12 years, half the time they're in for somebody half the time. They're not mean oil and gas company like the Deathstar of the universe right now. And 90 days, they've got their person. So I set out to try. It's funny, I came home, Adrienne, and I just gotten married, we blended our families, six kids just bought a house and I said, Baby, I think I think I'm supposed to quit my job and start something new for churches. And she just looked at me totally deadpan and said, That's because churches love new ideas, right? Said no one ever. You know, she, she should have said I love you go back to work. We have mouths to feed and she didn't. So honestly, she gets credit for starting the company. Oh, and LeighAnn it was the fall of 2008, which was a brilliant time to quit your job. So oh my gosh, but it's been a fun ride. 15 years later, we've kind of it's branched out from just helping churches to although we do the church and the pastor thing a lot more than anybody in the world because we weren't the first do it. But it's branched out beyond that. We've gotten to meet a lot of great small business owners gotten to help a lot of companies, right.
 
Leighann Lovely  09:18
It's the idea that you started and in churches, which and I in my career have helped. I've gone into churches and helped implement processes and they're slow to move on anything. I mean, it is it is
 
William Vanderbloemen  09:35
there are glaciers that move faster. So
 
Leighann Lovely  09:39
the idea that you started there, my my goodness gracious it That is That is crazy.
 
William Vanderbloemen  09:48
I didn't bring that up to tell funny stories much to say. If you look back on my wall you'll see an undergraduate degree with religion and philosophy Exactly business. You know, you know what people with a philosophy major do with their career? They spend the day saying, Would you like fries with that? Like, that's my business training and then a seminary degree from Princeton like, so I've had to learn it as I go and hire accountants, so we don't pay extra money and just hiring experts around me. So sorry for the long story. No,
 
Leighann Lovely  10:22
but I love it. I absolutely love it. Because I don't I don't know that there is anybody who is wildly successful that had a straight path. No. And people, you know, there's so many people who will look at you and go, Well, I can't, you know, he's, he's so brilliant and so successful. I don't want to approach him and, and, you know, sound stupid? Well, wait a second, let's back up. That is the person that you should approach and and talk to, because if you're open and willing to accept some of that knowledge, well, and obviously the person you approach has to be willing to, you know, to be open. But for the most part, the people I talked to are so open to saying, yeah, let me tell you my story. Let me tell, you know, tell you a little bit about what I went through. And then it may it humanizes. First of all, let's talk HR humanizing. It humanizes those people. And it allows other people to realize, wow, I can do brilliant things. If only I start asking the questions, and I allow myself to be open to new ideas. I mean, I never, I never would have, I never would have started with trying to help churches. Because no one. But that's the
 
William Vanderbloemen  11:39
very hardest group to a tough to do it. You
 
Leighann Lovely  11:43
knew them, you understood them and you understood their their inner workings because well
 
William Vanderbloemen  11:48
in for me, for me, just to be clearly and and not to sound, you know, melodrama. This was not about what's the best business sector to start in. This was about a cause that I deeply care about being so sadly inefficient at their HR, that I'm like, I don't care if it's me chasing windmills with Don Quixote. I'll try. Right? Well, and that really ended up at a business decision,
 
Leighann Lovely  12:11
it was your passion, it was a passion project that has now turned into a successful business where you can still keep your passion, you know, close to your heart. That's right. And if we could all if we could all do something that we're passionate about and enjoy doing, and being able to still help that, you know, we would, we would find our success, right? Because
 
William Vanderbloemen  12:32
we have seven kids. And so we're the career we're in the career advice stage, we get some out of college, something and they all come to me and say, you know, what do you think we should do with our career? This is what you do all day, what you know, give me some advice. And I think they all think I want to, I'm gonna say well come work at the company, the family business, and I haven't said that yet. But what I have said is, listen, it doesn't matter, Lincoln Do two sets of questions to ask, as you're looking for your career. The first set is, you know, what kind of job? Do I want, you find something the world needs, okay. And that's a little trickier right now, because AI is going to change what the world needs from humans. So think about that. Is this something the world needs? And is going to need for a while? Is this something I'm good at? Is this something that I can actually feed my family with? Like, there are a lot of people who take on passion projects, and then realize they're bankrupt? Right? And is this something that makes my heart go? Yes. And then finally, is it something that leaves the world better than you found it, you do those five things, you'll have more job satisfaction than probably 90% of the population, right. And the second thing is, once you find the job, if you do what you say you're going to do, when you say you're going to do it, at the costs that you promised, you'll be in the top 5% of whatever you go into. Find
 
Leighann Lovely  13:53
something that you are extremely passionate about and love to do that are helping others and you'll never work a day in your life. And SAS is not measured by the amount of money that you make, but rather the I mean, not to say that you can't work for free, you still need to be able to put food on the table, but it's measured by you know, what you choose, you want to have out of that at the end of the day, and it's different for everybody and that's absolutely beautiful. So, so now you you, you have been able to gather invaluable insight, you know, over the years through the research, the interview process that that you go through in you know, in helping people find these jobs, helping these companies find these people so you've you know, really have kind of, you know, a process down and I asked you, you tell me about yourself and you laughed Is this an interview tell me you know, how you help your clients, the candidates navigate the hole, finding jobs finding people and what is the magic sauce what is the because every But he dreads that. Yeah. Candidates sit down and tell me about yourself. Right? Yeah,
 
William Vanderbloemen  15:04
I so I think whether you're hiring or interviewing, the cardinal rule is long hellos, short goodbyes, you can say a little more bluntly, hire slowly fire quickly, right. But long hollows and short goodbyes take your time, make sure it's right. If you're miserable in your job, it's not going to help you, it's not going to help the company and then you're going to be job hopping on your resume. And that is not insurmountable, but it's, it's not desirable. Right. So, to me, you know, hiring and interviewing, both sides of that equation are oftentimes like, like bad High School dating from back. I mean, I'm, I'm 53. So I'm ancient, but like, back when we were in school, when we walked up hill to school in the snow both ways. You know, dating was, um, you never saw the real person, right? Like, you know, if it was me, waxing my car to some ridiculous shine, it never has, I'm lifting weights 10 minutes before I pick her up. So I look a little bigger than I am. And, you know, she spent the day getting ready at a level that would never happen, probably wearing something she doesn't want to wear. And, you know, it's just that's the way interviewing feels like to me, and maybe that's not the way everybody understands it. But there's a there's a story not to get all biblical, but there's a great story in the Hebrew Scriptures. Jacob is getting married, and and he wants to marry Rachel, the love of his life. And he's worked seven years to get the Father's blessing. And the father is a bit of a trickster. And so it goes down the aisle and does the ceremony. But But in that day, the wedding was really when the consummation happened. And the father swapped out Rachel for Leah, the younger sister, and it just says, and so they got married, and then Jacob woke up, and it was Leah. And so like, that's what interviewing feels like. It's like, I thought I walked down the aisle with one person, then in the morning, right? So how do you make it work? What's the genius if you can find a way to get honest answers from candidates about themselves and honest answers from employers about themselves? And that's kind of honestly, it's a lot of what we do is sort of provide this Switzerland, where each side can ask the awkward question, and we can say, here's the what's what and find that tissue match so that everybody walks away going, this works well. And off we go.
 
Leighann Lovely  17:43
And do you feel that? It's, I mean, you're you're almost the mediator, right? That's right. So do you you think that because you have that you're the the mediator or the buffer in between? Because, you know, again, I could put two people in a room and be like, okay, guys be be honest with each other. Let's know. Exactly.
 
William Vanderbloemen  18:04
And they're nervous. That's the main thing is not they're deceptive. It's nervous. When you're hiring, you're adding an unknown into your staff culture, right? You're so and like, and people, like, I don't know how many primal fears we have. But we're afraid of the unknown, right? Like, I still got a teenager that prefers a nightlight, you know, so we don't like the unknown. And that's why I see so many people. Well, I'm gonna hire this guy, because Leanne told me, he was great. Well, that's pretty thorough. What happened? I mean, I lovely and but like, what happened was, I'm afraid the unknown now I feel like I know something because me and told me about a note. So I'm gonna go with the known or I'm gonna go with the internal heart. Or if you're a small business owner, well, let's say, let's say this way, if you have a friend who owns a small business, have you ever seen a friend with their small businesses, hand the keys to one of their kids that's not qualified. Hmm. And sometimes it's out of pride or a blind spot, but sometimes it's because I know my kid. I don't know what's unknown.
 
Leighann Lovely  19:07
Right? Right. No, absolutely. You see that all the time, where you've got a family member of some kind in the business that shouldn't be in the business. But the alternative is what I'm going to turn over my business to somebody who I don't know it all. But the person who is running the business is making mistakes, and because they're just not qualified. You're right. We are all afraid of the unknown. It's that you know, walking in the dark, walking in the dark when it's, you know, really dark and in my neighborhood, I don't have a whole ton of streetlights and you always get the pricks in the back of your neck when you can hear something above you or in front of you. And you're like, what is that? Like? Is there something up? Is there something in front of me? You know, I'm a 42 year old woman that really is not scared of anything, but you still have that, that you know, the goose ball seems that you're like, Ooh, yes, I don't know. And especially when it's your own business, or it's something that you're extremely passionate about. So how do you help? I mean, are you are you putting two people in a room? How do you help with that interview? Oh, yeah.
 
William Vanderbloemen  20:17
So So I think we and the image that I'm currently most drawn to, for us, I love the transplant surgeon thing. But but the reality is, we're not the only ones guiding the hiring process. And we're certainly not telling you who to hire. It's more like, you know, when we when we have a new client, will this never used this will take a survey, what are you expecting out of this? Right? And then after the search, we do another survey, say, what was the highest value? It's interesting. What are you expecting? This always leads to? The lead answer is always you're going to introduce me to people that wouldn't otherwise know. Well, that's very, that's flattering, because everyone knows everyone. It's called LinkedIn. But, you know, on the backside, well, what was the biggest value you got out of this? And the answer is almost always it was the process. You guided us through things, you mediated things. So I'm seeing us now as more of a Sherpa. You know, like, this is your mountain to climb. You're the one that's going to summit Everest. I'm the little guy that's gone up and down the hill a bunch of times, and I can help you see where to step and not step. So it's not just putting two people in a room. It's it's sourcing down to a shortlist, and then from the shortlist, helping them figure out which one on the shortlist is. Right, right.
 
Leighann Lovely  21:34
So let's talk about how you assist the candidates with you know, some of the questions. How do you how you know, they, I'm a candidate. So, William, I'm coming to you asking your advice, William, you know, I can't stand when somebody, you know, asks me to tell me what my greatest weakness is? You don't like that question. I actually, I love every interview question because I'm a geek. And I just I'm, I'm also excute streamwerks, the right answer
 
William Vanderbloemen  22:05
to that question again, what's the right answer to what's my great I mean, it's not, I never asked for a raise, I work too many hours, these are my weaknesses.
 
Leighann Lovely  22:12
For me, my greatest weakness is also my greatest strength. I have had employers, I also, however, improbably not employable at this point, because I've owned my own business. And I've gotten a taste of that. And I probably would be the worst employee ever to sue. And I have known this actually, way before I own my own business, I knew that I was a very hard person to manage. And I have told my managers like, I'm not the easiest person to manage, because I get wild ideas in my head. And I think that I know, like, how to do my, you know, my job, and I'm going to come to you at times, and you're going to have to look me square in the face and say, no, and no means no. But my greatest strength is also my greatest weakness. Might, I think?
 
William Vanderbloemen  23:03
Yep. It Yeah, it's true of everybody. Your greatest strength unguarded is your shadow side? And that's a great way to answer that question. You know, we've done so when we do a search, we'll have you hire me to find your CEO of your whatever the thing is, and we'll have maybe 1000 people that are on radar, and then you get serious about it, like, where is it located? I mean, you rule out all the Bears fans, if I'm hiring for you, like they can't come work for you. No padding? No, it's all. So you whittle it down. And maybe you got 150 people you're really dealing with and you do your initial phone screens and all that. And you whittle down to a zoom interview and a second zoom interview, you get down to the very last the the face to face interview with people that are getting to maybe make the shortlist. That's a long format interview. And we've now done 30,000 of those and tracked all the data, like, where do they end up how they do what they say to these questions. And it's not a totally scripted interview, but it's a fairly similar format, so we can see some patterns. And in the telling me about yourself sort of thing. If you're interviewing right now, or what's your greatest weakness? Like, do you mind if I just give you like a quick here's what the best of the best have done? Yeah, please. Yeah. So so the very, in fact, we did a study in 2020. If you remember, we had a pandemic sin. Oh,
 
Leighann Lovely  24:30
yeah, that weird, that weird thing that happened during that time in the world shutdown?
 
William Vanderbloemen  24:34
Yeah, where every one of my clients closed indefinitely. churches, schools, I mean, business lesson, if all of your clients is closed indefinitely, it will affect your p&l.
 
Leighann Lovely  24:47
So it really does.
 
William Vanderbloemen  24:50
Things they teach you with a religion and philosophy degree. So we did a study. We had extra time in it. That's a whole nother podcast, but we asked the question, so we got 30,000 somebody's face to face. Could we identify who the best of those 30,000 are? Based on job placement, retention, success at work? And we did. And then we said, well, do they have anything in common? And they do. And we would never have time to do all this research without the pandemic, because we're growing and you know, going too fast. And so it's led to some really interesting insights about what really are the best habits of the best of the best candidates? And what are the best answers and one of those habits that I think works with the tell me about yourself, and what's your greatest weakness? We distilled it to 12 habits of the best of the best. And one of them is self awareness. We said What does that mean? Well, so Leanne's got this rockin and rollin company that's growing super fast. And I'm interviewing with her. And Leanne says, Tell me about yourself. So well, I won't bore you with all the details, my wife would get seven kids. But what what I want you to hear is I'm really interested in this interview. And I don't know where it'll go. But I'm really energized. Let me tell you why. What you need matches a whole lot of who I am. Now, what does that mean? Well, you're growing like a hockey stick. You know, it's, I can see that. So I'm guessing that every single job description in your company Leann has a little thing at the bottom that says, and other duties as necessary. Right. And it's probably got another bullet point, this is ability to learn on the job. Well, let me tell you, my last company, I started with a startup, they had no idea what to do with their mail list. They didn't even have an email distribution list thing. I got a philosophy degree. So I had to go figure that out. I got on constant contact until we could figure it out. Like HubSpot, it's the best thing to do for content based marketing, we started a blog, we upped our traffic, we grew our, our website, we grew our contact list by 3,000% in the first two years, and in the middle of all that, I also had to learn how to do a commercial real estate lease, which I've never done. But it was just a lot of fun. I really thrived in that. I had a job in high school, where it was house painting, and it was the same motion on the same job all day long. And the guy next to me, loved it. He was wired for it. I did not love it, I was ready to quit. I am not that guy. If you want me to come in and do like being counting, if you're gonna fire me, I'm not good. If if you want me to come in and say we were you know what we're jumping out of the plane. And we're going to build a parachute on the way down. I'm in my zone. And that's why I'm excited about this interview. And I'm excited to see where it goes. So you see what happens is their self awareness, right. And I backed it up with, look how that self awareness is proved out by what I've done in my previous jobs. And that self awareness is also tied to that's why I'm interested in your job. Now this won't work. If you don't do the homework and only intermarry jobs, or shin. But then you've also kind of headed off with the past. Tell me about your greatest weakness, because you've already said, you know, there are fabulous people in the world that are compliance officers, I would get fired from that in about three days, you know, so, does it make sense? Probably more than you wanted to hear?
 
Leighann Lovely  28:15
No, no, it absolutely makes sense. And when people are self aware, you're right. Absolutely. Right. Because and I'm trying to think of the proper way. When when people are self aware, they're able to adjust and, you know, be able to take on those difficult and again, I'm not picking on the the person who loves the painting job that's repetitive. That's that's the same thing. But the more self aware you are, the more you're able to shift and move and adjust to different situations, which makes sense why those would be the highest ranked with interview candidates. And when we talk about that, in emotional intelligence, we talk about that in self awareness. It will emotional intelligence very much is together with self awareness. So it makes sense why those would be the traits when
 
William Vanderbloemen  29:06
I was younger. You know, I came to First Presbyterian, Houston, I was head of this church with about 5000 adults couple 1000 kids at school. I've never been a member of a large church. I don't know what they were thinking they should have hired a search firm to help them but there wasn't one back then. So I go their way in over my head, but because I was 31 I knew everything. So you know, classic mistake, I did not have self awareness. And I just hired people exactly like me because I like me. You know, I think as I've grown in self awareness, it's given me the capacity to appreciate people that are not like me, that can complement the team in a way that we would never have been able to do research on 30,000 interviews if it was just people like me, because we would have thrown the interview notes away or they'd have been on the back of a paper bag or no, I've got all All these people on our team that are completely OCD with our data. I mean, like, honestly, they probably get mad when I say that because they're like, No, we're C, D, oh, that's alphabetical. So
 
Leighann Lovely  30:17
Right. And, again, you're talking about, you know, hiring people who are great at doing something that you are not are not not good at, right. And, and require self awareness. And that requires self awareness. And, you know, I tell, I'll tell people, like, stay in your lane, do find your superpower. And then stay in your lane. If you need to veer for a second, you know, occasionally I need to update my my accounting books so that my accountant can take care of it. But everybody has a superpower. And it may, it may not be self awareness, it may be painting the walls. If that's your superpower, you're happy with that, then go do that, then go be happy in with your superpower. And that absolutely. I you know, and I've talked to them numerous times about every single human and every single job needs to be recognized for the great job that they do in the job that they do.
 
William Vanderbloemen  31:16
So good. It was so good. It doesn't matter what we
 
Leighann Lovely  31:21
But take pride in what you do. Love what you do, and you'll be happy every day of your life.
 
William Vanderbloemen  31:29
That's good. But I
 
Leighann Lovely  31:31
preach about this too. If you're not happy in what you do, then go I mean, the world since the pandemic, it has drastically changed. There are hundreds of 1000s of jobs open all over the place. Even when we're hearing about mass layoffs. There are still hundreds of 1000s of jobs all over the place. That's exactly right. So yeah, now, I wanted to bring this one up, bringing up salary. Now, for me, I've never had a problem with again, I am a wildly extroverted person. I don't I don't know, William, I don't think I brought this up to you. I have bipolar disorder, years and years of being stable. That is part of my superpower. I don't think of it. I don't consider it to be a disability or a hinderance anymore, because I've been stable for as long as I have. It's part of my superpower, it makes me as much of an extrovert I've I have owned that I have. I talk about it a lot. It is part of who I am proud of who I am, I go out and I talk to people about you know that I'm a huge supporter of mental health. So I've never had a problem with being a chatty Cathy, right? It's just part of my, my personality. So when it comes to, you know, going into an interview, I've never had a problem with just being myself being completely comfortable with myself. But there are those who, and I experienced this to where I'll talk to the the company that interviewed a candidate, and they'll say, This person was just really closed off. I'm like, really? What, what do you I didn't get that. But you and I are very comfortable talking with people. And I have a tendency to be able to break down those walls with people very quickly. When they go into a structured interview, those individuals all of the sudden get real Oh, God, I don't know what to say. I don't know how to say it. So there's those questions like, when do I bring up salary? How do I bring up and discuss what my salary expectations are? At what point? Do you recommend that those discussions come up?
 
William Vanderbloemen  33:45
Well, with with, with all 12 of the habits we found in what we call the unicorns, you know, the in all 12 of them, developing skills around them has not ever been easier, because the Internet helps so much. So with salary, the help it is you should have an idea what the ballpark of the salary is, before you ever walk in there. And if you don't, I don't know what kind of job you're interviewing for. But, man, you gotta have a little bit of anticipation of the interview. You know, whether you go on Google reviews, you go on Glassdoor, I think 18 states now require that some salary range be posted. Now, if they're posting accurately, that's different, but there are ways to get an idea of both what the company is paying and what the market demands. Right? So you shouldn't walk in there ignorant. It's a lot different than 3040 50 years ago, frankly, where companies could take advantage of women and say this is what salary is when if it were man, it'd be totally different. You know, thankfully, those things have changed some, but I'm kind of an old curmudgeon here, really, and I think I see More people make the mistake of bringing up salary too soon than waiting too long, especially given that you should have some information going in. Now, if you've got, I mean, I've got seven kids, I that's a lot of people to feed. So I got, I'm the first to say you need to know what you're getting into. And don't come home with a job that won't feed anybody. But you should be able to figure most of it out. And one other place, I'll just go ahead and be curmudgeon, and I would say the earlier you are in your career, the longer you can wait to bring up salary, okay. And the earlier you wait, and you're the earlier you are on your career, the less you should counter the offer. If you're early in your career, and you find a job you're excited about, and they offer you a salary, and it's within what the market bears or what you know, you figure to be. I have seen a trend in in my own kids and in millennials, we as the backbone of our offices, millennials love them to death. I'm very bullish on the generation in general. But I will say you guys need to quit countering for no reason other than countering if it comes off as arrogant and entitled, it comes off as you're so lucky to interview me. And I don't even want to talk to you. We we have walked away from people that do the whole counter game just because that's like, to me call me old school curmudgeon, but on a job right out of college, that is just not the right posture to have. So that's now you can cancel me and not ever invited me back to the podcast that was
 
Leighann Lovely  36:28
so well sad. Because I, again, I'm always for people. I'm countering for their worth. If I have a company who comes in and offers them something that I don't feel they're, they're worth it, you know, is low balling them just for the sake of trying to get them at a really low rate. And I'm like, I am 100% in their corner of yes, let's let's go back and ask for that additional 5k. Or let's see if they'll do a sign on bonus, or whatever it might be. But, but for the millennials who are for the younger generation, when they come in, and they're like, oh, yeah, I'm making this much. And just recently, all of the sudden, they're like, Well, I want 10,000 more than what I'm making. I'll go. What's why? Why, like, seriously, why? What, what, what makes you think that
 
William Vanderbloemen  37:23
because it's in vogue? You're not? You're not telling your truth? If you don't, right, which, like, Guys, come on, don't blow the job, right or something doesn't matter, right.
 
Leighann Lovely  37:39
And it insults on, there's that. And I've had it both ways where I've had an employer insult a candidate, and I've had candidates insult employers, by going and you as much as you tried to do the mediation of I can't go back to the employer and ask them for that. Or I can't go to the employee and offer them that they're going to be insulted by you. And they're like, well just do it. Okay, well, as the mediator. I cannot, as the representative to both parties, I have to do what's being asked. And it's embarrassing sometimes that I've had embarrassing moments where I'm like, Oh, I got to offer this to you. I've also had it i Sorry, I've also had it where I've had a candidate accepted job. And then and negotiation negotiation, the company finally went, Yes, we'll offer that accept it. And the day later come back and go, Oh, I'm sorry. But I think that, you know, I going to ask for this much more. And I went, I'm sorry, but negotiations are closed. And I literally said, I am withdrawing you from this opportunity at this point. Because negotiations closed, you accepted the position. And unfortunately, I can't represent you anymore. Like we've gone through two days of negotiation. And I as your representative in I'm withdrawing you from, you know, from this position, like, because I knew that the company would be like, Absolutely not. It would have been embarrassing as a representative of the client to even go back or have the candidate to even go back to the client and say, yeah, she wants more now, now that she's accepted the position like so there's, there's don't get me started on on that. I'm 100%.
 
William Vanderbloemen  39:22
You know, what's interesting in these 12 habits, of the unicorns are one of them is anticipation. And so like, a perfect example of that is arming yourself with some information before you ever get to the salary negotiations. The best of the best are thinking a step or two ahead, and they develop that as a habit. It's not a hard habit to develop. It's just intentionally try those, you know, all 12 of those habits were super common among unicorns, and not common at all among everybody else and they're not on it. trainable, it was not, oh, they're all six foot five, or they don't have 175 IQ, or they all have fabulous hair and teeth. It wasn't anything. So it was, you know, simple interpersonal habits, that they showed that very few people do anticipations one, self awareness is one, it's it is a fascinating study.
 
Leighann Lovely  40:23
That's I would love to see the full study and like, really understand, because, again, you know, in HR, in sales in everything that I do, it's the study of humans and why they make the decisions they make, why they make the buying decisions, why they make the HR decisions, why they what, what is it in them, and I know, a lot of it is a great deal of it has to do with self awareness. And but the decision making process and how people's brains work and making a simple decision of why am I buying what I'm buying? Why am I not? What what is it that's triggering each decision that somebody made on a daily basis?
 
William Vanderbloemen  41:04
Fascinating, it is fascinating. And, you know, we got the whole research project, other than a pandemic, we were sitting around stuff, you know, time to spend, was kicked off by like, I've always wondered, like, you ever meet somebody, and within five minutes, you're like, winter?
 
Leighann Lovely  41:21
Oh, yeah. And meet somebody in it. You know, within five minutes. I'm like, trying to figure out how do I get out of this? Yeah.
 
William Vanderbloemen  41:31
It's not even like do I like him is just like, they're magnetic. Five minutes into the interview, I've learned not to say I should hire him because they might not be right for us. Tissue match? Right? But they are super hireable. And I've always wondered what makes them like that, why? I'm not dumb. Why within five minutes my in their camp. And that sort of kicked off the study, like, alright, of the best interviews we have, most of the time, when you sit down within five minutes, you're like, I'm interviewing a fantastic person right now. Whether or not they fit, and it just made us say Do they what they have in common. And it was stunning, how it's just simple interpersonal habits. We did the research for our own purposes, and then kept getting told you've got to crank this out for the public. And frankly, for people who want to get ahead. So we did write a book about it. And it does have the all the results. It's all awesome. What is your book? It's called be the unicorn. All right, perfect. And you can get that unicorn. Let's see if I can do the whole thing. Be the unicorn 12 data driven habits that separate the best leaders from the rest.
 
Leighann Lovely  42:38
And you can get that I'm assuming on Amazon, and you get it anyway. It's,
 
William Vanderbloemen  42:43
I don't know when you're airing this. You know, sometimes airing and recording are different. But the official on sale dates November 14, and pre sales are open right now. Awesome. Yeah, I think it'll be helpful to people, we're gonna put a workbook out afterwards, we've got some bonus content for people that pre order. But basically just want to try and help people get better. I really think as AI emerges, and it will replace a lot of our jobs, it's also going to create some jobs that we didn't know were there. That's what always happens. We've seen engines and computers and internet's it takes some jobs away to create some new ones. But I do think the of the gold standard in the job market over the next 10 years, is humans being able to interact with humans on a human level at an at an excellence that they haven't before. And all 12 of these habits are basic human interpersonal skills that anyone can do is just like, lots of people buy a treadmill and never use it. No, you got to apply. But but we have the data shows these are the things to work on, and then you'll just be irreplaceable. I think it's gonna help. I have a treadmill.
 
Leighann Lovely  43:53
It was a great idea when I decided to get a treadmill and now it's just a, you know, big piece of equipment that sits in my flippin spare bedroom. Okay, I will definitely be getting your book. I'm excited to read that. But we are coming to time I want to get the question of the season, answered by you and then get your contact information. So what do you think will go down in the history books from what the world has experienced over the last three plus years?
 
William Vanderbloemen  44:24
Yeah. So I think that, you know, how cool would have been to live during the Renaissance?
 
Leighann Lovely  44:35
I'd love to, there wasn't enough
 
William Vanderbloemen  44:37
communication to know, hey, over in Portugal, they just did this. And over in Italy, Leonardo did that. And, you know, but there was so much going on at the same time. And that's pretty amazing. Or at the dawn of the Roman Empire, right? There's so much changing and happening. So like there, there are only a few times when that's happening. As you know, Alexander takes over the world. And instead of having 85 different Greek languages, he didn't one and things are unified. And there's all kinds of shifts or changes. Those are really like seismic shifts that as I look at world history, you know, they're really only ever three, four or 500 years. I think we're living right in the middle of one of those. And I don't just say that willy nilly, or to be melodrama, what I've studied it, I almost did a PhD in the history of doctrine, which is like, do you want curly fries with that, but studying the patterns, here's the here's the pattern. I see. Here's the key. There's enormous innovation breakthrough. But always before enormous innovation, breakthrough and disruption. There's a communication breakthrough. Every time Rome built roads, things changed. Alexander got one Greek things changed. There's a printing press, things change. There's, you know, you can see it, we've had the internet for a while. People think breakthroughs, communication breakthroughs happen in one day, or one year, they don't, they have to be adapted and adopted. One of the silver linings of the pandemic is people are now totally cool with technology. Like my mother's Church, which is slightly older than George Washington, is live streaming their services, they would never have done that before. So I think what's the world going to remember, this was a season of enormous, you could say disruption and chaos, or you could say, opportunity and new birth. And I think it's going to be both ghostly. But I think we're living in a renaissance. And I think history will prove this is one of the cooler times to be alive.
 
Leighann Lovely  46:44
I agree. And I don't think I mean, it's, it's, and I was just talking about this, I think that we are at the threshold of a of the beginning of the reset, where we're going to see with all of the inflation of of jobs going up and pricing going up, I think we're going to finally see a balance. And it's going to take another two or three years where we start to see things balance back out, where pricing is going to start to balance and level off. And we're not going to continue to see all of these rises, because I think we're already seeing companies start to go, Okay, we can't sustain these high inflated salaries in numbers. And we're already starting to see it here where companies are starting to come down and go, yep, our wages are no longer starting at this, we're, we're leveling that out. And if we can get those numbers back down, we'll start to see other things start to to level out as well. I just I agree, there's so many amazing things that have happened. I mean, obviously not the pandemic, but amazing things that happen because of what we all experience together. There's some beautiful things that came out of that. And now we're, we're struggling to, you know, get a hold of all the weird things that got off balance. But I've been saying it for now, over a year that there has to be a reset, to bring things back to a stable balance. And I think that we're at the threshold of that beginning. And I just Yeah, I agree. That was a great answer. Now, if somebody wanted to reach out to you, how would they go about doing that?
 
William Vanderbloemen  48:24
Simple. Go to Google, spell Vanderbloemen any way you want, it will drive right back to our site. And our site also can drive you to be a unicorn. It also can drag you if you'll see when you get there. We've actually built an index around these 12 habits. And we've surveyed a quarter million people. So we have a nice baseline you can see how do I measure up against the general population? And how do I measure up against the unicorns? And what do I need to work on. So go to spell Vanderbloemen However you want in Google, you can also go to Amazon and spell Vanderbloemen however you want, it'll the name is so messed up. It'll lead right back to this
 
Leighann Lovely  49:05
and your name your it'll be on the show notes, you'll be able to find it. I'll have you know, your website, all that fun stuff so that you can you can
 
William Vanderbloemen  49:14
no kidding. Go type and spell it however you want. That's why we named the company what we did because it's really messed up and there's not another
 
Leighann Lovely  49:23
so people will be able to reach out to you, William, this has been such an amazing conversation. I really appreciate you coming on and I had so much fun talking with you today.
 
William Vanderbloemen  49:31
Thanks so much Leighann I appreciate you having me.
 
Leighann Lovely  49:35
Thank you again for listening to Let's Talk HR. I appreciate your time and support. Without you the audience this would not be possible. So don't forget that if you enjoyed this episode to follow us like us or share us. Have a wonderful day.
 
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Music from Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/cruen/family-time License code: 2330NZD3BLNDKPY
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
job, hiring, interview, work, greatest weakness, find, habits, company, love, self awareness, talk, salary, business, unicorn, day, changed, candidates, church, grew, william
 

Discover how to approach office confrontations and harness healthy debate to propel your team forward. Our latest episode with leadership consultant Dotty Posto who helps leaders overcome the "Curse of Chordal Hypocrisy". Don't miss it!
 
Contact Dotty
Website – https://inplainsightinc.com/
E-mail - dotty@inplainsightinc.com
 
Leighann Lovely: [00:00:00] HR professionals, business owners and operations at all levels are struggling to figure out what needs to change. Our system has been shocked, practices have been questioned, and conversations are finally happening. We all know there has been a huge shift in what people want. Inclusion and diversity are common phrases, but often misunderstood.
Generations are coming together more than ever on what's important. Mental health has been brought to the forefront of everyone's mind. Let's humanize these conversations. Let's talk about what's important for employees to be successful in life and at their job. And how companies can create an environment to allow [00:01:00] them to do both.
Because successful people will make up a successful workforce. I'm Leighann Lovely. Let's get this conversation started. Dottie Posto, CEO and founder of In Plain Sight, a leadership consulting and coaching firm. How often in your organization do you think people are holding back what they really think or agreeing with a project or an idea when they really don't agree?
They're not saying what they really think. They're not saying what they really want to say, generally out of fear or out of loyalty. Yet outside the room, they agree with a person, they discount an idea, they discredit a leader or demean a team member. This is what Dotty calls the Curse of Chordal Hypocrisy.
It robs companies of creativity, productivity, [00:02:00] and ultimately profits. Dotty specializes in guiding leaders and teams in building trust, cultivating healthy debate, and ultimately establishing a culture of accountability and outstanding results. In addition, Dotty specializes in coaching those leaders or team members who are Quite frankly, a real jerk.
In other words, when your MVP is an ASS, these folks who rob your organization of innovation, engagement, opportunity, and ultimately revenue, Dottie guides these leaders to become the leader everyone wants to work with. Welcome Dottie. I am so excited to have you join me today.
Dotty Posto: I'm excited to be here. I think it's going to be fun.
Leighann Lovely: Yes. So why don't you start off by telling the audience a little bit about who you are and what you do?
Dotty Posto: Sure. I am a leadership [00:03:00] consultant and coach. And what I tell people is, you know, when you have that person in your office, either usually leader, but sometimes, you know, one of those office members, who's just a jerk, you know, yeah.
Yeah. So I specialize, I work with all sorts of leaders and teams and do leadership development and team development, but I do specialize with the leaders who've gotten Does not play well with others a few too many times on their report card. A friend of mine, Pat helped me coin the, the tagline for my business as when your MVP is an ASS.
That's where I come in and help that leader become the leader everyone wants to work for.
Leighann Lovely: That's awesome. Because there are some really brilliant people out there just don't get it that they're great at their job. But when it comes to actually leading [00:04:00] the team or communicating or having emotional It's just not, it's just not what, it's just not their strong point.
Dotty Posto: Yeah. I like to call it emotional fluency. Okay. I haven't heard that. Yeah. It's where, you know, under being able to be fluent, first of all, with all your own emotions. And then to be able to, I think the intelligence comes, you know, knowing there's a certain level of being intelligent, I can be intelligent about something, but not fluent and being fluent, emotional fluency is being able to ride all of the waves, experience all of them without getting caught up in them.
I mean, emotions are literally a vibration in our body. And too many people try to hold anything that they might refer to as negative. I call it constrictive. They try to hold it down like a beach ball underwater and it's going to pop up at some
Leighann Lovely: point. That's a really good analysis. Absolutely. And, and I, [00:05:00] I totally agree because when we even as children for a very long time, and this is changing.
Very much changing, but even as children, many people grew up with the idea that it's okay to laugh. It's okay to have fun, but if you're going to cry or if you're mad, go to your room.
Dotty Posto: Okay. Oh yeah. Yeah. It goes somewhere else or it's not, or don't, you know, you're going to upset daddy or you're going to, you know,
Leighann Lovely: it, and that's, that's not okay.
Like we need to understand that all emotion is normal. All emotion is okay. It's how we process and how we deal with that and that we're not allowed to, you know, go in. Punch somebody in the face. If we're feeling angry, that's not healthy, but that you need to, you need to take the moment to process that information because when you start laughing, people don't go, go to your room.
Most people are like, Oh, I'm going to laugh along with you. Unless you're in
Dotty Posto: school, [00:06:00] you know, the class clown was also, you know, the, the person who, you know, personalities have been damped down for so long that I don't, that I think so many people don't really know who they are at their core. That's yes.
And that's a lot of what I do is I help. I help people come back to who they are at their core. No one wakes up in the morning going, I'm going to be an asshole today. I'm sorry, but
Leighann Lovely: well, maybe somebody does, but they don't, they would never admit that that's the kind of person
Dotty Posto: they want to be. I know, but I kind of doubt it.
I don't, I kind of doubt they're like, I am just going to go in and be the. I'm gonna be the asshole of the, of the, you know, that's my job is to be, you know, and I think some people say it's my job to, to, you know, they, they've even learned from previous mentors that they had to lead in a very command and control and, and demeaning and degrading and aggressive that they had to be that.
You know, come out with your, with your gloves on kind of leader [00:07:00] and it's just not necessary. You can inspire, you can be firm. You can hold people accountable from a place of motivation and inspiration and, and firmness. And if you've got the base. If you've got the base and the foundation to that, that's been built on.
Leighann Lovely: So let's talk about that. So, I mean, you're, you obviously you're a coach and you're a coach, you're a consultant, you work with organizations, so you are brought in obvious and I'm going to guess that. Typically the person who is considered the ASS at the organization is not always the person who's engaging you, correct?
It's usually gonna be a board of directors, or it's gonna be a, you know, somebody who's either equal to them or above them who's gonna say, Hey, mm-Hmm . This person's highly intelligent, highly, we want them at our company. However, Dottie, what do we do? [00:08:00] How do you go about and where do you begin? This work
Dotty Posto: where we begin, if it's possible, I'll do a three 60, I'll have them do a three 60 assessment, or if they've had one recently to just at least get the perspective of their leader, get the perspective of any subordinates and get their perspective, their own perspective on what's happening.
And we really go in and start to look at. Where are their gifts and talents? Where are they spending their energy? What's, what's amplifying their energy and what's draining their energy? And are they fully aware of that? Because oftentimes they're engaged in activities that drain their energy and they don't realize it or engaged in activities that are just not in their unique ability.
They're not in their core talents. And when you do that, you have to know. That they're out of alignment so that you can resource yourself ahead of time to do those things and then also [00:09:00] have time to recover and re energize afterwards. So that's a big 1st step, getting that that assessment and and kind of gauging where they are in the self awareness.
Where do they really see and understand the impact that. Their, their actions are having, we don't go directly and focus on, okay, let's go and try and change those behaviors. Because if somebody just tries to white knuckle their way through changing behaviors, or if they're just sent to training, you know, I always call it the charm school, you know, they're sent to communications training and emotional intelligence training.
And if it doesn't come back to working on. What's going through your brain? Are you really aware of all the thoughts going through your brain, which none of us are because there's 60 to 80, 000 thoughts a day, but getting them to a point of that self awareness of what's going on in my head. And how is that making me feel?
Because oftentimes there's this baseline or this general [00:10:00] sense of annoyance, irritation, frustration, and We need to figure out they think it's coming from the people outside of them, and it's not at all. It's all coming from their thoughts. And so it's trying to help them make those connections so that they can choose different behaviors because just, you know, because if you can start to feel like I'm starting to get annoyed, where's that coming from?
I can feel the annoyance, getting that level of awareness where I have that, that agency and choice. So we take them from that deep awareness. Of first of all, where, where are my gifts and talents and where is my energy going? And what's, what is, am I aware of the impact that I'm having to start to really come into what, what is happening with.
What's going on in my head and how is that impacting and helping them see it's not everything out there because that's generally what most people think It's them. It's not me. They're overreacting or
Leighann Lovely: whatever [00:11:00] And as you're saying that, you know, I'm like again, you know the million thoughts that go through all of our heads right as you're saying this like I have these like situations or even even like And my audience, I go back to like, my husband comes home and he tells me all these stories about like, what's happening at his office or what's happening or not his office, but his, his employee employer or whatever.
And, and, and I, I try to become more self aware, especially when I'm around my five year olds, right? So, because as a parent. It's, it's very easy to get slipped into this, like, why isn't she doing what I'm telling her to do? And then you can feel the stress rise up in you. And then that tone happens in my voice.
And my daughter, like, knows when that happens. And then she just pokes the bear. And she's just like, ooh, mommy's upset. Like, and so then she just... Digs in and she's like, no, I'm not going to do that. And I'm like, but you have to do, like, why aren't you listening? [00:12:00] And it just, and it just snowballs into like me all of a sudden raising my voice.
My husband looking at me going, she's not going to react to you yelling at her. You know that she doesn't, she. thinks it's funny and it's like, okay. And so I've, I have personally, you know, tried to become more self aware, keeping my voice regulated, understanding when I can feel my blood pressure start to go up and we, we as people, it's much easier to see it happen in somebody else.
But it's really hard to recognize, you know, cause I, I'll look at my husband and go, is it happening to me? Am I starting to, is my voice going up? Like, and, and I'll do the same to him. Like, okay, you're getting annoyed. I'm gonna take over. You go, I don't know, outside and run around the block or something before you like have a heart attack because you're so, like I can see it in your shoulder.
And when you're at a job, [00:13:00] which you know, for me and you, we work remotely, we work, you know, we're independents were, so I don't have to watch it. So I listened to my husband's stories, but he'll come home and be like, Oh, you should have seen so and so today. You could just see in his walk, you know, and he's like, so I didn't talk to him because I knew that if I did, it would be an immediate explosion of just blah, blah, blah, blah.
And it's like, exactly.
Dotty Posto: And so many people. Are you get it? You've got a situation where if you have a leader that that is their modus operandi, that's their that's the mode they operate in on a consistent basis. They do exactly what your husband did. They avoid them, right? Or they please them. They agree with them.
It's what I call the curse of cordial hypocrisy. They please them, they say yes, they agree, and outside the room they're like, that's a bunch of garbage, [00:14:00] that'll never fly, that person's a jerk, you know, and that's all happening outside the room, and inside the room they're like, mm hmm, yeah, great idea, Joe, that's a, Jayden, that's a really good idea, I think we should do that, and outside the room they're like, that'll never fly, we've done that before and it failed.
Leighann Lovely: Oh my God, duh, right? And then no progress is ever made. And then you get
Dotty Posto: no creativity. You get productivity goes down the tubes because half the time, and if you've got a great, if you've got a remote workforce, even several, a few days a week. How much time are they spending on teams behind the scenes bitching and complaining, you know, talking about other people, talking about all the challenges and they're not productive, you're losing productivity, you're losing creativity, you're losing innovation, you're going to hit risks that nobody wanted to bring up because they were too afraid.
That something, you know, that something was going to, somebody was going to fly off the handle. I'm not saying anything. And no one wants to give feedback for the same reason, right? So not my job.
Leighann Lovely: Right. And if [00:15:00] it's, I'm
Dotty Posto: not going to say anything, I'm going to get, they're too afraid. They're either too afraid or they're too loyal.
Maybe they're worked with that person for so long that it's like, Oh, you know, they're going through a hard time, but you know,
Leighann Lovely: anybody is. And if you're a subordinate to that person, which is usually the case, You can't call the person out because you risk being fired or reprimanded or so this cycle will continue to, which is why high turnover in people who have managers like that because they either agree constantly and become the yes person or they do stand up and they say something and that manager goes, well, I don't need this.
stress, and they just get rid of the person because they think that person is the problem.
Dotty Posto: And that, that very well can happen. This is why one of the, one of the pillars of [00:16:00] what we do in organizations like this, because oftentimes it isn't just this one leader. So that's why I like pairing the individual coaching with some team development, whether that's, you know, the CEO and a senior lead senior leadership team, or a senior leader and their team.
Building a culture of feedback is so important, but you can't have that if you don't have the underlying trust. And if you don't have that opportunity, the opposite of the cordial hypocrisy, the healthy opposite of that is healthy debate. Can we have an argument about the ideas without getting personal, without being aggressive and, and, and even maybe our voices get loud.
But it's passion about the idea, and it's passion about the experience, and it's making sure that what we're doing is right for the company, you can, you know, getting to that passionate level of debate so that you can have a place where the subordinate can go to a person and go, you know, what, [00:17:00] what just happened in that room?
You know, you don't call them out right in the middle of the meeting. And some, some organizations get to that level where it's like, well, we need a timeout here. What just happened really, I think is hurting people in the room, you know, and there's organizations that have that level. But even if you could, even if you can build the culture to the point of being able to have a subordinate, go to their boss afterwards and say, Here's what I saw happen, and here's the impact that I saw on the team, and here's the impact that it had on me, and I think this is going to be destructive over time.
Leighann Lovely: Have you seen organization, and you know, this in my head, I'm like, that would be so amazing to work in an organization in which you had that level of trust with your manager as well as your subordinates. And I have, I've had the opportunity to work with. with people who reported to me and I, and, and, and every time I would say, I am not like, [00:18:00] I'm not a butterfly.
You don't have to, you know, handle me in a way. And if I ever say something, if I ever do something, if I ever make you feel uncomfortable in. Any way ever, you just need to come out with it, just plain and simple. I didn't like this. We'll talk about it. And most likely if, if it's, you know, if I made you feel uncomfortable, I'm going to apologize because it, there's, there's not going to be a debate about it because it's about your feelings.
You felt a certain way. And then I'm going to say, I'm sorry, I made you feel that way. Let's figure out how we can rectify that situation so that you don't feel that way again. Doesn't mean that I was necessarily wrong in that situation. However,
Dotty Posto: I, yeah, I think the language is really, you have to be really careful with that language because [00:19:00] our feelings come from our thoughts, right?
And so if I'm doing something, if a behavior I'm doing is having a negative effect. Yes. If it's hurting people, yes, I want to know that that negative impact is there, right? And we have to, I think there's people, it's a gray area in between because people can take it, you know, well, I can't make you feel anything because really our thoughts create our feelings.
However, there are things that we do and say that are, are just out of line and that are just rude and are from a place of, of.
What is the word? I can't even think of the word where it's, it's, they're, they're meaning harm, you know, and, and, you know, it's like the, the oath, the Hippocratic oath, do no, you know, first do no harm. Right. You know, as long as you're not intentionally harming. And sometimes we unintentionally harm people with what we say and what we do.
Right. And you can't just [00:20:00] pass that off. It's, it's our thoughts. And some people have a pattern of thinking that everything they see, they have this confirmation bias that everything they see is against them.
Leighann Lovely: Yes. And you're right. And I always what am I trying to say, you know, situations or perception is reality that, so the way that people perceive a situation.
That is the reality to them and the, the reality of, of each situation is yes, everybody's feelings of the difference that that's their own, I mean, we can have five people sitting in a room and all walk out feeling a completely different way. I can't control people's feelings. However, if I'm, if I am doing an action, let's say we'll use something really, really stupid as an example, but we're going to use it to really dumb this down.
If I have a manager who's, let's say an old school manager, cause I'm going to use an example. I'm going to kind of change the situation here a little [00:21:00] bit. I, I had a shirt that was to me being my age at that time, I was in my twenties. I didn't believe that it was that low of a cut shirt. Okay. But I had a much older manager when I was in my twenties and he pulled me aside, basically said it's inappropriate for the work setting.
And I'm like, Okay, but it's not that low cut. They had a special dress code and everything else. And his idea was you're making people feel uncomfortable with a shirt that is cut that low in the work environment. And I thought, how could I be making people feel uncomfortable? By wearing this type. Now, perception is reality.
If he felt uncomfortable because he didn't feel that it was business appropriate or business attire appropriate, perception is reality. To [00:22:00] him, he was my boss. So he basically put, and very tactfully said, and you know, I didn't find it in an appropriate conversation. It was, you know, people feel a little uncomfortable with what you're wearing.
Okay. That was a learning experience for me when I was in my twenties. Don't wear, and again, it's not like I had my breasts hanging out, but and so I've always made certain that if there are situations in which something that I'm doing, I would so much prefer that somebody just walk up to me and say, here's what, what your action was.
This is how I perceived it and therefore I feel this way. Okay, perfect. Let's lay all of our feelings out there. I then have a great
Dotty Posto: way to put it, right? This is what I perceive is. This is my perception of that action or that those words
Leighann Lovely: because I very [00:23:00] well did. I had no intent of walking into that office that day with a shirt that, I mean, that was not my intent at all.
In fact, I thought, wow, I look really great. I look really professional. That was my intent and that's how I perceived myself. And three other people said, well, you look great. Because again, perception is reality, but until we are told differently, our own perception cannot change until we step into somebody else's shoes and find out that there are alternative perceptions equaling then alternative feelings about it.
And that's where it gets to be such a sticky situation. Because you have no idea, and some of those things we can change. I mean, if somebody says red makes me feel bad, well, you can't, [00:24:00] you can't avoid wearing red at all. You know, that's, it's just one of those things that unfortunately you can't accommodate all situations.
But we can attempt to eliminate.
Dotty Posto: Yeah. Let me give you a perfect example of that. I I, I come from a family of seven. I have seven siblings. So there's eight kids and my two parents, my parents are gone now, but I grew up in a family of 10 people and it was loud. Everybody was loud. Most everybody. And my husband even says, yes, you come from the loud family.
And so oftentimes when I'm
But there's times where I start speaking like this and you can probably hear me just fine and this is lower than my normal volume and it's taken me. I still sometimes have to like, recalibrate, recalibrate [00:25:00] people would get offended and think I was yelling at them when I wasn't. It was just my natural voice.
And for some people, for some leaders, they might just say, well, that's just who I am. It takes time and practice. I had a peer on at the time who would sit next to me and under the table, he would just do this, which meant bring down the volume because I was, you know, part of it would be if I was getting excited and people would take it as I was getting angry.
I'm like, I'm almost never angry, but it's just, it's that habit that you. You don't even, I don't even hear it all the time because It was a habit that I grew up with that I think is just a part of who I am, and it's not. It's a habit. It's not a great habit. It's a habit.
Leighann Lovely: Have you ever been around a Greek [00:26:00] family?
My, my my dad married a Greek woman, okay? So, I think part of the reason I'm losing my hearing, or I'm having trouble with my hearing, is because in our family, you know, holidays, by the end, we'd all practically be losing our voice because it was a fight to be heard. Now my, we go to a restaurant and I, and I do really have problems with my hearing in background noise.
And that's, it's actually a lot more common than. Then I knew when you're at a networking meeting or you're at a restaurant that has, you know, music playing and my husband does this to me all the time, he'll look at me and go, why are you screaming at me? And I'm like, what are you talking about? And he goes, you're yelling.
And I'm like, Oh, I am. And I realize it's because there's music playing in the restaurant or there's people talking and I [00:27:00] can't hear him. So I assume it's loud. So I start yelling across the table
Dotty Posto: at him. Exactly. Exactly. And these are just, you know, silly examples and it's the same thing with a leader who is triggered by something, you know, that gets defensive and whatever their defense mechanism is that they probably learned when they were seven and they just don't realize it.
You know, it was, it was whatever habit that, that they developed to, to become, to be safe, to be heard, to be loved, to belong, to, you know, all of these things. And they're just patterns and habits that they, it's like water to the fish. They don't even know what's there. It is so ingrained and to be able to, to be able to some distance between that behavior and to get, get somebody who they trust, who can give them some kind of a sign, some kind of a thing, or even afterwards to say.[00:28:00]
It happened again, right? Or they could, you know, they could have a, a little facial, they'll put their finger on their cheek or, you know, maybe tap their chin or just something that says. It's happening again because bringing that level of awareness, giving somebody feedback after the fact is fine, you know, and if you do that enough, they're going to start to go.
Oh, yeah, I can kind of see that then you want to pull it back further so that as they are doing it, they can realize and they can drop the voice. They can do whatever and they can shift. See if they can shift, they can at least recognize it while they're doing it and they might not be able to shift. The next step is to pull it back where they recognize it in the moment and they're able to make the shift in the moment.
The, the, the real, you know, getting to the real point of mastery is where you can start to feel, well, there's two, two other levels. One is you start to feel the emotion that triggers that action. [00:29:00] And you can, you can feel it coming and you might not be able to stop it, but you can start to feel. And, and that's why helping people to actually feel the vibrations in their body for all the different emotions.
What does anger feel like? What was, what does annoyance feel like? What does irritation feel like? And all these have a slightly different vibration in our body and getting people to actually become in tune with that. And I actually have an exercise a tool that I use from a coaching program that I went through called the Tears of Emotions and getting people to actually purposefully feel all these different emotions.
And start to feel what does it feel like in their body? And where do I, do I feel, you know, do I feel something in my throat? Do I feel something in my gut? Do I feel something in the, the pit of my stomach or in my lower back? And when you can start to feel that, and sometimes you might not be able to stop it, you might still, you know, spew some garbage or, you [00:30:00] know, start to turn red and irritated or shut down.
You've got the other ones that. But just lean back and shut down, but getting to the point of then being able to say, here's how I want to intentionally come into this. You know, I know that, that, you know, in these kinds of situations, I tend to blah, blah, blah. I tend to, you know, raise my voice. I tend to shut down the conversation.
I tend to maybe cut up, cut people off and interrupt and try to go into it more intentionally, but the more they can use their thoughts to actually create a feeling of, I'm going to be open. I am going to be you know, and it's interesting, we, we were at an event together and I loved how the speaker put it being fertile ground, you know, how can, that's one thing is that, that I will use because active listening is one thing.
Being fertile ground for, you know, as a listener is a whole nother level.
Leighann Lovely: Correct. That, and I agree with that because and here's with everything that you just said, like, [00:31:00] as you were saying, like knowing your body's reaction, I, I early on I, my listeners know my mental health history. I struggled with anger management.
And so very early on in my, in my age, my journey I was taught how to understand because I used to get angry to the point of seeing red to the point where sometimes I wouldn't remember what I did after I hit that level where it would be like, okay, did I just do, what did I just do? And that has to do with my bipolar disorder.
So from a very early, when I started going through, I went through like three years of like intensive anger management. Again, tied to bipolar, it's not uncommon that people who have mental health also have, you know, other avenues. Anyways, point being is that I can feel My entire, I mean, that physical change that there's with emotion, you know, when you, when you laugh to the point of when you're [00:32:00] crying, you can feel your body usually get lighter.
You can feel those endorphins being released when you get angry. It's the same physiological. Change happening where you can feel that bubbling up to the point of, you know, and I, I can feel my whole entire face start to get red. I can feel the blood moving into in, you know, into my head. I can feel my hands start to shake and that has, it hasn't happened in so long.
I haven't been that. Angry because I'm able to stop it where I'm actually able to go. Okay, we need to breathe. We need to Evaluate that situation we need to but having that heightened awareness of your emotions you you're able to actually Control take a step back breathe or whatever it is that you do in order to Kind of control that and then go, okay, let me assess the situation.
Like, should I be this angry? Should I be [00:33:00] this emotional? Should I be and sometimes it is, especially sadness, I think is one of the ones that kind of, it's hard to control that. Because usually, you know, if there's a death of the family, those types of things are, are probably the most difficult, but, and I think
Dotty Posto: the word control is very appropriate and yet very cautionary.
Yeah, and the reason I say that is that. If you're in a situation where that emotion isn't appropriate. And oftentimes we want to distinguish between. Am I feeling my emotion? Am I allowing the emotion, which is a vibration in our body, or am I expressing it? Those are two very different things. Right. To, to actually raise your voice, to pound your fist on the table, to scream, to cry, to, to whatever it is.
That is the expression that [00:34:00] is a performative expression of that emotion. The emotion is actually a vibration in our body and we can allow it. And regardless, if, if sometimes you need to have a physical release of an emotion, it might not be in that moment. I always recommend to people make a promise to yourself.
That at five o'clock when you get home or six o'clock, whatever, when you're in a space where you can, you promise yourself that you're going to feel it right. And maybe in that moment, you don't get as angry as you thought you might have been. And we don't want to just stuff them down because again, it's like trying to hold the beach ball underwater.
Right. Eventually it's going to pop up. Right. People end up with strokes, heart attacks you know, different internal diseases. Cancer all sorts of things because we've stuffed our emotions down for so long,
Leighann Lovely: right? And you're right control is not the rights.
Dotty Posto: It's what it is I mean, it's [00:35:00] controlling you want you may want to control the situation.
So I think it can be appropriate I want to control my reaction. Yeah, because in the moment, I don't want to react so I think control is a great word I just don't want people to interpret that as I have to control it and then close the door on it. Like I'm pushing, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to close the door and leave it there.
That's how I control it. That's
Leighann Lovely: different. Yeah. No, not shoving it in a closet to never be seen again, but
Dotty Posto: it's, it's what's appropriate in the moment. What's going to actually move the conversation forward. What is going to get us the goal we're looking for? And maybe for some people it might be. You know what?
Something I'm triggered in this and I am so angry. I cannot have this conversation right now. Give me 10 minutes. Let me go. I need to go take a walk. I need to go think about this. I need to and really what they need is they need to go allow the emotion for a while, right? And whatever that looks like. A lot of people will go and say, I'm going to go for a run.
I'm going to go for a [00:36:00] walk. And all they're doing again is avoiding the emotion. I'm going to go
Leighann Lovely: take a baseball bat to your car. No, I'm sorry. That is an unhealthy expression. Go scream in a pillow.
Dotty Posto: Or I always, this is one way I recommend people. If you do feel like you can't like one of you have, it is bubbling up so hard and you can't allow it.
Is take a plastic baseball bat to your bed. Yeah. You know, those kids baseball bats
Leighann Lovely: take that to the bed. Mine was, mine was the screaming in a pillow, just laying down and just screaming at the top of my lungs. And it was like, okay, now I feel great. That's, that's all I needed to do. I just needed to release whatever that was that like bubbled up in me and, and now I'm fine.
Like, and it's different for everybody. Like, you know, and sometimes it was, I need to go and cry for a second. Don't tell me that this is a situation in which I don't need to [00:37:00] cry. There's no reason to feel it. I just need to feel it, you know, and now that we are finally getting to a point in society where it's like.
Oh, it's okay to feel emotion. Like I'm not ashamed to be like, yep, I give me 10 minutes. I'm going to go feel what I need to feel. I'm going to go, I don't know, be pissed off at the situation for 10 minutes and then clean my face up and I'll be right back and then we can have dinner. Yeah. Yeah.
Dotty Posto: Exactly.
Because when our emotions are so heightened like that. We are in fight, flight, or freeze. And when we're in fight, flight, or freeze, our prefrontal cortex goes offline. We literally do not have access. To our thinking, planning, strategizing, we can't be logical because all the brain, all of the blood comes out of that part of our brain that fight, flight, or freeze, it goes [00:38:00] to the big muscle group so that we can run or defend and our body goes in to defend.
Because we literally think that we're going to die. Our brain, our primitive brain, is literally thinking that we're going to die. Interesting. Our primitive brain and our prefrontal cortex... They've evolved differently. And so we have to understand that this is all natural, right? It is natural for you to get pissed off because you think that this person, like there's your body, your brain, that primitive part of your brain thinks you're actually, you know, it's like get back in the cave, you know, or go fight the law, you know, because you're going to die, right?
We are trying to save humanity here. That's what you're, that's what your permanent brain is thinking. We are trying to save you.
Leighann Lovely: Wow. That's, and that's, it, it makes. Yes. It makes sense because every other creature, every other mammal out there has that [00:39:00] innate Instinctual reaction to either run or fight, whereas
Dotty Posto: did you ever see a bird hit a window and then it lays on the ground for a while and you think it's dead.
Leighann Lovely: Oh, yeah. I've picked him up before and like, I should get rid of this. And then they go like, right. And then you're like, Oh, my God.
Dotty Posto: They're totally fine. Right. You know. It happens in the, in the in the, in the, you know, out on the, the, what the planes, whatever, out in, you know, where an animal will play dead because then they might be left alone.
Right.
Leighann Lovely: I had a hawk hit my, my front door. I mean, a huge, huge hawk. It sounded like somebody was trying to break into my house. And and then it sat for eight hours. Eight hours. In our neighborhood and, and my neighbors were like, we couldn't understand why this hawk wouldn't leave. And I'm like, how long did it sit in your yard?
They're like, for like four hours. And I'm like, Oh my God, because it hit so hard [00:40:00] that it, it couldn't move. It just, and it was beautiful. I mean this, I've never seen one. So, cause it was, I mean, this thing was, I'm making hand gestures like my audience can see me, but yeah, that's and so it's, it's goes.
To show that, you know, animals and we are an animal and, but because we're intelligent, we think that, that we're beyond our, our, you know, nature, which is not true. No,
Dotty Posto: so that part of our brain is still there. We just have to, you know, and my, the coach that I went through training with says. It's like a two year old with a knife, right?
You know, and I always call it a two year old with a red crayon in a white room. Yeah. Yeah. You know, fun times. And it's like, you can, you can allow them to be there. Somebody else talks about it as you can allow that to be there. You can allow that part of you to be there. Just don't leave them in the driver's seat, put them in the backseat saying, yeah, you can come along.
Anxiety, [00:41:00] depression, you know, I gotcha. You know, I understand you're here today. You're here along with me. I'm going to carry you around like a heavy purse or whatever it is. You know, but don't let them, don't put them in the driver's seat. How do we not allow them to get into the driver's seat? Right.
Leighann Lovely: So you and I want to cover this really quick because we're coming to time already and geez, but you use a triple the triple a foundation, often authenticity, accountability and action. How do you, I mean, and we've talked quite a bit about, you know, the different ways that, that you work with these individuals, how, how does that play a role?
Dotty Posto: So. Authenticity this, I mean, probably 15 years ago, I even came up, I mean. When I, what I talked about earlier, who we are at our core, helping people come back to who they are at their core. What are your preferences? What are your gifts? What are your talents? And operating from that, starting to [00:42:00] know about what that part of that, what that developed self is that you developed around it, those habits and patterns that served you as a five year old that served you as a teenager that served you as a young adult that just no longer serve you.
And. helping to come to that awareness. So that to me is the authenticity piece. Okay. The accountability piece is then becoming responsible as how can I hold myself responsible and accountable for being that person and for, for being aware of that developed self and being aware of what I. What I have agency over getting agency over those habits and patterns that have ruled our life for so long my life, anyone's life, and I've ruled our life for so long and then building.
I use the 5 dysfunctions of a team often. So accountability from a team perspective. Has to do with building trust, healthy debate and commitment in that order to [00:43:00] get to that point of accountability. Only then can we actually start to look at, okay, what actions are we going to do differently? Yes. And you walked through
Leighann Lovely: all of those
Dotty Posto: and we can't just focus on action because then we're just trying to white knuckle.
And like I said, the other piece of it is our thoughts and our feelings drive our actions. Our thoughts drive our feelings. Our feelings drive our actions. You know, they'll tell you that in sales, everything is an emotional sale. We only buy something because of how we think it's going to make us feel.
Right. And we feel that way because how we think about it, because you're going to buy something for a very different reason than I'm going to buy it. Absolutely.
Leighann Lovely: And that's, and, and I love the study, obviously you, you know, I love the study of people. The reason I have this podcast, the reason I go into the reason I have a sales business is because everybody is unique.
Everybody has unique needs, but there is a product out there that people will buy all for their own selfish reason. And to solve the problem and are driven [00:44:00] by their own selfish, and that's not a bad thing by their own selfish desire to solve the problem. And if it's a personal thing, the way that it makes them feel at the end of the day, you know, so we are coming to time and I want to ask you the question of the season.
This season it is what do you think will go down in the history books of what the world has experienced over the last three years?
Dotty Posto: You know, when I first looked at this question, the thing, you know, when you look at 3 years, obviously COVID is such a huge part of that. And it would be very interesting to, you know, I heard recently about some people who worked on COVID 5 years before it hit the U.
And, and was, were a part of some research, research and things and. The research got shut down. And so they ended up working for a company out of China because they could see what was coming. That that's [00:45:00] kind of like the, what seems to be like the no brainer answer is COVID when you look back the last three years, and I don't think we're far enough into it, and I think this whole, the whole situation between Palestine.
And Israel is probably a potential for making the history books. I'm not close enough to it. I don't know enough about it and where things are going to, what I'm hearing about it in terms of how long it's going to last. I think if we look from here back, COVID is obviously one of the big things, I think from here going forward is potentially this, you know, the situation with the Ukraine and, and Russia and then Palestine and Israel.
Leighann Lovely: And it's, it's amazing how how much this world has changed. In such a short period of time, what [00:46:00] we, what if, you know, had somebody asked me four years ago what the world would have looked like, there is no possible way that anybody could have predicted the amount of things that have happened in such a short period of time with, you know, a world shutdown with, you know, another uprising.
I mean, these are just. Moments in history repeating themselves, but another uprising with, you know, riots in the street you know, race wars another possible, I mean, with everything happening, is this going to turn into a world war depending on so yeah, I mean, it's, it's such a, such a strange time in history that so many things are being squashed into a very, short time spanned that it's that it's wildly interesting.
So if somebody wanted to reach out to you how would they go about doing that? [00:47:00]
Dotty Posto: My website is inplainsiteinc.com or they can email me at dotty @ inplainsightinc and it's plain P L A I N and site S I G H T. So inplain, dotty at inplainsightinc. com. D O T T Y that is not D O T T I E  D O T T Y at in plain sight, inc.
Leighann Lovely: com. Excellent. And that'll be in the show notes for anybody who is interested in reaching out to Dottie. I'm sure that you can also find her on some social media platforms, but you know, please feel free to reach out to her if you are looking for a coaching and consulting, if you have a leader that.
Is an ASS . It was an awesome conversation. Dotty, I really appreciate you coming on and talking with me. It's been a, it's been a blast. Thanks for having me, Leanne. Thank you again for listening to Let's Talk hr. I appreciate your time and support. Without you, the audience, this would not be possible, so don't forget that.
If you enjoyed this [00:48:00] episode to follow us, like us or share us, have a wonderful day.
 
Adam Gellert serial entrepreneur and lifer in the staffing industry joins me for a very enlighten conversation about the future of staffing and the workforce as we know it. Adam now the Founder and CEO of HireHippo and The Linkus Group Inc. permanent placement firms that take a different approach to hiring individuals. As he has moved through his career, he saw gaps in the market and have shifted to fill those gaps. Now offering a network of top talent of passive candidates, eliminating resume reviews and focusing on skills and culture. Join this amazing conversation with a forward-thinking entrepreneur.  
Contact Adam -
LinkedIN - https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamgellert/
Websites –
Recruiteradam.com
hiredhippo.ai
linkushr.com
 
 
Leighann Lovely  00:20
HR professionals, business owners and operations at all levels are struggling to figure out what needs to change. Our system has been shocked practices have been questioned, and conversations are finally happening. We all know there has been a huge shift in what people want. inclusion and diversity are common phrases. But often misunderstood generations are coming together more than ever on what's important. Mental health has been brought to the forefront of everyone's mind. Let's humanize these conversations. Let's talk about what's important for employees to be successful in life and at their job and how companies can create an environment to allow them to do both because successful people will make up a successful workforce. I'm Leighann lovely. Let's get this conversation started.
 
Leighann Lovely  01:09
Adam Gellert is on a mission to build the greatest marketplace of pre vetted diverse high potential candidates and companies, reshaping the job application process with candidate experience and helping companies hire their most passionate teammates from one to 250. He eats, sleeps and breathes recruitment. He can talk for hours about anything to do with growth of an organization from a people standpoint, attraction, retention, culture fit alignment and best practices in the modern world. He's an entrepreneur at heart currently on a mission to reshape recruitment and change the candidate experience. Founder and CEO at hire hippo, a hiring marketplace connecting pre vetted high potential diverse candidates and companies based on mutual interest like a dating app and saying goodbye to resumes. He noticed a gap in the industry as a founder of Linksys group, a recruitment firm supporting startups and SMBs in Canada and US. His typical clients is under 50 people. He started the company with the intent to disrupt the recruitment industry. And they are doing just that he has a fantastic team. And they work very hard to build championship teams for their clients that can sustain a winning outlook again and again since 2002. He has been instrumental in building teams both at the corporate and recruitment agency levels. He is known for building strong relationships with clients as an honest, driven and progressive individual with major organizations across Canada and the United States. With a passion for delivering cost savings and efficient business results. He took the next step in offering clients an alternative to traditional hiring. He's active in the tech startup and small business community co created the talent help list co created the disrupt HR Vaughn and previous chair, hR p a PD dinner committee, their leading KPI, it's their reoccurring clients a testament to the value they bring. I am very excited to talk to Adam, a serial entrepreneur. Adam, welcome. I am excited to talk with you today. Thank you for joining me.
 
Adam Gellert  03:36
Thank you very much for having me. Appreciate being here.
 
Leighann Lovely  03:40
Yeah. So why don't you start off and, you know, tell everybody a little bit, you know, a little background about who you are and what you do.
 
Adam Gellert  03:48
Yeah, so I'm Adam Gellert, the founder of the linkage group, and higher tempo. Essentially, I run both a high touch recruiting agency as well as a recruitment technology that we will, that we believe will change the face of how people get hired and how companies hire their high performers. Essentially, what the tech does is works with SMBs and startups that go from one to 250 people on getting quick access to exclusive high potential pre vetted talent without having to worry about recruiting the recruiting process, they can skip the entire recruitment process and go straight to interview because we do all that upfront work for them with the technology so that's what I'm doing now also involved, co founded the talent helpless, which was a COVID layoff list. It was like the first of its kind that I'm aware of anyways, and disrupt HR Vaughn, which is global HR disrupt, disrupt as a global HR brand. So I'm just obsessed and very involved in the recruitment process that I have been for the last two decades, essentially. You know, we can talk about anything to do with attraction, hiring, retention, and that's just a bit about me.
 
Leighann Lovely  05:20
Awesome. Yeah, you are. You're a serial entrepreneur, you've been in the industry of staffing in one way or another for the last two decades. That is, that's amazing. So, you know, I say that, once you're in the staffing industry, you're either a lifer, or you run like how the other way after a couple of years because you can't handle the stress. So you're clearly a lifer in the staffing industry, which is, which is awesome, because it's, it definitely grabs hold of you, doesn't it?
 
Adam Gellert  05:53
Oh, yeah. I like pain. I like pain.
 
Leighann Lovely  05:58
Right? That's that? Yep. Absolutely.
 
Adam Gellert  06:01
Yeah, I find that like, you know, just based on, you know, what you said, I It's so true, right? Like most people, it's the, you know, industry that most people just I don't like it when, you know, people won't not necessarily don't like but you know, a lot of people say Hey, should I get into recruiting because I like people or like connecting people. And it's not just, you know, it's very surface level expectation of the industry and the role, it's extremely hard. You know, it can be life sucking at times that can be very thankless, and you just have to have a like, really big passion for developing really strong connections in, in the work environment, making sure that it's a long term game with long term people. And that, you know, essentially, like you can, you can, you know, roll with very hard scenarios and, you know, still love connecting people that can accelerate their career and companies that can, you know, hire their top performers that go on to really, really great things. That's the key. It's a business strategy over a people strategy.
 
Leighann Lovely  07:16
So tell me about Linksys because you said that this is a tech, it's technology connecting people. What type of recruitment is this? Is it? Is it on the general labor? Is it high level individuals explain what that app or that technology does?
 
Adam Gellert  07:37
Yeah, that's, that's a fair question. So Linkous is our high touch agency, where we focus primarily on senior director level and executive searches for SMBs for small, medium sized businesses and startups looking to, to go from sort of bootstrap to Series B. So we focus on the small business market, mainly, talent that's interested in startups, the roles that we work on are, are very diverse, we always say that, like, you know, we'll be as selective as, as, as our clients. And the main thing is that the role has to be hard to fill as to be very niche, right? Like if the, if our clients can do it on their own, we're just not, it's just, you know, we kind of let them do it on their own and say, Hey, like, you know, we're gonna scour the market and make sure that you get the best person which comes back to like, what I wanted to create when I started this, which was, you know, we run basically on one KPI which is repeat business, I found that a lot of other agencies and why I kind of wanted to almost, you know, quit the space was it was very much, you know, throwing spaghetti at the wall. That's a term that a lot of companies use that they're like, this is why we don't like working with recruiters. It was very, like, quantity over quality. I mean, you know, it's to no recruiters fault necessarily, it's people are drip are incentivized by these like high quality high quantity you know, outreaches so, you know, our focus is just really like high quality engagements and repeat business and then we do we created after about, you know, five years of being in business, what we found is that a lot of our customers graduated from us so they would hire you know, engineers, sales and, you know, Customer Success staff or their, you know, do CTO and once they hit about 50 people, they would start bringing in recruiters right because they would say hey, you know, we're getting to this size we've got you know, a lot more money we're invulnerable sleazy for for these niche roles, but we're gonna use recruiters and then to the recruiters all the time and they would say, you know, hey, we're using like LinkedIn. And we're using like other tools that are out there. And Dede was not driving back great quality results, they are that quantity game, right. So a lot of time is spent going through applications, and sitting in unfit interviews. And it's a poor waste of not only recruiter that wants to excel in their career, I mean, you want to be having great conversations. And so what we wanted to do is create a very niche, you know, marketplace of high potential pre vetted, exclusive talent, where they could post a role to the people that they actually want to interview, not the whole world. And that's how hired hippo came to be. And so we've do the same industry, you know, full time, sales, marketing, customer success. In the app, we don't focus on tech, actually. So it's more non tech roles, customer facing roles on the text on on our on our app, and that sort of long story short,
 
Leighann Lovely  11:09
right? So do the the, do the candidates come to you? Or are you out there sourcing them? And then introducing them to your app?
 
Adam Gellert  11:21
Yeah, great question. So we, like a recruiting agency, we go after high potential passive talent, right? And we say to them, like, look, we're going to identify what's really important to you in terms of your next salary, your you know, how close are you to your house? Or is it remote in office hybrid? You know, what are the alignment factors that are super important for you to be successful, happy and stay at a job for a really long time, we have a 95% retention rate of candidates that stay here and beyond, just within the app, where companies and candidates are connecting directly to each other. And it's because we do that due diligence into alignment and weighed certain questions and answers together to form like a really good match. And so we do go out and, you know, market to and, and, and talk to candidates, and most of the candidates that we talked to are not actively looking for new role, they're not going to apply through LinkedIn. And indeed, they may or may not answer a LinkedIn request, they may or may not get a referral. You know, they're, they're, you know, content, but they're open to potentially a new opportunity, maybe not now, maybe down the line. And so we have sort of, like that recruiter pool available to our customers
 
Leighann Lovely  12:50
interesting. And that's, you know, you get to a certain level of your career, where, you know, you're you are happy, but there's certain you max out, you hit the ceiling, right, where, you know, I've been now at this company for 10 years, you at a certain level, and there are certain individuals who they really that that's like the time limit of you expect them to be at this company for 10 years, they've done everything they can possibly do. So that's a perfect place for them to be able to say, Okay, now I've, I've fixed all the problems at this company. Now, I'm basically just kind of sitting here doing and at a certain level, you know, those individuals then move on to fix the next company. And you see that sometimes in CEOs CFOs, you know, those high level C suite type, you know, positions, or whether that be a, you know, a director of sales who their, their specific, I guess, role is to go in and fix the sales department and get them up and operating. And then they move on to another role where they go in and they specialize in fixing. And that would be like, the perfect type of app for them. Because yeah, hey, I'm not ready to move now. But I might be ready in two or three years. And if those are really niche, or really high level positions, I would want my information out there so that I'm constantly like, hey, if I am a match to a company that could be looking and then another one to two years, then yeah, look at my information and tell me if I'm the could be, you know, it's it's it's great transparency on both sides. But it's also letting people know, like, here's here's the thing, I don't I don't want to put my resume on indeed or those other places because I don't want to get slammed and and I recently went through this where all of a sudden, I'm getting slammed with all these people who are like, Hey, are you looking for a job here? Are you looking for a job? And I got like 30 requests for jobs that one I would never in a million years be interested in and to wear and not to sound like I'm boasting about myself. We're way beneath me. Again, you smile. But yeah, that I mean, it sounds like it's a great, a great app, a great way to connect people of a certain skill level or a certain position with companies who are looking for very specific people.
 
Adam Gellert  15:22
Yeah, that's exactly it. I mean, you hit so many great points there. You know, jobs are really just business problems that need to be solved. And like you said, sometimes you are in to solve that. No one project or, you know, you did so well, that, and you keep doing so well, that you kind of, you know, put yourself out of out of a role and a lot of people approach us in those in those scenarios that want to start looking before or, you know, the company is about to exit. You know, there's there's hundreds of scenarios, right, it all comes down to alignment. And like Reed Hoffman from LinkedIn says it's about a tour of duty. Right. So, you know, we, I do talk a lot about like you do three years, like, it depends on the environment, what's happening, right, like, there's so many intangibles, but, you know, three years would be a good time to, you know, have the ability to make some really good impact. You could be at a place for 1015 years and continue to grow. But it's, that's not always the case. Right? So I mean, most people change jobs every 18 months, was like the last stat that I read, right? And so what we find is that there's a lot of great people that, you know, are, you know, open and ready, and the pain for them is that they have to go look on job boards, they have to look at applying, and then they have to like, you know, message the hiring manager on LinkedIn to stand out or get a referral. And now everybody's doing that, right. So that's just not the best way to stand out. Because everyone's messaging, the hiring manager, everyone's sending, you know, a cake with your name on it, right? Like it's not, it's not something completely different than then, you know, when you were the first or second person to do that. So what we find is that look, recruitment, the recruitment process sucks for both companies and candidates. It's a very lengthy time consuming process for candidates, and you could make the wrong career choice or career trajectory. Because you're not thinking about, you know, do I want to be five minutes goes to my house, do I want to be remote? Do I want to be in office and hear other people on the phone? Because that's where I'm at, in my current life? Maybe? You know, maybe I just had a kid and I want to be at home like, there. Everyone's different, right? No, two people are the same. No two work environments are exactly the same. And we found that by just digging in, this is like, 20 years worth of research on, you know, what's a really high quality match, and we don't get it right 100% of the time, but we like to think we get it right close to that. Right. So figuring out what motivates candidates to make a career move, are they making the right decision and just show them those roles, will eliminate all a lot of the pain that you talked about? Which is, you know, I might have to always consistently think about my next career move. What if there was this product that was thinking about that for me? And I don't have to talk to 100 recruiters, I don't have to wait till it's too late. That kind of thing.
 
Leighann Lovely  18:31
Right? Right. And that's, and that is the problem, when you do get to a certain level that if all of a sudden you don't have a job, it takes time, because there are not, you know, like a, like a general laborer position, when you've got 30 positions open down the street, there, there's not that many sea level positions that that are right for you just waiting for you to step into. I mean, there's a finite amount. And I have worked and I'm sure you've worked with, when, you know, all of the sudden you see, you know, a CEO, or a director of change management or some weird, weird role, that you're like, Okay, what exactly do you do? That person will sometimes end up unemployed for months, a year. I have, I'm working with somebody who has been unemployed now for a year and a half. Because he's, he just doesn't want to relocate again. And right now, where he's located, there aren't any positions that suit him. Especially at his 140k salary.
 
Adam Gellert  19:50
Yeah. So yeah, I mean, here's the thing that I'm you know, I'm gonna say that, you know, I don't think everyone's gonna be happy with like, people. We really shouldn't be out of a job, and it's not their fault, it's that we haven't set people up for success. So I don't want to put the blame on anyone and I, you know, feel awful when someone has been knocked down, you know, hundreds of times for a year and a half, that's like the worst thing that I would ever want to see. And this is what keeps me in recruiting because, you know, I really believe that everyone should wake up fulfilled in, you know, when they go to work and fulfilled when they go home at the end of the day and happy with what they're doing, but employed in something and not have to, you know, try and find a job for a year and a half. But you know, you're you're right, again, it's, it's, there are more jobs than there are people, right. And so, there, we just haven't put people in a position to be able to, you know, change career paths at the right time and the right angle, right. I don't think enough employers let people go and flourish when they need to, like some of the I know, a lot of people don't like firing and letting people go, but it's about being a very savant leader. And, you know, really being empathetic and understanding where people are in their career and where they could go are foreseeing that, you know, maybe this particular industry or this nice industry is, you know, going to be super tough, we're going to be oversaturated, right. And so, think all the way from the education system to, you know, recruiting and beyond. And, you know, how we, you know, are empathetic in terms of outplacement, like, we need to help people get and figure out early, you know, if they're in the right position to do the right roles, and then, you know, kind of be set on that proper trajectory. So I could go on to more detail, but that's sort of like the broad scope.
 
Leighann Lovely  21:59
Right. So let's shift gears here for a second. Like we mentioned, you've been, you've been a founder, a co founder of multiple businesses, like you mentioned, through that process, you've obviously learned, you know, a ton, I'm gonna guess, you know, from the first business that you, you know, helped found or founded. Something like that. I'm gonna guess that you have learned a great deal. And obviously, the economy has changed so much over I mean, going through 2000, you know, AIDS going through the pandemic, what, what has been, other than the demand for a change in candidate experience? What has been the the glaring, you know, like, red light blinking in your face of like, this really needs to change?
 
Adam Gellert  23:02
Yeah, definitely, we've been sort of like rocked the last several years. Right. So I mean, I started my company after recruiting for another company, in the 2008 financial crisis, right. And so, there's a lot that I've kind of, like learned by essentially just being sort of like crazy, determined. And, you know, following my passion and skill combination, it can't just be passionate. It can't just be skill, right? Because you are going to face adversity. And you need to figure out how to continue on, I think, guilt, that's sort of important when people are thinking about those career choices over the last few years. I think the more obvious ones are remote work, flexible work schedules, and like getting more away from the hustle culture. Right. But I think, what's happened, and I think what's happened, that's good. And it kind of ties into my comment about being able to get employed and into a place where you feel fulfilled at the end of the day. And I think that it's less obvious, maybe becoming more obvious, is the idea that we're going to move into this multi career system. have been talking about this for a few years, but I think it's becoming more and more obvious that you know, what we consider maybe side hustles people that have multiple income streams, is kind of the future, right? So, you know, the obvious scenario is Uber, an Uber driver, and working at a tech company, right. But I, you know, that makes people think, oh, this person must work 60 hours a week or 80 hours a week, right? But what I really see is like with the introduction of AI, you can actually be a lot more productive and efficient in your job and You know, if you become sort of, you know, irreplaceable in the fact that you're like the master of your, your job or your function and solving that business problem of where you're working, that you will be able, you'll be able to be a lot more efficient. And you know, two days, three days a week, right, which is why we're seeing these things. And if you want to increase your, you know, ability to make money, it could be doing Uber driving, you'd still stick to that, like 40 hours a week, or whatever it is, or content creation, or, you know, helping at a, you know, food bank or, you know, hospital or, you know, hospice care, whatever it is, right. There's just so many opportunities, I think, to work, and I don't think income is going to come from one place, I think that'll be very unlikely to happen.
 
Leighann Lovely  25:57
And do you think that's, that's a cultural shift? Or do you think it's a generational thing?
 
Adam Gellert  26:08
I think it's a bit of both. I also think it's a fact of survival, survival, it's like things just cost more, you know, when we used to, so the most obvious example that I think is that, you know, the generation before you said, generational, so the generation before us, you know, was in their job for life, right, and they don't understand why you would go follow your passion or follow your, you know, a different career path, right. And we lived in this sort of, like, unknown is that a good play? Is that not a good play, and, right now, there are no 40 year jobs left, or will be in the future, it's unlikely, because things change so fast that, you know, even founders, for example, right, you might be a good founder to take it from concept and assumption and Bootstrap to a million dollars, but you're not the right person, take it from a million to 10 million, because you don't have that experience. And so you have to step away. And so it's not just, you know, the, you know, what we might consider other roles, it's like roles across the board, right? Even athletes, right, you're just at a certain stage, and that's what you're good for that position you play. So you know, from, from this big shift in how we work in work tech, and the whole scale up of AI in our industry, it's just a matter of, you know, how we have to re think and reimagine what work looks like, and how we spend our day, you you
 
Leighann Lovely  27:41
said something so, so absolutely brilliant, right there. Because it's a concept that is so hard for so many individuals to wrap their head around. And you made reference to, you know, as a founder, as a founder, you may be really good at starting up organizations and taking that from, you know, zero to a million, and you talk to, you know, again, go hire a coach, they'll teach you how to take it from a million beyond Well, that may not be what you're capable of doing. That meant, and you said, as if one of you may have to step away and sell it or handed off, right. And the concept that it's so hard for some of the and I'm not picking on because again, you're not you weren't picking on like the older school, the the older generation, they got a job, they stayed at that job. It was that was what they did. That was that was their mentality. And the concept that they struggle with is you can have a great person, but if that great person doesn't have the right seat on the bus, it no matter what you try to tell them to do, it's not going to work, right? It just they're not, they're not going to be able to wrap their head around, like how do I do this? Because their mindset, their passion, their, you know, knowledge, their technical ability falls within a different realm. And that is, I think, why we, as a society now see so many people doing the, okay, I'm going to stay here for five years. You see this in the hospitality industry. And I did not know this until I actually had interviewed somebody who who was from the hospitality industry. They see a lot of turnover they see it especially in the higher up because they come in, they create their concept of here's what's really going to make this hotel, this brand of the hotel, great. They go in, they implement all of their changes. They're there for you know, a finite period of time they move on, and they go to the next one and they implement what works or what they have historically seen work. And there's plenty of industries out there that do that. And that's why we see people come and go in industries, which didn't happen in the past. But that's the way the world works now versus 4060 years ago, where things weren't changing, like you mentioned, technology is changing so much, that in order for companies to keep up and I know I talk with my hands This is Audio Only, anyways. Technology is changing so much that accompany has to have the person that's leading it understand where that technology is. And sometimes that means that changing that person every five years, who is aware of what that technology, what that economical environment looks like, in order for that company to continue to thrive and make that company continue to grow and work. And I think that it's necessary in our environment where, like I said, 4060 years ago, it wasn't, because while we still had changes happening, technology was not nearly as an again, manufacturing, I come from much more of a manufacturing, staffing. You know, we still to this day, talk about while manufacturing is so far behind. Even today, even on the practices that they do, you know, in a lot of the things, you know, you still walk in and they're still in this is just, you know, example, while they're still taking all hand notes, they're still you know, what, they're machines, everything is still on paper, why do you have these big stacks of paper that explain the job that you're working on? Why don't you have iPads or, or something that connects to your, you know, your systems, your ERP systems? It's like, how are you not to that point yet? But you know, and then you ask the leaders, and they're like, Well wouldn't work for us? And it's like, well, have you tried? Have you looked into the systems, or just, it would not work here, and then you you talk to the person and they're like, Well, I've been at this company for 45 years, it wouldn't work here. We'll get some fresh blood in here. And I guarantee somebody who is, you know, young, hungry to make their mark would figure out a way to make it work.
 
Adam Gellert  32:41
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, to that point, like, also don't feel like it's, you know, a lot of people's faults, like things just didn't change fast, right? Previously, so they didn't have to change and people hate, you know, standing up in front of a crowd, but they all say change, too, right? So, you know, if there's something that they believe to be working, they won't change or don't see, right. So it's like, it's not even like individuals, like there are so many examples of this happening with like, you know, some of the smartest people in the world, right, so like, you know, Blockbuster, like, they just didn't see that change, they didn't do it. You know, that wasn't the person operating the manufacturer to build the DVDs or, you know, do the graphic design, it's, it's really hard to understand what is happening in the future. But I think there are two things that the next generation really needs to focus on its financial independence and financial, like education and understanding. And, you know, what, where careers are headed and where careers are going and how you can kind of make an impact because it was okay to work, you know, a job for so many years before, because there were only so many jobs rolling so many options, you couldn't go, you know, work remotely from your house in Canada, and then do a job in the states you couldn't, there weren't as many coffee shops, there was like five, right? So you couldn't go learn from a different set of leaders or a different set of peoples or get benefits from a company like Starbucks, there just weren't those choices. And because choices and options, there's, you know, all pretty well endless at this point. Which, you know, I think the most important thing for coaches to do is to help people kind of help identify, you know, where could you, you know, excel in another area, instead of being sort of like one of many, you're kind of like a master of one and figuring out how you go through that. Those those kinds of paths to get there. So, yeah, it's just it's a it's I think it's just that the fluctuation and the speed at which things change. Right, like so. Yeah, just trying to come up with a new kid. Like, for example, maybe I'll come back to it but
 
Leighann Lovely  34:58
ya know, I mean, that was write that. And I completely agree, but here, I'm gonna throw this, I'm gonna throw you for a loop now on something because as we talk about the younger generation and educating themselves, and that kind of thing I want to ask you, you know, again, this is going to kind of throw you for a loop on everything now, because we've now we've now learned, you know, that, you know, the experience, the, the understanding of that, within going into these jobs, we've, we've started to understand more and more that the cultural fit within organizations as well the important and that person, you know, we, right, we've started to get that culture, and a person fitting into their environment, and it can look a wild, lot wildly different. And you when you said education, and educating themselves, it sparked something in me, do you? Maybe you know, what I'm gonna ask, do you think that companies are finally starting to understand that having a degree specific and this excludes some industries, obviously, you cannot be a doctor without a going to medical school, you can't be an accountant, or a CPA, if you don't go and get your CPE can't be a lawyer, blah, blah, you get it? But do you think that more industries have come to understand that experience, hands on experience is equivalent to educational experience, and that culture fit is more important than experience because you can train for skills?
 
Adam Gellert  36:38
100% 100% 100% 100% it's, you know, attitude over skills, its experiences, you know, it takes 10,000 plus hours to be any good and even close to good at something. So, you know, I tell young people, they're like, oh, what should I do? Where should I start, just try doing things and do so many things that, you know, assault, go solve problems and figure it out and feel like, what, what are you like, really the best app because people are coming to you, if you're the best at something, and you're experienced at it. I mean, even doctors, you know, once they get the job, and they've hit a certain level of experience, they don't go back to them and say, hey, you know, you graduated top of your class, they go no, like, I want to work with the surgeon that did 1000 heart surgeries, not this one surgeon that, you know, went to Harvard. Right. So it doesn't even, you know, yeah, school is required for obviously, certain jobs, but, you know, most of them are required and talking about the speed at which things move. I mean, there's so many ways to get educated for free, right now, if you have access to a laptop, and, you know, internet, which a lot of people also don't have, which, you know, I really believe in, in charities that, you know, help people get laptops and access to internet, because that's, that's where education, you know, it's access, right. And for diversity, and, you know, pay parity, it's like getting that access, right. So, but, but, you know, going off a little bit, but I think that, you know, the most important thing is to just really, like educate yourself on what you like, and keep trying new things, right. So
 
Leighann Lovely  38:28
well, in today's world, you can go into coffee shops, and have free internet. Excuse me, you can go into, you know, here in I know, in, you know, in most in most of the states, I'm not 100% sure about Canada, but any public library has computers that you can now go in and utilize their computers to free at free and have internet access. So I mean, there is an any Workforce Development Company, you know, place so there are, you know, kiosks that you can go into a workforce development, and those are, you know, government run here in the United States where you can ask for assistance to get free internet access, you just have to want to do it and have the time. So they don't I mean, it's, it's really are you willing to put in the time, so there is a million free different places that you can go to get access? And then I mean, there is LinkedIn offers, you know, free webinars and courses and I mean, there is 1,000,001 different ways that you can now educate yourself
 
Adam Gellert  39:47
for free Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And you know, one of the funny things is like, you know, in job description, they say, Hey, this is this is required. I mean, there are these these these things that are required that anyone can get caught. have access to and actually really get really, really good at. You know, one example is going in a sales role as example HubSpot is, you know, a customer relationship management platform, it's probably the one of the most popular in the world other than Salesforce. And so, you know, it's funny to me, how many times founders or hiring managers asked me hey, like, we won't talk to somebody, unless they have experience with HubSpot. I mean, you give somebody a crash course. And then in a day and an hour and have them be amazing. And the candidates also are, you know, if you are seeing these jobs, and you're saying, Oh, I don't have experience with that, I mean, you could pretty much get experience with anything by just going and asking going to a company and saying, Hey, like, I'd really like to learn about this. HubSpot has, you know, the biggest amount of videos and blogs on how to use their product, if you reached out to them and said, Hey, I want to get a job, you know, we're using your product is required. Can you help me with this? I'm sure they would say yes. Right. So it's just about creating those, and pushing those opportunities for what you want. So if you, you know, are in a role right now, where you're feeling stuck, because you don't have experience with something else that's required. You know, as long as it's not a degree, and it doesn't cost you money, and there are certain barriers to entry. Of course, like, there are certain, you know, I don't want to say that there are limitations at all. But, you know, for the most part, you know, with those things, you could get educated on that. Right,
 
Leighann Lovely  41:27
right. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's, there's so much available to, to individuals out there now. And I, I'm gonna go back to a point that you made earlier that, that there are more jobs than there are people, which means that anybody who is not working right now, and I mean, they shouldn't be, but the system that we have in place is broken. And it makes it hard for people to get hired. So individuals, like you, who are attempting to create systems, you know, are the ones who are really, you know, the, the pioneers in this in this industry, right, trying to find a way to make the candidate experience positive, and make the make it easier for the company to, you know, allow the proper resumes to come across their desk, you know, to just view the ones that are right for their role. I mean, so let me ask you this, when you started in this industry, did you think that you were going to end up two decades in?
 
Adam Gellert  43:02
No, definitely not. I didn't even know where recruiting was. Right. So someone, you know, offered me a job. And I was like, What the heck is recruiting? And they said, you know, you, you get paid to, you know, match a person with a company, right? I was like, Oh, this sounds interesting. Do you think I'll be good at it? And they said, Yeah, so somebody had to give me that opportunity. Right. They knew they'd worked with me previously. So they knew that I had a good attitude. Good. Great. I showed up. I care, right. So like, what I typically look for is trust, attitude, passion. I think that's kind of like the core of any role doesn't matter what it is where it is, you know, or anything, right. And, and so yeah, I mean, just to answer your question, simply, I don't, I didn't know. But I just became obsessed with, you know, solving this problem, and just continuing to do better and continuing to be curious and think about things. And ask questions. And, you know, I don't have all the answers still, right. Like, I still learn from a lot of people like you and other people, right? have, you know, different scenarios that come up? And I think that that's what makes this industry and an industry that you care about? So interesting, right? So, but it could be applied to anything, you know, skilled trades, anything, getting curious, you know, you could you know, you could create a house or you could create a whole residential community. Like, there's just so many different options, right, so
 
Leighann Lovely  44:35
awesome. So I'm gonna ask you the question of the season. What do you think will go down in the history books from what the world has experienced over the last three years?
 
Adam Gellert  44:47
Yeah, I think like, my mind goes to that one thing that I talked about before, which is the double career system. I think that's where people will say, Okay, this is What changed, most people had one job, one sort of like residents, and now people are going and having multiple, because I just think that that's the way that the world is moving towards. And, you know, and what's required. And I think the flexibility of get a technology is going to be able to do most of what you can do, which should essentially free up a lot of time, you're going to have time to pursue a passion project, a skills project, money making project. So that that's what I think
 
Leighann Lovely  45:38
that's awesome. And I agree. I think the world was snapped awake. I just I feel like that. As much as we were all divided, and, you know, stuck at home, I feel like everybody woke up and started talking, and started communicating in a way that they never had before. More so than, you know, people were like, well, I'm me, I started a new relationship with my own brother that I had never had before. I started talking to him more. But he lives in Seattle, because all of the sudden I'm like, Oh, my God, I can zoom with him and his family. So I feel like the world was snapped awake. And unfortunately, a lot of things came to light that were not so positive and positive. A lot of mental health issues. And a lot of the world was snapped awake. And people found hobbies, they found passion projects, they found that kind of stuff. So if somebody wanted to reach out to you, how would they go about doing that?
 
Adam Gellert  46:43
Yeah, thanks so much. I think LinkedIn is is, you know, is the best place if you want to follow me there connect with me there. So it's Adam Geller, and I run Linkous group and the hired hippo. And so that would be like the number one place. I mean, obviously, I'm on all the other socials just about to release a personal site, recruiter adam.com. So those two places would be ideal.
 
Leighann Lovely  47:12
Excellent. And that'll be in the show notes. So if you want to reach out to Adam, you can check the show notes for his LinkedIn, or for his personal site that will, will listen on there as well. So Adam, thank you so much for joining me and having this conversation. It's been an absolute pleasure, pleasure and some really great insight and great information.
 
Adam Gellert  47:33
Awesome. Thanks very much for having me. This was a lot of fun. So thank you.
 
Leighann Lovely  47:38
Thank you again for listening to Let's Talk HR. I appreciate your time and support without you the audience this would not be possible. So don't forget that if you enjoyed this episode, to follow us, like us or share us. Have a wonderful day.
 
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Music from Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/cruen/family-time License code: 2330NZD3BLNDKPY

Adam Gellert serial entrepreneur and lifer in the staffing industry joins me for a very enlighten conversation about the future of staffing and the workforce as we know it. Adam now the Founder and CEO of HireHippo and The Linkus Group Inc. permanent placement firms that take a different approach to hiring individuals. As he has moved through his career, he saw gaps in the market and have shifted to fill those gaps. Now offering a network of top talent of passive candidates, eliminating resume reviews and focusing on skills and culture. Join this amazing conversation with a forward-thinking entrepreneur.  
Contact Adam -
LinkedIN - https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamgellert/
Websites –
Recruiteradam.com
hiredhippo.ai
linkushr.com
 
 
Leighann Lovely  00:20
HR professionals, business owners and operations at all levels are struggling to figure out what needs to change. Our system has been shocked practices have been questioned, and conversations are finally happening. We all know there has been a huge shift in what people want. inclusion and diversity are common phrases. But often misunderstood generations are coming together more than ever on what's important. Mental health has been brought to the forefront of everyone's mind. Let's humanize these conversations. Let's talk about what's important for employees to be successful in life and at their job and how companies can create an environment to allow them to do both because successful people will make up a successful workforce. I'm Leighann lovely. Let's get this conversation started.
 
Leighann Lovely  01:09
Adam Gellert is on a mission to build the greatest marketplace of pre vetted diverse high potential candidates and companies, reshaping the job application process with candidate experience and helping companies hire their most passionate teammates from one to 250. He eats, sleeps and breathes recruitment. He can talk for hours about anything to do with growth of an organization from a people standpoint, attraction, retention, culture fit alignment and best practices in the modern world. He's an entrepreneur at heart currently on a mission to reshape recruitment and change the candidate experience. Founder and CEO at hire hippo, a hiring marketplace connecting pre vetted high potential diverse candidates and companies based on mutual interest like a dating app and saying goodbye to resumes. He noticed a gap in the industry as a founder of Linksys group, a recruitment firm supporting startups and SMBs in Canada and US. His typical clients is under 50 people. He started the company with the intent to disrupt the recruitment industry. And they are doing just that he has a fantastic team. And they work very hard to build championship teams for their clients that can sustain a winning outlook again and again since 2002. He has been instrumental in building teams both at the corporate and recruitment agency levels. He is known for building strong relationships with clients as an honest, driven and progressive individual with major organizations across Canada and the United States. With a passion for delivering cost savings and efficient business results. He took the next step in offering clients an alternative to traditional hiring. He's active in the tech startup and small business community co created the talent help list co created the disrupt HR Vaughn and previous chair, hR p a PD dinner committee, their leading KPI, it's their reoccurring clients a testament to the value they bring. I am very excited to talk to Adam, a serial entrepreneur. Adam, welcome. I am excited to talk with you today. Thank you for joining me.
 
Adam Gellert  03:36
Thank you very much for having me. Appreciate being here.
 
Leighann Lovely  03:40
Yeah. So why don't you start off and, you know, tell everybody a little bit, you know, a little background about who you are and what you do.
 
Adam Gellert  03:48
Yeah, so I'm Adam Gellert, the founder of the linkage group, and higher tempo. Essentially, I run both a high touch recruiting agency as well as a recruitment technology that we will, that we believe will change the face of how people get hired and how companies hire their high performers. Essentially, what the tech does is works with SMBs and startups that go from one to 250 people on getting quick access to exclusive high potential pre vetted talent without having to worry about recruiting the recruiting process, they can skip the entire recruitment process and go straight to interview because we do all that upfront work for them with the technology so that's what I'm doing now also involved, co founded the talent helpless, which was a COVID layoff list. It was like the first of its kind that I'm aware of anyways, and disrupt HR Vaughn, which is global HR disrupt, disrupt as a global HR brand. So I'm just obsessed and very involved in the recruitment process that I have been for the last two decades, essentially. You know, we can talk about anything to do with attraction, hiring, retention, and that's just a bit about me.
 
Leighann Lovely  05:20
Awesome. Yeah, you are. You're a serial entrepreneur, you've been in the industry of staffing in one way or another for the last two decades. That is, that's amazing. So, you know, I say that, once you're in the staffing industry, you're either a lifer, or you run like how the other way after a couple of years because you can't handle the stress. So you're clearly a lifer in the staffing industry, which is, which is awesome, because it's, it definitely grabs hold of you, doesn't it?
 
Adam Gellert  05:53
Oh, yeah. I like pain. I like pain.
 
Leighann Lovely  05:58
Right? That's that? Yep. Absolutely.
 
Adam Gellert  06:01
Yeah, I find that like, you know, just based on, you know, what you said, I It's so true, right? Like most people, it's the, you know, industry that most people just I don't like it when, you know, people won't not necessarily don't like but you know, a lot of people say Hey, should I get into recruiting because I like people or like connecting people. And it's not just, you know, it's very surface level expectation of the industry and the role, it's extremely hard. You know, it can be life sucking at times that can be very thankless, and you just have to have a like, really big passion for developing really strong connections in, in the work environment, making sure that it's a long term game with long term people. And that, you know, essentially, like you can, you can, you know, roll with very hard scenarios and, you know, still love connecting people that can accelerate their career and companies that can, you know, hire their top performers that go on to really, really great things. That's the key. It's a business strategy over a people strategy.
 
Leighann Lovely  07:16
So tell me about Linksys because you said that this is a tech, it's technology connecting people. What type of recruitment is this? Is it? Is it on the general labor? Is it high level individuals explain what that app or that technology does?
 
Adam Gellert  07:37
Yeah, that's, that's a fair question. So Linkous is our high touch agency, where we focus primarily on senior director level and executive searches for SMBs for small, medium sized businesses and startups looking to, to go from sort of bootstrap to Series B. So we focus on the small business market, mainly, talent that's interested in startups, the roles that we work on are, are very diverse, we always say that, like, you know, we'll be as selective as, as, as our clients. And the main thing is that the role has to be hard to fill as to be very niche, right? Like if the, if our clients can do it on their own, we're just not, it's just, you know, we kind of let them do it on their own and say, Hey, like, you know, we're gonna scour the market and make sure that you get the best person which comes back to like, what I wanted to create when I started this, which was, you know, we run basically on one KPI which is repeat business, I found that a lot of other agencies and why I kind of wanted to almost, you know, quit the space was it was very much, you know, throwing spaghetti at the wall. That's a term that a lot of companies use that they're like, this is why we don't like working with recruiters. It was very, like, quantity over quality. I mean, you know, it's to no recruiters fault necessarily, it's people are drip are incentivized by these like high quality high quantity you know, outreaches so, you know, our focus is just really like high quality engagements and repeat business and then we do we created after about, you know, five years of being in business, what we found is that a lot of our customers graduated from us so they would hire you know, engineers, sales and, you know, Customer Success staff or their, you know, do CTO and once they hit about 50 people, they would start bringing in recruiters right because they would say hey, you know, we're getting to this size we've got you know, a lot more money we're invulnerable sleazy for for these niche roles, but we're gonna use recruiters and then to the recruiters all the time and they would say, you know, hey, we're using like LinkedIn. And we're using like other tools that are out there. And Dede was not driving back great quality results, they are that quantity game, right. So a lot of time is spent going through applications, and sitting in unfit interviews. And it's a poor waste of not only recruiter that wants to excel in their career, I mean, you want to be having great conversations. And so what we wanted to do is create a very niche, you know, marketplace of high potential pre vetted, exclusive talent, where they could post a role to the people that they actually want to interview, not the whole world. And that's how hired hippo came to be. And so we've do the same industry, you know, full time, sales, marketing, customer success. In the app, we don't focus on tech, actually. So it's more non tech roles, customer facing roles on the text on on our on our app, and that sort of long story short,
 
Leighann Lovely  11:09
right? So do the the, do the candidates come to you? Or are you out there sourcing them? And then introducing them to your app?
 
Adam Gellert  11:21
Yeah, great question. So we, like a recruiting agency, we go after high potential passive talent, right? And we say to them, like, look, we're going to identify what's really important to you in terms of your next salary, your you know, how close are you to your house? Or is it remote in office hybrid? You know, what are the alignment factors that are super important for you to be successful, happy and stay at a job for a really long time, we have a 95% retention rate of candidates that stay here and beyond, just within the app, where companies and candidates are connecting directly to each other. And it's because we do that due diligence into alignment and weighed certain questions and answers together to form like a really good match. And so we do go out and, you know, market to and, and, and talk to candidates, and most of the candidates that we talked to are not actively looking for new role, they're not going to apply through LinkedIn. And indeed, they may or may not answer a LinkedIn request, they may or may not get a referral. You know, they're, they're, you know, content, but they're open to potentially a new opportunity, maybe not now, maybe down the line. And so we have sort of, like that recruiter pool available to our customers
 
Leighann Lovely  12:50
interesting. And that's, you know, you get to a certain level of your career, where, you know, you're you are happy, but there's certain you max out, you hit the ceiling, right, where, you know, I've been now at this company for 10 years, you at a certain level, and there are certain individuals who they really that that's like the time limit of you expect them to be at this company for 10 years, they've done everything they can possibly do. So that's a perfect place for them to be able to say, Okay, now I've, I've fixed all the problems at this company. Now, I'm basically just kind of sitting here doing and at a certain level, you know, those individuals then move on to fix the next company. And you see that sometimes in CEOs CFOs, you know, those high level C suite type, you know, positions, or whether that be a, you know, a director of sales who their, their specific, I guess, role is to go in and fix the sales department and get them up and operating. And then they move on to another role where they go in and they specialize in fixing. And that would be like, the perfect type of app for them. Because yeah, hey, I'm not ready to move now. But I might be ready in two or three years. And if those are really niche, or really high level positions, I would want my information out there so that I'm constantly like, hey, if I am a match to a company that could be looking and then another one to two years, then yeah, look at my information and tell me if I'm the could be, you know, it's it's it's great transparency on both sides. But it's also letting people know, like, here's here's the thing, I don't I don't want to put my resume on indeed or those other places because I don't want to get slammed and and I recently went through this where all of a sudden, I'm getting slammed with all these people who are like, Hey, are you looking for a job here? Are you looking for a job? And I got like 30 requests for jobs that one I would never in a million years be interested in and to wear and not to sound like I'm boasting about myself. We're way beneath me. Again, you smile. But yeah, that I mean, it sounds like it's a great, a great app, a great way to connect people of a certain skill level or a certain position with companies who are looking for very specific people.
 
Adam Gellert  15:22
Yeah, that's exactly it. I mean, you hit so many great points there. You know, jobs are really just business problems that need to be solved. And like you said, sometimes you are in to solve that. No one project or, you know, you did so well, that, and you keep doing so well, that you kind of, you know, put yourself out of out of a role and a lot of people approach us in those in those scenarios that want to start looking before or, you know, the company is about to exit. You know, there's there's hundreds of scenarios, right, it all comes down to alignment. And like Reed Hoffman from LinkedIn says it's about a tour of duty. Right. So, you know, we, I do talk a lot about like you do three years, like, it depends on the environment, what's happening, right, like, there's so many intangibles, but, you know, three years would be a good time to, you know, have the ability to make some really good impact. You could be at a place for 1015 years and continue to grow. But it's, that's not always the case. Right? So I mean, most people change jobs every 18 months, was like the last stat that I read, right? And so what we find is that there's a lot of great people that, you know, are, you know, open and ready, and the pain for them is that they have to go look on job boards, they have to look at applying, and then they have to like, you know, message the hiring manager on LinkedIn to stand out or get a referral. And now everybody's doing that, right. So that's just not the best way to stand out. Because everyone's messaging, the hiring manager, everyone's sending, you know, a cake with your name on it, right? Like it's not, it's not something completely different than then, you know, when you were the first or second person to do that. So what we find is that look, recruitment, the recruitment process sucks for both companies and candidates. It's a very lengthy time consuming process for candidates, and you could make the wrong career choice or career trajectory. Because you're not thinking about, you know, do I want to be five minutes goes to my house, do I want to be remote? Do I want to be in office and hear other people on the phone? Because that's where I'm at, in my current life? Maybe? You know, maybe I just had a kid and I want to be at home like, there. Everyone's different, right? No, two people are the same. No two work environments are exactly the same. And we found that by just digging in, this is like, 20 years worth of research on, you know, what's a really high quality match, and we don't get it right 100% of the time, but we like to think we get it right close to that. Right. So figuring out what motivates candidates to make a career move, are they making the right decision and just show them those roles, will eliminate all a lot of the pain that you talked about? Which is, you know, I might have to always consistently think about my next career move. What if there was this product that was thinking about that for me? And I don't have to talk to 100 recruiters, I don't have to wait till it's too late. That kind of thing.
 
Leighann Lovely  18:31
Right? Right. And that's, and that is the problem, when you do get to a certain level that if all of a sudden you don't have a job, it takes time, because there are not, you know, like a, like a general laborer position, when you've got 30 positions open down the street, there, there's not that many sea level positions that that are right for you just waiting for you to step into. I mean, there's a finite amount. And I have worked and I'm sure you've worked with, when, you know, all of the sudden you see, you know, a CEO, or a director of change management or some weird, weird role, that you're like, Okay, what exactly do you do? That person will sometimes end up unemployed for months, a year. I have, I'm working with somebody who has been unemployed now for a year and a half. Because he's, he just doesn't want to relocate again. And right now, where he's located, there aren't any positions that suit him. Especially at his 140k salary.
 
Adam Gellert  19:50
Yeah. So yeah, I mean, here's the thing that I'm you know, I'm gonna say that, you know, I don't think everyone's gonna be happy with like, people. We really shouldn't be out of a job, and it's not their fault, it's that we haven't set people up for success. So I don't want to put the blame on anyone and I, you know, feel awful when someone has been knocked down, you know, hundreds of times for a year and a half, that's like the worst thing that I would ever want to see. And this is what keeps me in recruiting because, you know, I really believe that everyone should wake up fulfilled in, you know, when they go to work and fulfilled when they go home at the end of the day and happy with what they're doing, but employed in something and not have to, you know, try and find a job for a year and a half. But you know, you're you're right, again, it's, it's, there are more jobs than there are people, right. And so, there, we just haven't put people in a position to be able to, you know, change career paths at the right time and the right angle, right. I don't think enough employers let people go and flourish when they need to, like some of the I know, a lot of people don't like firing and letting people go, but it's about being a very savant leader. And, you know, really being empathetic and understanding where people are in their career and where they could go are foreseeing that, you know, maybe this particular industry or this nice industry is, you know, going to be super tough, we're going to be oversaturated, right. And so, think all the way from the education system to, you know, recruiting and beyond. And, you know, how we, you know, are empathetic in terms of outplacement, like, we need to help people get and figure out early, you know, if they're in the right position to do the right roles, and then, you know, kind of be set on that proper trajectory. So I could go on to more detail, but that's sort of like the broad scope.
 
Leighann Lovely  21:59
Right. So let's shift gears here for a second. Like we mentioned, you've been, you've been a founder, a co founder of multiple businesses, like you mentioned, through that process, you've obviously learned, you know, a ton, I'm gonna guess, you know, from the first business that you, you know, helped found or founded. Something like that. I'm gonna guess that you have learned a great deal. And obviously, the economy has changed so much over I mean, going through 2000, you know, AIDS going through the pandemic, what, what has been, other than the demand for a change in candidate experience? What has been the the glaring, you know, like, red light blinking in your face of like, this really needs to change?
 
Adam Gellert  23:02
Yeah, definitely, we've been sort of like rocked the last several years. Right. So I mean, I started my company after recruiting for another company, in the 2008 financial crisis, right. And so, there's a lot that I've kind of, like learned by essentially just being sort of like crazy, determined. And, you know, following my passion and skill combination, it can't just be passionate. It can't just be skill, right? Because you are going to face adversity. And you need to figure out how to continue on, I think, guilt, that's sort of important when people are thinking about those career choices over the last few years. I think the more obvious ones are remote work, flexible work schedules, and like getting more away from the hustle culture. Right. But I think, what's happened, and I think what's happened, that's good. And it kind of ties into my comment about being able to get employed and into a place where you feel fulfilled at the end of the day. And I think that it's less obvious, maybe becoming more obvious, is the idea that we're going to move into this multi career system. have been talking about this for a few years, but I think it's becoming more and more obvious that you know, what we consider maybe side hustles people that have multiple income streams, is kind of the future, right? So, you know, the obvious scenario is Uber, an Uber driver, and working at a tech company, right. But I, you know, that makes people think, oh, this person must work 60 hours a week or 80 hours a week, right? But what I really see is like with the introduction of AI, you can actually be a lot more productive and efficient in your job and You know, if you become sort of, you know, irreplaceable in the fact that you're like the master of your, your job or your function and solving that business problem of where you're working, that you will be able, you'll be able to be a lot more efficient. And you know, two days, three days a week, right, which is why we're seeing these things. And if you want to increase your, you know, ability to make money, it could be doing Uber driving, you'd still stick to that, like 40 hours a week, or whatever it is, or content creation, or, you know, helping at a, you know, food bank or, you know, hospital or, you know, hospice care, whatever it is, right. There's just so many opportunities, I think, to work, and I don't think income is going to come from one place, I think that'll be very unlikely to happen.
 
Leighann Lovely  25:57
And do you think that's, that's a cultural shift? Or do you think it's a generational thing?
 
Adam Gellert  26:08
I think it's a bit of both. I also think it's a fact of survival, survival, it's like things just cost more, you know, when we used to, so the most obvious example that I think is that, you know, the generation before you said, generational, so the generation before us, you know, was in their job for life, right, and they don't understand why you would go follow your passion or follow your, you know, a different career path, right. And we lived in this sort of, like, unknown is that a good play? Is that not a good play, and, right now, there are no 40 year jobs left, or will be in the future, it's unlikely, because things change so fast that, you know, even founders, for example, right, you might be a good founder to take it from concept and assumption and Bootstrap to a million dollars, but you're not the right person, take it from a million to 10 million, because you don't have that experience. And so you have to step away. And so it's not just, you know, the, you know, what we might consider other roles, it's like roles across the board, right? Even athletes, right, you're just at a certain stage, and that's what you're good for that position you play. So you know, from, from this big shift in how we work in work tech, and the whole scale up of AI in our industry, it's just a matter of, you know, how we have to re think and reimagine what work looks like, and how we spend our day, you you
 
Leighann Lovely  27:41
said something so, so absolutely brilliant, right there. Because it's a concept that is so hard for so many individuals to wrap their head around. And you made reference to, you know, as a founder, as a founder, you may be really good at starting up organizations and taking that from, you know, zero to a million, and you talk to, you know, again, go hire a coach, they'll teach you how to take it from a million beyond Well, that may not be what you're capable of doing. That meant, and you said, as if one of you may have to step away and sell it or handed off, right. And the concept that it's so hard for some of the and I'm not picking on because again, you're not you weren't picking on like the older school, the the older generation, they got a job, they stayed at that job. It was that was what they did. That was that was their mentality. And the concept that they struggle with is you can have a great person, but if that great person doesn't have the right seat on the bus, it no matter what you try to tell them to do, it's not going to work, right? It just they're not, they're not going to be able to wrap their head around, like how do I do this? Because their mindset, their passion, their, you know, knowledge, their technical ability falls within a different realm. And that is, I think, why we, as a society now see so many people doing the, okay, I'm going to stay here for five years. You see this in the hospitality industry. And I did not know this until I actually had interviewed somebody who who was from the hospitality industry. They see a lot of turnover they see it especially in the higher up because they come in, they create their concept of here's what's really going to make this hotel, this brand of the hotel, great. They go in, they implement all of their changes. They're there for you know, a finite period of time they move on, and they go to the next one and they implement what works or what they have historically seen work. And there's plenty of industries out there that do that. And that's why we see people come and go in industries, which didn't happen in the past. But that's the way the world works now versus 4060 years ago, where things weren't changing, like you mentioned, technology is changing so much, that in order for companies to keep up and I know I talk with my hands This is Audio Only, anyways. Technology is changing so much that accompany has to have the person that's leading it understand where that technology is. And sometimes that means that changing that person every five years, who is aware of what that technology, what that economical environment looks like, in order for that company to continue to thrive and make that company continue to grow and work. And I think that it's necessary in our environment where, like I said, 4060 years ago, it wasn't, because while we still had changes happening, technology was not nearly as an again, manufacturing, I come from much more of a manufacturing, staffing. You know, we still to this day, talk about while manufacturing is so far behind. Even today, even on the practices that they do, you know, in a lot of the things, you know, you still walk in and they're still in this is just, you know, example, while they're still taking all hand notes, they're still you know, what, they're machines, everything is still on paper, why do you have these big stacks of paper that explain the job that you're working on? Why don't you have iPads or, or something that connects to your, you know, your systems, your ERP systems? It's like, how are you not to that point yet? But you know, and then you ask the leaders, and they're like, Well wouldn't work for us? And it's like, well, have you tried? Have you looked into the systems, or just, it would not work here, and then you you talk to the person and they're like, Well, I've been at this company for 45 years, it wouldn't work here. We'll get some fresh blood in here. And I guarantee somebody who is, you know, young, hungry to make their mark would figure out a way to make it work.
 
Adam Gellert  32:41
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, to that point, like, also don't feel like it's, you know, a lot of people's faults, like things just didn't change fast, right? Previously, so they didn't have to change and people hate, you know, standing up in front of a crowd, but they all say change, too, right? So, you know, if there's something that they believe to be working, they won't change or don't see, right. So it's like, it's not even like individuals, like there are so many examples of this happening with like, you know, some of the smartest people in the world, right, so like, you know, Blockbuster, like, they just didn't see that change, they didn't do it. You know, that wasn't the person operating the manufacturer to build the DVDs or, you know, do the graphic design, it's, it's really hard to understand what is happening in the future. But I think there are two things that the next generation really needs to focus on its financial independence and financial, like education and understanding. And, you know, what, where careers are headed and where careers are going and how you can kind of make an impact because it was okay to work, you know, a job for so many years before, because there were only so many jobs rolling so many options, you couldn't go, you know, work remotely from your house in Canada, and then do a job in the states you couldn't, there weren't as many coffee shops, there was like five, right? So you couldn't go learn from a different set of leaders or a different set of peoples or get benefits from a company like Starbucks, there just weren't those choices. And because choices and options, there's, you know, all pretty well endless at this point. Which, you know, I think the most important thing for coaches to do is to help people kind of help identify, you know, where could you, you know, excel in another area, instead of being sort of like one of many, you're kind of like a master of one and figuring out how you go through that. Those those kinds of paths to get there. So, yeah, it's just it's a it's I think it's just that the fluctuation and the speed at which things change. Right, like so. Yeah, just trying to come up with a new kid. Like, for example, maybe I'll come back to it but
 
Leighann Lovely  34:58
ya know, I mean, that was write that. And I completely agree, but here, I'm gonna throw this, I'm gonna throw you for a loop now on something because as we talk about the younger generation and educating themselves, and that kind of thing I want to ask you, you know, again, this is going to kind of throw you for a loop on everything now, because we've now we've now learned, you know, that, you know, the experience, the, the understanding of that, within going into these jobs, we've, we've started to understand more and more that the cultural fit within organizations as well the important and that person, you know, we, right, we've started to get that culture, and a person fitting into their environment, and it can l