Build a Powerhouse Team With Unshakable Culture with Erin Krueger

It's the foundation of what you build upon. And everybody that you hire has to kind of be a part of that same culture because it's your name at the end of the day. My name's on the door and I have to make sure that as big as we get, that, you know, my 19th hire, my 20th hire is still conducting business as I would be conducting business.

Erin, welcome to the Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books Podcast. I'm so excited to chat with you today. And before we pressed record, you were telling me about a phone call that you just got from a distant friend about the impact that your book had, not only on him, but also on his family. Can you talk to us a little bit about that?

Yeah, the holiday weekend had just passed and they decided to put my audiobook, um, in their car as they drove off for vacation and You know, he said that, you know, it really impacted them and they really enjoyed it. But what he didn't count on was that his 12-year-old daughter in the backseat was so engrossed into the story and the business book. And he said it just, it just made him proud that there was a female that was just, you know, a go-getter. And she was like, I want to do that. And so that just made me just so excited because when you write a book, you never know who's going to listen to it, who's going to read it. And how it's gonna impact people. And so I think it's great for anybody. I mean, somebody who's, who's growing and trying to find their way in this world, um, whether, you know, it's professionally or personally. Um, but I'm hoping that there's a couple nuggets in there that reaches people.

That call doesn't surprise me very much because it's often said you are most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were. And so you describe that little girl as a go-getter, and you were too. And we'll dive into that hustle throughout the show today. But it's always fun to hear from an author like, hey, who are the surprising people that actually found value in your book? And maybe you didn't write the book for that person, but it's so cool to hear that it's impacting them.

Absolutely.

Yeah. I wanted to kick off and ask you about something you said on page 28 in your book. Now, you had just graduated school and you're given access to a house for a week at the beach to have some fun with some friends. You go away, you come back, there's 50 people partying there. And how did you handle that situation?

You know, it was, it was something out of a movie, I have to say. You roll in and you see all these cars and you're getting closer to the house and you're like, surely not my house, right? And then the music's coming from my house, which was my parents' best friend's beach house that they had given me as a gift for my graduation. And I was visiting some other friends and rolled up, and I think they invited everybody from the boardwalk back to the— to have a party. And here I am, 18 years old, and, you know, 4 of my best girlfriends are throwing a big party. And I come in, I have to shove my way into the door. There's so many people there. Music is blaring. And it just hit me that, you know, they've taken advantage of the situation. They've taken advantage of my parents' best friend's kindness. And I just had to stop it immediately. And I just put my hand on the wall. The speakers went silent.

Wow.

And I said, everybody out. And everybody funneled out. The house was a disaster. It ended up being those women right in front of me. And I said, you two, pack your bags. You're leaving tonight. And they're like, what do you mean? It's late at night. And I said, you'll figure it out. And I remember sitting at the house looking at the disaster. I mean, the oven door was ripped off. There was stuff in the bay. There was like— I mean, it was just— A disaster. And I called my mom, who— my mom and dad lived 2 hours away. And I said, Mom, I swear I walked in, this is what happened. This is, you know, all the things. And my mom said, at this moment, you have become an adult. I will be down there in 2 hours. Your dad and I will help you put this back together. And we did. And it really just, you know, it just taught me a lot. It doesn't matter, like, what things happen. You have to always stand up for what's right. It doesn't matter as you navigate life and how many zeros you have in your bank account. Your name is everything, and you really have to lead with integrity with everything that you do.

Yeah, that's a beautiful story, and there are a lot of beautiful lessons in it. I'm sure it felt chaotic at the time, but now looking back, having your mom say, this is the moment that you became an adult. And that you led with a culture of honesty. Why does it feel like that isn't the norm? It feels like it should be the norm, but like most businesses, most people don't really operate with that much transparency and honesty.

Yeah, I, I don't know. I think I've, I've always kind of led with that. Um, if I don't know the answer, I, I just tell you. I think that people respect you 10 times more when you say that. Um, and so I always just kind of feel like If you do are very forthright in your conversation, whatever the obstacle is, it's going to be okay because that's how you led. So that's just how I've always been in relationships and in business.

Social media, I feel like, is, is one of the reasons that people have a hard time with that, because so many people use their social media platforms as a highlight reel and they're only highlighting the best aspects of what's going on. Oftentimes it's exaggerated or even edited or maybe out of context. And so As, as more of that continues to take place and people get sick of it, I think you're right that the refreshing, honest communication or saying something like, I don't know how to handle this situation, or I'm not sure if my company can handle that, instead of just overpromising and underdelivering and putting a mask on, it's just a differentiator. It shouldn't be a differentiator, but it really is. And it stands out that in your companies, That honesty is a really big part of the culture and that integrity matters a lot.

It does. It is. It's the foundation of what you build upon. And everybody that you hire has to kind of be a part of that same culture because it's your name at the end of the day. My name's on the door and I have to make sure that as big as we get, that, you know, my 19th hire, my 20th hire is still conducting business as I would be conducting business.

So how do you filter for that during the interview process? How do you— everybody's gonna tell you that they're honest and transparent.

Yeah, of course. Some people are just really good salespeople for themselves on the interview and then they fall flat. Um, but I think that over the years I've made a lot of bad mistakes hiring and I've learned from it. And I always go back to something early in my career when I was interviewing, um, after my undergrad, I was. I was, I was a communications journalism kind of major, and that was my background. So, you know, I didn't know what I was going to do. Was I going to go into PR, marketing, advertising, sales? Like, what was I going to do? And I started interviewing for quite a few different businesses after college, and one of the interviews was with a pharmaceutical sales company. And I will tell you, it was intense. Like, the other interviews for other companies— PR, marketing, everything— was a breeze. Pharma, it's like no joke. I remember the first interview, I meet them face-to-face. That was a normal interview. The second interview, I come in, it's in a boardroom. There's a phone and a piece of paper and nobody's in there. And I have to sit there and the other people are in the room next door and they're going to call. And I need to sell widgets, gadgets, and gizmos. And I have to do all this math in my head and close the deal. And they want to see how I act under pressure, right? So that was a test. And then there was another test further down the line where it was the final round of interviews, and that was out to lunch, because at the time you would wine and dine doctors. I don't think they're doing that as much anymore, but back in the day— this is 25-plus years ago— they were doing that, and they wanted to see if I ate my food. first or if I salt and peppered it? Did I assess like the situation? Did I assess the food or did I immediately before even eating it, did I salt and pepper it?

Hmm.

So did I assess the situation? And so that really taught me like, wow, that was a really powerful tool to figure out impulse, right? Like what is the gut nature of the person? And so when I started to hire on my company, I wanted to do a test. That they didn't know was a test and maybe something a little bit lighter than that because that was super intense. But I have basically 4 rounds that we kind of consider from our interview. The first round is obviously we put out the job description and in the job description you have to send your resume and the DiSC profile. Now, we don't tell you where to get the DiSC profile. It's a personality free online personality test. We don't tell you where. That's the first test. Don't email us and ask us where. Be resourceful and Google it, right? That's your first test. So we're kind of already weeding out the applicants. So if we have 50 applicants, maybe 30 will have the DiSC profile in it. We don't even look at the other ones because they didn't follow directions. So that's the first test. The second, um, round is that Sarah, my director of operations, will interview them. She will get that group down to probably about 5. applicants for me to personally interview them. When I interview them, it's, it's a very basic interview. And I have in my book Capture the Culture, I have tons of great interview questions because I not only hire on skill, I hire on culture. And there's a great— there's a lot of different questions that you can ask to kind of weed people out and kind of find things out. But there is a test at the end of the interview that they have no idea about. And what I say to them is, I love goals. And I really truly believe that you have to write down your goals and your action plan has to be in pencil, right? So you write down your goals in pen and your action plan has to be in pencil because, you know, we can pivot and we can move things around and that's how the world works. But I want to know what your goals are. So tonight, send me an email and let me know what your top 3 goals would be this time next year. You're sitting across the table from me. What would you be so proud of? Let me know what those are. Now, Nick, did you notice that I said tonight? Tell me tonight. I said it once. And this is the test, and it's super critical, and it has weeded out so many people because I can teach you many things, but I can't teach you how to listen.

Hmm.

And the biggest thing is I'm in real estate and I'm in sales. And if you're not listening to the consumer, you're going to miss the whole point. And this has been a crucial part of hiring. And there have been many people that have been lovely who have sent it 2 days later, that have not sent it at all, and then followed up, hey, what's the status? So that already kind of, you know, gets that 5— group of 5 down to probably 2 or 3.

Right.

And I also kind of look at that based upon the questions and all that. If all 5 of them send it, that's amazing. But if not, then I have to whittle it down. And then the final interview is with my team. And I truly believe that a true team and how you have something set up is that in, in, in, if you are really conscious about your culture, they should have a say in who's being hired. And so I believe that. So I put them in front of the team and I tell them, I said, interview them as much as they're interviewing you. Ask them any question you want. What's it like to work for me? The good, bad, and ugly. I want you to know it all. And the reason is because we pour into you. Every single one of those sales agents are going to take time out of their sales to pour into you. And the reason why I have each one of those agents say yes, no, or why at the end of the interview— there's no peanut gallery conversations. It's a text message to my director of ops and I. Yes, no, and why. And then I make my decision, and it has to be 100% buy-in.

Hmm.

And it gets harder the bigger the team, right? And, and as the team gets bigger, you might just do the sales agents. You might not do ad— you know, your salaried admin with that. You might have a different group broken up. But the main point is that you want them to feel as though they are contributing to the growth of the team. And if they feel as though they are really contributing to that, they are going to be more open to opening up their schedule to make sure that this person becomes successful. And we're also not going to allow them to fail. Because many years ago, I learned after I didn't do this technique about the 100% buy-in, I had an agent come up to me and say, after I let somebody go, I knew she was never going to work out.

Hmm.

Right? She never worked as hard as us. Like, did all this kind of stuff. At the end, I don't want to hear that. You know, I want us to give 110% with every person because we pour into them and we are committed to being better tomorrow than we are today. You know, we're reading books, we're doing things together, we're sharpening our skill set. We want to be better. That is our commitment to our clients. It's our commitment to ourselves.

Well, that was a masterclass over the last few minutes in hiring and in culture. And there are a few things that stuck out to me. I love The different tests, the attention to detail, because that's very important for that person within their role. And so you have different layers of how you're testing that. Nothing too aggressive, kind of subtle, but really important. So I love that takeaway. The other thing that I started to think about towards the end there, Aaron, was that you're— for the candidates who are interviewing, if you just hire them after the first interview, they won't buy in that much. But since they go through these 4 rounds and they get progressively more intense and they get, they get to meet the team and there are these wins that they've achieved, kind of like making your bed, but they send the email that same night. It's, it's all of these wins throughout the process that by the time they finally get the yes and they've joined your team, it means so much more to them. They're part of this elite kind of It's an elite group now, not just a company that you got hired into, but like you passed the test and that's a big accomplishment. So it probably improves your retention a lot as well, not only because you're not hiring people that are the wrong fit, but they had to accomplish a lot in order to get there. Does that make sense?

Absolutely. And I think one, one thing is I always say I'm very slow to hire, quick to fire, but slow to hire. And the reason is I've had really amazing people that are kind of like, email my director of ops in the middle of the interview process. I'm like, how much longer? Like, I've got another opportunity. Go take it. If this is the opportunity that you want, if you want to be here, you're going to wait. You're going to want to do everything that you can be to be a part of this. And I think that's really important. Like, I am molding and growing you know, agents. I have a real estate team, but it's people, right? I have had women who have come on my team that have had $0 in their bank account or hot off of a divorce and their confidence completely crushed, who now on the flip side, many years later, are what I would call boss babes, just like super confident, just know where they are in life and just They can handle anything that's thrown at them. They have investment properties and they're doing great. And it's about surrounding yourself with people that lift you up, empower you, and challenge you to be better tomorrow. And that's the type of culture that I'm trying to create. And I'm really thoughtful on maintaining it, checking in. I make mistakes. I'm a human being, right? Like, as managers, as leaders, we make mistakes. And it's okay as a CEO, as a leader, as a manager to say to an employee, I made a mistake. What I said wasn't right, or I missed this mark with you, and I'm truly sorry, and I've learned from it, and it's not gonna happen again. What you get from your employees on the back end is trust, loyalty, and respect. And when you have that, They stay with you. They're happy. They work harder. And that's what I have experienced because I have a team that produces 3 to 5 times more than teams our size. And it's because they truly enjoy each other and what they do every single day.

What if somebody in the audience is a small business owner with a small team And they say, wow, that process sounds amazing. I want to implement it tomorrow, but I already have a team and that team is in place. Maybe we have a decent culture. It's not great. How do I shift the existing team into that mindset? So then as I hire new team members, they're operating at a higher level.

So the first thing that I highly recommend is like, know where you are, right? So the first thing is you have to kind of check yourself. So you need to find out what kind of leader you are. And one of the things that I have really tried to deliver through my book and also through the website that offers the book, we have tons of surveys and quizzes even for you as a leader. So you can check to see, just, they're all free, like what kind of leader you are. So first of all, find out what kind of leader you are because you need to know what your why is. Like, do you have the passion behind it? Are you an inspirational leader? Is that what your team needs? Maybe your team doesn't need that, right? So you need to figure out what your why is. So if you know what your why is, that's great because then you can go and then ask the next question. What is each team member's why? You have to take time. The bottom line, the business every day, everything can get so blurred. But if you aren't checking on your people and knowing where they are and where they ultimately want to be, you're not an effective leader. And so there are surveys, anonymous surveys that you can download from my website. And you can send out. And believe me, it might be a little eye-opening to some leaders because they might think, oh, my culture is great. And then you look at the survey results and you say, you know what? I'm missing the mark.

Hmm.

So, going back to your question, what— I want to implement this. I have a team. I think it's okay. Well, find out where they currently are. Find out what kind of leader you are. And then you need to assess it. What can you do to strengthen this culture? So that basically you need to take a pause. You need to take a moment and you need to do some things that are good for the team. You need to turn the ship around, and you can do that as a leader. You know, maybe, maybe it's as simple as like, let's go, let's do a team lunch. It's on me today. Let's go. Right? It's as simple as that. It could be talking to each person individually and saying, I don't know how you do what you do. I see like all the sporting events that you're doing with the kids as soon as you leave and how great you're like knocking it outta the park here. I just want you to know. That you're, you know, a rock star and that I appreciate you so much and I couldn't do it without you. And I'm so very proud of you. Those are powerful words. Sometimes it's, hey, leave early, or here's a little bonus before you leave for spring break, you know, vacation with the kids. Here's a little extra money. And it can just be like, you're doing a great job, right? So you need to figure out who your people are, what their why is, and you need to make a commitment. To being that kind of boss, because when you do those things, the culture gets stronger and the people that aren't buying into it, they're gonna go away and that's okay. Yeah.

You're naturally filtering them out. I love that. For, for people that want to send out those surveys and take those surveys, what is the website for that? I wanna make sure we put it in the show notes.

Yeah, it's capture-the-culture.com.

Okay, great. Yeah, we'll make sure that that's in there. I love the anonymous survey aspect of that because I think that as a leader in a small business, you hope that you're creating enough space for people to communicate with radical transparency and honesty, but that's not always the case. You never know what's happening behind the scenes, what fears somebody might have if they overshare or share how they really feel. So I think that's a, a beautiful, a beautiful function of what you're offering.

Yeah, and I think it's really important to kind of have, um, a business of collaboration. I think that's where true culture really, um, grows and becomes stronger. So, for instance, in the book, I kind of talk about one opportunity that we had as a company where we were going to be advertising on these buses in Nashville, and I wanted to come up. It's a big tourist city, you know, people are down there on Broadway and everything, and I had this amazing marketing campaign, tourist today, local tomorrow. And, you know, the 1-800-CALL-MOVE-TOTN and all the things. But I wanted to have an eye-catching, you know, wrap around it. I didn't want my face on it. That's so, you know, 1980. I want to like do cool murals of the Nashville skyline and like all of this type of stuff. And we went to the ad agency and they just weren't, they weren't getting what we wanted. And we were sitting there with my marketing manager, my director of ops, my marketing interns, and we're sitting there and we're like looking at them propose all of these ideas and nothing just felt right. And at the end of the meeting, my intern, who was very quiet 2 months before, raised her hand and she said, Erin, I've been working on something. Can I show it to you? And I said, absolutely. She showed the marketing manager, my director of ops, Sarah, and myself this design for the bus. And when I say it was exactly what I wanted, I mean, I could not have dreamt up a better design. And I was just like, Lindsay, this is it. Lindsay's designs are still on my buses years later. And it goes to show you that an intern that came in that wasn't very confident, she was a little shy, by being surrounded by people that have an open forum that empower you, she could, you know, speak up in a meeting and show her boss something that she worked on outside of work hours because she loves what she does. Right? Made a huge impact on my company. And that's the kind of culture that we're creating where everybody has a voice. No idea is a dumb idea because it could be a springboard for somebody else. And that's what I always want to have at my company. And I personally have to evaluate that. I have to check it. I have to do the surveys. I have to do those things to make sure that we are on track because culture is my most important asset.

Yeah, that's amazing. I love the intern story, uh, and I've probably seen those buses. I've traveled to Nashville so many times and I've probably seen them before. I think that's a really cool story. Um, time flies when you're having fun. We're already so far into our conversation. I wanna make sure that we cover a couple of other of my favorite aspects of your book. So these'll feel like, uh, we're turning, you know, turning on a dime, but I want to make sure that the audience gets sort of a, uh, a diverse look into what they can learn from your book. Another area in your life that I thought was fascinating and I think really represents what it means to be an entrepreneur, and there are so many of them in this audience, is when you decided to take $30,000 from your savings and start a vending machine company on the side. You're already working full-time, you're already hustling. But you start this vending machine company. And the part of the story that really resonated with me was you'd come home from a long day of work, you'd get into the garage, you would download reports from all of the vending machines on your phone, and then you would start going through inventory and plan out your route for the next day. And your husband would bring you in dinner. You're in the garage, you're working. Like, it's very much that Steve Jobs and Wozniak in the garage building the thing kind of moment that I think so many people Romanticize, but you actually got to live it. So what was that experience like hustling so hard?

Yeah, you know, I think back to that time, and I think that everything that I have today is because of those moments. And you know, I was during the recession of real estate. I decided to go get my MBA, and it was because a mentor challenged me one day at coffee, and he said, "Go get your law degree or go get your MBA." I said, "What? I'm in real estate. I don't need to do that. It's not like I'm gonna get a promotion." He goes, "Oh yeah, you'll get a promotion. You'll be given opportunities. You'll walk into rooms you've never walked." into before and be invited in because of these things. Well, I looked at law school, how much it was going to cost, looked at the MBA. I made the wiser, quicker decision, which was my MBA at the time, and I went and did that. And my thesis had to be a business that at the time had never been. And so, I decided to come up with this vending machine business. And at the time, the presidential administration was really big on healthy eating in schools, and I thought this was really a great time to do that. I ended up walking in. I came up with this big business idea. My professor said, you need to do something about it. I took that $30,000 and wrapped these vending machines up in this beautiful nature-looking brand. And then I had to go sell it, right? I had to walk into some schools. And as I walked into these schools, I see the soft drinks machines and the scoreboard with the soft drinks name. And I was like, you know what? What do I have to lose? And I walked in there, I went to the key decision maker, I did my pitch, and he looked at me and he said, you remind me of my sister. She could sell ice to an Eskimo. The soda machines are out, you're in. And before you know it, paired with great PR, other schools, other private schools started calling. I got public school contracts, and I ended up having hundreds of machines and hiring people. And so I was everything from the janitor to the CEO and everything in between. And I would get up at 4 4:30 in the morning when it was dark. And I would do these routes and I would get done by 9. And I'd unzip that hoodie that I would have and I would be in jeans and kick off the sneakers and put heels on and then a blazer and go into my first real estate appointment. And I did that hustle and that grind. But it taught me a lot. It taught me about perseverance. It taught me about building things from ground zero. And also, I was given the opportunity at a key time to know when to sell. You know, that I sold that business. And, you know, what that taught me and the grind and the hard days and bringing in, you know, making my garage my warehouse, you know, in the beginning, those defining moments and counting every single penny because it's literally a coin-operated and credit card business taught me so much about business. And growing a great business. And I remember the day that I was selling it and, you know, we were at the closing table and this buyer wanted to change terms because I had, going back to integrity, wanted to get a new order. We had the same person as Whole Foods does, same distributor. And I ordered a big order of new food coming in and to make sure that my customers didn't have machines that were empty when we did the turn. Turnover, right? When everything was turned. Well, he didn't want to pay a couple thousand dollars for the new food that was delivered to the warehouse. And then I just said, well, thank you so much for your nonrefundable money. And I got up because I was— you check out. When you're getting ready to sell the business, you're prepared. You're ready to go. And it made me a little angry. And I stood up. And then he said, no, no, no, Erin. I'm going to buy the business. I'm going to close today. And I ran to the bank, obviously, and made sure that that cleared as soon as possible. And just a few short years later, I was able to put all of that grind, that hustle, you know, into my real estate career and continue that on to some big heights where I was nationally recognized. And, you know, obviously as a solo agent, and then I grew that into the team that I have today. Yeah.

Well, thank you for sharing that. So many more great lessons. And I, you know, I think back to starting my business in the early morning, and the hustle and just making sure that you keep integrity in what you do. And, you know, it's fun to hear stories like that because we don't get to hear them very often. We hear about all the successes, but it's like those early mornings and the grind and just taking an idea that, that you developed in a school program and then building it in real life is so much fun. One more subject, which is you talk about how The Energy Bus is required reading. For everybody that works with you. And that also part of capturing the culture is continuous learning. That's what you said too in the book. And so talk to us about books. Talk to us about what role books have played, not only for your business and your culture, but also your life. And maybe share some of your absolute favorites.

Oh my gosh. I mean, I have so many books that I love. I think it's so funny because when I was younger, I didn't like to read. And then, after college, I just had this love of reading and devour hundreds of books a year.

I was the same way. Yeah.

Yeah. And, it's so great now between— I love actually holding a book, but I also love audiobooks while I'm driving and things like that. And so, there have been so many books that have touched me and I have relistened to or reread that have just made an impact on me. One in particular has been The Energy Bus. And, that is just such a great— first of all, short read for anybody, whether you're listening to it or reading it. And it just talks about the framework of a team and aligning yourself with a great team and really knowing those negative personalities, right? Those, I call them Negative Nellies. They call them a vampire. What is it?

Energy vampires. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. And so, just knowing those people and knowing that you don't want to be around them. Like, we don't. They suck our energy out, right? And so, that is so important, but it's also about You know, you're on the Erin Krueger team now. Here's this book. You're gonna like— this is required reading. You need to know what we're all about. This is who we are. We need to be on the right bus. We're going in the same direction. This is where we're going, right? So that's going to be required reading. As, as somebody who has been building my business and always looking to be better, another book that I have really, really loved and made a profound impact on me is Who Not How.

So good.

Dan Sullivan. And I will tell you this story. I was on a mastermind with a whole bunch of entrepreneurs, and this mastermind is once a month. And it was one of those days, and I'm sure as entrepreneurs we can relate, it wasn't a good day. And I really had a lot of stress going on, and there was a lot of stuff falling out, and I shouldn't go on this mastermind because I'm at the end of my rope kind of deal as an entrepreneur. Okay, I'm just setting the stage for you. I get on this, there's the, the person who's leading it is female, everybody else is male, uh, business owners who are there.

And they're—

and I jump on probably like 5 or 10 minutes late. I jump on and, um, they're like, Erin, how are you? And I'm like, not great. And I'm just like, I just like put it all out there. They, they know me and I have not had this particular event happen before. And one of the guys said, Erin, I'm mailing you a book right now. I'm buying it on Amazon and I'm shipping it to you. And it was Who Not How. And when I read this book, it really changed the way that I looked at things. And it's— I have these, as entrepreneurs, we're all entrepreneurs, we have great big ideas. We need to find the right people, the right whos to do it, right? And to implement it and to be part of that team. And it is so Critical to Growing. And that book to me has just like, like made me go from here to here in terms of a business person. And it had a profound impact on me. And so that's one that I recommend to so many people. And I was actually at an event in Denver and I saw the gentleman who recommended that to me. Um, and I just said, you have no idea the impact that made on me. So I highly recommend if somebody has not read that to definitely read it.

Yeah. 2 great books. John Gordon has been on this podcast and so has his wife, Catherine. They're awesome. And, uh, Dr. Benjamin Hardy, who co-wrote Who Not How, is coming on the show soon to talk about his new book, The Science of Scaling. And so you're sharing the digital stage with your favorite authors, which is so much fun. And, um, I'm also in Strategic Coach, Dan Sullivan. Has Strategic Coach, and I just find all of his teachings so incredible for business owners. I really do.

Absolutely. He's very—

Couple of, couple of rapid-fire questions. But before we ask those and then wrap up today, one more time, where can people go to learn more about you, grab a copy of the book, take those, distribute those assessments, take their own leadership assessments? Where can people go to learn all of that?

So my book can be found anywhere books are sold, obviously, and Amazon audiobooks are out there as well. So you can go to Barnes& Noble and just about anywhere. And go to capture-the-culture.com, and then that will have tons of free downloadable materials that will help you and the team and kind of knowing what kind of leader you are and what kind of team you have. So that's gonna be super critical. I obviously have the Erin Krueger Team Instagram. That's us in Nashville. That's my business here. Uh, in terms of real estate. So if anybody's looking for real estate, we're a great team to talk with. We know the city like the back of our hand. Um, and then you can obviously follow us at Capture the Culture, uh, on Instagram as well.

Okay, perfect. We will have all of those links in the show notes. So Book Thinkers family, grab a copy of the book. Now, if Capture the Culture was deleted, but you could leave the world with just one simple message from it, what would that message be?

You know, I think that no matter what life brings you, you need to fall forward because difficult days don't define you. What you do with them does.

Fall forward. Yeah, I love that. Who has, um, who's been your greatest mentor so far? When you think about your growth both personally and professionally, who's had the biggest impact on you?

You know, it's interesting. I write about 2 of my mentors in the book, but I would say that my greatest mentor was my parents.

Mm-hmm.

Grew up on a cattle farm, a 400-head cattle farm. And, you know, you were taught to do things the right way the first time. And, you know, he always had a notebook and crossing off the list. I think as a child, I probably, it was that yellow notebook paper that he folded 50 times and he'd undo it. And I'd look at the list and be like, oh, what are we going to do today at the farm? But I learned at an early age—

Kind of like one of these? Yes.

And so, I learned at an early age that not every day is going to be a good day, right? But it's about you. It's up to you to create that day. And don't let a half an hour bad conversation ruin the whole day. And so, for me, my dad was that person where he made everything fun. And, you know, even when I got up really early in the morning to help him feed the cows and do chores, before we did anything, he always asked, do you want to help Dad? Not, it's time to get up to do work. Do you want to help Dad? And he would create this culture of wanting to be a part of something special that I have held in how I build my business. And that lesson of integrity, honesty that we spoke about. And just, you know, building and keeping a good culture have just been key to who I am as a person and who I am as a leader. So without question, my parents.

That's amazing. Well, one more time, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. There was a masterclass in hiring, a masterclass in shifting culture, uh, so many tools and resources. So I really appreciate your time today. That was a lot of fun.

Thanks, Nick.