From CIA to CX Expert: Joey Coleman on Building Unbreakable Relationships in Business Part 2

If your employees all live within 30km of your house, it tells me one of two things. Either you work in an industry that is very hands on or you don't have the best employees in the world. The most recent research seems to indicate that turnover cost in the United states alone is $1 trillion a year. A trillion dollars a year in turnover costs to businesses. The research also shows that to replace an employee cost somewhere between 100 and 300% of their annual salary. You should have a plan for onboarding your new hires that last 100 days. Less than 5% of companies globally Less than 5% of companies globally train their new hires for more than 30 days.

This is probably why I continue to read this book so much, Joey, because your next book, which is Never Lose an Employee Again, which is equally powerful, the more recent one, which I'm going to get to in a second. But you know, I feel like we're more predisposed to be thinking of our employees in that way on a retention basis because maybe it's, it hurts a little bit more, it's more visual to us on a day to day. But our customers, you know, like you said, a lot of people take them for granted. And I will tell you, anyone who's listening today, if this has resonated with you in any way, shape or form, great. Grab this book. There's so many actionable steps to make sure that you can implement this in your business. Even better, if you want to work with Joey, I'm going to make sure his, his information is in here at the end. But he does work one on one with certain businesses. You've got to pre qualify. But he will work with businesses to help implement this type of system. But regardless, start with the book. It is so powerful. Joey, that was amazing. Thank you for this. I'm waiting now for Never Lose an Employee Again. So this is Joey, your second book. Incredibly remarkable. I know as soon as I saw the release that this was coming out, I was for sure on the advanced buyer list because once again I think you articulate and say things in a very understandable way and give you actionable steps to implement into your business. And guys, I've listened to this both of these multiple times because every time I pick up something new or something that I didn't do, but thought, hey, I'm going to really listen to Joey and I'm gonna do it, but I didn't like so many and you listen to it again and you go, I need to do it now. You can't hit me in the face with this so many times we have to start doing it. So I will just say too Joey, once I read this book and I think we all, all businesses went through challenging times coming through the pandemic, going from all in person work experiences to remote to hybrid, to people changing their perspective on, you know, know what matters most in their life. I know for us personally as an organization, our employee net promoter score dropped and I think we dropped down to about a 13, which was heartbreaking for me in 2022. And now after, you know, implementing some of the tools and the tricks that you've talked about in your book, we're now at an 83, which is incredible. So I want to thank you for that.

Oh, that's music to my ears. Robert. Congratulations. Congratulations. That's amazing.

And one more to share. And again, I will give you some credit for this as well. We just got recognized as the 32nd best employer in Canada, between 100 and 1,000 employees. So whoa.

Congratulations. That's a huge accomplishment. So cool.

Thank you.

So cool. Yeah. And for what it's worth, Robert, there is not a business on the planet that didn't struggle with employee relations and employee retention during the pandemic. It was an unprecedented moment in human history. Now I understand there have been pandemics before, okay. And there have been global virology crises before. But in the past, historically, when we look at those in some parts of the world were hit more than others. Some it was more significant than others. This covered the entire planet and in about 60 days. And when you think about that and you think about every business in every industry being impacted, I mean, businesses were shut down. Businesses were that wanted to stay open were forced not to be open. Some people were really irritated because they wanted to be open. Some people were happy to stay home and not be open. There was a, there was a whole balance of humanity. And what's also fascinating is if we look at all the different countries in the world and almost every country handled it differently and everybody thought they were doing a great job and there were consequences of the way every single country handled it, pro and con. Right. Consequences doesn't mean necessarily that they were negative, just means things happened as a result. I think the challenge we have is so many businesses are still operating with like a 2019 mentality as it relates to their people instead of a post pandemic mentality with how it relates to their people. And that's why we actually delayed the publication of the book. The book was supposed to come out, out sooner. We Actually delayed it because I was like, the worldview of employment is changing. And I don't believe this is a generational change. I believe this is a across the scale of humanity change. Like this is the equivalent of the idea of we're going off the farm to work somewhere else. This is that magnitude of change. Because if we look at history 50 years ago, chances are better than not. You work for an employer that was within 30 kilometers of your house for sure. Now if your employees all live within 30km of your house, it tells me one of two things. Either you work in an industry that is very hands on. Chiropractic care, for example, they haven't figured out to do a chiropractic adjustment over zoom yet. Okay, it's probably coming at some point in the future, but we're not there yet. Or, or you don't actually have the best employees in the world, you have the best employees in your geography. There's nothing wrong with that. But I think as leaders we kind of dilute ourselves to thinking, oh, we've got the best and the brightest, but they got to come into the office every day. Well, I'm, I'm not saying I'm against working at an office. I'm not saying I'm against entirely remote work. What I am saying is the practical reality of the planet today is that people expect some fluidity in where they work from. And the businesses that I think are going to be on the cutting edge are the ones who acknowledge that fluidity. I'm again, I'm not saying all at the office, all at home. No. Being on the edges of anything being extreme or absolutist on any topic, any is problematic. Right. We gotta have some ebb and flow in between. But yeah, it's a crazily curious time right now.

Well, and it's that flexibility of that space that you're talking about that people are looking for right now that didn't exist. And to Joey's point, anybody who hasn't changed their approach to their team pre and post COVID pandemic experience, you're going to have challenges retaining these people. And to Joey's point, if you're looking to attract the best and the bright, that you're likely not getting them if you're still dealing with a pre Covid mindset to how you engage with your team and how you support them. So I couldn't agree more. And it's definitely, you know, I would say for those that have made drastic shifts, it was maybe the knock that we all needed to go, hey, this should have happened a long time ago, right? We shouldn't have let the world dictate that this needed to happen. We should have, you know, involuntarily suggested these changes because that's really what's in the best interest of our people.

Totally, Robert. But here's the glorious thing about humans. As a general rule, the majority of us don't make changes until something really big outside of our control happens. And then it's like you, you cannot be alive today and not know that eating healthy is the best choice. Like, there's no gray area here, right? It's like the healthier you eat, the better you feel, the longer you live. There's. This is not open for debate. Again, I'm not saying you have to only eat salad, okay? But what happens is we. What often results in the change? Well, I have a major health crisis, or they break up with me, or I don't get the job and they tell me why. You know, whatever it is, something happens that is a borderline cataclysmic, at least in our own worldviews event that makes us push forward and do it differently. And I think that's what the pandemic did. It forced companies that didn't even want to think differently to have to think differently. The problem is, post pandemic, I think a lot of them flipped back to the old way of doing business, instead saying, wait a second, it worked during the pandemic. Or at least these parts of it worked. Maybe not all of it worked, but how can we meld a model for our business going forward that acknowledges the reality of the situation we're in?

And, Joey, I would say, too, part of the reason we've been so successful is that that has been our strategy to continue to focus on it, where people are saying, no, go back to work, right? Especially in the professional services space. Some of the larger organizations are saying, no, we need everybody back to work. Because certainly statistics would show productivity is likely higher, right? And then you go, okay, well, I don't know.

You know, the research is actually not clear on that. Robert, for what it's worth, the research is actually pretty clear that productivity is higher when you're not there. And by the way, and this is not you, but some of the people out in the world that are saying, return to work, they were working the whole time, folks, it's returned to office. If you want to call it something, it's returned to office. But here's the kicker, and I was talking to a group of commercial Real estate folks recently. Why? What has changed about the office that makes it better than staying at home? Because now I got a commute. I'm probably have to pay for lunch instead of eat lunch because I don't want to be that person who brings my lunch with me. I've got to deal with this. I've got to deal with the interruptions. I've got to be in this office space that feels, that feels sterile, that isn't designed the way I work. I sit in my crappy chair at my too low desk with my dated computer versus sitting in the comfort of my own home and being able to not have the commute and throw a load of laundry in and come back to the call. What I find fascinating, Robert, is we thought nothing of asking the employees to respond to emails after hours. We thought nothing of asking them to take their laptops or take their phones when they were on the road or on vacation. We thought nothing of saying we want you to do work when you're over there at home. But suddenly when an employee says, I like that I can throw a load of laundry in while I'm on a conference call, we're like, ugh, they're not being productive.

What?

Like the logical fallacy of this argument. I still haven't found anybody that can explain it to me. Why is it okay for us to blur into their Life outside of 9 to 5, but the second they try to bring any aspect of their non 9 to 5 personal life to that work window, we get appalled. Like, what? How is that? It just doesn't even make sense to me.

I love this and I can see your passion tied to this as.

Yeah, I have no strong feelings on this topic whatsoever.

Not at all.

I already knocked the mic over once during our conversation. I can't do it again. My hands are in my pocket now. I got to calm down.

Yeah, I got to. You got to watch your face though because you know, as you get more passionate, you get close. No. And again, this is something that we're looking at and going, well, this is a great opportunity because there's so, so many extremely talented people wherever they are in the world who are looking at this and going, we're being forced back to this office. But we really appreciate the flexibility that not being there gives us. Who's an employer that would be willing to work with us in this environment? And we've got our hands up going, hey, experienced people, we're here to support you and create stuff.

The water's great, come on in.

You know.

Yeah, it's nice.

So back, back to your agency days. We've, we're looking at, not even looking at, We've got, implemented a marketing plan to find and attract and convert these people who are looking for those opportunities. And it's a beautiful, beautiful thing. But anyway, it is, it is so good. So, so thinking of the customer and then back to, to book number two here we talked about the cost of losing a customer. Can you walk me through the cost of losing an employee?

Yeah, the, the math, math on losing a customer look like elementary school versus graduate school. I mean it's unbelievable. So, irony of all ironies, the research shows that somewhere between 20 and 70% of your new hires will quit before the 100 day anniversary. Ironically, it's the same statistic, the same percentage going to pick because why? It's the same humans. It's humans. We keep coming back to humans. The most recent research seems to indicate that turnover cost in the United, United States alone is in excess of a trillion dollars a year. A trillion dollars a year in turnover cost to businesses. The research also shows that to replace an employee cost somewhere between 100 and 300% of their annual salary. So if you have a $50,000 a year employee, that leaves, it's going to cost you somewhere between 50,000 and 150,000 to get someone into that seat. That's before you start paying them, by the way. Right? That's your, your promotional cost, your interviewing cost, your loss in productivity, all the different pieces of the puzzle. And so what we find is that we need to pay attention to not only our customers leaving, but we need to pay attention to our employees leaving. An irony of all ironies. The three tips I gave before kind of can be turned around and applied to employees not to, you know, make it too easy, but we have buyer's remorse. Allow me to introduce you to a phrase you might not be as familiar with. It's called new hires remorse. It's the exact same scientific feeling of doubt and uncertainty that someone has immediately after they accept a job offer. Is this really going to be the job I thought it was going to be? Is this really going to be the kind of place I want to work? What are you doing to communicate with them between the time they accept the offer and when they show up for the first day on the job? That affirm phase, how are you affirming their choice? In most organizations they're like, hey, we'll see you in two weeks on Tuesday at 9am and then they never talk to him again. And during those two weeks, while they're waiting to start, that person's thinking, is this really where I want to work? Oh, you know, actually I heard from one of the other places that I had been interviewing with and they want to call me in and maybe I should go do a second interview with them. We need to be paying attention to this, right? Number two, the employee journey. Have we defined what the employee journey is? Many organizations, when you show up for the first day on the job, have an agenda of, here's what we're going to do on day one. Very few have an agenda for day two or day four or day nine or day 13. You should have a plan for onboarding your new hires that last 100 days. Less than 5% of companies globally Less than 5% of companies globally train their new hires for more than 30 days. Stop and think about that. Do you want them to stay more than 30 days? Because I kind of think you do. You should probably be willing to invest more than a day or two or even a week in their training and onboarding. And last but not least, taking them for granted. Almost every business has employees who've been with it for a long time, maybe even since the beginning. What's the value of staying? Well, Joey, they still get a paycheck and they've been getting some raises over time and some promotions. Yeah, but they're giving something that they can never get back. Their time. They will never be able to make these years again. Are they committed to the mission? Are they committed to the vision? Are they committed to the business? Yes, because they keep showing up. Are we committed to them? Ooh, wait a second. I think the employers of choice in the future are going to be the employers who care as much about what happens in their employees lives between 5pm and 9am as they do about what happens between 9am and 5pm I'm not saying you got to dive into all of their personal stuff. You shouldn't. But you should be aware of things that matter to them. Are they in a relationship? Do they have a spouse? A significant other? Do they have kids? Do they have aging parents? Do they have responsibilities? Do they have a pet? Where do they like to vacation? What do they like to do for their hobbies? What's their favorite band? What's their favorite author? All of these things that we think nothing of, making sure that we track this for our customers. Right? We have a CRM, a Customer Relationship Management Database. Does your business have an erm, an Employee Relationship Management Database? I know yours does, Robert, but Most of the people listening don't.

Yeah, yeah.

And it's like, these are the people you work with. I meet people all the time. I'll talk to CEOs and I'll be like, what's the biggest thing your assistant's going through right now that doesn't deal with work? Like, what do you mean? I was like, you answered my question. Thank you. Every human is going through something.

Yes.

Are you aware of that? Are you making space for that? Are things going well in their life? Not going well? What's something that's not going well in their life that you could solve very easily or help them with very easily? Because that's how you build relationship and that's how you create the stickiness of relation of relationship and retention. It is much, much easier to quit a company than to quit a friend. It's that simple and it's that complex.

So let me ask you this because, and I'm sure you'll have a really great answer for it, but this would be the resistance that I'm, I would feel from the entrepreneurial space. There's only so much time in the day for the team and for us. How do we find that time? And you know, is it that important?

Yeah. Well, it's not important at all if you are okay losing 100 to 300% of salaries every time you have to replace someone, losing 20 to 70% of your new hires, et cetera. If, if you haven't bought into the. It's important financially or it's important just in terms of humanity. We should have a separate conversation when folks tell me, joey, but what about the time? My question usually is great. Let's look at your calendar. Let's look at your week. How much of your week was spent externally focused on your customers versus internally focused on your employees? Usually that question alone gives us a big piece of insight. How quick are you to cancel a luncheon with your top client versus cancel the quarterly one on one with one of your top performing employees? Oops. There's a lot of leaders that would, you know, be offended if they found out one of their team members canceled the meeting with a client. But think nothing of saying to somebody on their team, we're going to have to push that meeting that you and I were going to have today until tomorrow. Things just blew up. I got busy. Show me your calendar. I'll show you what you care about.

Absolutely. And I can I run sort of our check in schedule by you and I. I'd love some feedback. So accountability for the team, not just for results, but for transparency for our team, understanding, you know, what their contribution is to the overall organization. So trying to get ultimately the job descriptions, the ownership for everyone of what they're responsible for all the way up to, hey, this is. We're all in this together and this is how each of us plays our little part. When we created a communication cadence, we actually have it that our team, every single one of our teams. So a manager with any of their teams, team members meets on Monday to go over sort of what the goals and objectives are during the week. Now we have a secondary meeting that may only be 15 minutes and to touch on a lot of the things that you talked about. Fifteen minutes, one on one with every manager and their team members weekly, just to check in and see what's going on in life. How are you making out with the objectives? Do you need my support in any way? Is that a value? Is that too much or not enough? Or how do you feel about the weekly check in?

I think a weekly check in is great as long as we're not doing it because it's a weekly check in. And that's what often happens when we have a weekly check in. It becomes a task, not a conversation.

Got you.

Oh, I got to have my weekly check in meeting. How's things going for you, Robert? Oh, they're going good. Okay. Things are going for me, too. Okay, great, thanks. Next, back to emails. Right. What I also think is interesting is where is the check in about what's going on for them personally, not their business objectives, not their goals, but like, hey, what's going on in your life? You know, one of the things I tried to do with my team is carve out specific time quarterly for a deeper, bigger conversation. Let's go to lunch and actually have a conversation about what's going on in your life, you know, to the degree that the employee wants to share. And the secret on that, by the way, is you go first. What do I mean by that? Well, human beings are quicker to share if they feel like you're willing to be vulnerable. You know, Robert, early on in this conversation, shares, well, you know, it broke my heart when our employee net promoter score was 13%. But look at what it is now, right? Your willingness to go first and be vulnerable and be honest creates a whole separate space for everybody listening who might have a lower number right now to go, oh, there is hope, there's possibility. And I think when we say, hey, here's the challenges I'm having at home or here's the challenges I'm having with my career. Here's the challenges I'm having living on this planet at this time. It creates space for the other person to say, I'm not in this alone.

Yeah. Super powerful. Joey, this has been incredible. The last sort of question I have for you relates to. It's selfish, really. You know, you gave me this in 2018. Never lose a customer again. You gave me this in 2023, which you held onto, which I'm looking at the gap and I'm going, if you held on to this, you know, my next question is going to be what's next for Joey Coleman and when am I getting my next book that I get to overread.

Yeah. So hopefully sooner rather than later. There are a number of books that are in contention to be the next book, and depending on which one gets selected, some are further along in the thought process and the. And the evolution than others. But there may be some things that are moving to a higher priority because of what's going on on the planet. So hopefully soon. I'm flattered that you asked. There are things in the works. I do enjoy and love writing books and want to continue doing it. And now it's just a question of, okay, what, what is a cadence that works with life and research and work and family and all the other things I want to do. But rest assured, something will be coming out in the hopefully not too distant future and I will make sure that you know about it.

Well, thank you for no certainty on that, but I appreciate just how I.

Danced around that perfectly and didn't commit to anything I did.

And you know, what I took away from that is that you have multiple future book and projects that you have lined up that are a vision and I look forward to hearing and reading every single one of those. So, Joey, thank you so much for your insights here. I know the reason that you're on this podcast is, I believe it was in Never Lose an Employee Again. You said, hey, if anybody who reads this book wants to get me on their podcast, reach out here. And I think I did.

Yeah, you did. Which is great. And anybody, if you host a podcast, I love these conversations and I especially love these conversations with hosts that are not only as professional and fabulous as you are, Robert, but who want to dive into not only the specific tactical questions, but the bigger questions about like, well, where does this fit in my day? Where does this fit in our universe? Because none of us are leading these siloed, insular, one off lives. We are all Leading massively complex, complicated, vibrant, troubling, adventurous, terrifying lives. And it's like wherever we get the opportunity to lean into it. It's a conversation I'm excited to have. So thank you so much for having me on the show and thanks to everybody who was kind enough to listen in. I hope you had as much fun as I did.

Well, that is fantastic, Joey. How can people best get a hold of you? I'm going to make sure that there's links to both of your books for people who are interested in getting that in their hands, which should be everybody. But. But other than that, how can people best get a hold of you?

Best place to find me is on my website, which is joeycolman.com that's J O E Y like a baby kangaroo or a five year old, you know, Coleman C-O L E M A N.com JoeyColman.com there's information there about customer experience, employee experience, speaking, consulting, free downloads for you, all kinds of stuff. So yeah, my mission is to increase the amount of remarkable experiences that are happening on the planet. Whether those are for our customers, whether those are for our employees, whether those are experiences we're creating for ourselves. Wherever we have the opportunity to make the most of this one life we're given, I want to try to figure out how to not only do that, but hopefully help others do it and deliver on that for others as well.

Amazing, Joey. Thank you once again, guys, isn't he just the best? Make sure that you're definitely checking out his website, get his books. Just to recap, this is the Wealthy Entrepreneur Podcast. I'm your host, Robert Govreau. It is a pleasure to have you here today. There were so many insights shared, not only related to how to treat your customers in a better way to make your business more successful with respect to those relationships. And we added in employees as well. Maybe the two key relationships that you have in your business life overall. We are on a mission to empower entrepreneurs with the financial confidence to make informed decisions and change the world. And matching that with insights that Joey shared today. I'm sure you guys will be on the right page. If there's anything that you heard today that you think would be beneficial to have in the hands of someone else, please share this. You know, again, we're here to help support entrepreneurs to continue to be successful. Give us a like, leave a comment, make sure you're following so that we can get the next episode in your hands. Once again, guys, thank you so much for joining me. Have a fantastic day.