Hiring, Firing and Salaries – DBA Small Business Show 19

Greetings, folks, and welcome to DBA, the Small Business Show. Episode number 19 for Wednesday, June 17, 2015. As usual here in Durham, New Hampshire. I'm Dave Hamilton.

And I'm Shanna Jean in sunny Northern California. How you doing, Dave?

I'm doing well, man. How are you?

I'm okay. We've been troubleshooting some network issues here, and hopefully things will keep steady and we'll roll right through the whole show.

We'll roll right through the show. Yeah, we'll keep an eye on. On the. On the Skype pipes and see how it goes.

Yes, that's right. That's right. Yeah. And so today, you know, last week we had an interview. We're trying to kind of pace ourselves and maybe do an interview every other show, see how that goes. And we've got some things lined up going forward. And today we. We'd like to talk about hiring and firing. Is that right?

That's the plan. It's not an easy. Hiring is a whole lot more fun. Can we start there?

Yeah, let's start there.

Yeah.

Well, I think we should do. I like to call it the. The compliment sandwich. So we'll start with hiring. We'll talk a little bit about firing, and maybe at the end, we can come back and talk a bit more about positive stuff and. Okay, you know, squeeze it in there. We'll see. We'll see how it goes.

Yeah.

You know, but. But hiring certainly is one of the. Or can be one of the most rewarding things about, you know, running your business. And. And there's some things to get started. And, you know, we'll. We'll share some thoughts on our experience today. And probably the first one is, how do you find people that you want to hire?

Well, that's the trick. Right. And you've talked a little bit about that. Your internship thing has inspired me. We talked about that. I can't remember what show it was, but it was somewhere in the single digits. We talked about.

It was.

Yep. We talked about internships. So that's one way, you know, here at Mac observer, the way we audition people, but in that we're able to bring people on and pay them for, you know, an article, a piecemeal. Right. You know, so we might say, okay, we'll have you write one article. How'd that go? Okay, great, you know, now let's have you write a little bit more. Do you fit in with the family? We can have them in. You know, we have a staff meeting every day. We're virtual company, so we. We you know, we, we meet on online and so you know, see how they fit in the culture and then you know, it usually can be a very organic thing and, and somebody you know, and then it heats up and then finally it's like well okay, now let's, let's make this a little more official and actually you know, bring you on board either either part time or full time. But something, something more than just whenever it's convenient for you and us. Right? You know, yeah, sure.

Now going back to when you know, getting started with that, where do you usually seek out like if you read something someone you know published online and you like it, is that the type of thing or is it word of mouth or how do you, what is the initial thing?

Yeah, a little bit of everything. So we've had uh, we, we certainly had it where, where somebody's working somewhere else. I mean in the, in the Mac industry there's been a lot of, a lot of freedom freeing of staff like when when Mac World changed a lot of stuff there and, and the unofficial Apple Web blog to, to. Aw. I mean there's been a lot of. Of of sites that have either completely folded or been folded into something and released a, a significant number of, of their staff and that, and that happens. Right? And you know, within the industry we already know these people. And so that's the, that's in many ways that's the best because you're getting a known quantity that's already done pretty much this just there. Right? You know, sure, that, so that, that's helpful but, but we've had an equal number of people that have come in from, from outside. Brian Chaffin, my, my business partner, you know, my co founder I guess is the right term for it in the, in the corporate structure. But at Mac observer is, is good at bringing people up to speed and, and really kind of walking them through that process. So, so we've had, we've had good success bringing people in but you know, and sometimes it's we, we've posted ads and had people tell us about their experiences and, and you know, the nice part is we're talking about people writing. So it, you know, the, the communication process of, of getting to know someone, you know, when they, when they reach out and, and we interview. I mean that we've already seen how they write and so that, that's helpful, right?

Yeah, I would think so.

And a lot of it comes from, you know, we've had people like, like we've had people who are fans of the, the website, fans of the podcast, Matt geekgeb that I do. We've, we've hired some of those people. But again, it, it starts with a written kind of, you know, a get to know you phase. And I think if I can, if I could give one piece of advice based on some success that we've had here, and we haven't always done it right. But this part, uh, is, and, and it, it, it follows the old adage, um, you know, hire very, very slowly. Right. Find the people. I mean, don't hire so slowly that you, you wind up creating your own business.

Right.

But, but don't hire too quickly. You know, go through the, the process Art with our, our sales reps at Backbeat Media. It's the same kind of thing. It's a long courtship that we, that we go through with people, uh, sometimes through their frustration. But I'm okay with that. You know, I really want to get to know you and I want to see you frustrated. That's okay that, you know, you're going to get that way at some point. So let's see how you deal with it. You know, and, and hiring sales reps is cake, right? Because they're selling themselves, and if they can't sell themselves to you, well, then they're not a sales rep, are they?

Yeah, that's a really good point. Yeah, of course. And, you know, I think the, the one thing that I really picked up from your comment earlier was making sure they fit in your, your family. I think you may mention your team, you know, the, the, the personality of your company, your philosophy. To me, that is paramount. You know, that that is the number one thing that you want to try to weed out is, you know, are these the people that you would enjoy working with? Because if they are, that's usually a very good, that goes a long way. That's a very good sign that you're on the right track. And that'll carry you through lots of the inevitable, you know, issues and difficulties that pop up. And I think that's, that's a key thing to always remember.

Yeah. You know, and I mean, I focused on it with salespeople because it's just so easy. They're selling themselves, but everyone is selling themselves. And you really have to look at the whole interaction that you have with any one person from start to finish, through the whole process of getting to know them, you know, the hiring process or the vetting process. Notice how they communicate, notice how quickly they get back to you. Right. These are all telltale signs. And, and if it's Well, I didn't get back to you because, you know, things happen. Right. But if you're, if you're seeing a pattern of. Because, because, because. Well, that's great and all, but I don't necessarily need that in my world. Right, yeah, you know, exactly. So really be keenly aware of not the things where, you know, you, you say to them, okay, now is the moment at which you are going to prove your mettle to me. That's great and that's important, but look at everything else too, because that's the stuff where you're going to really find out who these people are. And, and in many cases, I mean, there's, there's skills people need for certain jobs and if they don't have them, they simply can't do them. But limit those as, you know, as tightly as you can and really just look for people that are going to fit because you train people, people can learn.

Yeah, I agree. And you know, we do, we do a lot of stuff with Craigslist, you know, and we hire salespeople like you do, and we have lots of, you know, we hire technicians and we hire administrative people, that type of thing. And what has worked well over time with us is we've developed a series of questions that we put in the Craigslist posting. And, you know, it's a questionnaire basically. And depending upon the position, it just asks some very simple questions. Asking, they're all subjective. You know, what would you do in this scenario? You know, if it's a technician, we would lay out kind of a nightmare scenario where you had a customer that reacted a certain way and how would you respond?

Yeah.

And, you know, it's, it's amazing to me how many people that could definitely seem to be qualified that cannot follow that first initial instruction that we post in the ad that says, we will not consider you for the position unless you answer these questions below. And it's phenomenal how many people just, boom, send a resume and a cover letter. I, I love, you know, want to work for, you know, who your company is. Da, da, da, da. And you know, if they really sound promising, I, I will go back and say, hey, you know, go, go look at the ad again. But, but to your point, it is a telltale, what attention to detail. You know, I think we've commented on it before. When you send emails, there's certain people, you know, that you can only send like one thought or one topic in an email.

Yes.

And there's other people that you can break things down and have A very detailed dialogue. Well, that's indicative of the type of person that's coming to apply for your job. If they can't read that instruction and. And answer these nine simple questions. Maybe you, you know, that's telling you something right there.

Right there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The whole thing, you know, and. And I've even. And one of my favorite things. I think I've even mentioned this on the show before because it's. I can't imagine I would. We would have gotten to 19 episodes and I hadn't. But just in case. And it's relevant here, everybody that I'm going to hire, but especially salespeople, I will make sure I eat a meal out with them. It's.

That's a great. You have mentioned that.

Yeah, it's better. I'll happily pay for the meal. That's. That's not a problem. It's better if it's actually in a group environment where it's not just me and that person. Right. Because. Because what I'm looking for very specifically is how they. I mean, certainly just how they act in public is important, but how they deal with someone, the wait staff at a restaurant, how they deal with someone that they don't have to be polite to, because all I'm going to see from them is, yes, sir. No, sir. Thank you, sir. Right. You know, when they interact with me, and at least I would think I should. Right. See that. But. But how do they deal with the wait staff? The waiter, the waitress, you know, the. Even. Just the people, you know, anyone you encounter there, you're paying them, and therefore you don't. I mean, I hate to even say this because I don't believe it, but you don't have to be nice to them in order to get, you know, them to serve you, because you're paying them. Now, that. I don't believe that statement. But if somebody does, they will not work for me. And so if it's just the two of us, you know, they. They know they're more under the microscope. It's better if you get them, you know, in a group of people. And frankly, it's better if you. If they have a drink or two in them because they start to see who they really are.

Yeah. Yeah, that's a. That's a great idea. I mean, if you have that opportunity to. To watch somebody interacting with, you know, other people and, you know, staffing and those kinds of things, that's. That's a big. It can be a big plus for you to see how they Are, I mean, because that's what you want. Because you really don't know. And you know, and not to go back to the intern thing, you go listen to that earlier episode. But yeah, that's what that gives you. And what we've done is we tried to replicate that a little bit because everybody can't come in as an intern. But we, even with salespeople, what we do is we hire them on a 90 day introductory period. And at least in California, you need to check with your hr, you know, whoever's helping you with your payroll and those kinds of things, you know, see what the laws are in your, your local area. But you know, we have the ability to hire as a temporary worker.

Yep.

Up to 90 days. We don't have to offer them all of the benefits that we don't because it's a mountain of paperwork to get this person in your system and in all your programs and plans that you offer so that, you know, it's almost like a paid internship. And we just say, look, it's a 90 day introductory program at, and we're going to meet monthly to see how you're doing. But certainly after 90 days we're going to talk and say, hey, is this working for you? And is it, is it working for us? Because it's got to go both ways. And you want that opportunity to disengage, if you will, after that 90 day period if that's not the person you thought they were going to be.

Totally. And they want jobs too. Yeah, you know, I agree. An employee wants that too. This is a two way street.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And maybe the job is totally different than, I mean, we we spend a lot of time explaining exactly what the job is because I've hired people and they get in and go, oh, I wait, you know, and I often think they're so busy selling themselves to you and trying to put on a good, you know, image or come across, you know, professionally that they're not paying attention to what it is we really want them to do. And they're just so focused on, you know, job, you know, I, I need to get a job type thing. So it gives you an opportunity to do it. And it's worked out pretty well for us. I think that's, you know, and then we convert them after that 90 days. We, we typically bump them to a salary that we had, you know, agreed on and then we get them all signed up in healthcare and all that kind of stuff. And now speaking of salaries, you know.

Actually before we get there, I want to, I want to mention. Because that's a, that's a great way to go. Again, I have some very specific thoughts about that. But, yeah, we have talked about. It's funny hearing us talk about this. The things we bring up are all where we're looking for negatives. Right. It's. We're not.

Yeah.

We, we didn't mention a single thing. Like, I'm looking for is somebody that comes in and really gets the job done. But that is true, I assume in your case as well as mine.

It is true.

But that's the, you know, that's, that's ex. That's the, that's. That's the baseline. If you don't do that, it's never going to happen. Right. You know, so it's, it's the warning signs that you have to look for up front because the good things are going to shine out at you. You don't need to look for them. It's the warning signs you need to look for.

Yeah, yeah. And you're gonna, you're making a. Just like they're committing to you, which is hopefully for a long, long span of time, you're committing to them and you're going to mentor to them and get them training. And, you know, we do lots of this, you know, training and career development stuff we've talked about on other shows. So you want to be sure that, you know, this is the person that you're going to put this effort behind and not be disappointed six months in. So I think it all goes back to your original statement about hiring slowly and taking your time to really get to know someone because, you know, maybe you don't have the opportunity to go out with them before you bring them in, but maybe, you know, if you bring him in, is that that temporary thing?

Yep.

Yeah. And then you get. Okay, you see how things are going. And, and it's all about personality and willingness to learn. Because if you have the right attitude, you know, as you can do any job. Exactly. And, and if you want to do it and figure it out, so that's who you need to hire for. Is this the. The person that's just excited to be there? They're open to all opportunities. They have a great personality, good sense of humor. And, you know, in my case, I always go back, you know, somebody doesn't. Isn't watching the clock all day. You know, we can't wait to get out of there. You want someone that's. That wants to make a difference in your organization.

Totally.

Yeah.

All right, so Salaries. I'm curious to your thoughts on this. Unless you want me to start, in which case I have.

No, no, no, no. I was just going to mention we've always. I've always had issues. Okay. How do we figure this out? What do we offer them? Wouldn't be, you know, we want to offer a competitive wage, but we also want to give them some. The ability to scale upward. Right. We don't want to max. Is. We don't want to max them out at the beginning. And so what we do for certain positions and when we hire for most of them actually, is when we post an ad or we have them fill out a questionnaire, we just ask them, you know, what, what's your salary requirement? And we just wait and see what they say.

Yeah.

And. And oftentimes they'll come in at a number that you'll say, oh, well, that's, you know, hey, that's. We were actually allocated more for this thing. So let's talk. And maybe you don't start at what, you know, there. You kind of get a feel for it. Some people put a very low number just because they want to get in the door, and other people put a very high number. Maybe, you know, that's what they need to get. So you, you know, you want to come in and give them some room to grow. But just asking what they want has dramatically improved the whole process. Because you don't want to put a lot of time and effort if somebody's not going to come work for you or they want twice what your position offers.

That's right. And that. That is so. I've always hated it, but when in the few years that I actually worked for other people, and then even when we started, you know, hiring people, it would always be. We'd go through the process and it was like, well, we'll just wait till the end and talk about salary because it's hard. You know, let's do the easy stuff first. Let's get to know each other and like each other and all that. And then you get to the end of the process and it's like, okay, well, here's what we can afford to pay you for this job. And the person says, no way. Right. Dude, I need twice that. I can't live. I got to feed my dog, whatever it is. Right. And so now the salary conversation is one of the very first things I talk about with people. And like you, I will. There's an interesting thing that happens when you ask people that question. You can weed people out right away. If they don't give you that information, they're probably the wrong person to work there.

I would agree.

You know, it's. Now, it gets a little different when you're hiring salespeople because a good salesperson knows and probably lives by the adage the first person to put down a number loses. Right. You know, so that is true. But. So I usually preface it by saying, listen, I know the first person to put down the number loses, but this is how we're going to do this particular one.

Yeah. You know. Yeah. Well, in their case, you're. When we hire salespeople, we're really more mainly concerned with what's the base salary. Yeah, you need, you need to make things work for you in your life.

Right.

And then we can make the decision, hey, you know, boy, this person's base is higher than we thought. But man, they just, they've come across really well and everybody likes them. And then you can justify maybe, you know, paying, paying a little more base and then giving them, you know, the commission. Or you can go back and say, hey, look, we don't pay that high of a base, but we will give you an increase in your commission or something like that.

I'll front you three months worth of commission at this level, you know, at this percentage. But by month four, it's, you know, it's on you or something like that. Right?

Yes.

You find a way to make it work. Yeah. It's good to incentivize people. Absolutely. Yeah. And so that's, that's the other thing with salespeople, of course, it's very, very easy to incentivize them to make sales because you can pay by commission. Do you do any sort of metric based bonuses for. Because that's what, that's what a commission is. Right. It is a metric based bonus where the employee knows I do X and I will receive Y. There's no, you know, there's, there's no nebulous. Well, you, yeah, but that's true. But you were chewing gum the other day, so probably not this week, maybe next week, you know. Yeah, there's none of that silliness that sometimes comes with other sort of, you know, less defined bonuses. But do you do that type of thing for any of say your techs? If you get through X number of devices per day, we'll give you a bonus and that sort of thing.

Yeah, yeah. So it is much more difficult to come up with, you know, non subjective ways to facilitate that. And so with, with the text, we do it a couple different ways. I mean, we do a company wide, you know, profit sharing where everybody knows, you know, hey, if we keep our expenses low and we have a good year, everybody's going to benefit at some level. Yep.

And, and do you mind, how do you do the math on that, if you don't mind stating it? I'm just curious.

Sure. So, I mean, we run, so we run the numbers at the end of the year, of course. And, and looks okay. How was the year? What happened? You know, where are we at? Here's, here's the. Hopefully you're in the black for the year. Here's your profit. But then you. Also, the part that's harder to explain to the employees is what is your cash flow situation?

Right.

Because you have to, you have to fund that. And so we try to be very careful and not let what may be a temporary cash crunch impact the, you know, profit sharing in a negative manner. Because I hate to use this word, but it's just not fair. They don't have any, the employees have no impact. Well, I shouldn't say no. Far, far less impact.

Right.

They are removed from it. So, you know, we just look at the number and then we, it is formulated out and it's all, all dependent. Excuse me, on what your salary is. And also we get a added benefit because we have a 401k retirement program and the employees are incentivized to donate. Donate. To contribute. Contribute because. Yeah, not donate because. Because the way it works is the more the employees contribute, the more the business owners contribute. There's, there's a. Yeah, right. So we match, you know, dollar for dollar up to a percentage of their salary. So all that's taken into account. So they are, you know, if we have a good year, if they contribute on a regular basis and, you know, comes out that. But, but it's a little bit more sticky that I could probably describe here.

Yeah, no, I, Yeah, I appreciate that. No, that's, that's great. So, so there is, it's not totally nebulous. It's, it's based in a formula that's malleable.

Yeah, yeah, you can, you can look at it and exchange. And now for the, you know, your initial question is, you know, other incentives for like especially technicians. So what we want to do is we set baselines. They have to meet him, we reward them all the time. That part's a little more subjective. What we do is we have a pool of money that is.

So let's say that word again. Skype cut you off the pool Is what, sorry, that.

A pool by department. So we have a. The group of technicians that are doing refurbishing of products, you know, laptops, iPads, iPhones, all that kind of stuff. So their main goal is to keep a certain baseline of how many units per day they get done per tech, broken down by the hour. So we can know that, okay, the average tech can get this kind of stuff done. But also on the flip side is what are the returns? And we want those return. That return rate to be very low, obviously. And so if they match these baselines, which they know what they are, they get the full. Full pool. So let's say there's 500 bucks in the pool for a department and they have a good month and they know. And they're. They see these reports and everything, and they nail their numbers. They get 500 bucks and they can roll it over. So if they go another, you know, time period, they can do it. So they can build up this big, you know, chunk of cash and they can do whatever they want with it. They can go out together and do something. They can go on a trip, they can buy stuff for each other, just take the cash, whatever they want. But if the numbers flow below them, they lose money out of the pool. Ah, so they have. On the flip side, or if somebody makes what we consider, I mean, for lack of a better word, a dumb mistake. Sure. You know that you shouldn't have made that mistake and it cost the company 100 bucks for overnight shipping or whatever. Sure, yeah, we're going to take it from the pool. And let me tell you, it is. It is dramatic when you pull that. Everybody hates it, but they understand it. And, you know, I don't believe you can make people pay for, you know, no things that they. I mean, mistakes happen.

You found a way to make them accountable for the mistake in a financial way that doesn't take it out of their pocket immediately.

That's correct.

So it's not like a restaurant where, you know, somebody screws up an order a way, you know, waiter screws up an order and has to, you know, comp the customer out of. Out of his. His pay that has pocket that night.

Yeah, I hate that.

I do, too. Yeah.

You know, and especially technicians, if you have them worrying about, like, breaking things or, you know, that kind of thing, they won't be good technicians.

So you got to be able to do it. That's right. Yep.

Yeah. Yeah. So this works out pretty well. And. And, you know, it can be any amount of money. You know, it can be a hundred bucks and build it up or whatever it is, but it's worked well for us because I like being able to go in and go, you know, let me explain how this happened, and let me tell you, all these costs associated with it, and this is going to come out of the pool and they all understand it, they all get it.

Oh.

And they look at each other and we do it as a, As a department or as a team because we really want them to work together and help one another. If one technician is having considerable problems, they need to help this guy and figure it out or tell you they.

Gotta get rid of him. Yeah, right.

Exactly. And, you know, which, you know, leads us to our.

Yeah, we should wrap up. Well, not wrap up, but we should head into this because we're borrowing time from the Skype gods, I can tell.

Yes.

So, yeah, if the adage goes. And I will say this, but it is far easier to say. It's really easy to hire slowly. There's no question about that. So that part of the adage is easy to follow. The other part of the adage, if you haven't guessed, is fire fast. That's not always easy. No.

Especially for I have a small business owner.

I have a real problem with it, to be honest with you. Yeah. And I know it's the right thing. And I, you know, you know, when you've got to let this person go. And for me, I'll go two more rounds of them before I let them know.

Yeah. Yep. It's tough. And the thing is, it's. I think it's because, you know, we don't work at big companies that have HR department. They say, hey, you're gonna have to go let this guy go. Yeah, well, it's, it's, you know, we're sitting down with them, you know, to have this discussion. And even if you've given plenty of warnings and plenty of opportunities for improvement or whatever it is, it's. I think it's probably up there with the top three worst things of, you know, owning a small business is having to fire people.

It is. I, I have. I'll share a quick story. I had, I had one guy who was working for us, and, and he was a sales rep. I'm not going to say his name, and nobody's going to be able to guess who he was because he wasn't with us that long. But, but anyway, he was with us and things were okay in the beginning, but. But then there were just some procedural things he didn't want to Do. And, and his sales weren't great. Now, you know, if your sales are great and your procedural stuff sucks, I don't care. You know what I mean?

I mean, you can overlook that stuff.

You can overlook it to a degree. I mean, if, yeah, if somebody's. Yeah, yeah. And, and, and, and with him, this stuff that he wasn't doing was one was some of the stuff that, that you could have overlooked if the sales were good. But it also was the reason his sales weren't good. He wasn't doing regular outreach and follow ups and, and these types of things. And so I sat down with him and I said, okay, let's really, you know, I give. Salespeople are an interesting breed. Like anyone, you need to feel ownership over your job, right? And you need to feel like you've got, you know, some control over how you conduct yourself and that sort of thing. And, and he was fine with people. There wasn't any trouble with that or anything. And, and, but he just wasn't doing this, this follow up as routinely and this outreach as routinely as he should. And that's how you fill up your, you know, your sales funnel and that's how, you know, sales come out the bottom of funnel. If you're not putting stuff in the top, it's just impossible to get things off the bottom. So I sat down with him and I said, okay, here's the things that you can do, right? You know, do this, do this. This is what some of the other guys have done. This is what we've always done before. And he's like, oh, this is great, great. Okay, fine. And then, you know, come check in a month later. Okay, so sales still aren't up, but how's your funnel looking? Where, you know, where are we with these things? Did you do this? No. Did you do this? No. Did you do that? No. Okay, great. Well, you know what you need to do, right? You know, is there a reason you didn't do it? Well, I'm just not used to operating that way. Okay, fine, you know, well, now you know, you know, I'm willing to give somebody that, you know, it's fine. And second time comes around, how's the funnel? No. Did you do these things? No. Okay. Why? Well, I just don't think they're going to work. Okay, you know what, I appreciate your honesty. I do think they're going to work because I've seen them work with other people. But fair enough. Here's the thing. Do this one thing. It was, it was something that was going to it was, it was going to be reaching out to, you know, I don't know, several hundred people that were in positions of decision. And it was going to be something with our automated system that was going to take him about 15 minutes. Okay.

Okay.

And, and I said, just do this one thing. Let's see how it does for you. You know, the very least, we're going to find out. And I mean, at the very base of it, you're either right or I'm right, and we're going to find out and maybe it'll spark some conversations. All you needed to do is spark one or two, and now you're, you're off to the races. And this was, you know, Q4, busy time of year for us, typically, because we sell in the consumer business, so, you know, lots of extra money flowing around. All you got to do is run out and grab some of it, you know, and.

Sure.

So this was on the, it was, it was right. It was actually right before Thanksgiving we had this conversation. I said, make sure you do it after Thanksgiving. I'm going away, but I'm coming back. And when I get back on, on the 9th or whatever, we're going to have this conversation. And so I, I'm back on the 9th, and I call him up and say, hey, I'm back from, from my trip, or whatever. Did you, did you do this? No. Why not? Well, you know, I had other things to do, like. Well, but today was the day. And he's like, no, like, okay. And so I let him go right then and there. And I shouldn't. I mean, I, I, you know, looking back, I knew where we were headed. You know, even, even that was really hard. And he was, he was the, the worst part was, and I still feel bad about this today, he was honestly surprised that I let him go that day. Now, anybody listening to this story, and I think I've told it at least as far as I know it, you know, it's, it's flabbergasting that someone would be surprised by, by that. You know, it wasn't like I was asking you to do something impossible, just do this thing. Basically it was, walk over there, press the red button, come back. I mean, it was, it was literally that simple. There was no, there was no skill involved in this one particular thing that I wanted him to do. It was just, will you walk over there and press the red button? It's not a waste of time, or at least I don't think I'm sending you over there for a waste of Time. This isn't busy work. Press the red button. It might actually work for you. It was that. And he wouldn't press the button.

Yeah.

So I let him go. And it sucks letting somebody go right before Christmas and all of that stuff.

Oh, yeah. It's. It's rough. And you know, in, you know, your company's, you know, are virtual and you're doing things online, on the phone and everything.

Yeah.

And I, I think it's, you know, sitting across the table from someone and having to do that. It's even miserable.

Yes.

And I've done it the other way too. I've had, you know, guys that have kind of not, you know, abandon their job, so to speak, and not come back call them. And you know what? Yeah. And I think your comment about people being surprised, it is more common than you think. And it's almost like a delusional thing that they're like, oh, they're not gonna, you know, how can they get by without me?

Or I guess in his case, he didn't think that this particular thing was going to be the thing that worked. So he thought it was stupid. I mean, you're going to fire me over something stupid like this?

Well, yeah.

I don't know how else to tell you. This is important to me, you know, other than bringing it up every time we talk and giving you a deadline.

That's right. That's right. And that brings up a good point. You know, I often make the comment to our managers that, you know, it. Not all the time, but often it's just as much a fault of management when you have to fire somebody and that you either hired the wrong person. Yes. Or you didn't coach them well enough for them to succeed. But there are cases like that. Yes. Uncoachable and all kind of things. So. So it does happen, you know, like that. And, you know, but, but the thing.

Is, thinking back, it did. I, I should not have been surprised. He was uncoachable. I, I thought back to a couple of the interactions we had pre coach, pre hired. You know, when I, when we met together and that sort of thing, it was like, oh, yeah, I remember he said this about that and this about that. That I should, I should pay more attention because he basically told us he was uncoachable.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And. And you gave, you gave him, you know, one of my notes here is always giving the employee the opportunity to fix the problem.

That's it.

That's the number one thing. Because then you can always bring that back and go, look, you know, we, we met with you here, we told you what the problem was, we told you how to fix it, you know, this kind of thing. And you shouldn't be surprised, we're, we're heading down that road, you know, and so you, let's say you have this person on the phone or in, in my case, or across the, you know, the desk and the hr, you know, people always want me to do this exit interview, which I just, you know, it is just. I dread it.

No, thank you.

Yeah, yeah. And they wanted me. Here's the paper. And have them answer these questions. And I was like, for real. This person who I'm, you know, cutting loose. And so sometimes, and it's much easier if the person is going, They've decided to leave and they're going on to some other position, another company, and they've quit. And we always try to make it very positive and we could probably have a whole show just about people leaving. Right. Yeah. Whether you fire them or not. But, you know, the exit interview works great if someone's leaving because it gives you a chance to get some really, I think, insightful feedback that maybe they, otherwise they wouldn't tell you.

Yeah.

Because now they don't. Now they don't care. So from that aspect, I think it's good. But trying to ask someone who you've just, you know, cut off at the knees and that may be surprised or getting let go. Oh, and now we want your, your opinion. I, I don't think it's very valuable.

You can't. No. Now, in, like in that instance and in, in a couple of instances, I mean, I've had to let a couple people go, as we all have. I, I don't, I probably haven't done it. I don't want to say this, this is going to come out the wrong way. I probably haven't done it enough or I haven't done it fast enough and certainly not that we have anybody currently that I need to let go.

Yeah, sure.

But, you know, it takes me too long. But sometimes when you, you, when you let somebody go, they'll, they'll, they'll give you a piece of their mind, you know, whether you, whether you want it or not. And that's one of those times where it is good to just listen and if, and you. Knowing that they're venting and all of that, and that's fine, but, you know, listen for things that might resonate with you and say, oh, because I know the way I think it takes me, it takes me time to really crystallize my thoughts on some things. Like I'll notice something's wrong and it'll, you know, I'll have to analyze it, you know, sort of subconsciously even from, from a couple of different angles for a little while. And sometimes I've had people say to me, hey, this is the problem. It's like, oh, you know what, you're totally right. So I always listen to does it resonate? And that's true of when people send me email and rant about something they don't like about the podcast or what, you know, whatever. I always listen and just, you know, take it and sense it. Is there something there that, that I think they're right about? And if so, then I'll pay more attention. Otherwise I thank them for their feedback and send them on their way.

Yeah, that's a, that's a great idea. And I think that, you know, one of the most important things when you have to let somebody go, especially in person, is you want to have a second person in there with you. So it should be always be three people. So if this person's ranting and, you know, anything like that, you always want to have that person. That's just the, the third, you know, independent party. A manager, supervisor, your bookkeeper, your accountant, anybody that you can get, hey, I gotta let this person go. Can you stop by and if, I mean, if you're a two person organization and you have to fire somebody, have somebody come sit in on it, whether it's your, your anybody, your attorney, your banker, your whatever. Yeah, you don't want to have a he said, she said, you know, situation. And you know, I found over the years two things and I've done both of these things and I, I will, I don't do them anymore. But two very, two very important things. Don't apologize.

No.

When you're letting somebody go and because you know, they're like, what do you mean you're sorry? You know, it can really set off a bad reaction. And the other thing is when you're letting people go, even if you're, even if it's a layoff and this, I think that bringing up things like we can't afford or we don't have the money is a big mistake because then it, they start questioning, what do you mean you don't have the money? I see you're driving this car or I know we just did this and.

We just open any door. No, it just has to be the decision has been made. And in fact, I remember coaching one of My, my managers that had to go fire somebody at one point. And, and he said, okay, well, I guess I'm going to go in and have the conversation of, you know, and I'm going to say to the person, is this the conversation where we let you go, or are we going to be able to fix things? And, and I said to him, I said, that's, that's actually fine if you do that, but know that you've already chosen plan B. Right. It is, it is not the conversation where you are letting them go. It's a nice way to send a warning sign. And if that's your intention, then that's, there's nothing wrong with doing it that way. That's a great conversation to have. But do not delude yourself into thinking that this is going to go any other way, you know, unless, unless somehow you, you know, you really tick them off and, and, and they just storm out the door and it was time for that to happen anyway, you know, that kind of thing. But yeah, yeah, don't, don't. If you open the door for any future or any, any ongoing interaction, you will get it.

Yeah. And, you know, I know we're kind of running long on time, but, you know, a couple of things that I've also found is, you know, don't do the late Friday afternoon layoff, you know.

Doing it in the morning. Yep.

Yeah, it works great. Because then you're going to alert the other employees and you need to give people some time to process things and you want to have a chance to talk and say, you know, you may not be able to go into details about why you laid that person off, but believe me, if, you know, what was going on and their shortcomings and why they're. Everybody, most everybody else that works with them probably has a good idea as well.

Yeah. And in fact, with that guy, the story I told, I didn't let him go that day. It was the next morning that I. That I let him go.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I wanted to give myself the opportunity to sleep on it, but I had made up my mind, you know, but, but really it was that it was probably three in the afternoon that I realized, okay, this has to happen. This is not the right time of the day for me and the rest of the team to do this, you know, so that's.

Yeah, no, that's good. It's great. And so, you know, coming full circle, you know, you're right. Take your time. When you're hiring people, find the right fit. You know, you may have to go through an awful lot of people. You know, I liken it to when you're trying to move and find a place to live, you know, you really need to, you know, have the. The time to find the. The right person to the right place. And then when you're ready to. When you have to cut somebody loose. Dave and I are on the same page. You know, I'm a total procrastinator about doing it, but I have somebody on my staff that, you know, really calls me to the mat and said, well, look, if you're talking like this, we need to do it now. Yep. And. And you just. You got to do it. And, you know, it'll be easier for you.

It's good to have somebody like that. Yeah.

Yep, yep, yep. So, you know, the. We'd love to get some, you know, your. Share your stories, your feedback of hiring successes or massive failures. Always fun to talk about. We've had plenty of them, you know, and the same with firing, you know, tips and. And things. So, you know, or anything else you want to talk about, we would love to hear from you@feedback bapodcast.com can also visit our Facebook page at facebook.com dbapodcast or Twitter @ dbapodcast.

Sweet. Thanks, man. This was a fun one. I'm glad the Skype gods behaved for us.

Yeah, I think we've kept our head down low enough and we snuck on through.

That's right.

Thanks, everybody. Have a great rest of the week.

Thanks, folks. We'll see you next week. Thanks, Shannon.