#448 How To Attract, Recruit And Retain Top Talent with Gerry Gadoury of Redbeard Solutions
Gerry Gadoury is the Founder and Managing Director of Redbeard Solutions, Speaker and author of the #1 Best-Selling Author of Destination Employer: Attract, Recruit, and Retain the Top Talent in Your Market https://a.co/d/j8Retue
He shares his 25+ years of experience attracting, recruiting, and retaining top talent. Learn how to build long-term relationships with employees and view hiring as more than just filling roles. Gerry discusses aligning career goals, providing growth opportunities, and creating an environment where people can thrive. He also shares stories from his unconventional career path - from the Marines to technical recruiting to building a $9M consulting company. Discover practical strategies to stop bad hires, quiet quitting, and high turnover.
Life experiences, military service, and career transitions. (8:06)
Hiring and employee retention in the modern workplace. (15:16)
Career growth and retention in a consulting company. (20:14)
Hiring, management, and leadership insights. (24:53)
Marketing and sales strategies with a comedian and CMO. (31:44)
Guest's calls-to-action
Website: https://www.redbeardsol.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gerrygadoury
Destination Employer: Attract, Recruit, and Retain the Top Talent in Your Market https://a.co/d/j8Retue
Episode sponsored
by ZUPYAK - The first search optimized AI writer. Zupyak.com → promo code → SWEAT
by SQUARESPACE website builder → https://squarespacecircleus.pxf.io/sweatequity
by CALL RAIL call tracking → https://bit.ly/sweatequitycallrail
by LINKEDIN PREMIUM - 2 months free! → https://bit.ly/sweatequity-linkedin-premium
by BLOOM.io → https://bloom.cello.so/aZBXRYS22rB
by OTTER.ai → https://otter.ai/referrals/AVPIT85N
---
Sweat Equity 🔗s
Hosts’ Eric Readinger & Law Smith 🔗s
---
#sweatequity #entrepreneurship #comedy #entrepreneur #business #girthyroi #69b2b #sweatequity💦 #HireForCultureFit #AlignGoalsWithEmployees #ProvideGrowthOpportunities #BuildLongTermRelationships #ViewHiringAsRelationship #25YearsRecruitingExperience #ConsistentlyAttractTopTalent #RetainYourRockstars #MilitaryToBusinessOwner #NonTraditionalCareerPath #EntrepreneurSuccessStory #HiringTopTalent #EmployeeRetention #RecruitingStrategies #BuildYourDreamTeam #StopBadHires #QuietQuitting #CareerAdvice #LeadershipSkills #ManagementTips #VeteranEntrepreneur #FromMarineToCEO
Recruiting, hiring, talent retention, employee retention, career growth, leadership, management, bad hires, quiet quitting, top talent, alignment, goals, relationships, Marines, military, entrepreneur, consulting, sales, technology, cybersecurity, staffing, Kelly Services, Redbeard Solutions, Mulesoft, LinkedIn, interviewing, onboarding, training, coaching, success
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 0:00
sweat equity podcast.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 0:04
Oh, is that seeing thing you just did? Whatever
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 0:07
I want pitch. That's right. That's right. Ric Flair. What's up? We're the number one comedy business podcast in the world. Do you know why? Yeah, we're backed up by a couple of words. We're gonna humble brag about acquisition international just hit us up with the best business excellent award of is this in comedy podcast of the year that
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 0:31
might be our best one to wait.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 0:33
2024 It's only I
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 0:35
know once into the season, but that's the only one that says business in comedy podcast of the year.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 0:40
I feel like they've made that category for I think we made the genre maybe we've been around like seven years. Eight years. Yeah. And then we just hot off the wire today from corporate Livewire Innovation and Excellence Award. Everybody knows that everybody reads it. We already won. We already won 2024 for S M E advice podcast of the year. What's SME? I think small medium enterprise? Sure. Yes. Whatever you
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 1:11
want it is it?
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 1:12
Hey, we're crushing the game. We're crushing it out here. And if you liked this podcast, share it with your friend. Or go on YouTube. Subscribe. hit that little bell button to get notifications when new episodes come in. And this episode's sponsored by zap Yang Z up Yak. The first search optimized AI writer Zup yet just launched the first AI writer on the market where search data is integrated into the AI writer workflow. No knowledge needed about SEO to create content that will have that we'll have better search Impact in seconds not
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 1:51
hours. To get an AI to read that for you.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 1:54
I can't read out loud Zodiac dot coms up ya k.com promo code sweat let's get this party started Hi.
are listening to the sweat equity podcast? Good. All right, we just get right into it here. I'm ready. So we want to start our episodes a little different. We have a little creative different opening. Now we want to do a little lightning round kind of questions to earn your plugs to earn your bio,
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 2:47
your intro or for us to mention your name.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 2:50
So these will be like one word or one sentence answers. Nothing crazy. It's not It's we're not going to ask physics questions. You're
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 2:57
the first guest that's getting this opportunity by the way. So lack of word
Gerry Gadoury, Redbeard Solutions 3:02
opportunity.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 3:03
Yes. Very. So
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 3:05
you're almost there. II were the evil e word exposure. Say that's only an entertainment. Yeah, yeah, we'll pay you exposure to our audience. You're like, that means zero money. No exposure. All right. First question is Did you listen to the podcast before coming on?
Gerry Gadoury, Redbeard Solutions 3:24
Or listen to the one with the old dude.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 3:27
I've gotta be more specific. Right?
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 3:28
Yeah, we got a lot of old white guys on your way. Oh, wow. Okay, very
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 3:32
specific. Nice. Well done. Now that you said that we're like, we have no idea who was who was at all this is
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 3:39
448 episodes. Yes. Yeah, it was 408 that I must have. Yeah, but this one with you. You got 448 Is what I'm saying? Well, you can't I don't have a catalogue memory like that. You got your next question?
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 3:51
Yeah, what age did you have your first French kiss?
Gerry Gadoury, Redbeard Solutions 3:54
14
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 3:55
Okay, diligent answer.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 3:56
Very normal answer.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 3:57
Here's a yes no. Four. Yeah. Is there a God?
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 4:00
Yes. Okay. You got another one know what I didn't know I had to do to I'll give you I'll give me the first time I got one more.
Gerry Gadoury, Redbeard Solutions 4:08
Biggie or Tupac Seattleites now I'm a metalhead I don't know anything about rap See that's what that lady from Ozark I don't know shit about Fox when it comes to route. Okay,
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 4:17
see, that's what I was saying. I didn't like the question. Again with that's not on you. It tells
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 4:21
us about him. That's the idea. Ding dong. I know. He's not into metal.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 4:27
I'd be like I can't pick I mean, they're different. And then
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 4:30
we ask everybody that comes on for the first time this question and you can take your time with this this is this is your like if we're doing a three point shoot around this is your Moneyball shot
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 4:42
with the lightning round is over. Yeah,
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 4:45
we need some music. I need some production. What advice would you give your 13 year old self make
Gerry Gadoury, Redbeard Solutions 4:52
better choices? Yep, I my high school years were beer fighting and girls and that Order changed depending on the day of the week. And I would say make better choices. My options after high school were the Marine, which I took or a factory, which I did. So yeah, that would definitely be my advice to my younger so I want to unpack
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 5:14
that. Let's
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 5:15
make sure we break this down real quick YouTube channel, beer fight and girls. Okay, just That's it.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 5:20
I want to make sure we get your plugs at the top of the episode. Where can people find you? You know, links, social, any of that? Yeah,
Gerry Gadoury, Redbeard Solutions 5:28
I'm easy. I've got a YouTube channel under my name, Gerry Gadoury. I'm all over LinkedIn, which you amusingly made fun of in that episode arch I'd love to talk about. I also have a couple of websites destination employer.co and red beard solutions, my
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 5:43
consulting company, and you gotta book right. Best Seller destination employer, destination employer, attract, recruit and retain the top talent in your market looking to cover overtime. Easy. Yeah. Nice. Yeah, nice setup, just subtle, right in the side.
Gerry Gadoury, Redbeard Solutions 5:58
A very subtle person that should be very clear by
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 6:03
Hey, well, I want to I wanted to hear the background, you're kind of story and how you got to where you are now. But now you distracted us with the LinkedIn. Because we don't know what we talk about on here as soon as we leave. Yeah, memory
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 6:16
erase.
Gerry Gadoury, Redbeard Solutions 6:19
So it's only for the best, it'll save you on therapy belts. For sure. Yeah, I know. You made that comment on length on LinkedIn being just all positive fee saccharin. sweet stuff. Dude, hard disagree. LinkedIn is devolved into this all employers suck. And all employees are wrong place this dichotomy. It's almost like a preview for November.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 6:46
Well, yeah, it is. Your feed is different than ours, you know, in that direction, because of the sector you're in. But I would say there's never been a time where the voice of people going, Hey, recruiting and hiring practices are really like obsolete at this point. And, and like, Man, I follow a couple of people on AIX or whatever that are, like high profile people. And they're like, I did four interviews with this fortune 100 company. And they didn't tell me until a month later that I didn't get the job. Yeah, after the fourth interview that yeah, all one day long each.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 7:24
Yeah. And I'm like working interview probably I get the high
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 7:26
level part of it. Right, that, you know, might be a little bit more stringent. But to me, that shows me the employer doesn't know what they're doing in the process. And so it's a lot of wasted time and time. We'll put a pin in that for a second beer fighting. You're fighting you're
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 7:44
fighting girls. I merged them all together. I had a funny visual. I had a funny visual of you taking beers and fighting girls with them or being I understand there were commas. Beer comma, fighting, comma, girls are being
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 7:57
so drunk you're fighting an inflatable like PBR can at Supermarket Sweep. You know, like, oh, fuck, I'm gonna fuck you up. You know?
Gerry Gadoury, Redbeard Solutions 8:06
My dad was old school if I ever hit a girl he wouldn't have shot it wouldn't look good and it's good. Background and talk you know, left my body cooling and a shallow greens.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 8:15
Yeah, I'm not I'm not down with Jim Morrison and Chris Brown. Just they love to hit. They love hitting women like they love it. Everybody
Gerry Gadoury, Redbeard Solutions 8:23
loves him. But the lead certainly the Beatles was the same way. John Lennon was a big girl smacker and I've never understood people make him a hero. But he was he was open about it. Not
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 8:34
not a fan of him either. Yoko Ono is the worst celebrity of all time. She has like the most the least talent
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 8:42
pre reality TV.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 8:44
No. Have you seen her yell like yodel yell skirt
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 8:48
and plenty of Yoko Ono. I don't need to hear her ever again. Like the most famous
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 8:52
Japanese person in America. Yeah, think about it. What Steve Aoki
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 8:58
show. Hey, Otani.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 8:59
Oh, well, yeah, I don't. I bet her name is more recognizable. Where did you grow up?
Gerry Gadoury, Redbeard Solutions 9:05
Dudley, Massachusetts, a place with all the diversity of a salt shaker?
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 9:11
Well, congratulations on the accent. Yeah.
Gerry Gadoury, Redbeard Solutions 9:14
See, I've been all over the place. Really? To be honest. Massachusetts is a weird place. Everything right? A 495, which is the eastern third of the state is the People's Republic of Massachusetts. The rest of that is much more country. I grew up on 500 acres of pine. The road I grew up on wasn't even paved until I was in high school. It's just Yeah, it's different out in the west Department of State
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 9:36
word. I have trouble saying rural kind of upbringing. You know, new Dale Dix been working on my addiction. Is that in Massachusetts, did you hop around? It sounds like you had a military maybe hop around kind of family background. No,
Gerry Gadoury, Redbeard Solutions 9:51
no, I grew up in Massachusetts. First time I ever gotten an airplane was to go to boot camp in in South Carolina first island. From there obviously Marines I bounced around. Then when I got out of the Marines, I bounced around a bit and then my mom was doing poorly. So I wound up moving back up here. Okay.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 10:07
Yeah, just like you could tell me, you're in Arkansas and I buy it. You know, you just, you got that kind of hearty vibe to it.
Gerry Gadoury, Redbeard Solutions 10:13
But I'll tell you, I was married for 20 years and my wife 15 minutes in any place, and she had that accent like she was crazy. Oh,
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 10:22
like when you're familiar. Your friend goes to the UK for like a week and comes back talking like Madonna, when his tea time. I lived
Gerry Gadoury, Redbeard Solutions 10:30
in Scotland for three years. And after two weeks of her being there, I was like, pretty sure you want to tone that accent.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 10:38
Now when you divorced, or did you have to divorce every accent personality? Is it like? Well, mazel tov on the divorce, we always say that's a good thing. Yeah. The now you're, you're kind of a serial entrepreneur. It's from your bio. How do we get from South Carolina to present time
Gerry Gadoury, Redbeard Solutions 10:59
already answer that question.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 11:03
Philosophically, yes, but yeah, I mean, we got we got time to kind of chew the cud a bit, for sure.
Gerry Gadoury, Redbeard Solutions 11:09
Um, so yeah, so it's kind of interesting. So I didn't take school very seriously at all, as a matter of fact, and we did well, in my senior year of high school, and my dad actually got angry at me. And he goes, You know, I always thought you were stupid. So I never pushed you on this, but clearly or not, then. So I wanted to take the ASVAB score in the top couple percent of the country did signals intelligence to the Marines. That was my exposure to technology. So I got my TSS CI clearance, there's learned a little bit about Unix administration about signals intelligence, radio, wave propagation, all that super nerdy stuff when I got out of the Marines kind of, you know, a wife and two kids to feed. So I just picked the first job I could get Fast forward several years, I got the opportunity to get back into technology and kind of a weird tangent story. This before I even knew what a staffing agency was, or this is before monster existed. I read old story. I went to an interview to be a junior Linux kernel engineer. At what wound up being a staffing firm. The lady who was supposed to interview me called in sick manager felt bad that I drove all the way out there. She interviewed me 15 Minutes interview she said, you don't have the experience the job but do you ever consider becoming a technical recruiter? I had no interest whatsoever. exactly zero, but I figured that close the jobs I just get myself a tech job. Fast forward 25 years I'm talking to a dude in the pink paper. I pick pink I do rag and here we are. Wow,
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 12:35
this is my this is my dry fit. Just in case I sweat. I don't want
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 12:41
your burps right now or so gnarly. He's burping over here. And it's like, I'm on your eat garbage for lunch.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 12:47
Oh, you know, I
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 12:48
had to say something garbage juice.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 12:50
Need to Know the listeners didn't need to know they did.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 12:53
I had I can't be the one to take this on by myself.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 12:56
I'm cool. I'm going on your your soy boy. Fruity diet, keto style. Carnival.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 13:03
I like I tried to flip around and grab on me.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 13:07
Yeah, no, I'm having nasty nasty stuff. I know I'm brewing but coffee down there. Good. So back to our guest. So are you you got in the recruiting side for tech, or you got into like, cybersecurity side or both? Kind of how did that work
Gerry Gadoury, Redbeard Solutions 13:29
out? Yeah. So so the firm that I want to work for was a technology recruiting firm, but it was a generalist firm. So we did everything from desktop support to app dev and you know, everything in between. I pretty rapidly realized that I enjoyed the sales and leadership side more than the recruiting side. So after about a year and a half, two years in, I transitioned to sales and that's right. I found my stride I jam there. did really, really well came, became a man a manager became a regional manager. I wound up moving to Kelly Services, I ran the whole new market for them. So it's a $6 billion business on the New England tech market on from there and went to work for a friend of mines management consulting and sales training company but I'm sure grew up as a principal consultant. So I did sales training. I did recruiter training, I did leadership coaching and then rapidly realized I just assumed be on my own he'd moved to more of a he and I created an LMS and he was really more focused on selling to that and it was good for him but boring for me. So I started my own my first company influence understood where I did against sales training recruiter training by really quickly transitioning to leadership side. So I was doing it started with just management coaching, but again, that rapidly evolved to me taking long term contracts and companies as a senior executive. So as the president of Appa Cerro, we went from two dudes to 2500 people nine offices in three countries and five years nine figure acquisition I took on the role of CIO at prominent, which was a software development house. Long story short, if I were capable of that, I get tired of making other people rich. So I started Red Beard consulting to do myself that favor. And that was really when I migrated hardcore into the
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 15:15
cyber, I mean, I'm your I'm getting a man crush, I don't know about you, but you got some Moxie, I can't think straight with this breath. I'll put some nicotine gum in in a second. But like, but that's that you are kind of one of those rare in the tech, I worked for a it marketing agency, they basically had a lot of it localized. Clients, and then also had, you know, some some enterprise corporate as well, kind of thing. And I know from that experience, you have, you are kind of that rare, unicorny kind of Rockstar, they're like, someone that's in the tech field that has done some of that work, but can sell,
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 15:58
say the sales part is where you can be successful CEO,
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 16:03
you're the queen piece on the chessboard, you're a face of the company, you know, that's really rare to come by. And then you just kind of took that and kind of pushed it forward, I guess, do you have that inertia to do it, you know, talk to us about so my, one of my favorite stats ever in business is a bad hire is negative 298% ROI.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 16:26
I feel like you change the number every time it's that
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 16:29
that's been the number. It's a weird stat I have in my head for years, it's probably changed by now. But it's the moral of the story is, it's bad. When you're not good at hiring, and you hire the wrong person. Talk to us about kind of the landscape nowadays, how you know that fervor on LinkedIn, you're saying, you know, now people are having a voice to talk about this, this whole process, I don't think we're very good as a whole, in just the US on how we hire people. We're big proponents of like, you know, predictive index, or culture index or Asher strategies, tests that can help kind of make sure your personality fits, shouldn't be way too much. But it can kind of go okay, this person is probably more sailing, you know, let's let's, let's get them slid, slid over that way. I have a track. What are your thoughts?
Gerry Gadoury, Redbeard Solutions 17:19
Yeah, you know, I'm going to speak of this as a whole for the sake of, you know, having a conversation. But for the sake of problem solving, you can't do it this way. So I'm gonna give you the simple answer first. But whenever you're trying to solve a problem, you're gonna break it down to the smallest possible components, so that it's a solvable thing. But the real issue is that the relationship between employee and employer has changed. When when our dads were working, if you're in a job for less than a decade, you were a Job Hopper, when I came on the scene in the late 90s, early 2000s. If you were on job for less than five to seven years, you were a job off fast for just a couple of years. If you had more than two jobs in seven years, you were a Job Hopper a couple more years, that was five now for tech folks, they're averaging 18 to 24 months in a job, the relationship isn't the same many. So what's happening now is that as people are seeing more of the world, and as social media gives them a platform to speak from there, speaking of problems that many of many of them are already there. So really, the focus needs to shift rather than I'm hiring Eric in law to be my whatever your roles are going to be. In my company, I'm developing relationship with these two guys. And we're going to work together whenever opportunity and need a lot, you might work for me for the next year on a project, find something better and go away and come back in six months after that, we may never work together again. But if my mentality is I'm developing a long term relationship, these guys, everything shifts, everything transitions in how we interact. And it becomes more about aligning our goal. And the more that we can align our goals, the more likely we all get a positive outcome. And again, not to totally steal the microphone. But this phenomenon of quiet quitting. This is the inverse of what I just described. If you go out on your floor, and it's nothing but crickets and people are clock watch until five. The problem is you. You are the reason that is what it is. You've done nothing to inspire these folks, you've given nothing than nothing to reach for. They're just there for their allotted time to get the money to go do what they do on their own. So so I don't know if that answers your question.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 19:24
No, no, no. I'm just taking it all in No, I 100% agree with everything you're talking about. There's no golden watch. And there's, well, there's no retirement after 30 years, kind of like my dad worked at the same place for 35 years that his Boomer generation now will pretty much be the last of that unless you know you really just don't you want to be a nine to five or lifer kind of person. Now that's
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 19:48
a cool way to do it. I mean, kind of looking at it like it's relationship building because then you can shift that to kind of feels like a stable of people that you can draw from and just have your company be that much better with all these different resources now, just because you don't think of it as just a job to fill or whatever think he was a person and all that, you know,
Gerry Gadoury, Redbeard Solutions 20:08
I'll pick on APA Sarah, that's the company I was president of that we grew to five years and got acquired by NTT DATA. So when I joined them, when we first started out, we weren't, they still are a mule soft consulting company. Eagle soft is an API tool that sits inside of the Salesforce ecosystem, and at the time, mule, soft to just been acquired by Salesforce. And they were the white hot tech that everybody loved getting mule soft jobs wasn't super hard to do, getting people to do them was so we had to build our company around being able to consistently attract, recruit, retain anybody who could even spell mule soft because we had more work than we had people. And the way that we did that was largely what I described a minute ago, if I was interviewing one of you guys to come and join the company, I'd be asking you what your next career career stuff? What projects are you looking for? What are you trying to accomplish the next five years making sure that aligns with what I need. If it doesn't align, there's no reason to waste any more your time. It's not a win. But if it does, we're going to keep going. What are you looking to achieve as it relates to integration architecture, and mule soft and as long as this aligns not only am I learning about you, and creating a natural environment for you to be open about what you're trying to achieve, but I'm also building your career plan so that if we do move forward transition to onboarding you and creating your employee review structure of that business, I know what you want to do, I'm building that into your employee reviews, when I'm talking to you about your projects. I'm not saying I need you to do X by y. I'm saying Hey, Eric, in order to achieve that architect level you talked about, we need to get this done. Where are we at? And surprising nobody because Eric cares about Eric, he's a lot more in tune than if I'm saying you have to do X by y or I'm gonna be a
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 21:50
guy. Yes. All that. Yeah.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 21:53
I mean, I love the openness. Well, you can just be you know, hey, listen, I don't know if I'm, you know what my plan is, I'm I'm free for a year and like, it's just such a breath of fresh air the direction things need to go or the quiet quitting stuff. Just like, it's counterintuitive. And you think you're always like, you're always on the lookout watching your back, just like it's not how you get productive work done.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 22:15
It's counterintuitive to how everybody kind of thinks to look at it. Let's do this. Quentin Tarantino movie style. Let's do the end of the beginning. I want to know the exit on the entry. So I know where you're at. Yeah, I've always talked about like Chick fil A the reason they can get you know, $12 an hour workers to never say You're welcome and say My pleasure, because you can't get them to do it. It's like Buckingham Palace, you can't break them is because they've created a professional track for them. Right? Yes. Here's a very systematic laid out route. You may own one of these in 15 years, if you do everything on this track, right? It's laid out right when the entry point, the lowest low. Employee, you're saying like in a way of like interviewing for people, I want to know your track for your career personal because I want to know where your mindsets at. And I bet you arrived at this out of frustration of hiring techniques. And it's almost more economic to do it this way. Is that right?
Gerry Gadoury, Redbeard Solutions 23:17
There's no almost and the other part of it too, is you mentioned that that retention stopped early on at Twitter 98x thing. If I hire you, and this and you have the technical skills and chops to do the job, but you have no opportunity to grow in my role. Why are you going to stay? Right? Right? There's no reason the leadership framework that I espouse in my book in my programs, my consulting company and all that stuff. I call it the E fg leadership framework engaged, fulfilling grow. If I look at you law, and I talk to you, I engage with you, I'm sure you feel heard and valued on my team, you're fulfilling your job. It's achieving your personal goals you have ideally, you're happy with the mission of the company and you're growing leader role, and you have growth, a career path beyond that in my company, you're never going to go, there's not a reason for it. But as soon as one of those things breaks, that's not the case anymore. It might well be growth, you might be killing it. We might be getting along great. But the next logical step in your career in the timeline you need it is it with so if at that point you leave, you're no traitor, you didn't kidnap my kid and run away, the next step in your career is with me. So I make that easy. I make it a graceful transition. And while you're out there, and now I've got an ally in the marketplace, you might provide a testimonial for me, you might give me intro to that company, you might very well boomerang back when the next step comes, everything is good. It's a natural ending to what could could and should be paused. So when that happens, we do a good exit interview. I create an alumni group that you're a part of and do and everything is rosy, but people take business in some ways. So personally, like I said, it's a motion that for a good reason. Yeah,
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 24:53
yeah, no, there's a lot of meat on this bone to go over and you know, we try to keep the As to around 30 minutes, we'll have you back on but it's like there is a weird emotion because I think it's really interesting. You're telling people to change their mindset for hiring, like hiring managers and executives, here's your mindset, you need to not think of it as a, we got to feel this position right now and then be done. Okay, moving on kind of thing. You really need to dedicate a little bit of thought to this, to this human. Yeah. Which is odd. But you know, it's not, it's, it's not, you're actually more efficient and profitable. If you do take a little bit of that time to go, Hey, I need to know what this person is about other than the actual skills they may have, you know, that kind of got him in the door. But if they, and there's externalities, too, right? Like they can get hit by bus, that's what was my example, right? You can't help that. But people get really upset. If you you go, you go somewhere, that culture is weird. In a lot of places I've been at might be successful. But as Michael robot and says, winnings a stinky cloud IQ, you might be winning, the company might be crushing it on the on the income statement, but internally, it's fucking a mess. And everyone's scared or lives in fear, you know, you
Gerry Gadoury, Redbeard Solutions 26:13
don't. But dude, there's more to that, too. So I've been doing this for more than 25 years. And in that time, I've seen far more bad matches that have bad candidates and bad company. So to your point, that place might be great, it's not great for you, right? That doesn't make you a bad guy that doesn't make them bad guy, it makes it a bad marriage. So go away and go find a place where you can thrive, I'll tell you, a lot of people think what I say is woowoo. And then when I tell them the NPS, they lose that. And that's this, I give anybody I hire 100% of my support, until one of three things happen. Number one, they show through their execution, they can do it, and they've earned autonomy. And I bless them to go and do their thing. Number two, they've shown that they can't do it, you know, we made a mistake, there's a misalignment of skills or whatever, at that point, if they're a strong cultural match, and there's another role I for sure will push them to that new role, because they're a good match for the team. They're just mad not a bad match for the job. But if they won't do it, or there's not another open role, we separate right there. Why? Because I'm wasting that person's time. They're never going to thrive. They're never going to be a rock star. And I'm wasting my resource. I'm paying somebody who's never gonna make it. So we partway so again, 100% of my sport support till they either do it show they care or show they won't. And then
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 27:28
the last kind of question I've got for you. Why don't Why does everybody think there's a couple of things that people feel are innate, that they they kind of just know, because they're a human, I put tasted music in there. I put it since a humor in that bucket of funny. People think they know marketing, because they experience it. Recruiting the other ones management. Yeah. What you just spoke to about like, hey, and then let's call it the first 90 days, I'm going to I'm going to have one of three outcomes. And that's I'm going to make sure but I'm going to, I'm going to follow up with you every day, which probably doesn't isn't that hard. Honestly, you just have to be very diligent about those little follow ups every day, you know, because you probably have a bunch of people, I'm guessing. But you have you have one of three scenarios, it's going to happen at the end of this whatever period, I'm gonna say 90 days, for example, why don't people ever take management classes or ever think what's the why so much hubris around managing people? And because a lot of people will leave a job because of bad managers, not because they're a bad employee?
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 28:33
Can I vote for that? I think it's because they're, they're pigeon holed in, they already have to be the manager, it doesn't like that to you know, they're here on the manager, like, what, it doesn't matter. I'm not hiring another person to run my business. That's my thought, Yeah, they'll have to that's definitely
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 28:49
a big chunk of it, too. You come in, and you're basically you know, if you want something done, give it to a busy person kind of logic, like, you know, and they'll just go off well, this guy, this guy's number two, he wants to do three jobs. Perfect. You know, and then the then micromanage at the worst is coming in and micromanaging and then going away, and then coming back in randomly and doing it again, you really, you don't know what's going on here.
Gerry Gadoury, Redbeard Solutions 29:16
I talked about that my book micromanagement absentee management and active management. But to answer your question, a quick example first. So my first recruiting management job, my branch manager called me into her office and said, Would you like to be? We call them quad leads? You got four people on your team? I said, Yeah, sure. And she goes, I thought you'd say that and handed me a box of business cards, walked me out of her office announced my new role and gave me my quad. And that was my man.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 29:41
Whoa, yeah. He was really confident in you.
Gerry Gadoury, Redbeard Solutions 29:45
And like that, and I was so bad at it. Initially, that she would send people to my quad that she wanted to leave the company.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 29:54
Oh, shit. That's a roll in itself. You know, I was horrible.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 29:58
You're like the beat People that are in jail for you had like the jailbirds that are there for a year or two, waiting to get out or go to prison. Damn, yeah, no, that's because that's part of retention to me, right? If you do invest time and the hiring process and bringing them in and bringing talented people in, you made the right hire. Let's get over that part. Now managing people as part of retention. It's just fun. It's always fun to be no one ever goes. You know what, maybe I should read a management book, right?
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 30:27
Well, they pick and choose what they want to spend their money on. Like there's management courses, but it's like, you know, you can't go halfway.
Gerry Gadoury, Redbeard Solutions 30:35
Sorry. Earlier, while when he said people, it's like recruiting people think they can do it. Because it's a soft skill and soft skills don't require education, just pick them up on the fly. But the difference between a highly performing team, a competent team, and a below average team is night and day and the universal truth of the highly performing teams as they have highly performing leaders that know how to get that that performance from that part of what builds that as the stability of retention. And we focused on that. And it's a good thing to focus on. It's easier to fill buckets than it is colander. So it's a smart play to talk about. But let's take it the next step and say how do we take those people and turn them into highly performing team. And that's through a strong leader that knows how to align goals and speak to people and to put things through the lens of their own enlightened self interest, the better and more effective they are at that, the more naturally that person becomes engaged in your outcome. If you know I care about your outcome, you care about mine. That's just basic reciprocity. But you're right, it's a skill. My book is how to consistently attract recruit, retain top talent. But I spend more time talking about leadership and I do all of those things, because it's what drives everything.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 31:44
Right. Right. And, and, you know, thank you for letting us have Tom Brady for three years.
Gerry Gadoury, Redbeard Solutions 31:52
We're hosting his wife as a witch. Hey, man.
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 31:55
Hey, that's another successful divorce in my book.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 31:58
Yep. He's in our club. All right, we
Law Smith Comedian Fractional CMO 32:01
got to get you back on I'm gonna get your book and actually read it. Instead of some of the books I get. Just I'll get to that. Because I totally philosophically aligned with everything you've been saying. And it's one of those things that a couple episodes ago where you're talking about that car dealership, speaker, the guy who teaches sales for dealerships, and he's totally exposed as a fraud. I forget he's like a redhead. Kind of looking dude. One of these eyebrow fashional here the TV off the wall. Yeah, tear the TV off the wall. Put a whiteboard up. Yeah, like your family's like, What the fuck? Can I draw on it? No. It's for business. Yeah, family. Yeah, one of those. Your you should be as fake more famous than that guy like, yeah, yeah. What you're what you're putting out there is actual pragmatic advice. It's not woowoo. It's sustainable. Right? Right. It's actually more. It's more economical and efficient than a lot of the other PR, I've heard talk about the subject. So we'll have to get back on and if you're ever in Florida, give us a holler. But appreciate you coming on and, yeah, we'll, we'll be in touch. Thanks,
Gerry Gadoury, Redbeard Solutions 33:09
guys. I appreciate the opportunity to be on your show. Thank you.
Eric Readinger, Fractional CMO, Producer and Head Of Media 33:11
Thank you. Thanks.
