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You're listening to Shorts and Suits, conversations about business, leadership, culture and families through the eyes of two entrepreneurs in the small business community with Ben Kaulman and J.W. rayhans.

Okay, and we're back.

That's right. Looking forward to it.

It seems like we had a little bit of break here, but here we are. We're talking about our next topic, which today is talent movement. It's really the idea about, you know, in this post. Not really post, but sort of post Covid time, we're seeing a lot of movement with talent in all the industries. Are you seeing that?

Oh, yeah, yeah. People are moving. People are changing. And, you know, we're. We're a benefactor of it in this area because a lot of people are moving to Arizona.

Right.

But there's people moving just because they're working remote, and that's impacting big business and small business. But I think one of the things that you and I have talked about recently is just the. The amount of change that people are doing in their lives and making decisions to change jobs, change careers, change companies.

Yeah.

And what does that really look like for us?

You know, that's exactly right. So as I've reflected on this past year, that's one of the byproducts for sure, that I've seen from COVID coming out of this, is that people are reflecting. They have more time. Right. We're. We're stuck at home. A lot of us were stuck at home. A lot of us spend a lot of time just reflecting on what are we doing with our lives. Is this career that I'm on the right career path for me? Am I doing what I love? Am I passionate about this? And when you have time to think like that and get clear, you start to wander. And that's not a bad thing necessarily. I think, actually, there's a. Probably a benefit to that because I think a lot of people may have been stuck in a rut, may have just really needed a change or just really realized where they were, wasn't the best place for them.

Yeah, well. And, you know, there's the saying, and I don't know whose quote this is because I've heard it so many times, but how change breathes change. And we've had so much change over the last year that it kind of builds this momentum behind. Okay, well, if I'm gonna take a risk, right. If I'm gonna do something totally different, now's when I'm gonna do it. Cause it seems like a less risky move right now, because if it doesn't work out. It doesn't work out. And I can go back to doing what I was doing before. So let's make this real a little bit. Right. So let's look at you and Rocket Media, and then I'll share some from Rayhans and Joshua Development as well. But you guys have experienced, as we have, a lot of change in our team. What do you feel like that's done for not just you as an owner, but just the overall dynamics of your team as well?

Well, so it's all new for me because, you know, I'm not a big shop. I've got just over 20 people, 22, 25. We kind of sit in that range, and we've been like that for probably the last five, six years. So, you know, the turnover within our organization has been really low or, you know, very proportional to the size that we were making it real, as you mentioned. So coming back from the holiday break, you know, I experienced a fairly large turnover all at once. Right after the holiday break, you know, we all took a nice break off and came back and boom, hit me like a brick to the face. Was not expecting that change all at once. And so I had to pivot real fast, not only because of, you know, now I have a lack of talent and support needed for my clients, but, you know, you're in this position where you rely on people and you feel like you've got a really strong trust. Now, here's one of my faults, jw, is I give people probably more credit and leeway than I should as a business owner. And I'm always on the impression like, you know, I'm gonna trust you until you give me a reason not to trust you. And so that served me well over the years. And I'm not saying that people that have left distrusted me in any way, but it left me on my heels. I wasn't prepared. And. And I think it's always the desire for us as operators, owners, to be in the driver's seat of our future as opposed to reacting to things, you know, but that wasn't the case.

Yeah.

And again, I think it's allowed me to grow in ways that I hadn't thought of before. You know, I really leaned on some of my team members to help us get through those hard times as we acquired new talent, which, thankfully, there was a lot of talent to be found.

Absolutely.

You know, that's the opposite side that you're mentioning. We go and list a position. Normally we get, you know, maybe 20, 30 people apply for a position around that range. And these times now we're applying, we're opening positions, we've got close to hundreds of people that are applying for these.

Positions, which you gotta feel cool also, right?

Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.

So let's, so let's come back to that part, right? Because I think that's the positive side of the change that we've experienced even in our own companies. So let's go back to the brick in the face, right? And hopefully this isn't going to bring up, you know, tear open old wounds, right? But think about that for a moment and maybe walk some of our audience through when that happens on a team the size like ours, because, you know, Ray Hans and JDEV combined is close to the same size as Rocket Media. We're usually hovering that somewhere to 15 to 20 people range. And when you have three or five that leave in a relative short amount of time, I mean, what does that feel like? What does that feel like when all of a sudden that's a big gap when you've got a team that's only, you know, 15, 20, 25 people and four or five of them are all.

Going, yeah, I call this the owner's burden, because here's the backstory on this thing. So I am the type of guy that wants to be with friends, with everybody, right? When you're on my team, I consider you like one of my good friends. And so even though I know we have this professional relationship where employer, boss type of thing, I don't act like that. I don't treat that like, you know. So here's the owner's burden. I can probably tell you, and this is probably true for most people, that you probably do not have a relationship with any of your previous employers now employ your peers within those different networks, probably so. But your employer is kind of a tied to the company. The boss is. And so I find myself always going, man, how come I can't have those extended relationships? Why do I always have to be the one that gets cut out of these things? You know?

Right.

My staff will have lunch with past employees and I'm like, how come they didn't invite me? You know, in that, that pseudo jealous way that you're like, okay, fine. So I think that's one of the burdens. I think when you. So when you think about it from that perspective, it's like, yeah, you're losing the talent and the support you need, but you're also losing that relationship that you've grown and built.

You got it.

And that's hard. That's hard to do, you know.

Well, and I think, I think this is where a lot of other just people, whether it's the owner or whether it's the people in small organizations, that's one of the things that attracts them to work for a smaller organization. Right. Is the tight knit group, the family feel. And so you're exactly right. When those people leave, there's a party. It's like there's a part of your heart that leaves too because you've poured into these people, you've poured into their lives, you understand what's going on in their world and you care for them. And so in addition to that, that kind of owner's burden, you know, one of the things that we don't maybe always think about is how does that impact the rest of the team? Right. So the owner has to step up, other people have to step up. And then what did you guys do? What did you do to react to that? To kind of get back in the driver's seat, if you will?

Yeah.

What are some moves you made?

Well, here's what I did. I don't know if this is the right way to do it, but this is what I did. I'm the type of operator that wants to make sure that the team doesn't burden that, that I guess change necessarily to the extent that you can kind of save them from it. So I'm always glasses, half full kind of guy when it comes to these type of things. And so I will go out of my way to communicate first of all, to overly communicate anything that's going on. So people hear from me again and again and again because they're always going to have their own perceptions of what they think reality is versus what it really is. And also, you know, start wondering, well, if they left, maybe I should be thinking about that. And that was my biggest, honestly, just to be truth be told. Yeah, that was my biggest fear is with these people leaving all at once. Does the rest of people think, wow, should I be going to. They know something. I don't know. Is there something wrong with the company? No, there's not.

Yeah.

You know, that's the interesting thing about the change that we experienced is most of the people that left did. They were doing life changing type of career moves. You know, it wasn't like they were going from a rocket media to a different rocket media. Some did, but most went directly to something completely different that they felt like, this is what I need to do with my life now. And that's Hard to, I guess, explain to people. But again, transparency and communication is partly what we did. But then reassuring them that, hey, everything's going to be fine. You know, there's one thing you and I both know that in this entire world, entire business organizations that we have, change will always happen.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, we can guarantee the minute you get complacent and comfortable, boom, change is going to happen.

Yep, that's exactly right.

That's the only I can guarantee you.

Yeah, well, in. And as we started to talk about, there's a lot of positive aspects to this sort of change, too. And you gave some great nuggets in there that, that anybody listening to this can take when they experience that sort of change. Because the reality is, whenever you build a team, ultimately there's going to be people that come into that team and leave that team. There's going to be some motion to that. And so a couple of the nuggets that you gave there, we should probably repeat, which is one, just communicate, right? Communicate well with the team. Let them understand, you know, where do we sit? Where are we going as an organization? What are you still a part of? And really communicate as much as possible. And as you mentioned, you know, try to make sure that they know that they're still supported, that they've got the support from you to really make sure that they're going to be able to perform at a high level and to be able to do their jobs and that you're going to work to fill in those gaps, which I noticed you guys did a great job of. Immediately you look to fill some of those roles. You look to see, okay, well, who has the capacity to take on some of that, but then where do we need to hire new people? And then you mentioned, you know, that when you went to post those positions, you were getting four or five times the number of applicants that you normally do. And that speaks loudly to the type of kind of economic environment we're in right now, if you will. Or just the amount of talent environment that we're in right now is there's others that are leaving or looking to do something different from their existing positions. And that creates opportunity. And because there's not just people leaving one certain organization not going anywhere. Right. There's people that are coming and want to experience a new opportunity as well. So that creates opportunity for Rocket Media, creates opportunity for Ray Hans Financial, Joshua Development, other small businesses out there as well. How do you go about integrating people into your culture? So as you're attracting new people, which is Happening a lot right now. What do you do to bring them in and make them feel welcome?

Well, I think you have to be intentional about it. First of all, I. We've both been doing this for quite some time and I would say in the very early years that was probably one of our weaknesses is that people would come in and we were just like, okay, here's your seat, here's your computer, here's your logins. Good luck. Yeah, right. And as we've matured and we've grown, we realized that the onboarding experience is actually quite important. Super important. Like that's you're going to probably make or break the expectations for that new employee on those first few days.

Yeah.

So now we're very intentional about it. So we create a full agenda at least for one week, if not two weeks of their, their journey with us. And we have everything set up for them so that they have all their meetings and all the things set up so that they are meeting with the team members and connecting and communicating. What I personally do. As long as, like, as far as like organizing that, I like to take them on Culture Ventures. And so, you know, I take them on a tour if they're local. If they're not local, we try to do it via Zoom and we just. I think it's important to give context.

Yeah.

So when you understand the history of Rocket Media, like, hey, this didn't just happen overnight, like Ben didn't just like flip a switch and it turned on and here's Rocket Media. We had these journeys we had to go through and those stories that you need to understand so that when you see where we are today and you're part of now the story as well, you understand how this all comes together and realize that we worked hard to get where we are.

Absolutely.

We're going to continue to work hard. And you're now part of that.

Yeah. Well, and I think you've touched on something there too, which is leading to kind of that bigger topic of the overall purpose of why Rocket Media exists. Right. And that's what people want to be a part of. They want to be a part of that bigger mission of what you do. And as we look at these opportunities that are created, that's what I think any messaging can help with any small business owner really understand what is the greater mission of what you're doing and let people know that that's what they have the opportun opportunity to be a part of. And that's what will attract them. That's what's going to create these opportunities. And so I guess the encouragement kind of as we bring this conversation to a close with so much change happening with people looking at, you know, where they want to be in life, what's most important to them as business owners, you know, view it as that. View it as an opportunity. So even when you end up in that circumstance where people are leaving your organization for multiple different reasons, look at the opportunity, find it, because it's there. And there's so much movement happening right now.

Yeah. You got to seek it. You got to be. You got to go after it. You can't just wait for it to show up.

That's right. Go get it.

That's how business is in general. Right. We both. We both know that.

Absolutely.

Go get it.

That's right.

Cool.

Hey, man. I always enjoy these topics. Just any of you listening, always feel welcome to reach out, you know, and connect with us. Let us know if there's future things that you want us to visit about. And thank you for listening.

Talk to you later.

Thank you for listening to Shorts and Suits. Your hosts are Ben Kaulfman of Rocket Media, a digital marketing agency, and J.W. rayhans of Rayhans Financial, a financial investment advisory firm. For more information, go to shortsandsuits.com if you find this podcast helpful, please help us by telling a friend and rating us on itunes. Subscribe to our tribe and learn more@shortsandsuits.com Sam.