Episode 111: Recruitment as a Sales Process with Kathleen Quinn Votaw

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Recruitment is a sales process helps you focus on the 70% of the population that's never going to respond to a job ad. Their heads down, they're making money for somebody else. Think of yourself. When was the last time you actually clicked on an ad and applied for a job? I don't, you know, just think about that. And when you think about that, and you're probably the best and brightest because you're seeking knowledge, you're trying to get better. And if it's been a year, 2, 3, 5, 10 even, guess what? Those people like you who are committed, have the work ethic, have the same thinking styles, the same behaviors, or similar enough energy, but the pace of play They're getting introduced to people and they're never going to reply to a job advertisement.

Kathleen Quinn Votta is CEO of Talent Trust, which is revolutionizing how companies find, keep, and grow great people. Kathleen's passion: to connect business leaders with the right ideas and the right people to drive faster growth. She's the author of Solve the People Puzzle: How High-Growth Companies Attract and Retain Top Talent. She's received numerous accolades: CWCC's Top 25 Most Powerful Women in Business, multiple Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Private Companies honoree, COBIZ Magazine's Top 100 Woman-Owned Companies, just to name a few. And as you'll be able to tell from my interview, just engaging, thoughtful, and incredibly helpful. Hi friends, I'm Bobby LeHew, the Chief Content Officer at Cometscue. Kathleen and I talked today about recruitment as a sales process. We spend so much energy on client attraction, client growth, and we brand for clients. But in Kathleen's words, there's a whole universe we are leaving out of the conversation, and that is the candidate. I love this conversation, by the way. Kathleen shares assessment tools you can use for hiring and for measuring your culture. The links to these resources can be found at community.commscue.com. And on this topic, we'll be publishing a guide to hiring soon, so keep an eye out for that resource as well. We'll let you know when it's live. If you haven't registered for SKU Camp, time is running out because remaining tickets are few. Join myself, Mark and Katherine, David Nicholson, Jason Lukas, Jamie Watson, Craig Dunlap, Steve McBee, Carson Ronchetto, Johanna Gottlieb, and so many more speakers. And of course, the amazing community of peers that gather to learn together, not just a conference, It's a business boot camp you'll never forget. You can register at skucamp.com. Remember, you can ask us anything. If you have any questions about sales, commissions, where to find new clients, how to grow existing clients, whatever the topic, email me bobby@commsku.com and we'll answer your question here on the program. This episode is brought to you by Commensku, the platform that powers your connected workflow, enabling you to process more orders and dramatically grow your sales. Begin your free trial now at commensku.com. Here's my conversation with CEO and author Kathleen Quinn Votta.

Kathleen. Bobby.

So good to have you here. You are sought after by many people for your advice on hiring and recruiting, but you have a different kind of take. There's no question that top talent's in high demand. What does today's top talent expect of employers? What are you seeing as the most important trends?

So, one of the most important trends, Bobbi, is that they want to be wanted. Everybody wants to be wanted, but especially from a candidate perspective. They are in the driver's seat. They are the ones who have a lot of choice. So, if you are going to actually get the best and brightest, show them that you want them. And let me give you a story on that. My son, who's 18, just got recruited by 5 colleges. The one who got him, they courted him like you wouldn't believe. They sent him postcards. They sent him texts. They sent him notes. They had many people calling him. So don't be shy to show a candidate that you really want, that you want them. And we forget as employers that it's our job to sell the candidate on who we are, what we do, what we believe, just as much as it's It's their job to show us that they've got the goods to do the job.

Right. When I was interviewing, I'd always mention to a candidate that there are two interviews going on, right? They're interviewing me, I'm interviewing them. This is an interesting segue into something that you're really passionate about, that recruitment is no longer an HR function. It's a sales and marketing process. You talk about how we have a sales pipeline for business and you need a sales pipeline for candidates. And I quote, "A truly successful recruitment effort begins before the employee quits. Your goal should be establishing a talent pipeline and methodology towards recruitment so that new candidates are available whenever you need them, and your open positions never become a crisis. What practical steps can we implement in our businesses to do this?

It's really important that you assess your HR function for sales and marketing competency because we have an inventory problem. There's 6.2 people looking for jobs and 6.9 jobs today.

6.2 million people looking for jobs and And 6.9 million jobs open, right?

It's a numbers situation. So there's a couple different stats that are scary. That's the first one. The second one that's pretty scary is 76% of the people who work for you are either open to or actively engaged in looking for another job.

76%.

76%. And I get— when I talk to audiences throughout the country, I get debate. I mean, people love to debate. Me. And you know what, I'm not in the convincing business. I'm just telling you that people are not going to stay with you. And they are open to a conversation with somebody else. So, if they're open to a conversation with somebody else, what are you going to do about it? Are you having the critical conversations with people so you know ahead of time before somebody's going to exit? Wouldn't it be nice to know the 20% of people who are not completely thrilled or aligned with what you're doing, and you start looking for those people and you help the other people leave, it would be a beautiful thing.

Yeah.

So, so really it's about having what I call stay interviews. So Bobby, if you worked for me, I would want to know why you continue to choose me every day. Why do you continue to choose our brand?

Why do you do a stay interview? How frequently would you do a stay interview with someone? An annual interview?

Every single time I talk to them. If I'm a manager and you're working for me, I want to know how engaged you are with our mission, vision, and values every time I touch you. Don't you do that with clients?

Yeah.

Do you let a moment go by where you don't ask a client, "So, how are we doing for you?" Yeah, that's a great point. Flip your paradigm. "So, Bobby, you work for me. How are we doing for you? Is it still a fit?

Because if it's not, it's okay." So, having run a business, do you think that we feel too vulnerable to ask that because we're We're so aware of the problems and challenges we have in our own business and the things we need to fix. The list is usually a mile long. And we're running and gunning. Everything's moving so fast. Is that just a vulnerability issue or is it a priority?

So, it's a vulnerability issue. It's a fear issue. And we have set up an adversarial relationship in this country between employer and employee.

True.

We don't tell each other the truth.

That's so true.

So, the more the owner tells the truth to their employees, the better truth they're going to get from their employees and be prepared. Wouldn't it be better? It would be better to know versus just get blindly sidetracked on Friday afternoon at 4 o'clock.

When I was interviewing candidates, one of the things I would often tell them is that it's better for us to just be as vulnerable as we can now, because in 90 to 120 days, we're both going to figure this out anyways. Whether you're going to— you're going to know how authentic I was in the interview and positioning the company. We're going to know the same about you as a candidate. You said that you do branding for companies, but there's a whole universe we are leaving out of the conversation and they are the candidates. So what do you mean by recruitment is a branding tool? It's very intriguing to me and to this audience that we're speaking to because you're talking about entrepreneurs who basically help companies brand for a living. So this is kind of intriguing segue into what you're doing.

So if we believe for a minute, all you listeners out there, that recruitment is a sales and marketing process, then we have to start with a message to the right audience, right? You guys are subject matter experts at this, right? Most of the people we interact with, which is middle market America, they have no messaging to the candidate population that they want to work for them. They don't know how to talk to them. They don't know how to show up for them through messaging, through nurture campaigns, through social media, through billboards. You pick the medium that you're going to actually communicate through, but start having the conversation. We're so busy as business owners and business leaders having the conversation with the customers that generate our revenue. And then we have open jobs that we can't fill because we're not messaging to the candidates. And almost 44% of business owners in middle market— and this is a source from Vistage International— say they cannot fill critical positions and it hinders their ability to grow. So, for your audience, if you're a branding messaging guru, digital marketing person out there, this is a whole revenue opportunity for you. Help your clients talk to the candidate population.

And you're also suggesting that the energy we throw at business development, recruiting new customers, that in this particular climate we're at, where there we have an inventory problem, we should be investing the same amount of resources because there's a bolder economy now and many of us are having a recruitment problem and we just don't invest the time and energy in that side of the business. Kind of left as an afterthought, right?

Yeah, we tend to think it's like a Field of Dreams mentality. If you build it, they will come. That is not the case. They will not come. Yeah. And they will not pass over dollars to see your wonderful baseball field. You have to be really purposeful because there's a couple of different ways you pull people into an organization. Most companies out there do what I call the post and pray. Yeah. And hope that some— I post an ad on Indeed, LinkedIn, CareerBuilder, some kind of job board, and I hope, right, that the right people will show up. That's only going to pull in 30% of the population. That is actually going to apply for your job. Recruitment is a sales process helps you focus on the 70% of the population that's never going to respond to a job ad. Their heads down, they're making money for somebody else. Think of yourself, if you're out there in the audience listening to this, when was the last time you actually clicked on an ad and applied for a job? I don't, you know, just think about that. And when you think about that, and you're probably the best and brightest because you're seeking knowledge, you're trying to get better, and if it's been a year, 2, 3, 5, 10 even, guess what? Those people like you who are committed, have the work ethic, have the same thinking styles, the same behaviors, or similar enough energy, but the pace of play, they're getting introduced to people and they're never going to reply to a job advertisement.

We know there are keys to a great culture that will end up attracting the right people, but how do we get the best talent to stop, look, and listen to our brand? Now, you're talking to an audience of branding experts who might think that they've got that part down, but if they don't have a pipeline coming in of candidates that want to work for them, then you could argue that maybe we don't have the culture that we think we do.

Well, I think especially for your audience is the cobbler's kids sometimes go without shoes. And you forget to brand. I bet a lot of your audience and yourself, you're forgetting to brand to the audience, the candidate audience. It's a whole different audience. And so, culture is about listening to your employees because you either have a culture by design or default. It's either happening to you or you're actually giving it the guardrails it needs and guiding it to a really purposeful culture. So the first thing I would recommend people to do to really understand where their culture is, because I hope you believe, I hope your listeners believe, you got to measure things in order to affect it. So there's a couple different tools. There's the Q12 from Gallup that you could use. You can just Google it and use it on your own. It's called the Q12 from Gallup. They suggest they're the 12 questions that every owner, every business owner, small, medium, or large, should know about their employees. Then there's another tool called the eNet Promoter Score. And the eNet Promoter Score can help you measure how many detractors and promoters you have in your organization. Simple 1-2 question. And then there's a really good tool called TinyPulse that can help you automate measuring where your culture is. And starting with listening to your people because they'll tell you what your culture is. And, and then you as the owner can give it some guardrails. No, we're not going to go in that direction. We want to go in this direction. Because sometimes cultures can get derailed with just a new customer, a new employee, a change in venue, a new product, a new service. The littlest thing can affect your culture.

Yeah, culture is a malleable thing. That's one thing I think we tend to forget, right? We think we have that set in stone. We did our vision, mission statement. We did all that. Now, we should have that. You're right. It's a shifting situation.

Well, culture got really sexy in 2015, and everybody's talking about culture. But nobody knows what the hell it is. Culture is about your values, your attitudes, your beliefs, your traditions, and what your employees say about you when you're not in the room. It's how they interact with your customers. It's how they interact with each other. That's your culture. And so monitoring it is so important. If people would just start measuring it and getting the data, then they can do something about it.

Recruiting salespeople is one of the most challenging and important parts for our audience. What advice do you have for recruiting salespeople in particular? Is there a distinction or a difference in the salesperson of today versus yesterday? What advice do you have?

So sales and marketing recruitment is one of our areas of specialty, and it's my fault, Bobby, because I'm a sales—

all right, here we go. We're gonna get some good answers there.

Beware the person who masquerades as a salesperson, because most people really don't have the chutzpah to truly generate a revenue dollar. They're nice, they're kind, they usually wash and put on good clothes before they come to the interview.

Good salespeople are good at selling themselves, right?

Oh sure, they're charming, they smell good, you know, they're attractive. But do they have the chutzpah to actually go for it and say, Bobby, I've talked to you a couple times, when are you ready to make a commitment? I just need to know whether you're ready or not. Is it yes, no, or maybe? So one of the great things you can do in sales recruitment is use an assessment tool. There's 3 tools I like. I'm always going to give you 3 because I always like 3 and I use them for different reasons. There's one called Profile XT. So Profile XT. The second one is Predictive Index. So I'll say it again, Predictive Index. And the third is Preview, Preview, P-R-E-V-I-U-E. Now full disclosure, we, we offer these to our clients. But you can get them on your own. You don't need to get them through me. Now, you can, but you don't have to.

By the way, we'll have for our listeners, we'll have these links in the podcast episode. But go ahead.

So, what that does is it takes the guesswork out of you, out of your hiring process. And there's a whole process you have to go through. But I love assessments because I can't hide out from the assessment. So, let me just give you an example. The Profile XT is my favorite of those three. And it measures your thinking style. It measures your behaviors, like how are you going to show up? And then it measures the things you like the most to do. So for example, me, I am smart enough, but not the brightest gal in the room. I go Mach 2 with my hair on fire. So get out of my way. I love people, but I'm not very accommodating. I don't suffer fools. Like, if we're not going to get something done, see you later, you know, squirrel, you know. And then I'm extremely decisive. And the thing I like most is influencing people and being enterprising. So wouldn't it be great to talk about those things in an interview? That's my DNA. Like, I dig. I am playfully assertive, like I have a blast being assertive, and I'm not mean, but I'm not gonna stop. So, so what we do with our clients is we set up this pattern of behavior in the sales process. In, in the assessment, who are you looking for? So if most of your listeners are kind of owner-operators and they're trying for the first time to hire somebody in sales, then they're trying to replace themselves. That's tricky too. There's a whole psychology around that. Nobody's ever going to be good enough. Well, I assure you that will not help you grow. But then we look at the pattern of the owner-operator and what made them successful and try to really hire as close as possible to that kind of pace, that kind of enterprising. And it just takes the emotion out of it. Like, if I meet you and I fall in love with you, then, you know, and we all do, in 3 seconds, we decide whether we dig each other or not. And it's just human nature. And then the candidates get this halo effect, right? And you're going to make it successful. Goddamn it, you're going to be successful, you know? Anyhow.

The thing I love about the assessment tools is that because we typically Most of the businesses in this industry have been driven by salespeople, built by salespeople, and now they've turned to be recruitment and mentors and coaches. And it's a different role altogether. But we're still hiring based on our gut through the lens of our own experience. What's interesting to me is I've talked to so many business owners in this seat that I'm in now, and I've talked to so many different business owners. There's not one path. So they're only seeing that through the lens that they have through their own experience. What I love about the assessment is two things. One, it gets the gut feel out of the way because because that can be so misleading. And then number 2, it actually allows you to spend time in the interview thinking of how this would work going forward, as opposed to investigating who this person is and being like a private investigator trying to discover details. You have all the information there in front of you. It's a matter of mapping from the candidate to the opportunity.

Exactly. You got it. Yeah, assessments are a great way for you to unlock the sales piece and dig. So the other thing I want all of you guys to do is don't take it at face value. If some salesperson says to you, well, we sold half a million dollars in revenue in 2018, thank you. Who's we? What did you do? What did you do? Right? Who's we?

I love that. Oh, you're—

beware the pronouns. Beware the pronouns.

Well, that's so good.

Make them prove it to you. It's okay to make people prove to you that they deserve the money you're going to invest in them.

Yeah. Not only that, but anymore, particularly in our industry, that's a very interdependent model. And so there are rarely these sales superheroes that can come in and command that kind of revenue. It's a common story in our business where a salesperson would have had a million-dollar book of business. They're recruited because of this. What looks like a big pile of money, only to find out there were different attachments to those accounts. There were different ways that they grew those accounts. For one thing, that's revenue that may never come around again, or accounts that may never come around again. But moreover, there was an entire team. That's why I love about the we, being careful about the we. There was an entire team that was involved in managing that business and recruiting that business and winning that business. So it's not a guarantee. Let me ask this, since you hire sales and marketing people, This would be interesting to ask you. What are your favorite interview tips? What do you personally do outside of the assessments? There's something, things you know as a go-to that you use in the interview process.

OK, so I always talk about the last sale. So I've been interviewing for salespeople for my company. So I ask key metric questions. So in the last 6 months, what have you sold? How have you sold it? Who, how did you identify the lead? Where did the lead come from? Did you source it yourself? Did somebody else source it? What was the value of that? What tactics did you use to get people to talk to you? And normally what I hear for those masquerading is, oh, I couldn't possibly tell you my numbers. I can't remember. I'll have to go check. Red flag. If you're a salesperson you know your numbers. I call a big old BS on that. Anytime somebody says to me, well, let me go check my numbers. I'm like, yeah, no, not gonna happen. Then you have to know where do the leads come from. If you want somebody to generate their own leads, that's a different kind of dog. If you're gonna supply them with leads, that's a different kind of person too. If you're just having— there's so— we talk about sales and there's like 100 faces to sales. So we identify really what do you need. So if you want somebody to pick up the phone and cold call, they have got to have a certain set of skills and they have to love that. So really understanding how they got to the last sale will tell you a lot about their sales process. I also want to know if they're trained in any methodology because a lot of people are winging it. Don't assume that people know how to spell. It is a skill, just like marketing is a skill, just like graphic artists is a skill, just like anything we've learned. We tend to assume when people are of a certain age or a certain position that they have it all figured out. Human beings are creatures that continue to learn and you got to give them training.

Well, what's shifting in our market is that the business used to be built upon sales personalities because of a very face-to-face business. And so recruitment was really about recruiting a sales personality. The market has shifted to where you're having to really deliver on ROI and resources and strategic value. And so there is a change in our industry, a $24 billion industry. It's a huge industry. We're seeing this shift in the type of consultative salesperson that's needed now, as opposed to just the sales personality who could, who could get by with a fairly easy sale, a fairly easy close if they could just be nice and friendly. And we've seen this shift. It doesn't work anymore. We've got to be smarter about the recruiting and the hiring process. Speaking of process, that's one thing most of us don't have as small business owners, right? That's a big, huge broken part of this is that you said once you have the process established, You don't have to suffer or be held hostage by an employee ever again. What did you mean by that?

So, I will send this to you in follow-up. I have a funnel. I have a sales funnel. It's also in my book, Bobbi. The first step is employment brand. So, it's a process. It is a predictable process. First step is employment brand. And I'll send you the visual that you can add somehow into this whole thing we're doing. Second step is filling the top of the funnel with candidates who you want to work for you, whether you're ready for them or not. So sourcing people into the top of the funnel. The third is engaging them. And you guys know how to do that better than anybody. How do you engage people into the content, getting them excited? And then the fourth stage is screening. You know, we have to have a scorecard. What does good look like? And then you use the assessment at that fourth stage. And then the third is the behavioral-based interview. And that is key. Don't invite somebody in who didn't pass the screening and the assessment and waste your time and an hour and a behavioral-based interview? Don't do that.

Yeah, what do you mean by behavioral-based interview?

So, tell me about a time, Bobby, that you actually had to bring in a million-dollar deal.

Okay, this is where you're mining the stories. You're looking behind what's on the resume, what's been through the assessment, and digging through the actual real-life story.

This is the prove it, prove it conversation. Show me. Remember Jerry Maguire? Show me the money, Jerry. You show me the money. Show me that you can do it. Have them give you some work product. You know, have them— if they're creatives, show me. If they're marketing people, show me. If they're salespeople, show me how you've sold some deals. I want to experience you the way my customer would experience you.

That's a great point. You know, I think many of us do that intuitively. But what I love about what you just laid out there is we don't have the process that helps guide the candidate through, guide the potential candidate through. We typically go straight from recruiting to this gut-check interview process, and it's just disastrous. Not only do we waste a lot of time, it's so misleading. I've done it. I can't tell you how many people I have recruited and hired that way without the lack of process.

And you're not alone, Bobbi. I mean, it happens. One thing I want to caution everybody about, I've been doing this for 30 years. And this is— nothing's the magic pill. I'm not going to give you the magic pill today that all your worries will go away. I'm good. I'm not that good. But you're going to get better results. You're going to be more successful 80 to 90% of the time. You're still going to screw it up because people are emotional creatures. We're emotional. We can't help ourselves. We're emotional creatures. And we either like each other or we don't like each other. And the last step is know the offer. Just like you're gonna go close a deal, know what the customer is willing to pay. Know what the candidate needs to be offered because compensation in an offer is very emotional. It's an emotional thing. How do you value me? So make sure you have the conversation with the candidate at the screening stage. Bobby, what's gonna make you want to join us from a compensation perspective. What's important to you? And you'll be amazed at the answers you get. Sometimes it's not money, sometimes it's benefits, sometimes it's time, sometimes it's flexibility to work from home, sometimes it's, can I pick up my kid at 3 o'clock every day? There are so many compensatable components, so make sure you know what those components are. For the person you want to hire.

Do you think we come to the table with too many inflexible ideas about that compensation? And that's what— we're the problem?

Absolutely. We're rigid. They're rigid. Nobody wants to talk about money.

That's the strangest irony, right? That we're— here we are.

That's the most—

one of the most important things we can talk about in this interview process. And I can remember dancing around it too.

And don't dance. Just go for it. What's it going to take? I mean, is it all about the money for you? Or what other components are you looking for?

Really, you're asking, what's the motive, intrinsic motivation for you moving forward?

And more importantly, just I want to make sure they hear this. What will make you feel valued?

Yeah, I love that. I love the way you said that. Yes.

And it's so important because it's different for every single human being.

Yeah, you know, I knew a gentleman who ran a franchise system and $3 billion company, and they were a sales organization. And he said once that he didn't hire for money. He didn't hire salespeople for money. He hired salespeople for ego, the good kind of ego, people that were intrinsically motivated to win. And he said, if I had someone intrinsically motivated to win, the money would come, right? But I love, I love, you know, the being this bold in that part of the process is critical for winnowing out candidates that just aren't going to work for you.

Exactly. Exactly. Because, because they won't— you got to start this transparent, vulnerable relationship from the minute you meet them, because then it will permeate the rest of your employment relationship, employer-employee relationship. And let me give you an example. There's a gentleman who works for me, God bless him. His name is Mike. He's 70 years old. And he's had many different employers. And he says to me every time I see him, I see him probably once a month because we're a remote virtual workforce. He says, Kathleen, I have never worked in an environment that tells it like it is like this one. You know, we are transparent. We show our financials. We share if we're having a good day, a bad day. And we share successes. We learn from failures together. And you have to start it from day one because they won't believe it. People are trained to distrust each other, which is awful.

Yeah. And there's too much posturing going on in the interview process on both sides. So I love what you said about immediately making this a vulnerable, open conversation. What about employee retention? I mean, this is going to sound like a dumb question, but since you advise so many people, this is what you do for your life. What are the essential keys to strong retention?

Well, it goes back to having the critical conversations and being brave enough to have them. I was presenting on Tuesday and I was suggesting having those stay interviews I referenced earlier in the conversation. And one very seasoned gentleman said to me, "Well, why would I do that? Because they're just going to ask for more money." That's the fear, right?

He just expressed basically the fear that most people have.

Yeah. So, if I start asking my people, how happy are you? Do you want to be here? Are you aligned with the values? You know, they're going to ask for more money. And I said, well, if they ask for more money, what do you, what do you think you might say? He says, I don't know. And so, we role-played. I said, so tell them you don't have money to pay them. So, let's not talk about money. Why? What are the other factors that you stay or don't stay or won't stay for? And under what situation would you leave? Wouldn't it be great to know under what circumstance people would leave for? So, it is more important now. I think retention trumps recruiting right now. You want to keep the people who are making money for you, are aligned with your brand, love you, that are focused on who you are and what you do. You want to make sure that you stop. It's like in kindergarten, stop, look, and listen before you cross the street, right? Before you assume, and there's a definition for assuming things, before you assume anything, check in with your key people. Hey Bobby, I haven't asked you in a long time, but are you still engaged with what we're trying to do? Why? Why not? What would make you more engaged? What are we doing that's turning you on and making you get up every morning and happy about what you're doing? And what aren't we doing? What could we improve? And if we can't improve it, would you leave? What would you leave for?

Those are very direct. Many people are afraid to have that conversation. And now it's vital because of the challenge we have with the job market.

One more thing. We all tend to focus on, oh, shit, they might say something I don't want to hear. But guess what? When you start having those conversations, you start hearing why they choose you.

Yeah.

And that's a gift.

That's a gift. You're right.

That is a gift. And then that feeds your employment brand.

Yeah.

And then people who are smart can message that in their employment branding.

So good.

So it's like this cycle. You start having these conversations and we're all like terrified that somebody's gonna say, oh my God, I want to make $100,000 $100,000, or, oh my God, I hate you. That's the few. That's just a few people. Yes, that might happen, but don't be afraid of the little teeny tiny people who hate you. Focus on the 85-90% of the people who love you.

Right. You know what I love about what you just said too, is that many times we get stuck in, as a language person, as someone who lives around words, we get stuck around our own ideas about why people stay with us. And we tend to regurgitate that in the market and our messaging. What I love what you just said is that by frequently asking the folks that love your company, you're going to get different answers. At the very least, what you're going to get is a different way to express it and then build that into a codified system or a way that you can use as recruitment messaging and branding. I love that.

Absolutely. And then you can build upon it. You know, just got to start start somewhere. Yeah. So to all your listeners, just— I call it put on your big girl pants, you know, and go have one conversation.

That's great.

Just one.

Yeah, you'll find out it gets easier as you do more and more of those. We have a few minutes left. You said something earlier that's really intrigued me. It's on a different topic altogether. You said you manage a remote— your entire team is virtual and a remote workforce.

Remote and virtual. Yes.

What advice do you have? We are in an era now where that is more and more common, and it's going to become more and more common for those in our industry. What have you learned about that? What advice do you have for managing a virtual workforce?

So I've been remote and virtual for 16 years. I was a little bit ahead of my time, and it was really selfish because I love being remote and virtual. I love not going into an office every day. I love going, being at home or being in a coffee shop or being with my clients or going. I love the diversity of my life. So it was built around my values because I'm the owner. And I want people, I want to hire adults who know when they need to work and can play when they want to. There's no constraint around you must work 8 to 5. I don't care, work at midnight if it turns you on, go right ahead. I'll be sleeping. Work on the weekends if you want to, you know, go to your son's hockey game or your daughter's dance recital, but have the tools to bring people together. We have tools like video technology like you and I are using today, so I can see you and I can see when you're happy, mad, or having a question on your face. I mean, 85% of communication is nonverbal, so make sure you can see your people. And then I bring my people together, the people who are really local, once a month, and then quarterly for everybody else. And so it's, it's been really great. We give people freedom, we treat them like adults, they know what they need to do to serve the client, and it's been working brilliantly. But you got to hire adults.

Yeah. Is there anything we didn't talk about that you wanted to cover in this interview?

I really, I mean, when we were talking, I get ideas all the time. I'm an idea gal. I feel like my next keynote is stop being so polite. We're all so polite and dancing around things. Let's just start being real.

And what a welcome and refreshing message on both sides of the table, on both sides of the desk. Kathleen, this has been an honor. Thank you for sharing your wisdom. You have a lot of experience through the clients you've helped through your business, and I'm so glad we fired up the video so we could have that conversation.

Me too.

Yeah, two introverts come become extroverts who are now doing the speaking. We typically— you forced me outside of my mic to get on camera, so there you go. But it's great talking to you. I really enjoy this and would love to have you back for part 2.

I'm here for you and your listeners, and have a really awesome weekend.

Yeah, thank you, Kathleen.

Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of SkewCast. Be sure to keep up with our latest content by subscribing to SkewCast on iTunes or to our blog at community.commskew.com. Until next time, friends, thanks so much for listening.