Startup to Sellout
Download MP3Hello, and welcome to the Service Based Business Society podcast. I am your host, Tiffany Ann Botcher. On our weekly episodes, we will dig into everything you need to know about scaling your service based business without losing sleep. With my experience in creating over 7 figures per month and a passion for marketing, finance, and automation, this show will provide tangible tips and techniques for scaling your business. Let's get started.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Welcome back to another episode. Have you ever dreamed of growing your business to incredible heights and then selling it off to a giant corporation? Or perhaps you've wondered about the opportunities and challenges that come with such bold plans. Today, I'm thrilled to have Scott Springer, founder of Chelwood Consulting Group, join us here on the podcast. With over over 30 years of leadership experience, business experience, Scott has dedicated his career to helping businesses achieve sustained growth.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:His experience spans various industries, including life sciences, consumer packaged goods, retail, and industrial processes. At Shelwood Consulting Group, Scott focuses on people leadership, process improvement, equipment optimization, and continuous improvement methods to elevate businesses to the next level and enhance their bottom line. Scott brings invaluable insights on critical topics, such as hiring the right talent, promoting from within, and fostering employee engagement. All of these elements essential for driving intense, sustainable business growth. You won't want to miss the lessons Scott has to share from his extensive experience, and we dive into incredible valuable topics.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:I can't wait to share this episode. So welcome to the show, Scott.
Scott Springer:Thank you. I'm glad to be here.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:It's so great to have you, and I'm super excited to learn a little bit more about your story and and share how your business journey has really evolved. It's a it's a very interesting story, so I can't wait to dive in. Yeah. So talk to me a little bit about going back in time and where you really started in the business world.
Scott Springer:So I started out I was in the navy. Graduated from the Naval Academy. I was in the navy. When I got out, they suggested I go into manufacturing. You know, they do this transition assistance program.
Scott Springer:And based on what I did in the navy, they're like, you're a perfect fit for manufacturing. So, you know, I'm like young, don't know. I'm like, okay. Went into manufacturing. And I really enjoy it because, you know, all the problem solving and dealing with people and all that.
Scott Springer:I truly love manufacturing. And so, you know, early on in the career, you know, different supervisor positions, manager positions, and I got into food when I went to Coca Cola. And then right after Coca Cola, I was a plant manager and above. You know, I went to I went from company to company. I was kind of the turnaround guy where I went from plant to plant to plant as a plant manager or director turning plants around, that were struggling for one reason or another.
Scott Springer:Whether it's quality systems or production or throughput or whatever it was, I was always did it, like, every 4 or 5 years. I was, like, called by a headhunter to go to another company. And then my last big company I worked with was Vital Proteins, and they were fast growing. You know, we grew a 100% a year for the 5 years that I was there with the bookends of the years. And then, we sold to Nestle, and I started my own consulting company.
Scott Springer:So I've been doing this now for about 25 to 30 years.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:So your story really jumped out at me, and and so people might say manufacturing. This is a service based business society. I don't know. And and so, initially, I was like, oh, I don't know if it's a fit. And the reason why I this your your story jumped out at me and something that I was like, we absolutely have to have Scott on the podcast is because that transition of selling a company.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:You talk about high growth and you're, you know, you're giving these crazy numbers, and then you say, okay. And then we sold to the big guy. And there are so many business owners that that dream of, you know, I'm gonna grow my company, and I'm gonna sell it. And there's so many pieces along the way that we don't think about, both in that high growth phase as well as transitioning them to, I mean, that's a huge conglomerate. So this is, you know, now we've we've entered the big, big, big leagues.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:And so but there's a major shift in transition that happens in the company as it goes through that. And so that's the part I was I was like, you know what? That's what we need to talk about today.
Scott Springer:Yes. Yeah. So at Vital Proteins, when we first started out, you know, I would say mid small to midsize companies, small 35 to $40,000,000 a year, 1st year I was there. And the owner was, you know, we're gonna double every single year. And it was a very small family type environment.
Scott Springer:Like, everybody knew almost everybody. There was a corporate office where the sales and marketing was, and then you had the plant the initial plant, which was, like, a real small plant. And and you get to know everybody. Like, I was over operations and supply chain. So I knew everybody in operations and supply chain, you know, and it was, like, very family.
Scott Springer:Knew their boyfriend girlfriend's name, husband wife names, their kids, what their kids do for sports. You get to know everybody, and I really love that environment. You know, we get to really know everybody. And then you're involving everybody on the growth. We're growing, and it was.
Scott Springer:I didn't think we would be growing a 100% a year, you know. When the owner told me, you know, when we're first meeting, and he's just like, yeah. We're gonna grow a 100% a year, and we're gonna sell to some big CPG. I'm like, yeah. Right.
Scott Springer:Okay. Whatever. I was enthralled with, like, designing and building his facility. So he was gonna we were gonna build a new facility. And the year after I started, we went in.
Scott Springer:And I spent the 1st year designing and building that and scaling up production at a rate of a 100% a year. And it was, like, their 1st year to 2 was just grueling. It was just so much work to be done because prior to me and a few other people starting, there wasn't, like, this foundation built of manufacturing expertise, you know, different the the right SOPs that allow for growth, the right strategy to allow for growth, the training of the people. All that stuff was very little of it was done prior to, you know, a bunch of us starting. And so that 1st year, it was, like, getting everybody involved.
Scott Springer:The training, it was designing the new plant. It was building the new plant. It was fixing or we had a whole bunch of supply chain issues that 1st year, like major issues just because the growth wasn't planned for properly, and we ended up having a major some major issues that we overcame all of them. But it was just a lot of work that 1st year. And then you start to grow.
Scott Springer:You know, that's year 2, year 3, year 4. We're growing fast, but now everybody's, like, accustomed to it until the point where you get so big that all of a sudden, it's like a different company. People start to lose their, you lose a little bit of personality. You start to transition to, we're gonna sell now. We're ready to sell.
Scott Springer:And you get a little different mindset in the company, you know, when we're at that point. Then you sell and now you got your big company, mom and pop, you know, who own you, you know. For us, it was Nestle, you know, which is a it's a great company, but it's a different culture. It's a completely different type of work environment when you're working for that big company.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Yeah. I think one of the interesting parts, you know, I I often talk about people being as you grow one of the the key pieces and and honestly the hardest to add good people and continue on. But it's the the people that that get you off the ground, the people who, you know, are are part of it when you're in the startup phase and, you know, people are working at 2 AM and coming up with a crazy idea, and this person has 16 jobs and whatnot. Yeah. Those people, I you know, and they're they're so up of the org.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:They almost have as much heart and passion as the business owner. And oftentimes, we see people, you know, give people part of their business as, you know, it's like thank you and whatnot. But as the business grows, I see that those same people then, you know, they get a little bit lost in the mix at times because now their job is more defined. They no longer feel as connected to, you know, the top of the organization. And sometimes it it actually causes a bit of problem through growth because those same people are not necessarily the people that would are those key people moving forward.
Scott Springer:It was a we didn't have that as much, I would say. And because it was designed, we planned it a little differently. So one thing we did for, you know, 1st 3, 4 years was we would have weekly meetings. Everybody would, you know, like, some companies do, like, a monthly town hall meeting or a quarterly town hall meeting. We did them weekly at the manufacturing site where everybody got to see everybody.
Scott Springer:We kept everybody up to date what was going on. You know? They didn't see a lot of the owners and the sales and marketing people as much because they were in a different office and they were busy growing the the sales and marketing. But every week, everybody in the plant got to see every manager, director, VP that was in the supply chain and manufacturing organization. You know, we were sharing what was coming up.
Scott Springer:Part of when you're growing that fast, one of the hardest things to do is the whole change management because you're constantly adding equipment, adding people, adding positions, restructuring departments. And that weekly meeting that we did, which lasted, like, an hour, we really set that up for success because we would, like, let people know what was going to what was coming down the road all the time. So it wasn't a surprise, like, there's a new person here. You know, who is that person? You know, they they knew the person was coming the week before.
Scott Springer:The person probably knew they were coming. You know, Like, people on the floor. You know, hourly people on the floor would know, hey. We got a new director starting next week. We're gonna send you offer letter out tomorrow.
Scott Springer:You know? It's like, sometimes, you know, they don't they knew ahead of time. And so that transition was a little more smoother than in other places I worked, I'll say. The other thing we did was we worked really hard at trying to promote from within as much as we could. We can't fill every position, but probably almost everybody from I would say 75%, not almost everybody, about 75% from that 1st year all got promoted 1 or 2 times over the next 2 or 3 years.
Scott Springer:You know, we had temps that went to warehouse manager, production manager, production supervisors, people that came in and, you know, they went from, like, a supply chain planet or a supply chain supervisor manager. Everybody moved tried to move everybody up. We couldn't move everybody up. Some people just don't lack didn't have the motivation or the skill set. They don't wanna do it, but it was Mhmm.
Scott Springer:Quite impressive how many people we got to move up. And that kept people motivated and kept them engaged, definitely.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:So 2 key pieces come out of what you were saying for me. And number 1, I think that in today's day and age, the focus is the anti meeting and moving away from the meetings. And so as you're talking about this group of people, I bet so I think that's an expensive meeting if, you know, as the group grows. And so now for you to identify that as such a key piece to why it worked would really go against, I think, what a lot of, you know, the the current messaging of, you know, we don't need so many emails. You know, there's if if if it can't be described in a certain amount of time.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:And there's a lot of, you know, what would be considered regarded as, you know, top business people who are are moving away from the meeting. And so you kind of were going back the opposite direction saying, hey. This was a really key piece of what we were doing. And in that growth mode, really keeping people engaged so that they did know what was going on.
Scott Springer:Yeah. And you know what? I was just talking to someone this morning. We had, like, a discussion for, like, a half hour on this exact topic. You know, it's like, you know, I always hated meetings, but I always wanna make meetings somewhat productive and engaging somehow.
Scott Springer:But nowadays, people getting away from the meetings, people are less engaged. Right? They don't know what's going on. They're not informed. You don't have that 1 on 1 interaction with the supervisors and managers as often if you have, like, a meeting.
Scott Springer:You know? But you can't just have a meeting to have a meeting. You know? There has to be a reason, and it only needs to be as long as it needs to be. You know?
Scott Springer:You know, we would schedule it every week for an hour. We would schedule multiple of these meetings a week so that we didn't have to shut down production. So we would, like, overlap, keep the lines running through the meetings. We actually didn't shut down the whole plan and people would, you know one meeting you would have half a first, half a second while the line's still running. You know, an hour later, you would have the other half a first, the other half a second while the line's still running, you know, and they did a little bit of overtime and there was overlap and, you know, people went to the meetings that would best suited them, but you got to engage.
Scott Springer:You get everybody heard the same message. And we did as you know, we did 2 or 3 meetings a week. We did it 3 times a week on different days. You know? Try not to do it on Friday and Monday and Right.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:You know? I I love to hear that there's that kind of problem solving. And I, you know, obviously, someone who's you know, so you kinda go back to your your story about talking about solving some of these plant issues and stuff. So that's the way your mindset works. But I think that, you know, in some instances, that isn't the way that people's mindset works and kind of really identifying that very valuable piece of information there that is easy to skip over, but to say, hey.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:How can we hit the objective of making sure that all of these people hear the same message and pay all of these people to hear that message? However, how do we do it in a way that makes sure that the plant keeps running? How do we do that in a way? Because that meeting, although very costly for all those people to stand there and listen, becomes exorbitantly, you know, more expensive if everything also stops running. Yeah.
Scott Springer:Yeah. And we never we never stopped. It's like we never shut down. You know, we always had people on the docks loading trucks. We always had the lines always ran, you know, unless there's a couple of times where we didn't have something to run, but that was very seldom.
Scott Springer:And, yeah, we kept people this way they would hear the message. You know? Mhmm. And we wouldn't change the message throughout the week. It did that on purpose so that everybody heard the same message.
Scott Springer:So let's say you had a meeting on Tuesday and something happened Wednesday, we wouldn't tell people about it Wednesday Thursday. We tell them about it the next week so that all 3 groups would hear that same message.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Right.
Scott Springer:You know? Like, the new the news that came out. You know?
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Right. So another thing that that kinda stuck out, I said there was 2 things that stuck out to me. 1 is, you know, there's this the ability to inform people when you were saying these people were aware there was a new director starting. And I think that as businesses grow, you know, oftentimes, maybe a business owner who's less experienced may say, I don't know if hiring that director is the right decision. And so what they end up doing is instead of informing, they end up asking.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:And so what ends up happening is is as the business grows, it almost starts to feel a bit more like a panel. And the problem is as the business grows and and, you know, now we go through these, sometimes tough decisions have to be made and sometimes that, you know, those decisions aren't aren't fun. And those times, it becomes really hard to kinda rein that back in almost. And so kind of that piece where you're saying, hey. Sometimes things happen, and we didn't necessarily share it that week.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:We waited. But there it's it sounds very it's a little more strategic than just, hey. We're gonna stand around. We're gonna chitchat about what's going on in the business. And and, yes, we want some some feedback, not so much so that that everyone because as the business grows, that becomes more and more opinions.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:It becomes very hard to appease all of those opinions.
Scott Springer:Right. And, you know, I made it very clear. I would always tell people once a quarter. It's like, we wanna we've because it was it wasn't just a information flowing one way in those meetings. A lot of times, it was two ways.
Scott Springer:You know, we would have votes. We would have little bit of brainstorming sometimes on, hey. Anybody have an idea? We have this problem. Anybody let Let me know if you figure out a way to fix it, you know, and they would come into my office or go to the production manager or directors of operations office, you know, help them fix the problems that we have.
Scott Springer:So it was two way. But we made it clear to everybody. We wanna hear everybody's opinion. We wanna hear everybody's suggestion. And I guarantee you, we will not be able to use every opinion or every suggestion.
Scott Springer:There's it's impossible, guys. It's like, we're gonna pick and choose. Everybody has great ideas. We got we can only do so many at a time. Right?
Scott Springer:You know, it might go in the background. We might not get to your idea for a year. You know, we might not ever get to your idea, but please keep bringing them forward. And we really stress that with people to make sure to open that communication and never, like, made fun of people or bash them or anything for suggestions or just, oh, we're not gonna do that. You know, it's like, you know, we we would always go back to them.
Scott Springer:Here's why we can't do it, you know. Or it's a great idea. We would love to do it, but we got these other 3 priorities or 4 priorities this week that we have to get done. And it's the delivery. You know?
Scott Springer:It's how you deliver that message to them to make sure that they're they stay engaged and they don't get shut down because their idea wasn't used or their opinion wasn't they think it wasn't heard. You know? Right. It's like we were very careful not to make sure we tried not to do that. Obviously, not perfect.
Scott Springer:You know, it happened. You know? Yeah. Yeah.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Yeah. I think that the engaged workforce is truly often underestimated, and those you know, it's you you want people more than just to show up, clock in, do what they were asked to do, and clock out. But those people who actually are Yeah. Now sitting at home and they're thinking about that problem. Oh, you know, Scott said we need to solve that problem.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:That piece created its its its passion, its interest, and engagement can be such a difference maker.
Scott Springer:And the biggest value that I saw, and this is you can put a financial tag on this, is the turnover. Right? So we had very low single digit turnover. Every place I worked at, I always got every place, every plant I went to, I got to the point where it was low single digit turnover at every organization I, you know, was a plant manager above that. And the turnover of people, especially on a manufacturing plant, it takes about you can have someone working a piece of equipment in a day or a couple of weeks.
Scott Springer:Right? But it takes a year before that person is really good at what they do. You know, working a filler or working a machine or working a forklift or loading a truck or doing their supply chain job, whatever it is, you know, like a supply chain planner or a scheduler, it takes about a year on average, you know, sometimes longer, sometimes less depending on the complexity of the job before they get really good. And so if you don't have that turnover, after about a year, you really see the difference in the performance because everybody is leveled up. And then a year later, everybody's leveled up again and the new people are leveled up.
Scott Springer:And once you have a a culture that's in an organization, okay, you know, let's say you got 50 people and everybody's kind of, you know, you get, like, 48 p percent, you know, like, 90 99 95% of the people are all engaged and they're all part of the culture. When you bring in new employees, new associates, new managers, they automatically it's easier to indoctrinate them when everybody's engaged. You know, if you got, like, 1 or 2 cheerleaders and everybody else is, you know, a downer, it's you know, a person doesn't know what to think. But when everybody's engaged and everybody's, like, helping them out and helpful and everybody's acting safe and everybody cares about quality and cares about their brand and cares about each other, it's easier to indoctrinate the newer people. And so you it's easier to maintain the culture, and then you don't have the cost of decreased productivity.
Scott Springer:You don't have cost of rehiring. You don't have the all those costs associated with turnover. It's it's huge. It's, you know, in big part It's interesting.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:I was a part of, you know, this organization at one point, and they, you know, originally took hiring very carefully. It was this this process of we're we're dotting the i's and we're crossing the t's. And and then at one point, there was a little bit of a shift in management, and there was a a labor shortage of this specific educated piece. And it basically became if if you showed up and you had your certification and you, you know, were at the door and it looked like you had a heartbeat, well
Scott Springer:And you can find a mirror. You can find a mirror.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Yeah. And so now we've got this string of people. And so you've got, you know, the HR team in the office is basically full time onboarding people because as fast as they're coming in the door, they're leaving out the back end. And the, you know, the the slew of problems and people, you know, it was like, well and the the message that we heard at that point was, you know, well, you know, we won't know if we have a good one unless we try them out. And, you know, but the the challenges that this created within the culture of, like, well, who's this person?
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Are they actually nobody actually invested anything into training these people because they were pretty sure they were leaving the next week.
Scott Springer:Right.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:And, you know, it was like, well, I wonder what kind of skeletons this guy's got in his closet. Because, I mean, there were so many, and and there were so many the the the culture issue that that created, it was a problem for years. It took to recover from that.
Scott Springer:Yep. Yeah. And, you know, I always my motto was always spend more time hiring so you don't have to spend the time firing people. Right? You know, make sure you do the work upfront, where you're sourcing the people from, how you hire them, who you have interviewed them for screening.
Scott Springer:Like, I always made sure I had a pool of people every place I worked at. It's like I made sure I had the right people interviewing. Mhmm. You know, we discussed the type of people we want, what type of culture, who we're looking for. And then we made sure that the people on the panel interviewing, because I had to I I didn't fire people from the company, but fire them from interviewing because they didn't fit this mold.
Scott Springer:But they had to be, like, open mind minded, not racist, not sexist, not because people have these skeletons in their closet that, you know, they won't hire certain types of people for whatever reason. Okay? And they don't even know they're doing it half the time.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Mhmm.
Scott Springer:It's just the way they they are. You know? Like, I was at, I had a HR manager who had an assistant HR manager at another plant, and she came in to me. She was all she was, like, pulling her hair out because the assistant HR manager at this other plant was screening all the resumes for her to interview when she would show up for that week at the other plant. She would go there once a week to the other plant.
Scott Springer:And, and it took her a few months to realize that, wow, all the people that were screened are all kind of like one race that match the race of the person who was screening the resumes. Interesting. Yep. And she's like, okay. Now I have to screen the resumes.
Scott Springer:You know? And I've had that on interviews too where some of the people interviewing and just kinda like their comments afterwards is like, okay. That person's not interviewing anymore just because of the the comments didn't fit the person.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:I think that any time that you have anyone screening something in your business, that person must really be in a trusted in any capacity, screening any capacity, must be in such a trusted role that truly understands and lives the company values and the vision and whatnot. I actually, I was in discussions with a a prospective business to purchase them. And so I had spoken to the owner, and she was talking about how this this office manager of hers really runs the show and this person's super valuable and this and that. And she said, so she goes, what and and I said, oh, okay. And I said, how do you, you know, what is the sales process?
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:And we're going through all these, you know, the typical due diligence types questions. And she said, basically, this office manager gets it all sorted out, and then she meets with the clients. And so I'm supposed to meet with this office manager, and I'm going back and forth trying to get the meeting set up, and it things just weren't aligning. And so I thought, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna get and I got my mom to call as a prospective client.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:I said, mom, just give him a call. This is your situation and find out. Just walk me through what the situation is. And the lady flat out turns her down, says, oh, no. Nope.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:We're not taking on new clients. Nope. Nope. Thanks very much. Have a nice day.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:And I was like, okay. This is and so I end up meeting with this office manager later, and I just said, hey. So, you know, how do you decide who is a good fit? And she says, oh, we're we're very full. And I said, so, like, you're not.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:She says, oh, no. The owner always wants to take on new clients, but we're super busy and, you know, she takes so many vacations. And so, you know, if she wants to keep enjoying her time on the beach, well, like, I'm not taking on more work. Why would I do that? And I was like, oh my goodness.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:This is great. I was I was dying on the phone. I was like, okay. Mhmm. Yeah.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:I can understand how more work you know, I you're you're trying not to be like, I would fire you right immediately. But here is someone who doesn't necessarily understand that, hey, if we had more clients, perhaps we would hire more you know, it's like this person isn't engaged in the business vision and direction. So she's just thinking, hey, if I say yes to this person on the phone, my workload goes up and I don't get paid anymore. So no.
Scott Springer:Yeah. Exactly. That's funny.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Well and but there's someone who the owner believes is doing an amazing job. Meanwhile, with a couple of questions, you can find out that I mean, she she is maybe doing a good job with her current workload, but she's doing her very best.
Scott Springer:Been great to grow the business 3, 4 years ago, but she doesn't wanna grow it anymore because it's too much work for her.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. And so I think any person that is in that type of role that is screening, whether it's people as clients or or even vendors, you know, a lot of times people are making connections with some kind of vendor and maybe they're, hey. Well, it's uncle Sam's cousin and, well, you know, pricing may be double, but, you know, that guy's he's we got a little side deal going on.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:And so any person that is building those relationships in your business really needs to be in a in a trusted role.
Scott Springer:Yeah. Definitely. Doesn't matter, you know, sales or supply chain or marketing, you know, anybody who's talking to vendors, I agree a 100%.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Yes. So you talked about being able to promote a lot from within. And I think that that, you know, is a is a very interesting piece because there there obviously were some key attributes that you were looking for when you were hiring people that maybe were not so skill specific. So, yes, you know, can this particular role, can they do the thingamajigger now? But that doesn't, like, allow for a lot of internal promotion.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:So what were the kinds of attributes that you were looking for in people that went on to be successful that were able to move up?
Scott Springer:So when I do my interviews and, you know, I teach other people, usually the, let's say, the manager or the supervisor, they're gonna test the technical side whether the person can physically, mentally do the job. Maybe 25% of my questions are technical based. I'm just validating whether the person could do it, ask them some harder questions, and that's it. The other 75% of the time and I usually have to spend an hour with a person or more unless I'm, like, done with a person. But it is really cultural based.
Scott Springer:Who they work with, what type of environment they like to work in. Questions I ask around that is, like, where's the favorite place you ever worked? What was it you liked about that place? Where was the least favorite place you ever worked? What did you like about that place?
Scott Springer:You know? So we're Vital Perkins. We're going a 100%. And if I got someone that comes in, he's, like, I like this place because every day I came in, I knew exactly what I was gonna be doing, and it was the same thing for, like, weeks on end. And, you know, we would change things, like, once a quarter.
Scott Springer:It was, like, you know, we could see the improvement once a quarter, and I'm, like, we're changing things, like, every other day, you know. Mhmm. And if you like the steady state, this isn't I'm sorry. You're gonna hate this place. You know?
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Yes.
Scott Springer:And I tell them that, you know, on the interview. Or who do you who's your favorite boss or who's your least favorite boss? Right? Because depending on who their boss were they were interviewing for, what the position was, you know, everybody has different personalities. You know?
Scott Springer:Everybody has different management styles. So trying to match who their previous favorite boss was with their current potential future boss was pretty important and also the people they worked with, you know, like, the side by side. And a lot of times on the interviews, we always had a lot of times people would be interviewing their boss. So we would have people on the floor interviewing the supervisors or managers, and that worked great. You know?
Scott Springer:And he's like, you know, when we're debriefing, it's like, Tiffany, what do you think? Can you work for that person? You know? And it's like, dad, she seemed alright or he seemed alright. You know?
Scott Springer:It's like, anything any red flags come up? You know? The other thing I always did on the interview was everybody everybody had veto power. So if somebody got a bug in the back of their head or something about the person that I don't you know, they don't know what it was. It was like, okay.
Scott Springer:Just move on to the next person. Because 9 times out of 10, that's right. And that's why you gotta screen your interviewers ahead of time to make sure that they don't have, you know
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Those predispositions. Predisposition.
Scott Springer:Yeah. Stuff like that.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:But you want the Intuity to be of benefit, but you wanna make sure that it is fair.
Scott Springer:Legit. Legit. Yes. And not yet.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:100%. You know, I find that interviewing people is actually one of my side passions. I've interviewed, you know, so many people over the years for so many positions and oftentimes, so in my I spent over a decade in technical trades, and so people would often be like, I'm interviewing with you, you know, it's for a plumbing role or an HVAC role or this or that. And they do you do you know anything about HVAC? And I'd say, no.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:I mean, enough. No. I'm not gonna I and I always kind of compared it to okay. Well, if you're certified, you've been in the industry for a long time. Well, let's say, like, okay.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Well, you've got the driver's license to drive the car, but now let's decide if you're the right person. And then and then if you are the right person, well, now we can carry on to, you know, the people who can then test your technical knowledge. I'm here to decide if you're a great person for the company and less about the, you know, can you swing the hammer the right way? Because to be honest, I don't know.
Scott Springer:Yeah. So, actually, it's a it's a great analogy you have. It's like, okay. We know you can drive a car, but are you a pickup person? Are you a sports car person?
Scott Springer:Or are you a, you know, hatchback person?
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Totally. Where where I'm gonna assume that if you've got the license that you're good to drive. Let's let's for now call that a check, and then we'll, you know, we'll carry on from there. And so, you know, and and you go on and and you meet some incredible people and some other people that gives you lots of stories for years in the future where you think back and laugh about it, you know, particular interview there, you know, here or there. But I actually was a part of hiring at one point.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Someone came in and they they had a someone in their upper management leave very suddenly and so they they brought me in and we're in a consult role to get this person hired. And I interviewed a few people and came up with this person that I thought was really great. And we came in and the business owner now, he's got his list out and he's like, okay. I've got questions. And he's like, okay.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:Do you know the what a, b, c, d, w means? Do you know what this? And he's like reading off all of these. And I thought, oh, we are missing the mark here. Because those are things that can be taught.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:You know, it's like we don't need to know every, you know, your business acronym and and whether and and so that was very interesting when I was, you know, what are you hiring for? Because you're you're not hiring for specific acronym then you're looking for, you know, attributes that are gonna serve them in the long.
Scott Springer:Another question I ask people which kind of one of the attributes I look for is, like, initiative for personal growth and stuff. So I asked what it's like, what do you wanna be doing 5 years from now? You know?
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:I mean,
Scott Springer:you wanna be doing the same job? You wanna you know, it's like and then I let them answer. You know, what do they wanna I wanna run my own business. Okay. Great.
Scott Springer:You know what it takes to do that, you know.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:And I interviewed someone a long time ago and it was a referral of someone who'd been with the company for a long time and he said, oh, I think this this this woman should work in the office. I'd love for you to interview her and so I did. And I asked that very question, and she said, I wanna be somewhere doing something.
Scott Springer:Yeah. And
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:I was like, oh, boy. And I tried not to laugh. And so then we we wrap up the interview. I was like, oh, this girl is not really a fit for our our vibe, not just for that question, but for a number of reasons. And so the guy comes back and he says, so did you love her?
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:And I said, oh, you know, I well, I I don't know if she's a fit for the position we're currently looking for and this and that. And then a week later, he comes to me and says, well, that's my girlfriend. So I'm hoping she can get a job. And I was like Yeah.
Scott Springer:Well, you get, the other answer you get is like, I wanna work for a great company and be motivated blah blah blah, you know, their textbook answer. And I'm like, no. No. No. No.
Scott Springer:What do you wanna be doing? You know? Everybody wants to work for a great company. Done. Okay.
Scott Springer:I got that. What do you wanna be doing? You know? Have you thought about it? Right?
Scott Springer:And we're going back to the discussion earlier when we were talking about, like, promoting people, you know, their first few weeks at Vital Proteins in every company I go to, I try to sit down with people and I ask them what do they wanna do. And then I go over with them, here's what you need to do over the next couple years to be promoted to a supervisor, to be promoted to a manager. Here's the things where if you do this, I'm not promoting you, you know. And I'm not gonna promote you unless I'm 90% confident you're gonna succeed. Okay?
Scott Springer:So you gotta prove it, you know. I'm sometimes I'm wrong, you know. But I wanna be 90% confident you're gonna succeed in your next role, and I will go help you get there. And that's why we're able to, like, promote so many people. Not not everybody did it.
Scott Springer:You know, a lot of people, they say they wanna be promoted. They want them more money, but they don't wanna do what it takes to get there. Yep. Yeah. I would I would tell people it's like, you know, they'd be like, I wanna be a supervisor.
Scott Springer:I'm like, okay. Be careful what you wish for. You might get it. Yeah. So similar to my whole career, I there's two sides to my business.
Scott Springer:I do coaching and I do consulting. On the consulting side, I help manufacturing companies, small to midsize companies scale, grow, fix their issues within the facility. You know, everybody has a constraint that's, you know, the theory constraints. It's holding them back. Supply chain issues, quality issues, or they're growing so fast that they don't know how to scale up.
Scott Springer:And so that's why I help them. You know, I go in and figure out what the issues are and then rally my, you know, other consultants around or myself and help fix their problems, train their people, scale their scale their organization up. Very seldom. Very seldom. In the 5% of the time, I'll say, even in the companies that I ran, it's processes.
Scott Springer:Right? Once in a while, it's people. Right? So there's you know, I've had a couple of times where I talked to, you know, owners. I'm like, this person has to go or that person has to go.
Scott Springer:That was a bad hire or whatever. And that's why I like I like to be in a part of the helping with the hiring process to make sure they don't hire bad people. But 95% of the time, it's a process. You know, whether it's a training of the new people or their actual procedures or their onboarding process, it's 95% of the time, it's a process. I I heard that a person decides whether they're gonna stay or leave a company within the 1st 24 hours to 1 week.
Scott Springer:By the end of the 1st week, most people have decided whether they're gonna stick around long term or not. You know? They might around for a year to see if it gets better and hope because the whole job search thing or whatever, but, you know, you win or lose them within think about it. You know, if you're an owner of a company, if somebody's listening, you know, or a manager, you're gonna win or lose your people within the first 24 to 48 hours. You know?
Scott Springer:So super positive engagement with them. Those first few days, talking to them, get to know them, tell them about the company, tell them about yourself, find out about them. It's just gotta engage with them those 1st few days. Well, I gotta you can look at my website, www.chowoodgroup.com. That's chelwoodgroup.com.
Scott Springer:Or email me, scott@chowoodgroup.com. Thank you very much.
Tiffany-Ann Bottcher:We're all out of time for today, but the fun doesn't stop here. Make sure to subscribe to the Service Based Business Society podcast on your preferred podcast app. If you're hanging out over on YouTube, search for Tiffany Anne Botcher. Your likes, shares, and reviews really do help the show. Until next time, have a great week.
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