Hiring for your Small Business – Small Business Show episode 177

The Small business show, episode 177 for Wednesday, June 27, 2018. Greetings, folks, and welcome back to the Small Business show here at businessshow. Co. You know who we are. We're the show that's by, for and about small business owners. Sponsors for this episode include the folks at Smile with textexpander and the folks at Simple Contacts. We've got some deals for both of those for you, which we will talk about in a moment. Here in Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave Hamilton.

And in Lafayette, California, I'm Shannon Jean. How are you, Dave?

I'm great, man. How are you?

I am good. Trying to wrap things up and look forward to the little extended holidays. Fourth of July and head up to Lake Tahoe for a few days.

Good for you. That's right. I'm actually, I keep meaning to ask you for, like, restaurant recommendations in Tahoe because we're going to be there, I don't know, in three weeks.

Oh, yeah, that's right. You're going to.

Yeah. Nice.

That's great. I will send you some stuff. Oh, yeah, you guys, the fish. The Fish Followers.

Fish Followers, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Are there a name for those guys that follow you and your wife? Is there a group like, you know, the Deadheads used to follow Grateful Dead? Is there a fish.

Yeah. So generally, people refer to fish fans as fish heads. The weird thing is that when Fish started out, you know, and started gaining some popularity in the early 90s, the term fish heads with an F was reserved for fans of the Radiators, the band out of. The band out of New Orleans. So. So there was some. Some, you know, initial discussion of, like, well, like what should we call ourselves or which, you know, that sort of thing. And I, I think. I think the Radiators fans lost the distinction. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's great. But, yeah, so there you go. Yeah, it's fun. Yeah. You know, it's just something to do. It's. It's something we enjoy and it's. It's something we enjoy together. We started seeing the band together. Like, we. We sort of found the band the same time right after we started dating. So. So it's kind of a nice thing to just do together. And, and it. It just worked out perfectly. We're. We're doing this vacation with the kids out to the west coast, and then we're putting them on a plane and driving up to Tahoe together to do this. And, and so that's kind of. Kind of a little, sort of somewhat early 20th wedding anniversary trip is.

That's awesome.

Yeah. I mean, we would way, but it sort of turns out to be that, so. Thank you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's great.

Yeah, it's fun.

Good stuff. So, hey, we had a. I think we got a email in from a listener to. Regarding hiring. Is that. That's.

We did. Yeah. Corey wrote in and, and if I find the email, he says, I'd love it if you guys did an episode on hiring. He says, from things like where to post job listings and find good candidates to interview questions and how to evaluate applications to the actual offer and then, of course, acceptance, he says we have to hire some developers. And I'm sure I'm not the only one that's not sure about the best way to go about this. So. Yeah, great question.

Yeah, it is a great question. The where, when and how right.

Of hiring small business.

I think it's a great question and a great topic and critically important. You know, there's that old adage, you know, higher slowly, fire quickly. Is that right?

Do I have that right? That works. Yeah.

And it is, you know, hiring really impacts your. Your business in so many different ways that I'm glad we're going to spend a day and, and, and talk about it and maybe we should start about the, you know, going along Corey's, you know, question. Where, where. Where to start and where to find people. And I think that's a great, great spot for us to jump.

It's not as easy as it used to be. Right. You know, because. Because there's. So there's actually money in finding new candidates, right?

That's right.

So therefore, it's really not the easiest. You can't just. I remember actually the moment in time where, at least for me, this changed when we were hiring at Computer Nerds. This was, you know, whatever, 20 years ago or something. I could just put out a post on our local news groups in Austin, like the Usenet news groups. And if you don't know what Usenet is, you know, I was gonna say kids, ask your parents, but parents, you know, ask the grandparents maybe. Right. Cause yeah, Usenet was sort of pre World Wide Web, but, you know, I could just put, put a thing out there and man, I would get qualified applicants. It was great. And then all of a sudden it just stopped.

Stopped.

It's like, oh, now what?

Interesting. Yeah, well, I think that's a. It's still a good point that brings up is, I think that, you know, where you look depends on what type of candidate you're Trying to hire.

Yeah. Go find where these people. Right.

Hang out.

Yep.

And, and so like if you're trying to hire, you know, or an office administrator or I, I don't know, you know, pull up in examples maybe, maybe Craigslist is the spot to do kind of a more generalized post, you know, that, you know, to typically very inexpensive. I think it's 75 bucks or something like that to post an ad. And I think you can get great results for those kinds of things. But if you were searching like, let's say for an outside business development person, maybe you need to jump on one of the more corporate type things like Monster or indeed or something like that or LinkedIn, their job listings.

LinkedIn's got very interesting job listings. Right. Because they are. People visit LinkedIn even if they're not looking for a job, which is interesting.

That's. Yeah, maybe they're just looking for opportunities or trying to connect and you know, with their, you know, peers and that kind of thing. And I think that along, that, you know, you should spend some time along the lines searching the competitive landscape of where and who you're trying to hire. So if you're looking for, you know, technician or if you're looking for a programmer, you know, what kinds of other ads are out there because you want to, how do you distinguish yourself? How do you get those really quality candidates, you know, to respond to you and stand out from the crowd? Because it can be really, really crowded.

It can be very competitive. Yeah. And that, that's actually a great thing. Right. It's, it's easy to look at the hiring process as well. I'm the one with the money, therefore, you know, like they should come to me. But it, and sometimes that'll totally be the case sometimes, you know. But Corey, Corey highlights a very hard to find group of people, which is developers. Right. Software developers are in high demand right now and they're not the only group that's in high demand, but they are, there are lots. And so they know that it's a, you know, seller's market, if you will. And so yeah, like you may, going back to what you said, hire slowly, fire quickly. You really need to make sure you have the right person, not only from the skill set that you require. That's sort of table stakes. Right. If they don't have the skill set, you're not even going to think about talking with them. But beyond that, it's got to be the right person for your company. Especially the smaller your company is, the greater the percentage number of Your workforce that every single person is. If you're a three person company and you are hiring a fourth, that's 25% of your culture.

That's massive.

Yeah, right.

So it's massive.

Gotta be the right person. And so in the long run, paying one of these services to help, you know, attract more candidates so that you have a bigger pool to sort of narrow down from can be probably the cheapest money you'll spend in, you know, in the process.

I think it can be.

It can be.

And sometimes, yeah, and sometimes you need to be creative. You know, I mean, I can remember, you know, Google posting a billboard next to, you know, the freeway down in Silicon Valley with a big mathematical equation on it. And when you answered that, it get, you could go and kind of down the rabbit hole and find these, you know, job listings online. And they were trying to find specific people. And I would say that's really worth, you know, obviously you can't maybe not going to get a billboard, but do something creative that's going to attract the type of candidate that you want, even for what would be maybe a generalized position like an admin or a front office person or a customer service person. Like in my case, I've often used, you know, humor and, you know, a little back and forth to try to weed out from the crowd. Somebody doesn't have a sense of humor. I don't want to hire that person because I think having a good sense of humor plays well with customers and customer service, whether you're a technician or a salesperson and being able to work closely with customers, finding those kinds of people and writing an ad a certain way. I mean, I used to put at the end for technicians when we were hiring and we had a soda machine in the office and I would always put at the end of the ad, oh, and all the Mountain Dew you can drink.

There you go.

Just trying to lighten up. Because you would attract to somebody and make, maybe repel somebody. That's like, well, that's kind of silly. I don't want to work there.

Okay, great, then we don't want you. Right? Yeah, that's right. Exactly. Yeah. You know, they always say when you're looking for a job, they always say write your cover letter to match the job description. Right. Well, this is the opposite of that. Right. You're writing the first piece of that and you're looking for someone that's going to, that, that's going to, you know, fit with. So, yeah, for sure. You don't just want, you don't Necessarily. In fact, most of the time you don't want the person who has like the best skillse as the only criteria you choose from. That's right.

And just like you may get dozens and dozens of resumes or cover letters that you blow through quickly, put yourself on the other side of the table, like we've talked about on the show before when dealing with customers, but do it this time for an employer, potential employee. They're just blowing through dozens and dozens and dozens of job listings. How are you going to write that job listing to stand out, to capture their attention, maybe their imagination? Like, wow, you know, this could be a really unique company. And I would say that can also save you money because in a very competitive job environment like now, it's definitely, like I said, seller's market. Maybe you can't compete with some of these other companies financially, but maybe you can with your culture and your frame of mind and your casual office or whatever, or your flexibility, work at home.

Opportunity, whatever it is.

What is it? What?

Yeah. What do you have that that makes working in your company more enjoyable? What is unique? Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. What makes your. Why should you come here? You know, it's not just, oh, we're going to pay you, you know, your paycheck. That's a given. What is it above and beyond these things that are going to entice the type of person that you want? And I think a lot of it has to do with culture and flexibility. You know, if I know I'm hiring people that are maybe at the stage of their life where they have little kids, you know, you say, look, we'll be flexible with you. You will not miss a play or a sports event that your kid has. Those are great, strong things.

Right, Right. Yeah. When I was out and say that, wow. Yeah.

You don't want to miss your kids, you know, ballet recital or their play or their musical thing or their baseball game. This is the place to work because we understand that and we value that.

Yeah.

And so, so really think about what value added things perhaps beyond salary, because that's the commodity.

Right.

The money is the commodity. And somebody goes, well, this guy's going to pay me, you know, a dollar more, you know, in a really low level thing, a buck more than this guy or this place is going to pay me, you know, less. But I get, you know, these extra benefits. So I would focus on that.

Yeah. You know, we talk a lot about the charmed life here. Sell that to your potential employees. Right. What, what is it out? What it is for you. That matters, you know, and certainly for Shannon and me, it's, you know, one of the things is exactly what you just said. Right. Being able to go to your kids events and, you know, family, family first and all of that stuff. Great. Communicate that, because that's your value. That's what you're in it for. That's what you want your employees in it for. Right. You want to have people that you can kind of be in sync with. So. Yeah, that's good. All right.

That's great.

Yeah.

Very cool. So before we jump into the how, I want to make one comment of, you know, how the hiring and stuff. I have some. Would you be surprised to have some comments on that? But on the. When one of the things that I ask myself and I would ask my managers is, do we really need another person? Are you sure the answer is hiring someone else? Because it is very. Like we talked about, it's a big deal to bring in someone new, especially to a small business. And are there duties that could be doled out to other people? You know, is there someone else that could do this? What is this person doing? Can we move them around? Ask yourself those questions. Because I found that managers and supervisors love to solve problems by hiring people. And you really have to, I think, require those folks to justify that additional staffer because it's such a monumental thing, not just financially, but, you know, to your culture and all those kind of things. And you just want to ask and be sure that it is really justified.

No, that's, that's, that's a great. That's a great piece of advice, man. Yeah. Yeah. Because. Because you're right. It's, you know, when you bring somebody on, it is a huge distraction for the short term. Right. And, and so you got to really make sure that that's going to pay off. And you're not just doing it because it seems like the easy thing, because it's not. Hiring someone is not the easy answer. Not at all.

I agree.

Yeah, absolutely. It's got to be, you know, necessitated by something. So.

Yeah, for sure. Makes sense.

Makes sense. Hey, I want to talk about our. Our sponsors for today. I'm going to start with simple. Yeah, I'm going to start with simple Contacts. We're@simplecontacts.com SBS or entering coupon code SBS for Small Business Show. At checkout, you get 30 bucks off of your first order of contact lenses. But that's not like. That's great. But that's not even the best thing about this. Right. The way Simple Contacts works is you get to avoid the cost and the time you have to spend, which is even more valuable in going to the doctor just to confirm your prescription, to order new contacts, right? And the way it works is you use your phone or your computer, you put your contacts in, you take a vision test. I did this with my wife. It was. And it was super, super simple. It took like 10 minutes. And we got to do it at night. We didn't have carve, you know, two hours out of the day to go to the doctor or anything. You pay 20 bucks because the results are actually reviewed by, you know, by a doctor on staff there with, with Simple Contacts. But it takes like 10 minutes. You put your contacts in and you stand, you know, whatever X number of feet away from your phone, and you read the. The eye exam, and they make sure that your prescription is good. Then you use the phone to scan the barcode on your existing contact box, and it brings you right to the same contacts. There's no guessing. You pick it out, you order it. The prices are way cheaper than what you would pay at your eye doctor for these things. And then you get 30 bucks off by going to simplecontacts.com sps or using coupon code SBS at checkout. Now, this eye exam isn't a replacement for your periodic full eye health exam. You're still going to need to do that. But when it's time to just reorder, you don't need that appointment where you have to take that time out of your day to go to your doctor. So this is great. You got to check it out. Simplecontacts.com SBS Again, coupon code SBS at checkout. Our thanks to Simple Contacts for sponsoring this episode. Our second sponsor is one of our mutually favorite utilities services, which is textexpander. So textexpander is something both Shannon and I use personally, but also with our businesses. In fact, I think it just blurs the lines. It works for everything. You create little text snippets of all of the things that you don't want to have to type over and over again. Customer service responses, addresses, emails that you're sending, you know, perhaps sales pitches, right? You know, cold emails, even warm emails. Like somebody writes in and says, hey, how does this product work that you sell? Great, I've already got it written out. I know that this is what I want to tell you. And you can share them, because textexpander is a service that syncs not only with all your devices, but it can sync with your entire team if you want. So everybody's got the same stuff, you can tweak it, and then everybody's using the language that you want. So check it out. Go to textexpander.com podcast. Yes, that's right. Podcast. Textexpander.com podcast. And that's where you will get 20, 20% off of your first year subscription of this awesome service. So our thanks to textexpander and the folks at Smile for sponsoring this episode. All right, Shannon.

Yes, thank you. Right on. Let's talk about the how.

Okay, the how.

Yeah, you got it. One of those, you know, one of the things I really like to do is when I'm trying to hire people is to use this concept of a test. And it's not a test test so much to, you know, for intelligence or whatever it is. But number one, some questions to make sure they know and they have some experience in what you're hiring for. Sure. In my case, I used to hire the number one, you know, position that we always seem to hire for was technicians. And so we would put a, just a brief, you know, kind of questionnaire together. 8, 10 questions about not how much you knew, but more so how you would handle certain things. And what I found over time is that the test itself became a test because so many people wouldn't answer the questions. They would just see you were asking or, you know, looking for employment and they would send off the blast resume cover letter and they wouldn't read down in the second or third line that says, you know, do not send anything and just answer these questions and, and then we will, you know, follow up with you and that kind of thing. And I think that works really well just to see if they can follow your instructions and, and it weeds out the, you know, the, the folks that are just not gonna even go there.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, I, and no, I was, I recently, last year I joined a different. Another band. Right. Cause I'm a drummer too. And the guy who organized the band put like it was on Craigslist, right. And he put this thing out and said, look, this is a band. We play these high dollar gigs. We're looking for this, this and this. I want, I need to know this information from you. And the guy said, yeah, he, like, you know, he probably got 100 replies, but only five of them were valuable. And he was immediately able to weed out 95% of the replies he got, knowing these people might be good drummers or, or whatever, but they're not the right person for this particular gig. Because I need somebody that's detail oriented. I need to know that when I send out all the particulars for, you know, this corporate gig or this wedding or whatever, that I don't need to follow up and make sure they understood it. Right. So you, you know, it's that litmus test, like you said. The test becomes. Yeah, yeah.

And if they can't follow those detail instructions, how are they going to follow detail instructions? Especially if it's a detail oriented position, it's just not going to work. So we had some really great success with them, and I would highly recommend you come do something like that in your thing. And I also think the test, quote, quasi test is another place to sell yourself to the candidate who's going to read through it. And the way you phrase your questions, if you ask them a certain way, have some humor, a little snarkiness, whatever, you're introducing yourself to a potential candidate and I can't tell you how many people are like, I'm here because I loved reading how this was written. I laughed out loud at question number five and I figured, this is the place I need to come work.

Yeah.

You know.

Yeah, like ask me. Make question number five. Don't you hate tests like this? We do.

Yeah, that's. That's exactly right.

But, but we find it necessary. And frankly, the fact that you're reading this tells us that you're probably someone that, that we might want to work with. You know, like just. Yeah. Have a con create that conversation. Right? Yeah, yeah, for sure. I like that. That's great, man.

Yeah, it works great. And I think, you know, part of the test, you know, with gathering information, like your band, you know, comment, you're trying to tease bit information. And if you can ask this legally in your state. I think there's some states now, maybe you can't ask that this, but we always ask what their salary history is. You know, what do you. Where are you on the scale to make sure we're. That we're even in the ballpark. Right. You don't want to waste their time and you don't want to waste your time. So if you're hiring for a position that pays $25 an hour, let's say, and this guy or candidate wants 50 bucks. Well, let's not. We're too far apart. We know this is not gonna happen.

I always say whenever I'm talking with someone about a job, you know, there's this classic path where money is the last thing you talk about. I always make it one of the very first things we talk about, like, here's what this pays, you know, or like you said, but ask them what they need, but I'll come right out and say it. Right. You know, like, this is what this position pays. Now, if the person says really need 30% more than that and they turn out to be the right person, like, if they say that on the first thing, I will say, well, that's not entirely out of the question. We can have that conversation when we get there. It sounds like we're close, so we're not wasting each other's time. But if they, but if they say we need 30%, I need 30% more than that. And I know that that's not in our budget, then I just saved everybody a ton of time. Like, okay, well, yeah, then that's. I'm glad you said that. That's not going to work for us at this point. But, you know, let's keep in touch, obviously, and then, boom, you move on. So I do the money right up front. That's great. Yeah. Because it's a waste of time otherwise. Yeah, yeah, I agree.

I agree. Save everybody some time.

Yeah, you save some headache. Yep.

Yeah. So you've gotten through that. They answered the questions to the test that are there. You talked about money. You're closer, you know, so when you do some interviews.

Right.

And again, I think it's position specific. If you're hiring customer service people that are going to be on the phone. Well, I think you certainly should have the first interview should be on the phone so you can see how their voice sounds and how they respond and, you know, what they're, you know, how they kind of carry themselves. Ask them some, you know, some good questions. If it's a person that is going to be doing email all the time, you need to have some back and forth with email to see.

Make them write a lot.

Yes. You want to see that. Can they put a cohesive sentence structure, paragraph together? What kind of words do they use and do they have that experience? It's really important because even though if you're going to be using an awesome app like textexpander to pre fill all your templates and your customer service department and your responses, that's great. But they're still going to have to write some stuff and you want to be able to see how that's going to be.

Yeah. And really pay attention to that. I have made the mistake of hiring someone who I just was convinced was the right person, but knew during the kind of, you know, the Interview, the courtship process, if you will. You know, it was like, oh, yeah, well, this person doesn't, you know, they don't write very well, but, you know, they conduct themselves well. It's fine. It's going to be fine to be fine. And throughout the, the short, thankfully, experience that I had it like, the whole time, I was obsessed about, do I probably should check that email before it's sent. I probably, it's like, no, I can't live. Like, I don't want to be that kind of micromanager, so this is not going to work. And, you know, and the litmus tests that I did throughout that process was like, oh, yeah, no, this is not good. Like, this is, you know, this is not English at a level that I want our company's message communicated. And so it was like, yeah, you gotta go.

It's tough, it's tough.

Yeah. But trust, you know, trust your gut, like, pay attention to that stuff. I think is the lesson I learned there. Really look at that during that hiring process, because you can save everybody a bunch of time. Yeah.

And I think that one thing I learned too is, you know, early on was I don't need to be the person interviewing these candidates the first time. You know, maybe never. You know, I'm, you know, certainly the culture person and, you know, setting the tone in the company and that kind of stuff. But, you know, let your supervisors or managers. Now, if you don't have any supervisors and managers because you're just getting started, then obviously you have to do it. But, you know, let the person they're going to be working under, you know, working for, interview them first, either via phone, email, whatever it is. Then as you, as you move up, you know, have a couple of people in the interview room. I always think it's. It's critically important to have more than one. If you're a sole, you know, person, you'll have to do it by yourself, but maybe you can have somebody sit in and, you know, there's a lot of reasons for that. You know, number one, protect yourself. But number two, you know, someone else can give you their opinion that's totally different about the way that person asks questions and stuff. And if you have two people in there at your company, I like to have where one person is asking specific questions about and related to the position you're trying to fill and the other person just asking general questions to the, you know, candidate because you'll kind of draw different responses out and you'll get to learn a lot about them, which.

Is kind of how you and I do interviews on this show. Right. One of us drives the bus with the sort of the scripted questions that you know, we come up with for that candidate, for that, for that interviewee. And, and then the other is, is there to provide color and say, hey, wait, you, what this thing you just said? Like let's take it on a different, you know, let's take that, let's tug on that thread for a little bit here and learn a little bit about you. And then. Okay, okay. Back on track. Back on track.

Yeah. Because the first person is kind of focused on moving things forward and asking, oh, I gotta, I need to get these questions and allows you have another person look in. I think that's great.

Yeah.

Um, and then the, you know, you go through this process and what I like to do at the end of the interview is I always ask them, you know, what's one thing I should remember about you? As I'm looking through all these resumes and cover letters as we're making a decision and I find lots of interesting responses I get from people and sometimes they really make an impact on me. Like one person I can recall to this day said, oh, you know, I'm the model train guy. I love model, it's really small, working on model trains. Da da da da. And I can remember, you know, when we eventually hired this person, I said, you know that that guy is tinkering with little things, small parts, you know, keeping track of stuff. That guy will be a good technician.

Yeah.

You know, and little, just little things. You'd be surprised at what they will tell you. And again that I love that question.

Because there's a lot of things you can't ask people. Right. Like you can't specifically ask people, are you married? Right. Do you have kids? Right. Like those kinds of things. Dig into an area where you're not allowed to prom that or you're not allowed to ask that, but you can prompt it by saying, sure, something open ended. Like, you know, what's one thing I should remember about you? Most of the time people are nervous, they're a little over caffeinated when they come in for an interview and you just let them talk because they will tell you everything. You'll find out if they have kids, if they're married, and that may or may not even matter to you. But like you said, you start to get a picture of who this person is and do you want to have to deal with them on a day to day basis? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I think that that Also brings up a good point that I don't have in my notes. Is, is the. The power of silence in the interview, you know, are they one of these people that has to fill every gap or are they comfortable sitting and contemplating before they answer? And I'm not saying either is good or bad, but it's different. And it may be a good thing for a certain position and bad thing for another, I don't know. But I think it is good to let. Let things sit and not always jump in and, you know, keep your mouth closed as the interviewer to let them really think it through and not prompt them all the time. And I will be the first to admit I have that problem where I often, what I'm sure you know by, you know, listening to this shows is I have a hard time keeping my mouth shut. So, you know, you have to kind of maybe force yourself to be quiet for a minute.

Yeah, yeah. The power of silence. It's true. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So go ahead.

No, I was going to say in, in the sales business, there's the technique that's called the silent close, right? Where it's like you've laid out everything that you want. The price is there, the product's there, the person's asked all their questions and the best thing you can do is just stop talking and let them feel like they need to fill the silence and then they will often. That works really well on the phone, by the way. So. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, yeah, it's very cool.

Yeah, yeah. So you, so you went through the interview, you think you have the right person, you know, you have to make the offer. So, you know, just like everything else, you're selling to them, you know, and I think that that is a great way to think about it. So you put this offer letter together, make sure you list it is coming to that person, should they accept the job, all the benefits, and you can even list that flexible hours, you know, you can say things like that. I mean, if you want to have your attorney look at these things, great. But you can certainly have a sentence in there about the flexible schedule and if you need time for family, this kind of thing, if you offer a 401k profit sharing, anything, all that stuff needs to be in it. We used to barbecue at lunch every Friday. I used to cook for everybody. I put that in the thing. And Friday barbecue is on the company because again, at least my job was trying to sell the culture of the company. It's like, this is a great place to work, you Ought to come here, you can have a great career. And then in California, you know, we have this thing called at will employment. I don't know if every state has.

It, but most seem to.

Yeah, that's right, most seem to. We just lay it out. Hey, it's at will. You don't have to be here and we don't have to keep you here. So at any time, for any legal reason, you can quit and we can, you know, let you go. And we just let that, we just kind of put that paragraph in there so they know we're not binding them and, you know, they're not bound to us. I would, I would do that.

But yeah, crafting that letter, that's a good thing to have in there. Just in case there was. Well, you know, in the interview they said that this was, you know, that I was guaranteed at least six months or something. Like, you know, you might say during the interview, like, you know, we're constantly evaluating things and of course there's, you know, a 90 day trial period and all this.

Right.

That you don't want to imply anything more than we're just paying different levels of attention during these periods, but that's correct. It's always at will at any time. Because that's what your state allows. Assuming your state allows it. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah. No, that's good. And then so, you know, they've accepted your offer, everything's great, and they show up and, you know, now you have to, to really orient them, right. Go through orientation of kind of how things work. And again, I think there's two step, two stages of that or two different tracks, if you will. And one is the ide of it, even if it's not for technicians. I mean, any job duties that are specific to that, whether it's a salesperson, customer service, you know, admin, bookkeeper, whatever it is, they need to learn how you want things done or how things work. But then there's also that culture thing. And so you may need two people to run that orientation. The person that maybe their supervisor or a fellow employee that's in that department. But then you also need somebody that can talk them through and make sure they understand the history of the company and what it is we're doing here every day. You know, with Tech Restore, I constantly would remind people, hey, you know, we're not fixing computers. We really are changing people's lives. Because, because just think of all the critical data that you have on these devices. And our internal mantra was, we're changing the world one repair at a time. And we constantly just push that through. So people. Because you get, oh, yeah, I'm going to fix another computer. Yada, yada, yada. No, no, it's not that. Just look at the smile on that person's face when you hand back their repair device. And they're like, my gosh, you know, my wedding photos were here, or this, or my kids. All those kinds of critically human things that are related to this technology I would really use to try to help motivate these people. So you may need to have two people. Again, if you don't have that many people and you're just getting started, you're going to have to do both. And that's kind of my. The tips that I have about going through. And I would love to have somebody tell me poke some holes in the way we did things or do things and offer some other tips. Feedbackusshow.co or. Or visit us in the small Business support group at BusinessShow Co Facebook. We'll route you over there and share how you do it and become part of the conversation and we'll share your tips with everybody else.

Yeah, it's how we do it here.

Got it.

It's what, yeah, it's what works. That's for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, all right.

But put the effort into hiring because, you know, you're going to be with these people for a long time, so you want to have them be a resource for you, somebody you can enjoy hanging out with. Like I enjoy hanging out with Dave every week.

That's right. And we all enjoy hanging out together. It's. Yeah, it's great stuff. Great stuff. Shannon, you already told them how to find us. Businessshow co. Of course, we'd like to thank our sponsors, of course, for this episode. SimpleContacts.com SBS and of course, Textexpander.com podcast. That's all we got for today.

That's it.

Hope you have a great week and a great weekend. Keep living that charmed life.

Take care.