The Art of the "Commitment" and The Difference of Hiring Vs. Recruiting with Jimmy and Will

Hey, rockstars. Today's episode, we're going to be talking a lot about the recruiting process, and you're going to get a backstage pass to understand how owners think and operate in terms of attracting the best talent. So you're going to learn on your end how to stand out in a crowded market, how to create instant emotional connections with your clients, and why storytelling, authenticity, and clarity are your superpowers. Jimmy McKay breaks down how to communicate with impact. Cut through the noise and make yourself unforgettable through the way that you speak. Right. And show up. And this is a professional radio host. This guy knows how to communicate. So if you want to innovate, elevate your value, build trust, and open more opportunities for yourself, this episode is a must. Listen, let's get into it.

Will Humphreys back on the show. I, I, you know, I prepare. You're a podcast host now. Let's talk podcaster to podcaster.

Yes.

And this didn't. This wouldn't have been a thing to talk about four years ago, but now lots of people have podcasts, yourself included. The Willpower podcast. Boom. Already 18 seconds in, we've already got the mention. Good. Get out of the way.

I feel like the call to action's already there. This has been a home run. No, I appreciate that.

How, how much or little do you prepare for an episode? Or does it matter what the topic is? Does it matter who the guest is? It doesn't matter. It matter. It matters to me.

Absolutely. So it depends on the person. Absolutely. There are people like you that I don't want to prepare.

Yeah.

If I've got a Jimmy McKay, then. And by the way, I want you on my show, I think it'd be fantastic. And I think it's one of those things where, like, it's more fun to get into the moment with people who are top of mind thinkers. There's also some really brilliant people, as you know, who just need time to prepare, and those people I like to prepare as a way of helping bridge that gap. So I have. If I have a guest coming on with a complex topic I know nothing about, I'll typically do more research. If I've got a Jimmy McKay, one of my favorite people in the world, who I know can just spew brilliance, then I don't like to because it actually ruins it.

So you're right.

Yeah. That's how I, that's how I approach these things.

Just so we're clear, I prepared zero for Will today, and my preparation is, like, a little, like, you know, It's a little, you know, I used to prepare crazy amounts and then I was like, okay, I know what, I know what. I need enough to get enough.

And then I think I'd be offended if you prepared. I think I would literally be like, dude, you know me, let's just roll. Let's kill.

I probably should have had like the dates of the thing we're going to talk about. Like, but you, I've got you, you know the dates. Like, who cares? Like, there's my source. But so wait, so how. What's new? Like, I literally just want to ask what's new because you're, you're like me. You're. You're doing. Whatever you're doing now is different than what you're probably doing six months ago. And you're probably doing something in the background now that six months from now we'll have another reason to talk. But what is now? What is the present?

Yeah, my whole focus now is virtual assistants. That. I don't know if that was last time we talked or not. Have we talked about that?

It was the last time we talked and it wasn't really a thing in the world. Like it was a thing in the world, but it wasn't as big of a. It wasn't.

Yes. I had four other companies. No kidding. I had four other companies. 30 second background for people who are like, who is this guy? I am a physical therapist. Used to have a private practice, really sucked at it, got a lot of coaching, got decent at it, sold that thing for 7 million in 2018, started four other companies, three of them became multimillion. Almost had a heart attack. Decided virtual assistants was the future for me. And that was just a year and a half ago. And since that timeframe, that is my entire focus is helping virtual assistants offload every non clinical role in a company. We have over 150 clients across the country. Over 250 virtual assistants working for us. I'm going to Tokyo in like three weeks after Christmas to go be with them for the next year's strategy and planning. It's. This thing is, has totally just taken off. It has been by far the coolest thing I've ever done since becoming a physical therapist.

Virtual rock star.

Virtual rock star.

You're leaving out as your, as your sidekick marketing director, you're leaving out a big chunk. You're sort of stealing a page out of Bombas or Tom shoes because the people you're employing to do the work, the people who are paying you are paying are getting a deal. Yes, so they're. They're getting good work. It has to be quality first.

It's gotta be good.

Got it. They're getting it at a rate that they're like, oh, oh, okay. Yeah, no, this is a good rate. Like, it matches. The quality is better than the rate. So, like, you're. There's a good ROI there.

I can tell you the exact numbers if you want. Like, it's incredibly useful because compared to an American employee making $18 an hour, what they would pay to hire one of my people will save them $20,000 a year of profit. So that's the savings. They hire a virtual assistant, and it's the second fastest growing trend in healthcare. Right. So what's interesting is virtual assistants are coming in. Most PTOT SLPs are slow adopters of technology. So there. Many people initially are like, I don't know if I want to get that outsourced feeling to my clients, not realizing how different this is. And so here's our big secret, Jimmy. We pay our VAs a lot more than my competitors. Not only am I specialized.

Right?

Yeah. So we pay them two to three times what they would make for most. So my margin is 10 to 15%. I'm telling you on a podcast what my profit margin is and why. Because I want to pay those VAs as much as possible so that my partners in America, like, it's almost like an avatar when that, you know, they get on the. The horse and they bond. Or like, if I can create the. Yeah, that, like, the hairs come together. Like, if I can get the PT owner, OT owner, SLP owner to connect with their VA and they become family, then like, it's. Yeah. And they tell me the money savings is great, but what they love is not having to work to find someone that's offloading them. And by the way, shows up like, it's life saving money. Because it is. It's life changing money to these VAs.

This is what I wanted you to do. Now go to the other side. This is where I was saying you're sort of taking a page from Bombas socks or tom shoes, where it's like, so what you're really doing also is it like, we love to save us some money, right? So I'm getting something good. The price point is like, great. But you're also doing, like, what. What's the other side of this equation? What are you doing to their. The virtual assistants days and lives?

It is bringing them out of poverty. Literally. We have the first time I hired a virtual assistant, Jimmy, was for my old billing company. I hired a virtual assistant against my greater desire because medical billing companies are known as, like the kiss of death when you outsource overseas. But I hired my first girl, let's call her Amy. And do you know why? Because her name was Amy and Amy. So Amy, I offer her the job. She cries and I'm like, I've never had anyone cry before.

Not on the way in, usually on the way out though.

Yes. And usually it's me crying. So, so she, she, she. And then she shows up every day, like, powerful. She actually made the Americans work harder because she was on the team going, what else can I do for you? And so what's interesting is, is I found out later that Amy bought her family their first refrigerator, their first car, took her dad out of a really inefficient nursing home and took him into home and cared for him because she was making so, quote, so much more money. And so when my partners, my friends started saying, hey, will help me do this. And I kept telling them no until they kept saying, dude, we're offering you money and you're saying no to us. That's when everything shifted. And so when I. Because recruiting is my favorite thing, that's what my summit, my upcoming in person thing we're going to talk about is all about. Because it's not about recruiting, is not about hiring. It's about fulfilling our purpose as leaders, to make more leaders.

So wait, wait, wait, wait. This is like marketing and sales. These two things are tied. Recruiting and hiring are like.

Yeah, it's biz dev, right? Biz dev is the new patients and the new hires we make. So this is marketing and sales for building.

So then if they're different, which they're are because they're different words. So what is, what are this? What are the. Like what. All right, then just what is recruiting and what is hiring?

Yeah, so recruiting is just the general term we use to describe the entire process of getting people to join our team and to buy in. But we don't think about recruiting outside of just bringing people on to hire. See, hiring is the actual act of them coming on. Recruiting is the process of getting the emotional buy in. And it does result in hiring. But we recruit people all the time who never join our company. That's where people screw up.

Right?

If people who own clinics could realize that their job is to promote their purpose to universities and to recruit them, I'm putting air quotes for people who can't see to recruit everyone to join them in their mission, even if they don't join your team.

Great pr, baby.

Right. It's all about public relations. That's. I guess that's a better way of saying it from. From what you're labeling it, because that's the smart way is recruiting is about public relations.

Hiring is hiring the act of converting someone who, you know, you might hand the Kool Aid out to a hundred people and only one converts to being hired. That's okay. That's the right person.

Yes. That's the same in sales of like, you know, closing the sale. Right. You don't even use that language in physical therapy. Erroneously. But that's. That's what that is.

Yeah. Marketing gets them to your door. Sales gets them to swipe a credit card.

Right. And marketing, we hear that word, like, what is it? It's about promoting a purpose. So it's PR again. Like, we're out there doing good in the world. If I'm going out to a charity, I want to tell the world about it. Not because I'm patting myself on the back, but because it inspires people to do charity. And so that's where we screw up in pt. It's like, well, I don't. I don't want to toot my own horn. It's like, well, no, you're. You're just screwing up your opportunity to help people be better. And then some of the people join your team.

Right. I did something that I think came off super, like, douchey on the Internet. Not on purpose.

Sure.

So I would see people putting up job posting other physical therapy clinics. Right. Because that's who I'm friends with on LinkedIn. They would put up job postings and I would re. Share their posting, but I would rewrite their ad. And it didn't. Didn't go over all the. It didn't. It wasn't 100% success rate. Like, why were they offended?

Were they offended because they felt like you were minimizing them?

Not minimizing them. I think they were like, mine was fine. And I was like, it was not fun.

And here's why.

Like, we could write. You could right now. We could live. Right. A crappy job posting. First of all, don't call it a job posting. Like you would. Will call it a purpose posting.

Thank you.

Or something.

Yeah.

So the step one they usually do, they get wrong is they're like, we're looking for you. Started with we stop talking.

It's about them. The language is you correct? Are you like the who? Right. The hook is always the Most important thing, I teach this in webinars, that the most powerful way to write a job ad, and I know you know this, I'm just saying this for the audience, is that we use. The whole purpose of the first sentence is to get them to read the rest of the ad. Period.

Right. Correct.

What do you say?

Yes. The purpose of the first date is to get a second date.

Right.

The second date is to get the third date. If you say the purpose of the first date is to get married, you're. That's a red flag. The purpose of the pickup line is to get a giggle. The purpose of the second line is to get. And eventually you get the number, then you get the go. Start higher.

Yes. I love that. I love that the way you paralleled that. I'm going to build on your analogy of like the pickup line is to get the giggle. Why? Because we're trying to differentiate. We're trying to create a connection, like you were doing with your hands and an emotional response. So how do you do that when you're doing an ad? Well, text. Right, Right. If you're. If you're putting it in LinkedIn. Not LinkedIn. Sorry, I'm thinking of. Indeed, you can do LinkedIn, but indeed is more commonly known. So the sentence needs to speak to your ideal hire's fears, dreams, hopes. And so, for example, instead of saying, we are looking for someone to join our great company that gives great quality care, which, by the way, stops saying quality care. No one cares about your quality care.

That's vanilla mayonnaise. That phrase is vanilla mayonnaise, man.

You think you're better than everyone else. You're.

You're not.

But you are better in other ways that you don't even know.

Right.

And so in that hook, for example, if your avatar, your ideal hire is a student, maybe it's someone who's been out of school for a year. The hook could be like, have you been out of school working as a physical therapist and feeling disenfranchised with your decision to become a pt? And you're like, yes, yeah, if so, because maybe you have programs that would speak to someone like that, who's maybe a little experienced, doesn't need full. And so everyone's avatar is different, all the hooks are different. But you want to build an avatar based on what you do best. And you can always, if you don't know where to start, go find the people who love your company the best or like the people you wish you could clone. Go. Why do you like it here? What Is it about you that you liked about it? Interview them and then take their words and put it in ads.

Yeah. Talk to me about me. It's the sexiest thing I'll hear all day.

Totally.

Always like, oh, you're so great. It's like, oh, no, stop. Keep going, keep going, keep going. You're saying, keep going, keep going, keep going. Like, yes, I want to hear more about me.

Yeah. And they're so happy to do that. It's such a fun thing because it's also, like, a retention activity. If I went up to an employee and said, hey, John, I wish I had a million more johns, can you help me find more people just like you? How is that guy going to feel appreciated, seen, heard I'm not leaving this place. They get me here, right? So leveraging them becomes this, like, team effort. Not just the owner's effort. Quietly, in tears at night, to.

To the Internet, to the void. Right. I'm just gonna fling it on LinkedIn. The answer is just spend more money on LinkedIn. I'm like, is it, though?

Is it right? No.

Did you see what I was doing? Have you. Have you seen what I was doing? The last. We're recording on in early December. I'll put this out fast.

Yeah.

So people. So it still has context. So we'll talk about this later. But I started my own company. It's essentially what you were talking about. Like, Will and Jimmy are very, very similar human beings. I'm pretty sure you can tell the vibe, even if you know nothing about me and nothing about Will. So people were offering me money, and I didn't want to take money from my friends.

Yeah.

I was like, I'll take money from companies, but not my friends. But my friends. Like, we have companies. I'm like, but they're your companies and you're my friends. So therefore, whatever, whatever, whatever. So I started a company, right? So the idea there was, can I do the thing that I'm already doing for fun and just make a company out of it? At the same token, I do like to have consulting clients or clients. I just work on projects. So the thing I'm doing on LinkedIn, all it's. I'm doing it in public, which is where the sneaky part is. So my last, like, five posts were if. At Medbridge, tagging Medbridge. If Medbridge hired me tomorrow. Here's the first three things I do, and then I give them in public. Three, I think great ideas.

Great ideas. But might be criticisms, right?

No, no, no. Just ideas of. Well, I mean, hey, listen, I went to Medbridge's website. This here's what I do. I go to Memberage's website. I look very quickly. I do not dig because no one's going to dig. Your average person is not digging. If I don't see it, it doesn't exist. So I go to Merge's website. I'm like sort of taking mental notes. I'm recording what I'm. I'm like a doctor doing an autopsy. Right. The kidney weighs three pounds, whatever. Like, you know, nothing. Nothing remarkable. So I'm looking at my bridge's website. Cool. And then if they have social channels, I only go if I'm linked from the website because someone might be like, we have a YouTube channel. Like not link from the website doesn't exist. I'm not looking for you on YouTube. If it's. So I'm making mental notes and then I'm just snapshotting everything that I'm doing. YouTube looks like this. They have a lot of success. Their vibes, they're like, I'm just. I'm just verbally processing everything. And then I go, what do I think? There's. What do I think their strategic goals are? I'm guessing, I'm making a guess. This is educated guess from the outside, but everybody's making an educated guess. Your consumer is making an educated guess of what do you do? How does it make my life better? What do I need to do? Get it? And then I write up three fictitious ideas. They're not fictitious, they're really. I said to Medbridge, for every steal a page out of Tom shoes for every American ceu for every year subscription, I'd give one away to a country, a country, underdeveloped country. And at checkout I would offer to level up for $5 to now create a micro fund to get Internet access and devices to those countries. And I would probably partner with World Physio World Confederation of Physical Therapy because they already have the infrastructure. Put that up. And then people start chiming in and people are like, just regular people are like, they don't work at Mabridge. But they're like, that is a really good idea. How come they aren't doing that? And then people who know people at Medbridge start tagging people at Medbridge. And now I have a meeting with the director of content in today.

No way.

And it might not go anywhere. And Medbridge is already a good company.

How cool is that? Going back to like lead gen and marketing and promoting a purpose and like doing good to the World. Like, it's. It's just amazing how it invites opportunity. It invites, like, these wonderful opportunities that we never would have dreamed of.

But could you. Could you do that for a. For a post on LinkedIn? To fire the. To fire. To hire. To find absolutely great clinician. Yes. Make it a story. I know it's going to take you longer than it would if you just wrote the standard five sentence. We are looking for a great clinician to join our team. But people, that's. It's mayonnaise flavored ice cream, man. They ain't eating it at all. So that time is wasted. I'm going to say triple down on telling a story. And now, I don't know if you've seen this thing, Will. There's this stuff I don't know how to explain. It's called AI. You can do this very freaking quickly. Well, so do that. It's a power. You could chop down a tree with an axe or you can use a chainsaw.

Your choice. No one else is doing this anyway. Like, it's one of those things where, like, the few companies that have an online presence who are leveraging LinkedIn are automatically better than anyone who's doing nothing, because most people in our industry don't do squat. So here's one thing. I want to just promote something that you said that I thought was super powerful. I want to double down on is that the reason that Medbridge idea works so well is because you legitimately are passionate. It wasn't a tactic to get the meeting right.

Right.

Now, you're not dumb. You understand that's going to be a product potential. And it does inspire that. But those are. It's an alignment of both of those things. So we're not doing the posts to get a hire. We're doing the posts to inspire.

Will's always making it rhyme. Yes.

And then the hires come as a. So what's cool about that too, is that when we're doing something that's inspiring, we.

I loved it.

We love to do it. So it's not work. It becomes this thing of, like, I can be consistent. I can post three times a week on LinkedIn. Because every week in your case, you're finding a company that you can use your brilliance for to serve in some general way that the public even benefits from hearing. And then guess what happens? People get tagged and you get interviews. So the idea being that we have to find it always starts with inspiration. And that's why when we recruit Vas, it's so vital that we Know what's really driving, driving the heart and soul of our clients and the va that's how you make that avatar hair bond. So it's one of those things that you could do this to recruit. You could do this to find a spouse, for crying out loud. You could do this. Yeah, recruiting. Recruiting to me is such a crappy word because it's really about this, this like art of building people around us and helping us serve them. And guess what? The product is, they serve us. And so we do that when we get married, we do that when we find partners and businesses, we do that with strategic partners. When Jimmy and I get together, it's all we do. And that's every. It's like the best part of life is that thing that we just use this crude term in business called recruiting.

Recruiting. So then, okay, so we just talked about recruiting, but then there's hiring. So what is that now? What's, what's the pickup line like? What, what's the. Like help me understand hiring then now that I understand what the difference is between. Between hiring and recruiting.

Yeah. This is such a fun conversation. I knew they would think that we spent weeks preparing this. 0. Hiring is the agreement, just like marriage. And I love that you went there in your analogy, because what is what makes a marriage successful? Is it because we dated? Well, that's like saying we're hiring well because we recruited. Well, it does make a difference. Matter of fact, it's the main thing up until the agreement. But as you know and as I know, once someone's married, it's a whole new world.

Right? It's the starting line, not the finish line.

Yeah. And so the thought I want people to think about is that when we are hiring, that's the actual close of the sale. That's the end, in mind of the recruiting process and the business terms. But it's the beginning of this long term relationship. So the way that I'm going to phrase this is from Stephen Covey. Everyone here should know this. And if you don't, please go read this book. It's a win win agreement. So we create in that close. And this is where people screw things up because they're desperate to hire. You've got a pulse. Come join the team.

Right?

But when they're recruiting correctly and they're inspiring and they attract the right mate or the right hire, then it's a matter of like, let's build this thing through transparency, identifying every potential outcome that might or may not happen. And then let's make an agreement about What? As far as we can. And so when we hire someone, we start the only discussion we will ever have with that employee until the day that we die, not until the day they leave us. And here's what I mean by that. If I hire someone, I'm setting up a win win agreement, and that's the language I use, and that's how we define all the terms. Right. At the review, we're just continuing that discussion. How are things going with your win? And as an owner of the company, I'm not. It's not between me and the employee, by the way. I am a steward of the win win relationship between them and this entity called the company, which is a embodiment of everyone. So I make sure as an owner or a leader, I am making sure both people win at that review and win and my goal. And this is what I used to say when I used to recruit people, Jimmy. This was told to me as the most effective thing I ever said. My goal is not to hire you. My goal is to help you find your next job, whether that's with me or somebody else. So they love that because it was a commitment to their long term success. And that's the commitment we maintain year over year. And when we fire people or they fire us because they leave, we continue that discussion. And if we start it powerfully and we do the best we can because we're imperfect, to maintain that over time, correcting mistakes on both sides. I have fired people, Jimmy, and the next day had them post something positive about my company on Facebook. I have people that have fired me, that we have remained dear friends because I recruited them. I didn't just hire them. They are bought into me and my mission as I am to them. And we are there to build each other. We just don't get to work together because it's no longer God's will is how I say it. Yeah, I mean, that's the hiring phase of it.

I've heard it too. And this is like a side. But I think we're using a lot of parallels with marriage or friendships, which is, you know, if you're super tight with someone in high school and you're not so tight anymore, it's just someone used an analogy of like, well, you guys were just walking on the same path for four years in high school, then you went to college and that distance just brought you on different paths, but you might move back to your hometown like I did. And next thing you know, you're like, oh, now we're at a different phase of life, and we're closer in proximity. But I also had friends that I was far away from, but still close in relationships. So it was this, like, we're going to walk together for a while. Have you ever had a job that lasted your entire life, Will?

No.

No. No one does. So this whole I'm going to hire for the best person ever. It's like, why don't we find great fit for as long as we're together and make that as great as we can and understand that my job, what you just said, my job is to help you find your next job, whether it's still with me or not. Gary Vee has said I'm thrilled when somebody in my organization is getting recruited. It means that person's being seen and doing great work. And if you're looking to leave and this isn't a good fit, I want you to go somewhere. What do I want? Someone who's burned out and doesn't want to do the thing. This is what we're doing. If that's not for you anymore, it was, but it's not. Want you to be happy.

Yeah. And we all. We all have the fear in those relationships of rejection. And that's what really drives us as human beings. I want to just make sure everyone who hears this is like, we all start there. I just want to open, like, with what you're saying, Jimmy. I want to open what's possible for them. Because imagine what happens when we remove that fear of rejection. And you have. They have the attitude that you just described. Let's just walk together as long as we're meant to walk together, whatever that looks like, knowing that there's another force out there, destiny, God, whatever you believe it is. For me, it's God. This idea of, like, however long we get to work together, I'm going to serve you in that deeper, meaningful way as long as humanly possible. But I also know I'm not going to be with you potentially forever. So here's what that solves. If I hold that relationship with someone in that way, they feel safe to tell me when they're thinking about leaving much earlier, which gives me a chance to change things in the agreement. Or I've had people resign with three months notice. Like, hey. They're like, hey. Well, I just. Just because I care about you, and I know that you're not going to freak out by this you Runway. Yeah. I think I'm really seriously thinking about this opportunity, and here's why. You can't match it. And I'm like, yeah, I can't go do that. They trusted that I would see that and not make it hard for them.

Not make their last three months awful and living hell and make me want to bail out.

Yeah. And I had one lady do that and then refer, like, just. I was like, can you help me put the word out? And she ended up helping me hire her replacement. It was crazy. Like, just. That kind of mindset changes the whole game.

Do you want to know how extreme it is? And, well, radio is different, right? So if. If. If I. So I told my boss, listen, I'm going to become a physical therapist. I was a radio DJ in Northeast Pennsylvania. And in radio, you put your two weeks in. They hand you a check and a cardboard box. We're not putting you. We'll just pay you for the last two weeks. We're not putting you on the radio because now you got no skin. Like, we have no idea what you're going to say. Like, you might go rogue. But you want to talk about the relationship I had with my general manager, Bill Palmeri? I actually owe that guy a call. I haven't talked to him in a while. The relationship we had, I was like, listen, I'm not leaving because I don't like you. I'm leaving the profession. Like, I'm looking at radio at. I think I was 28 years old, and I'm like, this isn't me at 38. I need to do something different. I'm gonna go this way. I'm not leaving because I don't like the station. I'm not going to another station. I'm not, you know. And I walked into office fully prepared for him to be like, here's a check and a cardboard box, because this is the industry, man. And he goes, how long can you stay? And I was like, I gotta do these things called prerequisites. And I was, you know, and it's gonna take me a while, but I just wanted you to know, because I love the station. And I built it up for the last seven years. I wanted to succeed. So you gotta get someone in my seat, like, and I'll help you find that person if you want. Or not, whatever. And he goes, how long can you stay? I'm like, the Prereqs are going to be a year and a half. And he goes, let's do a year and a half. So I was standing in a radio.

A year and a half notice in radio. Wow.

Usually you don't get a week and a half's notice. So he Goes, do me a favor, don't tell anybody yet, because I don't want everybody else to freak out because everybody looks at you like you're the guy who knows what he's doing. Look.

Yeah, because it's fear. It's like, what do I. Yeah, totally.

So I was standing in the radio studio in between Pearl Jam and Foo Fighter songs with a physics book, doing all my prereqs. I was interviewing the guy from Shinedown, and he's like, why do you have a physics book there? I was like, oh, sometimes we just need to hold the door open. And that's a heavy book. And he's like, oh, okay. Like, I had to tell. I had to keep everybody in the dark. Right.

You didn't want him to call you a nerd. Right.

And it was because we had that. He's like, I get it, Jimmy. And I'm not nervous that you're going to go ahead and turn that microphone on and tear the house down that I know you cared about for, you know, you built for the last seven years. And, gosh, that's a story about radio, but is it? Couldn't it also be about a clinic or a business or. It could be about anything.

I love the story because it's in my mind. It's 100% about trust. And my favorite book of all time for business. And this isn't like an exaggeration. This is like when people say, do you have a favorite business book? I have a favorite.

What is it?

It's called the Speed of Trust by Stephen Covey's son, Stephen Covey. Which immediately you're like, well, it's not the main man. Surely he's not as good. But this book was told to me by one of my mentors. Years, oh, my gosh, he's holding up.

That's why I slid off screen. I was like, it's sitting next to me. And I got. I'm halfway through now.

It's a. It's not an easy read. It's not one of those reads where it's like a parable. Those are my favorite books in terms of, like, the ease of reading.

Story. Story.

Yeah, I can read it in two hours. This is a. This is a, like a two to three month project for me to read that much of a book that is that deep in concept. But it. It was really big because it helped me understand how guys like Warren Buffett can go shake a handshake deal for billions of dollars in a matter of days when it should have taken years of Investigation. And that's. The book goes into that story. There's just all these things. So when we build relationships and we're serving our. When we're trying to inspire people through our personal or professional purpose, we organically build trust because we're authentic. Like, that's the thing about you, Jimmy. It's. I have never seen you anything other than the way you sound on. On the show in person. It's like you're talking to me on a podcast. You're. You are who you are, and that invites trust. And so when we communicate, even digitally, that's where the. The AI component becomes either a help or a hindrance. When we're doing. A guy named Alex Hermosi says that when we're communicating, you know, in a mass way, and it's not authentically individual, we should be really clear that's what it is. Like, you're getting this text reminder as a mass email to everybody. But when we reach out personally, that's when we say, hey, this is really me reaching out to you. Right. Because the authenticity creates trust. Which, you know, from a sales perspective, if we wanted to be manipulative, actually creates an emotional experience of them wanting to buy in. PTs suck at being manipulative in a great way.

Yeah.

So for us, we have one choice. To really lean in and be ourselves and stop trying to just hire people to start inspiring the world with what you care about. And the hires will come.

I agree with you. We're very bad at being manipulative. And that's great. But then the funny part is, all right, let me tell a story that it's gonna make sense. I will tell people all the time if you. I have to put. I gotta put together a presentation for csm. Awesome. What's your process? Well, I sit down and open PowerPoint. Can. I want you to not do that. And, like, why? I'm like, I want you to take markers out or dry erase board or a big roll of butcher paper. Start there.

Why?

Because that's not a tool for creativity. That's a. That's a tool for organization design.

Yes.

The creativity comes first. Design is terribly important. But if you don't know what you're designing, like, a good graphic designer will be like, I don't know what I'm designing yet. Like, they're gonna sit there with. A lot of times it's. It's tactile, like their pens and pads, like good digital graphic designers are. A lot of times they spend a lot of time with things they can touch and Feel and pens and colored pen like things like that. That I've seen anyway. And if you do that, you start with PowerPoint. That layer, it isn't there because you're designing for. You're creating for PowerPoint. You're creating for the design instead of give me the creation. I need the lump of clay. Don't start with hat. You can't start with half a bowl. I need a lump of clay. And then it's going to become something or it isn't. And you can guide it there. That's what I see with like, we just talked about writing the job description poorly. That person sat down and tried to. That pts tried to sat down and become a job description writer. Don't be a PT that wrote a job description.

Yeah.

How would you say it? Like the question you asked. How do we find 10 more Johns? That's a question that is not how do we write a job? That's the PowerPoint version. Don't open LinkedIn to write the thing. Go to the dry erase board or any like, any. Quite literally just vomit to a seven year old.

Yeah. Researching it with people that like, after you're in that state of research and curiosity, then go vomit on a board. I love that.

Correct. Yes. Then. Then you can. Then you can sort of like, okay, we're close. I see. We're okay. Then we can do this, this, this. Do you have the idea? Yeah. How do you translate that idea into. And now it's going to make sense why I said like make a bowl or a painting. Now you translate the idea into a medium. And a medium is text, image, sound, video, clay, paint, watercolor. Like those are mediums. That's why it's called media. Like, we lose. We use words so much, a lot of times we lose. We lose the meat. Where'd that come from? Why is it called media? It's because there's a medium. It's the thing between. How do I get there? Right now Will and I are on video, but we're also doing audio. And I don't know which one you're doing, but this conversation translates in both. You wouldn't want to read the transcript of this. This vibe doesn't work well in text. So you have to understand the media has to match the mess, the message if it doesn't. So. And it's got to be aimed at an audience. So if we're going to go books. Simon Sinek says start with why. I think you start with who. And here's why. Why? Because if I'm Communicating a message to my best friend, Brian or my grandmother. Different. Different who? Even if I've even inviting both of them to my graduation party, different person changes what I'm going to say, why I'm inviting them. I'm inviting my bro because he's my bro, and my grandmother because I would be honored with her presence. And then as soon as I understand why I want them there and why they probably want there, I'm using my hands because it's like it's a Venn diagram where it crosses. That's what Simon Sinek's talking about. That's our shared why. My shared with my shared why with my best friend is different than the shared why with my grandma. So the message different. As soon as I get my shared wire with my best friend, I can figure out a hundred ways how, where and when to tell him. In a fancy invitation, in a text message, in a call, I'll drive by his house and yell out the window. Same thing for grandma. It's a different shared why, how, where and when. The how, where and when gets real easy if you can get to the shared why. So I agree with cynic, but you have to start with who who matters. So you're who matters. I need 10 more John's. What's John like? Oh, he's extroverted. Okay, got it.

Keep telling me, tell me, why do I love John? Why does John love me like that Curiosity mindset is what gets me the creative juices ignited. Which, by the way, I saw a really cool episode on a different podcast. It was this guy who's a psychologist talking about the part of our brain that creates happiness is the same part controlled by creativity. So when we are being creative, we actually start becoming happier as a psycho.

That's why I like it.

Yeah, I love what you said. A couple of things I want to highlight there too, because that blew my mind. Jimmy. This idea that using that invitation analogy, if I want to create a really cool invitation, I'm missing the point when I'm wrong. When I'm wanting to create a really clear, meaningful emotional connection. And the medium or media is a piece of paper that shifts my thinking into like those curious points like, well, why do I want this person there? Why do they. Why would they benefit from being here? What? And then that creates. And then that's the. That's the seed that starts design and given. Not all of us are great in all of those areas. I suck at design. Me too. And so that's when we can leverage other things. And this is where AI becomes a hindrance or a help is that if I go to AI and I say AI, I need to create an invitation for my bro and my grandmother, it's actually going to do a fairly good job of producing something that will be clear.

Right?

Clear ended sentence. Here's how to use it as a help. I do that what you said, which by the way, you're I have to present for. I'm getting ready for a presentation that I'm going to keynote in a few weeks. And it just the way that you said that changed how I'm going to do it. But this is what I'm going to. This is a version of what I'm going to do better thanks to you. I'm going to go to my whiteboard and I'm going to take out my AI note taker, like a fathom or an array. I'm just going to hit record and I'm going to talk out loud to myself as I'm writing down all the different options. And I'm going to ask creatively, who needs to hear this message? What do I want to say that I'm inspired about? What do they. There's certain domains, of course, that I've agreed upon to cover, but I'm just going to go into that space and I'm going to spitball and I'm going to go back and forth and I'm going to draw up different creative, you know, ideas. And then once I start narrowing that field down and I know what the purpose and the product is and I know what the experience that I want to create is, and I have some, some keywords and language comes in, then I'm going to download that note taker, throw it into chat GPT and say, okay, here's the deal. I want to create a, an invitation that warms the heart of my grandmother. You're going to hear all about it in my discussion and I just want you to pitch out five different ways to do that in a way using best practices. And then can you help me design it based to create that emotional impact? Because at the end of the day, and I want everyone to hear this, if you're going to look for well, how does it apply to creating a job ad if you took out a piece of paper and wrote until you started to get emotional and then turned and just started writing anything that comes to mind to hire that ad will 10x whatever crap everyone else is doing? Yep. And so if, how cool would that be if I was someone looking for a job and after hearing we are this and we are this and we are this, I had an ad that started with, I really want to find the person I can serve forever. I'm writing this without any context. I'm just trying to be open and honest. My benefits are just like, how different would that. I was thinking about that as you were talking. Like, what if someone just poured their soul into a piece of. To a piece of paper that turned into an add on. Indeed. I'm just like, I care so much about these things. I just want someone who cares about them with me. Like, I just think there's something to be said about authenticity.

You led with the emotion that would touch the right person that was reading it and it wouldn't touch the wrong person. And that's a great. That's good. I want to weed out the people this isn't right for. This is who we are. I don't want more people applying for my clinic because then I'm gonna. I might pick. I might. They might be really great at getting the job. And then three months in, they're the wrong person. But they tried. They won the interview and I found a hire. That's not it. We used to use this exercise in radio. It was hard because in the radio I was in was music radio. Right. So I was very much like entertainment. So I sometimes had 8 seconds to say something or 48 sec between songs.

Geez, man.

So you had to cut like the length of time. So you learned how to get brief real quick. The problem is people have crutches. They have things that they get accustomed to because we're nervous. You turn a microphone on, you're like, hey, jillion, people can hear me. That's nerve wracking. And you'd hear it in a. You could start mid thought just what you're saying. It was hard to teach people to do, but once you got it, you got it. I'll give you an example. Picture if you will. We're coming out of a Pearl Jam song. We're going into a Foo Fighter song. I have 30 seconds to talk. If I come on and I give you the 97.9X, what's up? It's McKay. It's 4226 and the PM is 38 degrees. You know, this Friday we're going to do a car wash with the, with the local football teams, cheerleaders, and it's going to be awesome. And this is why you should come because. And then eventually I get to. I mean, can you imagine them just like pouring their heart out into this car wash so they can send their team to the state game, the state championship. Get to the.

That's the part I see.

So I would do air checks, which is us listening to what other DJs would just say. And I'm like, you talked for 30 seconds. You hit the emotion at 26, though.

Start there.

Your noise for 26 seconds, and your signal for four seconds. We got to get to signal faster. Start mid conversation. Start stand up. Comedians are great about this. I was at the Doctors the other day.

Wow.

Like, what are we doing with all these things? I got a paperwork I got to fill out. Like, boom. Not so. I was feeling sick, and I had the annual check. Get rid of it. Get rid of it. So what the exercise, you're talking about writing and writing and writing and writing. That's a lot of. That's like doing a lot of pushups. I'm just telling you, you will get.

Better results, and it gets you to that emotional point so quick. I think that's such a powerful thing, kind of the double emphasize what you said. In improv comedy, there's this concept called start in the middle. Sounds identical to what you're saying. What is.

What is start? That same thing, right? I'm describing the same thing.

Okay. So, for example, someone from the audience throws out a location called Starbucks. And then you say, okay, what's the relationship? Brothers. Right. And it's kind of like if. If the scene begins with one guy going up to the other guy and being like, oh, hey, John, how's it going? Good to see you. Right?

It's too beginning.

What if the scene started with, like, were you out with my wife last week?

Yes.

Now, immediately, we're in the middle of a conversation. We're right at that emotional inflight. We haven't talked. We haven't gone through all the small talk of the relationship. We're getting to the core of the scene. And. And then it's just, you know, it's like, oh, I didn't. You know. And then in comedy, it's like you try to take a. Build a brick on it. The response could be something like, oh, I didn't know you guys were still married. The audience laughs. Like, it's like that kind of thing. So, like, when it comes to job ad writing, being authentic, pure, and then getting to the middle of the emotion. That's it.

Start in the middle.

Yeah. And I love the idea. I've never done this before. I'm actually might. I might pilot this idea, Jimmy, of writing a job ad Like a love letter in the middle. Like, because, you know, again, the example I gave earlier, I just edited myself. I'm like, in that example of someone pouring their heart out, it's like, this is what I'm looking for. I'm like, no, a love letter would be like, listen, I know you're out there. I know you're struggling. I know I think about you all the time and I think about what, why you even became a physical therapist. And I just want you to know that, like, it, I think you, it matters what you've did. I just, I just want you to understand that not every place is the same. And here's what, for example, this is what I'm looking for. But what's important is that you know what you're looking for. So if you don't know what you're looking for, give me a call. Because whether you want to work for me or not, and by the way, here's my benefits and my, my compensation if you do. But if you're not sure what you want, why don't you give me a call and I promise you I'll help you find your next home. I just, you know, I'm not trying to, I'm not going to try to hire you. I just want you to be happy. Like a love letter. You know, people are going to go, what the heck?

Spin that. We did something similar in radio. We had. There was a local entertainment. A weekly entertainment magazine would come out on Wednesday or Thursday, tell you about all of the bars and the bands and whatever in Northeast Pennsylvania. So we would partner every once a year. And they would always say, what do you want to do? Let's cross promote, man. The Rising Tide. I was like, all right. And I sat down with them and usually it was like a contest or something, but this time I was like, I'm gonna do something. It's gonna sound dumb or boring, but we're gonna make it awesome. And they're like, okay. I'm like, I want you to help me find my next. I need to hire a couple part time DJs. I always need to be building my bench. Yeah. And they're like, okay. And these people, like, knew me and trusted me, but they were like, got it. This doesn't sound very. And I'm like, here's the pitch. So the name of the, the weekly magazine was called the Weekender. And we would call weekend radio DJs or part time. There were weekenders, there are weekend radio DJs. So I was like, your name's Gonna be in it. So you already love it. And they're like, okay, but how are we making you looking? How are we making essentially what you're saying? How are we making a want ad centerfold material to be fun? And I said, it's the worst job post ever. And it's. And the job post tells you how to get the job. And they're like, got it. Still not in, but come.

Yeah, they're like, post this.

97.9X is looking for our next weekend. DJ. Have you dreamed about, have you ever thought about it'd be cool to work at a radio station like ours, the rock station in northeast Pennsylvania. You've pictured it. But here's the thing. You gotta earn it because we don't let just anybody in. So you're gonna start at the bottom, making state minimum wage. You're gonna work nights, weekends and overnights. You are going to get. You're going to be last in line for concert tickets, the last person who gets the Nickelback cd, if we have any left. And if you really want this job, hit record on your phone, read this job application to us like you read it on the air and email it to me. And then they were like, got it. Got it. Then I brought people in, I sorted them out and then I brought people in for 15 minute interviews on the radio. And the whole thing was called we're looking for our next weekender, by the way. And we're doing another ad for next. Next week in the center fold of the weekend or make sure you pick it up. And now everything ties together. And we just made a contest campaign out of finding our weekender. And we didn't. That year we did it. We didn't hire one, we hired five because I liked them all. We found the right. I couldn't say I found five. I was only looking for one. But I, but I need a bigger bench. Let's put more people in the bullpen. And we found five. Because I wrote a love letter to the person who'd be perfect, not who the hell wants to come by.

So brilliant. And it's, it is so powerful when we mention authentically both sides of the coin. We gain trust when we hit things like you mentioned is to the downside of it. That reminds me of a very famous ad. You've probably heard of this from Ernest Shell Shackleton. This was back, this is back a long time ago. We're talking like 60 years ago. It was a post in the newspaper. It says, med men wanted for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long Months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return, doubtful. Honor and recognition in case of success. It was about a voyage, a sea voyage that they were going to explore some new, New, new lands. And so, you know, two thirds of the ad is like, downer talking about the downside. And there's. What's weird is that people really respond to that because we're clear on the big. The big win.

Yeah, but the reason you keep reading that is such a juxtaposition, because you're our. Our default value is the bar is on the floor because everybody's doing it the same way, even if their words are different. So the fact that it starts. It starts as a negative. Is such a. Like, who would. Like, you want to be. Like, who would do this? This is ridiculous. Those are the things that catch fire online or in a newspaper. Does not matter. It's. It's.

It's.

It does not. It's a juxtaposition. Does not deserve to be there.

Yeah, it's funny because one of the things we're doing to hire VAs is we create resistance on purpose to weed commitment. So we're building this. We're building this school group. If you guys are familiar with school. It's. Yeah, it's an online community very similar to Facebook, except that you can have courses and other different elements. There's a lot of things like that popping up right now. But we're using a school group, and in the Philippines, we're actually charging people five American dollars per month to be a part of it. In it, there's all sorts of training on how they can learn how to use AI in different roles that we hire for. Like, there's all these promises, like, the path for them to become a much more effective VA and eventually maybe get hired for us for two to three times. What they normally do requires them to pay a price. And it's great because, yeah, we probably could make a much bigger community. But what we're looking for are committed people who were willing to physically pay. Now what we do is every dime of their money, we reinvest back into a charity that supports Filipinos during typhoons which hit there every year. But they still have to pay. And it's one of those where it's like, yeah, this isn't for. We literally advertise it. Like, listen, if you're overseas and you're dreaming of being a VA for an American medical company, we only want to work with the people who are committed to being the best. And before there's no promise of you Even being hired, you have to come first, spend $5 a month, which will go to charity. But you have to come spend $5 a month and show that you're willing to train before we'll even look at hiring you. And why do you think we have less than 3% churn when our people.

You weed out the bad act.

When someone hires us in America, they. Less than 3% of the people ever leave us because they have such great relationships. Because the VAs are better. They're just better working.

I did this at a job. I won't say who, because sometimes doing these things. So let's. We've been talking for 48 minutes, by the way. I didn't.

Jeez, that was so fast.

Just looked up, and I was like, wow. Because we'll get. We have to get to your fricking event. That was the perfect.

I want to make sure.

All right, I'll tell one more story, please. And so I was at a large organization, and I get. I get hired by places. And where does Jimmy work? Jimmy just sort of walks around and looks for things to do. And then I'm like, ooh, this looks fun. I should be put on this project. Why? Because it's bad. Like, I look for turds because I try to fix them. So for some reason, I was on hiring because it's important, especially it was a healthcare organization. I won't say who. And I looked at their process from beginning to end like I would if I were the ideal person. And it was a pretty good process. Everything looked good on paper. And I decided to try to steal a page from another organization that has nothing to do with healthcare because I heard from the people. I almost did, like, Undercover Boss. I didn't talk to just the managers. I talked to the people doing the hiring, doing the interviews, and they were like, we get a lot of people who are tire kickers. And I'm like, does that, like, ruin your efficiency? Like, yeah, like, I know I'm doing a hundred interviews for six hires or whatever it was. I'm like, you need less interviews. They go, but, yeah, we don't know how to. How do I know? And I'm like, oh, got it. So I sat on it for a while, and I was like, I always just cheat. I just look. How is something not in healthcare? How is this. How do people at oil change places? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Because right now, you just said it before. What do we look for in pt? Do you have a license And a pulse. Got it. I'll take you. Don't worry about it. And that's so stupid, right? So I knew this organization was a big one, wasn't going to make a major change. I knew I only had a little bit of influence to change one thing. So I said, can we change the words that we use? And this organization was very big on words. We had our own glossary. We did not call it a company. We called it a practice.

Got it.

I like. I'm like, ooh, you have my attention. So I said, so the button, the call to action was apply here. And I said, can we change it to commit here? Can it be commit here? Not just on my landing page, but everybody every. Like on the ads when we talk. And we can track all these things because now they use, you know, ADP or whatever. Like there's all these like resume tracking. Hiring tracking. Absolutely. So I got this from the US Military. There are four main branches of the US Military. What's the motto for the Navy?

I don't know.

Army?

Don't know.

Air Force.

Fly high.

Good. That's usually the one. People get. Get close. How about the Marines?

Few good men we're looking for. No, that's the Army. Or is that.

No, that was. That was a movie about Marines. You're close. Has the word few. The few.

The few that proud. The Marines. Of course. I knew that one. That one I knew.

Yes. When the Marine. When you go to the Marines. The Marines don't accept. You want to apply. You go to apply to the Army. You go to apply to the Navy. You apply for the.

Commit to the Marines.

Commit to the Marines. We don't take applications. We take commitments. They fight club people. They fight club people. You, you're not tall enough. You, you're too tall. You, you're too fat. No, no, no. I want you. I want built in resistance. Exactly what Will just said, right? The number of applications went down. Everybody's freaking out. You gotta wait, man. Let, let.

Let them cook.

The number of quality applications went up. So it's closing at a better rate.

You did. I love that example of exclusivity when we're being authentic, when we're targeting our avatar, we are immediately are creating resistance. And that's what scares people. They're like, but if I'm just targeting these small people, they don't understand. You're. You're static. You said that earlier. You're static. You're white noise. When you're clear in our. When we are clear in our messaging and our language. And that comes from emotional, like, clarity of where we want to go and who we want to do it with. It creates signal and it stands out. It will. It will detour all the crap that you don't want to deal with. And I'm not saying people are crap. I'm saying the situations that you just.

You don't want noise, you want signal.

Yeah. And so my favorite phrase I learned from a mentor when it came to sales, and this, again, this used without the heart, is a tactic that won't work, but it's called use Sue S U E Scarcity, urgency, exclusivity. So we want to be. Instead of saying, like, if you've had a hard time hiring one position, but you only need one position, you don't phrase it like, hey, we've really been desperate. Yeah, you say. We say we only have one position. The first person who qualifies will take this position. And then you create. And then you create after you created that, like, exclusivity, then you create the urgency of, like, whoever hires it first. And then you create the scarcity. Meaning. Yeah, guys, so if to qualify for this, this is what we're looking for, and we. We just kind of water those last pieces down because we're afraid. But if we hook them well, which comes from emotional connectivity and clarity, and we can really work through that, then we can be as. As like resistance prone as we. We should be so that we only attract the right people who are a signal.

Right now. I'm on that. That organization's website, by the way, after, like, so we saw the numbers, and I was like, I sort of made this face like, ooh, look, looky who.

Had a good idea.

So we saw the numbers. It worked. You just said the word emotional and comes from a place of fear. What do you think they did eight months later? What do you mean they changed it back?

They changed it back because after it showed that it worked, they reached. They changed it back.

I mean, I haven't worked at this organization in years. I'm on their website right now. I click on their. On their Friday, it says, where. Where did it go? Where'd the thing go? It said, it says, work with us. And then when you click, it says, you looking for a job? Oh, no. Do you want a job? Dude, there's fricking jobs everywhere.

I don't want a job. I want a future, man.

There we go.

You know what I mean? And right.

So I'm not knocking them, because again, I am. It's a cute story, but, like, maybe it didn't work. Maybe didn't. I don't know. But it worked. For that little snapshot, I was like, hey.