The Culture Dividend: Why "Good Vibes" Are Actually Good Business

We hear from so many business owners who are struggling with high turnover, low morale, and teams that just aren't clicking.

And so often the real problem isn't the product, the service, or the people. It's the culture.

And that's why we would love to bring the business fix to your next event or webinar to help transform your team and to push your business forward.

Ready to fix your culture and unlock your team's potential. Visit us@businessfixpodcast.com and click Connect with us to learn more.

As business owners, we love things where you just throw money at it and haven't the foggiest idea if that money is going to return, if that's an investment, or if we should just go out to the parking lot and light it on fire.

Yeah, sure. I love that.

Chrissy's like, it's my favorite. We have different businesses, I guess. No, to us, the. There is a return on investment that you get with a good company culture. The problem is, is it's not something where you can go into your CFO and be like, hey, can you point that out to me?

Yeah, here's it on our balance sheet. Right.

Where. Where is that column on the balance sheet? So we're going to talk about, like, how you can justify a good company culture because it is justifiable. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It really is. And not just for the feel goods. Stay tuned. She's the CEO.

He's the marketing and operations guy.

If it's broken, you need the business fix.

I'm excited about this topic, but I don't know where you're going first. So I'm just like, I am prepared with my notes because you told me to be prepared, so I am.

To me, it's so funny because, I mean, this is something that we both invest so much time and effort and money into.

Yes. And just. Yes. Personal, like, just. It's sweat equity and culture.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yes. And it's a lot of. Yeah, it's. It's all those things. And then at the end of the day, you look at it and you're like, hey, that work. And it's funny because I can see how like, so many business owners get soured on this.

Yeah.

Because you treat people so well and if one person gets grumpy about something, suddenly you think, well, everyone's pissed off.

Yes. That's not true.

It's not.

No. But sometimes people are just having a bad day.

Yes. And just. There are some people that are just miserable.

There are. And usually those are the people that you should exit from your team. But sometimes we don't do that either.

And sometimes. I mean, sometimes. I get it. Some people have personality changes as they get older, whatever. But to me, what's. What's so difficult about it is when you invest this time and as you said, sweat equity in someone, and suddenly they're like, hey, taking a job someplace else.

Yeah.

You're like, you jerk.

Yes.

Don't you see these things that I have done for you beyond this, and when they do go to that new company and it doesn't work out, you're like, see? But you can't be like that.

No, you cannot.

And it's. There's just so many ways that this is so easy to have a negative mindset about.

It is. You need to keep those as inside thoughts.

Inside thoughts?

Inside thoughts. Those are not outside thoughts.

Those are not thoughts that you outwardly project.

Not to your employees, maybe to another business owner, maybe a group that you're in, coach, not to your employees.

Chrissy and I, we started this podcast merely as a therapy session for the both of us. And then we're like, we got stuff. We need to talk about this with other people. That being said, you can't track this like a Google Ad. You can't.

No. It's hard.

Yeah. It's indirect, but it's massive. And for me, the way when I start, when I knew we were going to talk about this, I thought it's because it's two or three steps away from the balance sheet.

Yeah. But I would say it runs right next to it.

I wholeheartedly agree.

It is concurrent.

And the problem is it doesn't take long to see if you screw it up.

You can see it in the balance sheet.

You can see it in the balance sheet, but it's one of those things where you don't, like, there's not a direct dollar input, so it's tough to look at the dollars out on that.

Yeah.

That being said, the CEO, slash, clarity. Hr. Because I know you see this in the HR scene.

We do all of the time. Well, a lot of it's selling people and trying to understand why they need to pay for this. Yes.

Oh, gosh. Yeah. No, that's. I. I don't want that job. What are some of the, like, hidden financial metrics and what are some of the things that, like, move.

Yeah.

When you've got a good culture, how can you. I mean, we all know that, like, people come in, they're smiling. That's. That's a better place to work.

Laughter always good.

Right. Well, group laughter.

Group laughter. Not. Not maniacal laughter. It's different.

Not the dial. Biological person in the corner going, no. Right.

Don't do that.

No, we don't want that. How do you like, how do you see this and how do you see the returns on it?

So I like this question because I think that company culture is one of the most misunderstood assets in business.

Oh, I totally agree. It's why we do this podcast.

It is. It is. Because most owners treat this like an expense. It's something soft. It lives in hr. I really want to put HR in a corner. I don't want to have to talk to them. So when in reality, culture is one of the few things that truly compounds over time, like it is a significant dividend. And so you don't see culture in line item on your profit and loss. It's not going to be on your P and L, but you feel it everywhere. I mean, part of culture, having a good company. Culture is also why you like going to work every day. I mean, if you're like, I don't want to walk into the office and I want to deal with these people, maybe your culture sucks and you need to work on it. So, I mean, you feel culture everywhere. You feel it in retention, you feel it in recruiting, you feel it in productivity, it's felt in customer experience and how much time leaders spend babysitting versus building. Your culture is really king. And I would say culture isn't just a vibe. I know people like Gen Z is all about the vibes. Culture is a value driver.

It's interesting. I want to touch on something real quick. You said the customer experience.

Yes.

Like, I don't know about you, but I walk into a place and I'd be like, oh, I can never work here.

Yes.

And I walk into other places and I'm like, oh, these people are great.

Well, and if I could never work here, do I really want them working for me?

Correct.

No, I don't. So I will say there are three places that culture pays you back. Because culture, you really need to look at culture as a dividend. All right, so there are three R's. I know you're going to love it. Culture creates a dividend. We're pirate again, we're pirate. Are retention, recruitment, and risk reduction. That is where culture creates these dividends. So, I mean, retention is the most obvious. It's usually the most ignored, but it's a big cost saver too. So let's start with retention, because it's where culture Hits the bank account first. All right. Even if leaders don't realize it, workforce studies consistently estimate that replacing that mid level employee costs one and a half to two times their annual salary. Once you factor in recruiting, onboarding, loss, productivity and disruption. Because often people are like, well, it's only 30% of their salary. No, dummy, it's not. It's one and a half to two times. Because you are talking about loss of time, loss of momentum. And I mean, I still see leaders shock by turnover like it came out of nowhere. When the warning signs are cultural, they're not performance based. You're just like, I don't understand why anybody doesn't want to work here. Like, because you are not easy to work for.

Because you're a jerk.

There's been those conversations. I mean, I have. I mean, we have worked with organizations at AUI and Clarity where turnover wasn't caused by pay or workload. They are getting paid at the top of their pay scale. Their workload is manageable. It was caused by inconsistent leadership, which is tolerated bad behavior or a lack of psychological safety. So it is either we are poor leaders, we don't treat people the same way, or we tolerate bad actors within the organization so the top performers are burnout and they leave. Or it's a lack of psychological safety where I don't trust you to make decisions, or I am afraid to speak up. So I want to be valued for the things that I do. So the moment that culture improves, it's not perks, it's not pizza, it's really improving culture. Retention stabilizes, and that's real money staying in the business. When people stay in the business, they get better at doing the things. We get more efficient at doing the things. We grow our customer base and we grow as an organization. So, I mean, retention is real money.

It's funny. I want to talk about that for a second because I have worked in businesses where the owner was like, well, if they don't like it, I'll just go out and hire someone cheaper. And it's interesting. They obviously don't value retention.

Yeah.

And they pay a price for that that they just aren't willing to see.

No. And that's, I mean, it's, it's fine if you're Amazon and you're replacing people with robots in a few years in your warehouses and you're like, you know what? People are just widgets. But for, for small business owners, people are not widgets. No, no. You're not a Fortune 5 company. You don't. You don't get the pleasure of people being widgets. And those people also, I mean, can also sink your business. So, I mean, you can, but I would say that no person is a widget. But I would say too, that every resignation that you have in an organization is a withdrawal from your culture account. Yep. So, I mean, you're, you're paying dividends and building a good culture. You have someone in your organization where you are tolerating behavior and they are making everyone else miserable and people are resigning as a result. It's depleting your culture, it's depleting your account.

Plus, when you have to bring someone else in, it's going to change your culture a little bit.

Yes.

Because it's this living, breathing thing that don't think like, I have culture. It's not like when they stick the swab in the back of your throat for the.

No, it's not a test.

This is a living, breathing thing. And as you change the pieces to it, it's going to change. And every time you have to change piece, it's a risk.

Yeah. So let's talk about recruitment. That's that second R. And that's the culture multiplier that most leaders will undervalue. So it's the recruitment dividend. Right. When culture is healthy, your employees do your recruiting for you.

Yes.

Whether you ask them to or not. Everybody wants to work here. Same thing with when you are consistently not when you're posting on your social media, not because you want everybody to look at you and think you're amazing, but just because you're naturally posting that you have a great team and you enjoy what you're doing and you're helping your customers, people will start knocking on your door. Are you hiring? Like, no, we're not hiring, but we'll take your resume because when we do hire, we would, we would love to have the potential to interview you. All right, so LinkedIn data shows that employee referrals lead to faster hires, better performance, and longer tenure. And I would tell you clarity, HR research shows, and what we do with recruiting and filling positions for our employees is that employee referrals are really helpful in getting the right people in the right seats. It's not accidental. It's trust in action. Because those employees trust the organization. And because of that, they're encouraging other people to want to work for them, too. And when people feel proud of where they work, Josh, I mean, they talk about it. Yep. So at dinner tables, at kids sporting events, at community gatherings, I mean, that organic advocacy is Marketing you cannot buy.

No.

And it's really good marketing.

Yeah. Because it's like you said, it's trust.

Yeah, yeah. And you have to remember too, that, you know, strong culture doesn't just attract talent, it really filters it. And the wrong people will self select out and the right people are going to lean in. And strong culture lowers your cost per hire. Before you ever post a job, when people know that you're growing, they're gonna start helping you find other people. And that's happened with us at Clarity. I mean, some of our best team members and aui, some of our best team members were referrals from individuals who were in the organization, said, hey, I've worked with this person in another place, or hey, I've worked with this person adjacent in the work that we've done. I think they'd be a great fit for here. I'm thinking back and I'm like, oh, my gosh. Yeah. Like, when I think of some of the rock stars that I have in my organization, they came directly from other rock stars in the organization.

And what's funny about that is you may not have a job for that, but you find a way to make that work.

You do. You absolutely do.

You're like, well, that's a little bit different than what I had in mind, but we'll figure this out.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So let's talk about that third R, that risk reduction, which is the invisible savings account. So this is the one that leaders rarely connect to culture until it's too late. Healthy cultures have fewer HR fire drills, they have fewer grievances fire drills, they have fewer compliance issues. And I would say healthy cultures have way fewer lawsuits. And that, I mean, they do. Why? Ask me, Josh. Why is that, Chrissy? It's because people speak up early. Issues get addressed before they become legal or reputational. Prior realms and Harvard Business Review. Amy Edmondson has done a ton of research on psychological safety, and she says that, you know, it consistently shows teams with high trust catch errors earlier, they resolve conflict faster, they interact with each other at a different speed and pace. There's a higher level of accountability, there's understanding within the organization. So, I mean, from the perspective of an HR leader, you know, when culture's strong employees don't escalate immediately to HR or attorneys, they resolve those issues through conversation. And that's a massive risk reducer. When you have managers and leaders and just team members that are able to kind of work through issues together, you don't have to deal with the same. You're not dealing with those fire drills. You're not dealing with people coming in and making you be the referee. And I would say this silence can be really expensive. We've talked about that in other podcasts. What is an indication of a company that's struggling with culture silence? Speaking up early saves money. The need for continuing coaching and professional development is really what's important in this area too. And that's what I would say as far as, like, you're like, well, what can I do as a leader to make sure that I maintain culture? Continuing to develop is really important. So I want to talk a little bit about, you know, as a CEO, there are times where the business leader, you're like, this is. I don't understand why this is important. I just want people. I want to pay them to do the things.

Just do your job.

Just do your job. I do my job. It's like, yeah, but you own the business or you. You get paid a lot more to do the job. So that's why you're where you are. I want to talk about the CEO dividend because this is personal. So business owners who don't necessarily think that culture is a big deal, I want you to listen, okay? When culture is broken, leaders get dragged into everything. Every drama, every conflict, every decision. It leads to paralysis. It's a lot of emotional cleanup. You get tired of being the referee. So if you're like, I am always putting out fires. My people are never getting along well, you know, then your culture might be broken. That might be. It is broken. I'm being polite. When culture's healthy, teams always self correct. We just said this a minute ago, but I'm saying it again because repetition is important. And I know it takes 10 times for somebody to understand what I'm talking about. So when culture's healthy, you self correct. They make decisions aligned with mission. They don't need permission for every move. Josh, how much do you love it in your organization when somebody comes in and they're like, hey, this was the issue and we resolved it. We just wanted to tell you that it was done. Yep.

No, I mean, it makes my day 100%. Because I'm like, holy cow. And the amount of pride that I have in that, like, I got the right people.

Yes, that's it. They did the thing. I mean, and I've been in both seasons, I have been in space where like, oh, my gosh, our culture stinks. We got to figure out what we're going to do. And I've had those times where I've spent my days refereeing in part because I wasn't willing to make a hard decision that somebody shouldn't be on the team anymore. And then I've also spent time building our culture and culture and getting it to be thick is the difference. I would rather be a builder of culture than a referee. Healthy culture moves decisions down and vision up.

So I want to add something to this real quick.

Yes.

Everyone, like, we. We spend a lot of time talking about culture. And I realize that something that just dawned on me as you said this, for so many CEOs, it's a blind spot.

Oh, a huge one.

I have a great culture. And to me, unless you are actively doing these things that we are talking about.

Yep. Walking the floor, asking your people, getting feedback, you don't.

Unless you are actively doing this. Because then you're the nice leader.

Yeah.

And that was a few. Few episodes ago.

It is.

But yeah.

You.

You need to actively be doing these things.

Yes.

Otherwise you don't have a great culture.

No. And for those of you that think that culture is just fluff, I would like to talk to you right now and talk to you about why culture is not HR fluff. Because I think that you're just wrong and it's going to be an expensive, costly problem. But you can listen to me now or you can be miserable later. It's your choice. I would say, you know, culture governs behavior, behavior governs results. And if you don't intentionally design culture, you inherit one 100%. And inherited cultures are usually expensive, Josh. They're really expensive. I mean, transitioning culture can be expensive, but yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's. It. It's an investment. And like I said, if you are not making the investment, you don't have a great culture.

No. And you know, culture isn't soft, it's structural. So to wrap everything up, when leaders stop seeing culture as a cost and start really treating it like capital, everything shifts.

It does.

Retention improves, recruiting gets easier, risk goes down, and innovation goes up. And leaders finally get their time back. You want to buy back your time as a leader. Yes. There are things that you can do on the technology side, but you truly want to buy back your time, create a good culture for your organization. And that's not. It's not just good vibes. It's good business. Yeah.

Look at that.

It is. And culture is important.

We should stop there.

No, we can't. Because I got one more sentence, and it's really important. One more sentence, and that's. Culture isn't broken because people are bad. It's broken because leaders get quiet when it matters most.

I wholeheartedly agree to that. I mean, everything in there is just. Yes, just yes, it is.

So because of that, that's why it was important that I say that last sentence. Culture isn't broken because people are bad. It's broken because leaders get quiet when it matters most. Because I know you're gonna about this in execution and marketing from an operations perspective. So how do you see culture impact the operational efficiency and the marketing reach of the company? How do those steps look from your side?

It's interesting because, like, if you don't invest in making the process smoother, it's going to do things to make itself worse. Lower friction, faster execution. I mean, literally, culture is the lubricant that makes it so all these moving parts can work together. If you want to see what happens, you don't do this, but take the oil out of your car and see how it works without lubricant.

No, don't do that.

Right. It does.

That's expensive.

It runs okay for a little while, then it comes to a screeching halt and it becomes very expensive. The part of it is to you eliminate the shadow workflow. When people trust each other, there's no meeting after the meeting. There's. I mean, problems are solved in the room in 10 minutes rather than being debated in 10 emails and three hallway meetings and by the water cooler. Decentralized decision making. If everyone knows where we're going.

Yeah.

One person does not need to make all of the decisions. We're going here. We're going to get here the best way that we can. And the daily decisions can be handled by the people in the driver's seat. You are the gps. You're saying, here's where we're going and

here's how we're getting there.

Yes. Let the people decide how they get there and the speed at which they're able to do that with. Is that return on investment as you're paying people to be in the office, in out of the office, wherever the people are, if they're able to do their stuff quicker, guess what? You can get more done. And when you can get more done, it's typically less expensive. Imagine that.

And you like going to work. Yes. You really just would like to like going to work.

Yeah.

I don't ever want you in your

car crying ahead of time.

Yes. Or just taking like, I'm gonna listen to one more song. Listen this podcast, you know, maybe I'll Take this call in the car. Like, that should be a red flag to you if you're not wanting to walk into your office building.

If you see the person out in the parking lot every day for 10 minutes, 10 to 12 minutes, like, I

need that person to walk in before me because I just can't. That. That should tell you maybe your culture isn't working 100%.

Direct is kind. Kind is direct. Clarity is kind of. No one spends time deciphering what the boss or a peer actually meant. Make it so you can speak openly and honestly without someone's feelings get hurt. Hey, I don't really. I don't feel that idea is going to work. Here's why. If you tell me that, I'm not going to get offended. I'm going to want to listen and maybe expand my horizons. Because in directness, you realize this is not a personal attack. This is like, hey, we have a difference of ideas. The other thing is too, is the reduced context, switching shaky cultures. Employees spent a massive amount of time figuring out what did they actually mean by that.

Yeah,

Let's be honest. You did not start your business so you could spend your days buried in HR paperwork or Googling how to handle employee drama.

That's why I started Clarity hr, where your fractional HR team giving you real people, real support and real solutions. Whether it's compliance, headaches, hiring struggles, or just needing someone to take the people stuff off your plate, we've got your back.

So if you're ready to stop using duct tape and hope as your HR

strategy and finally get some peace of mind, head over to clarityhr.com that's clarityhr.com simple, clear, and here to help.

I'll give you a few seconds to go to the website while we get ready to get back to the show.

Stop making them read tea leaves.

No, no, don't do it. The additional piece to that is too, is then if, like, there's clarity and stuff like that, you're not doing this four times over again.

No.

Once again, every time you have to rework something, look back to see why. Yeah, in so many cases, it's a culture. Culture issue.

Yes.

Or an operation operational issue, but it's one of those two. And both of those can be fixed, one a little bit faster than the other. The other one is to like from the marketing side is the customer experience mirror. I. I like this. I'm going to talk about the banks here because there's a. There's a bank that they.

I know you. You and this bank.

They Talk about personal service. I walk in, every employee looks like they're three customers away from running out and playing in traffic. They almost like in Happy Gilmore. Remember when the lady throws herself on the hood of his car, is like, get me out of here.

At the nursing home.

At the nursing home, when you walk in and every single employee has that look on their face, you're like, okay, so the customer, the service thing you're talking about is the facade.

Yeah.

And I walk. And I mean, there's times. I mean, it's every branch, there's the occasional person that's just, like, chosen to look at life positively. Either that or they had. They were drinking in their car before they came. You see people walk in, and you're just like, if. If you're. If your employees are handling or feeling like that, your customers know it.

Yeah.

If they have this feeling that goes straight to your customers. I mean, and you could be like, give our customers the best customer service. And they're like, fine, what do you want? I'm going to give you the best service I can. Which is not much today. It's very much that. If your employees are stressed by everyone else in the company, there's stressful stuff that happens in business all the time.

Absolutely.

You should not be one of those things.

No. Your job is to reduce drag, not create it.

Your coworkers should not be one of those things that is increasing your stress. If you're stressed, ignored, treated poorly by leadership, or, I mean, they're just drained. They've got zero bandwidth left for the customer. And that is that look of like, oh, damn it. A person just walked through the door. It's that look that we have all seen.

I don't want to help them, but I have to.

Right.

You don't want that.

And, hi, how are you today? When you hear that, you're like, don't

ask me how I am. You care. Correct. Just don't be like, hi.

Correct.

What do you need?

Correct.

How can I help you? That's why. How can I help you? Is so much better.

And that's. That's. It's why, like, half the time I met a bank teller, and I always want to be like, blink twice if you're being held against your will. I'm seriously waiting for them to do that.

The.

The. The other thing that I see is it, like, in a bad culture, even though you say we offer great customer service, we bend over backwards for our customers so many times it's wasting time or breaking protocols. How it's Seen because there's these ridiculously tight guardrails. They aren't allowed to do anything. So they, this is what I, Everyone remembers Spectrum in the, in the. Oh, yeah. In the teens, you're like, you got to a point where you just pick up the phone as soon as the person got on. Just give me the manager.

We were all hostages, right? Well, because we had no choice.

They weren't going to. I mean, they couldn't do anything. You knew you had to escalate it to two managers before you could get anything done.

Yes. That was their business model.

That was their business model.

Torture.

Yeah. Just. I mean, hope, hope, Hope you wear your customers down. And once again, every single one of those people picked up the phone and you know they were being recorded and they have to act happy. But you know, they're looking at the, the, the, the knife, the butter knife in their drawer like, like, do I stick this in my jugular or not? The best example I love of this Ritz Carlton. This is widely known. I'm not saying everyone's going to be the Ritz Carlton in this, but any customer facing employee had a budget of $2,000 per incident.

Yeah.

If something happened, just take care of it up to $2,000. Just do it. Don't think about it, just do it.

Yes.

That is good culture. That is people being. I mean, that is you showing that you trust your people to make the right decisions. That is what culture gets you. If a leader is like inconsistent or under kind.

Oh, I like that. Under kind. That's a very nice way to say other things.

Figured you'd like that. If they're a jerk, that frustration leaks out to the customer all day long. And I mean, this is just the marketing standpoint. Yeah. So I'm not saying be the nice boss, because we talked about what happens when you do that.

Yes.

Be the direct boss. Be the kind boss, but don't be, don't, don't be that inconsistent or just be the jerk to your employees because once again, they're going straight out to your employee. They're going straight out to your customers. Exactly the one. Once again, we're going back to the bank. Example. The script versus the soul. You know, all the people that are reading scripts.

Oh, yeah.

I. Welcome to the bank today.

Yeah.

And it's because they're required to say those specific words. I tell you what, if they walked in, they said, hey, good morning. Oh, it's morning. It is morning.

Hi.

They said something they, they acknowledged, not, hi, how are you today? I mean, it like this. The script. Most people have no script.

Yeah.

Or no soul when they read from a script. It's why in the video side of our business, we tell people no teleprompter.

Yeah.

Most people read off of a teleprompter like they're reading in their head. Hi. These are the things that I am required to say to you. And if I don't, my boss over there will yell at me. Thank you. No, no. Honest, genuine interactions. Especially as AI becomes more prevalent.

Oh, you gotta be human.

Oh. The human thing is what everyone's gonna going to really. They're gonna crave that.

Yeah.

Happy employees. Genuine, low friction interactions. Higher lifetime customer value.

Absolutely.

If I have switched places, I've switched banks before I switched other providers. Because you know what? Someone is friendly to me. Holy cow. Are you gonna get every customer that way?

Yeah.

No. But you're gonna get a lot of them that way. The last piece to it too is the. From a marketing advocacy thing. When you go in, we see it all the time. When you. When you walk in the door and you see them then look away like, I didn't see this person walk in the door.

I hate that. Please don't make eye contact.

Right.

Don't ask me to do something for you.

There's four tellers at the bag and you see three of them looking away. And the last one's like, oh, crap. Made eye contact.

They got me reluctant.

Right. I mean, if you, if people. Once again, it's work. We call this work. This is not playtime. In the same sense, if they go to work and they feel like they're treated fairly, they feel good, genuinely good about what they do. You covered it. They're going to become your biggest advocate, whether it be for customers, whether it be for finding new employees, whatever. I really, I mean, it feels like in the business world we have enough, like, foes out there. I'd rather have an advocate.

Yeah. Raving fans are a good thing.

The other thing is to not. I get it. Not everyone comes across as the super charismatic whatever. In the same sense, give people the ability to say hi without giving them a script.

Yeah.

If you have a good culture, they will do that without sounding like, hey, can I go play in traffic now?

Yes.

The other thing is too, is like, I mean, the dinner table return on investment. Like I said, the thing that we often don't think about is if someone actually like, has a decent day at work, they're gonna go home, they're gonna talk to their family about it. Hey, My mom really enjoys her job at such and such and that. I mean, your kids.

It ripples.

Yes. It doesn't stop there.

No. And you're setting an example for kind of what workforce could look like for them once they're older and in the workforce. You want to create ripples of impact as an employer, be a good employer because you raise the bar for everybody else. Please keep doing it.

Because there's so many people that hate their jobs.

There are.

And it sucks to see and it makes me sad.

Yeah. And we only have so many seats on our bus right now. I want to hire all the peoples, but I can't.

So same. It's. It's funny because when I go into the bank ice and I see some people that I'm like, wow, this is a person that just. You can see there's a spark in their eye. But it's covered.

Yeah.

By like this flame retardant blanket scripts

of scripts and process and overregulation. Yes.

If people feel supported.

Yeah.

They will support, like.

Oh, gosh. Yeah.

This is the thing that I see with this return on investment piece. If people feel supported in the business that they work in, they will support that business tenfold.

Yes.

I mean, that, that is the simplest piece to this. This is the multiplier of it. If they feel supported, they will support you, they will support the person sitting next to them. They will support their boss, they will support the client, they will support everyone around them.

Yes. And they will be raving fans any opportunity that they get to push your

business 100% to me. And that is why. That's one of the reasons why. And I say this all the time, like, success is a shared thing, is our core value as a business. If I make sure my employees are successful, I'm going to be successful.

Yes.

Because they're going to want to make sure that we're all successful too.

Yes.

And it's one of those things that just goes. I mean, it just spreads now. Once again, though, culture doesn't happen. It takes intent.

It is intentional. Yes. I will say one of the biggest wins that I have as a business owner is when I see our leadership team or any team member really taking ownership of the organization. When I see them repeating our purpose and saying, this is, we're making this decision based on, or I'll be doing something else. They have no idea I'm there. I'm at the copier. Because occasionally I make copies still. And I hear this is, you know, we provide peace of mind by simplifying the complicated. How are we, Are we giving peace of mind? I don't know that that's something that we should. I think that we should probably push the envelope with this, this client and encourage them to do something, because that's not, we're not helping them this way, or we're moving in a different direction, or how can we make the business more successful? Like, those are the things that you just, you're like. You hear them and you're like, oh, my gosh. Yeah, I did something right. This is going. But it didn't happen overnight.

No.

Doesn't.

I'm going to refer to your copier thing here in a minute.

Yeah.

To me, one of the best feelings ever is when I get a message from someone that says, we have this or we got this done.

Yes.

When I hear it's this collective thing.

Yeah.

It's like when we get a new client and they say, hey, we've got a new client. That to me is just talk about a smile.

Yeah.

The other piece is I still have one of the best things that I have ever heard when you say you make copies still. Because, I mean, we are 2026.

Yeah.

A friend of mine, she was the receptionist at the semi truck dealership, has her own business now. We're going very well. Someone said, can you fax that to me? And she said, no, I can't. And they said, why not? She goes, because I'm in 2021.

Ha. Sometimes we still have to make copies. I could print it 20 times or I could copy it and it's cheaper.

Yeah, no, I, I, I, I understand this. And as I realizing, like, our businesses are slightly different. They are yours. Deals with a lot of paperwork.

We still do. Yes.

Oh, yeah, no, thanks.

A lot of paperwork. Lots of things. Occasionally I got to copy something and resign it. Give a wet signature. That's what it is.

That's my personal hell.

I get it.

What does it cost a company when they don't fix their bag? Culture. I mean, there's, there's, I mean, I can think of an infinite number of things here, but what's your take on this?

I mean, you get absenteeism, quiet quitting, sabotage. I mean, culture. The culture tax isn't theoretical. I mean, it's legitimate. It shows up as absenteeism. It shows up as conflict. It shows up quality and issues and turnover. I mean, Deloitte has done significant, significant research on culture. So has Gallup. And they, they talk significantly about, you know, strong cultures that have low, low, high culture have significantly lower Absenteeism and turnover. And that in itself. We talked about this earlier. One and a half to two times of salary to replace a person. And in having a thick culture, you also get higher performance. So, I mean, you gotta think, healthy culture makes us money. Unhealthy culture costs us money.

It really does.

It's really simple.

It's. It's funny. It's funny you say that too, because there's a couple of jobs that I can think back to where I was at home. Like, today's gonna be a busy, big day. No pto just because I didn't want to deal with it.

Yeah.

Or I'd have to be in a meeting with someone that I didn't want to be meeting with. And I'm like, you know, PTO day well.

And seeing, I will say, like, in strong culture, strong organizations, you will see people lean in. It's not, oh, I'm going to take PTO because it's going to be hard. Like, we have a very hard fourth quarter as an organization because, I mean, in the insurance space, 90% of insurance renews 1:1, which means that you have different enrollment windows that have to happen for different products. And if somebody is off, I mean, like, it's not like we don't allow people to not take time off, but, like, they know, like, I gotta be here. This is really important. And they're working. I mean, collaboration on the team side. And it's not a. When we have push days, everybody's in and everybody's leaning in. And it's not just because make me miserable or they'll be upset if I. It's because I know I'm letting the team down if I'm not here to help. And our clients need us in this time more than they do any other time. So we're gonna lean in and we're gonna help foreign. If you're a small business owner navigating the world of marketing, or looking to establish yourself as an industry expert, you already know the power of a great podcast.

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and now back to the show.

It's funny how that so quickly just becomes apparent.

Yeah.

And it tells you, too, who is invested in the culture and who isn't.

Well. And you can tell, too, who your people are that you're going to exit from your bus pretty quickly.

Yeah.

When they start saying, oh, this is really. Like, I don't. And I'm like, this is what we've done every year. Or. Or you get a new person. And they're like, this is. This is a lot of volume. We're like, yeah, but the rest of the year is not like this. And they're like, well, I don't know that I like this part. We're like, but you liked all the vacations and PTO and all the things that you. You loved your summer. But I don't want to deal. I don't want to deal with this part. It's like, no. So that's. Again, it's part of the gig. Well, and your culture self selects. Like, I. I would. I used to say. And I still don't. Like, I rarely have to let people go because they will let themselves exit because the rest of the group will exit them for them.

Yeah.

And that's it. There have been times where I had to be like, you know what it was? It used to be. And we've. We've had some changes around our organization, too, but for a period of time, it was, we're hiring a new person. They may think and look a little bit different than you. I need you to be nice to them so that we can figure out if they're a good fit or not. Because if they were to say something immediately, the organization, because of the thickness of the culture that we had, if they thought they were taking advantage of the business, they would turn on them quickly. And it was like, let's make sure that before we turn on them, we know that this is something that is truly an issue.

Got it.

Is this. Is this just something where it's a learning or is this. Is this. This person? And so there were times I'd be like, okay, we gotta be nice to people for a little bit longer before we assume that they're not going to do their job. Let's just, let's.

But there's still a timeline to it.

There is a significant timeline to it, but it's that. That piece of like, okay, let's see if we can. Because again, I would like they would exit quickly and be like, what happened? I thought, nope, that person didn't work. Nope. We thought they were taking advantage of the organization there. And it was like, okay, what is the level of caring that we need to have? So we worked on quantifying some of that. It can be. I mean, there, there comes a point where you do have to really look at your culture when it is thick and say, okay, how do we make sure that this is. We can add people. Because you want to be able to be flexible and grow. You don't want to be inflexible. You don't want to hire everybody that is exactly the same.

Correct. Correct.

Yeah.

That being said, this is one of the things that I think it's so interesting is as a small business, you have the ability to change and market your culture.

Yeah.

I have worked in many big businesses that I have dreaded going into.

Yeah.

The ability to walk into a small business that I may not make as much.

Yeah.

I may not have as good of the benefits.

But you're going to like working there.

I don't hate myself and think, I can drive to work today or I can drive underneath that semi.

Yeah.

There's a huge benefit to that and to me, I want to go back to the bank example.

Yeah.

I see so many of these people that are stuck in this big machine that they, I mean, they just hate it.

Yeah.

And those are the ones that I almost see that I want to go out to and be like, okay, look, as a small business, I can't necessarily pay you the amount. And it always bums me out when I hear other small businesses, business owners saying, I can't get people. Because I'm like, you're not finding the right people then. Because if you do find. Now, granted, you can't pay half. You have to be competitive.

You have to be competitive.

But in the same sense, you have some flexibility to offer some other things that. To me, this is where culture can pay off in dividends.

Yeah.

Because you may not be able to offer the best health benefits.

No.

But once again, if they hated their last job. Yeah, boy, do you have something to offer if you've spent the time and the money and the effort on culture. Because you're human. Yeah.

Well. And you can offer them the autonomy that a lot of times a large corporation can't. And I, I would say there are times, especially as people are more advanced in their career, when they've been through, they've done some of these bigger things, and they're like, you know what? I just want to enjoy what I'm doing.

Yep.

I have several on my team that, I mean, have led larger. Larger organizations or they have been. They've been in business for themselves. And I'm like, you don't. You don't want to do that anymore? Like, no, I want to enjoy what I'm doing. Same thing with. With individuals that go into that C suite. Like, especially in the nonprofit space, I think sometimes they get hamstrung by people and they're like, there's no way that this person who has worked for this large organization and this type of thing is going to want to work here and make a third of what I said. Just try. Because they may be. They may want your culture. They may want Impact. There's a lot of reasons why people decide to go to work for other organizations. Don't sell yourself short just because you're a small business. Sometimes what you are doing in impact is way more important and way more valuable than what you could pay someone in salary.

What's interesting about that is a good, quick example of that. When I was at. I worked in a call center for a while, was consistently ranked as one of the top salespeople. They told me my talk time was too fast. I couldn't possibly be helping the customer. I received the most letters saying, Josh was wondering, careful from the customers. But yet all they looked at was this number. And as a small business owner, you offer some of that flexibility. Yeah. In, like, look, it's not just big numbers running the whole thing. Because all they were looking at was the bell curve.

Exactly.

And if you were at either end of the bell curve, they hated you.

And see, to me, I'm going. You talk fast and you solve problems. And people like you, I. Can I clone you?

Correct. Correct.

Because that's way more people. That's way more calls. Let's go.

Correct. So this week's key takeaways. Retention math.

Yeah.

What does it cost? Yeah, it's. It's expensive.

Expensive. If you don't do it right.

If you don't do it right. The. The other piece to that is like, like, look at. Look at some of the soft things about that in terms of, like internal promotion, referral rates. I mean, like, are people staying?

Yes.

That's going to tell you. Like, do you have the retention?

Yeah.

What about, like, how do you look at things on a monthly basis?

So I would say you kind of audit what you're tolerating within the month. So you make a short list of behaviors you've seen the last 30 days that quietly are undermining culture. So kind of taking, keeping track of that. So I mean like, and you can kind of keep track of it yourself. Like eye rolling, miscommitments, side conversations, disrespectful tone. Ask yourself which ones you let slide. What, what have you done? Because you know, culture isn't shaped by what you say matters. It's. It's by what you let continue. So if you tolerate it, you teach it and you know, we have to remember that culture is a long game. It's not like, oh, I'm going to pay $10,000 and we're going to have all of our culture is going to be fixed immediately. It is, it is like planting seeds. You've got to, you've got to water them, you've got to let them grow.

I love that. That's, that's an interesting one. And that. It's so funny. I think some owners stay oblivious to it.

Well, it's much easier to stay uplift and like, I mean it's not going

to, you have to pay attention.

You do.

For me, that's. And that comes down to that success being shared thing. If you are not sharing success with your employees, if they're not incentivized to care about the return on investment, why would they care?

Exactly.

It doesn't always need to be like, hey, if you get this project done pizza, because no one cares. It doesn't always need to be. You'll get a dollar bonus. It's like, hey, if this gets done, first off, we're going to have the good feeling about it. But second off, let's work on a project that you're going to like, let's do. Let's move on to something else. It doesn't need to be big things. Hey, once we're done with this project, why don't we grab lunch and sit down and talk about what you're seeing in the business. Why don't, like, why don't I make sure you feel seen and heard? Yeah, why don't. I mean those are the things that make all the difference in the world of people.

I mean we call that a stay interview. And so I would challenge people that, you know, have one stay interview this quarter. So you're going to choose one high performing value aligns employee and you're going to ask them three things. It's what's working, what's frustrating you, and what would make this an even better Place to stay. I mean, those three things. What's working here? What's frustrating you? And what would make this an even better place to stay. I mean, exit interviews tell you where you failed. Stay interviews tell you what you can still fix.

Wow. Yeah, it's funny. And what I love about that is we talked about this earlier. Just three simple, direct questions.

Yes.

This doesn't need to be production.

No, it doesn't have to be.

Ask them three questions, shut the hell up, and get out of the way.

Exactly. And you can even do that just in. Just like in walking the floor. I mean, go into your organization. Don't ask them to do a ton of different things. Say, hey, what's working right now? What's not working? Is there anything I can help you with?

Yeah, I mean, simple.

It is simple.

These are not big asks here.

No.

Should we go to the quick shots?

Sure.

Culture fit versus skill set. If you can only have one.

Yeah. Oh, this is not hard. This is culture fit. Because skills can be taught, values can't.

100%.

That's it. It's that simple.

If I give me someone that's enthusiastic, that, I mean, fits with everyone else.

Yep.

Oh, my gosh. Yeah, we'll find a spot.

Yeah. I can train somebody to run a system.

Yep.

I can't train them to want to do it.

Ping pong table culture better or health insurance Culture better for the bottom line.

Oh, I mean, come on. I'm the health insurance person. Here's what else. Health insurance. Every time. Ping pong is a perk. So security. Health insurance is security. Security is a strategy so people don't do their best work when they're worried about their medical bills.

Correct.

A stable foundation beats a flashy distraction every time.

I have been in a couple of businesses with ping pong tables, pinball machines, and pool tables, and every single time, I'm like, this is a red flag.

Yeah. Yeah. Josh, what's the first thing an owner should do if they realize their culture is costing them money?

It's not. Stop pretending it's an HR problem.

It's not.

It's leadership 100%. And this is. I mean, really. We talk about culture. Culture is the result of why we do this podcast.

Yeah.

We are really talking about leadership. Whether you're a small business. Manager, owner, medium business, wherever you're at, wherever you are.

Aspiring business leader.

Yes, we are talking about leadership. And I mean, and good leadership is what will give you the culture. Bad leadership is what makes for grumpy people, gives you the heartburn. Yeah, well, it gives you the heartburn. Gives them the heartburn. Gives you the people in the bank. Like I was talking about, where you walk in and hostages the hostages. That is a great way to put that. Next time you go into the bank, be like, are there hostages in here?

Are you safe?

Yeah. No, no, they don't feel safe. That being said, thanks for listening. We always appreciate it. Go to businessfixpodcast.com. check us out on all the socials. Do us a favor, make sure you give us a review. Would love to. I should get reviews on the bow tie.

Yes, I think you should.

We'll see what people think about the bow tie this time. Next episode. Why? Like, we've talked about how to build your culture. Now we're going to talk about why it breaks when you grow. Because every single time when you go through these growth spurts, you're like, oh, we're good. Culture's locked down, foundation's there. And all of a sudden you're like, why is everyone pissed off?

Yes.

Do us a favor. Take care of yourself. If you can, take care of someone else, too, we will see you very, very soon.