Service Based Business Society Podcast

[00:00:00] Gerry Gadoury: The manager felt badly that I'd driven an hour and a half to go see them, and interviewed me herself. Fifteen minutes in, she said, "You know, Mr. Gadoury, you're not a match for the role. You don't have enough experience. But have you ever considered a career in technical recruiting?" Now, I had a family to feed and I said, yes, I had no interest whatsoever. My whole master plan was to become a recruiter, find the next tech job and take it.
25 years later, here I am.

[00:00:47] Tiffany-Ann: Welcome back listeners. Today, we're going to explore the world of startups, talent, and leadership. The remarkable guest, Gerry Gadoury from Red Beard Solutions. Gerry is a talent expert and team builder who has made significant impact from early stage startups to large corporations. He's known for his exceptional skills in helping companies build their employer brand to attract and retain top talent. Now let's chat a few highlights about Gerry. He specializes in empowering founders to become destination employers in their market. He has a wealth of experience in developing compelling employer brands. He's been instrumental in guiding numerous businesses on cost effective hiring and talent retention strategies.
In today's episode, Gerry will share his game changing perspectives on topics that are critical for any business. He'll delve into how to become a talent magnet with unmatched employer branding and the common hiring mistake that derails many early companies. Plus we'll get a peek into his book, Destination Employer.
This is an episode you don't want to miss, especially if you're wanting to scale your business. Welcome to the studio, Gerry.
[00:01:57] Gerry Gadoury: Hello, Tiffany. And it's great to meet you.
[00:02:00] Tiffany-Ann: You know, it's one of those topics that every so often things come across podcast applications, emails, networking, and there's certain topics that are immediate yesses. When we go into planning the podcast, a lot of times, we see how something fits into the season and this was just an episode that required no additional thought. It was just an automatic yes, because when it comes to scaling your business through growing a team, hiring the right talent, it applies to absolutely everyone. So welcome, super excited for you to be here.
[00:02:29] Gerry Gadoury: Thanks very much. I look forward to provide as much value as I can for your audience.
[00:02:33] Tiffany-Ann: Awesome. Awesome. Well, let's dive in. So, we typically start with, how did you get and find the love of your business? Not that standard, you know, one pager bio, but more of the nitty gritty behind the scenes. How did you find the passion of your business?
[00:02:48] Gerry Gadoury: So this will make you laugh. I'm here by accident. So about 25 years ago, I answered a newspaper ad. Yes, a newspaper ad for a junior Linux kernel engineer. In those days, I didn't even know what a staffing agency was. So I'd assumed that it was the company I was going to meet with. I went out to the interview in those days, all interviews were in person, full suit, everything. Get out there and discover that it's something called a staffing agency, which again, I'd never even heard of. And the recruiter I was supposed to meet with. had some type of a personal problem and had to leave for the day. The manager felt badly that I'd driven an hour and a half to go see them, and interviewed me herself. Fifteen minutes in, she said, "You know, Mr. Gadoury, you're not a match for the role. You don't have enough experience. But have you ever considered a career in technical recruiting?" Now, I had a family to feed and I said, yes, I had no interest whatsoever. My whole master plan was to become a recruiter, find the next tech job and take it.
25 years later, here I am.
[00:03:54] Tiffany-Ann: Amazing. That's why we start with that because it's the most amazing stories that lead to the most unexpected places when it comes to some things like this. And it's interesting. I have worked with a few recruiting firms over the years on both sides for hiring, um, been interviewed, been, you know, recruited or whatever, and, different experiences for each, definitely different ends of the spectrum. So you took this job, you fell in love, was it immediate? Like you knew right away that this was what you wanted to do? Or, you kind of kept going and then it snuck up on you that you wanted to stay?
[00:04:26] Gerry Gadoury: That's a great question. I wouldn't say it was immediate. This is going to be ironic, given my background and my book and the work that I do. But I love the business side of the equation more than the recruiting side. So it wasn't until I became a salesperson and then a branch manager and then a regional manager that I really fell in love. And then fast forwarding, when I started my consulting company about a decade ago, getting to work with small owners and help them to grow. That really lit me on fire. It was at that point that gosh, I could win the lottery tomorrow. I don't think I would stop doing what I'm doing.
[00:05:00] Tiffany-Ann: That's when you know, it's truly a fit when you absolutely love what you do, when you would keep doing it, even if money was no object. So, you know, recruiting is a huge piece and, so important to businesses of every size, but I think almost more important when it's a smaller business. I'll tell you why it's because you almost have a little more skin in the game per person. You know, if you have a big team, you have 10 people carrying the load and you have one, not great person in there. Although it 100 percent has a negative effect, it's less of a weight to the business owner than having a team of two and one person being terrible. So I think that oftentimes people start the hiring process, maybe they've never hired before, they've never recruited. And then they make a couple of bad hires and it actually really affects the trajectory of their business overall, because then they're like, "Oh my gosh, I don't want a team. Team is terrible, um, was worst experience of my life. Never doing that again. I'll just do all the work myself and just keep it small."
[00:05:54] Gerry Gadoury: I will take it one step further and say, I've seen startups and work with startups with the wrong hire ended their startup. It's 100 percent right. You know, if you've got a hundred people and one is bad, one one hundredth of your team is bad. If you've got three people and one is bad, one third of your team is bad. And then on top of that, in the smaller firms, you develop a much stronger personal relationship with each person. It's not accurate, but it doesn't change the fact that it feels more like a personal betrayal and it leaves some pretty hard scars to get past. I couldn't agree with you more.
[00:06:23] Tiffany-Ann: Yeah, we, on our agency side, we're working with someone, they were actually a recommendation of a previous long term client of mine, and they had someone who'd been with them for 15 years, left very unexpectedly, like one day notice, had to go, done. And, um, that person was very pivotal role. They had access to everything. And one of the things that came about, we actually did an earlier podcast episode on it was like, they didn't have access to anything because that person had access to everything. So, you know, again, small team, person well trusted been around forever, almost too much. So in the fact that the business owner had really lost the driver's seat. It became more than just good delegation and management. That person was just kind of doing their own thing And it was a real issue when they left.
[00:07:06] Gerry Gadoury: Absolutely. Yes. You know, and that keys on an important part. So in my book, one of the things I talk about when it comes to employee retention, this is skipping ahead to your second story about the 15 year employee is that every single person that works for you is looking for three things. They're looking to feel heard. Not necessarily that you do things they ask every time, but that you're hearing them. You understand their concerns and their things they're excited about. The second thing that they're looking for is for growth. Both their skill set and within your company beyond their current role. And the third thing is to feel aligned with your mission. You know, "do I get fulfillment from working with you?" If at any point any of those three things is no, you have at best a flight risk. If they're sufficiently no, you could have an enemy. So it's important to keep that in mind. It's not complex to do, but is something that needs to be done. You need to have frequent touch points to make sure those three things are in alignment. You need to make sure that you're listening. And you need to make sure that, again, that those three things are there. If they're not, and sometimes, you know, people just outgrow an organization, it's important to remember this isn't a personal attack. This person simply no longer is fulfilled by your organization. Frankly, you should be happy to see them go. And as crazy as that sounds, the reason that's important is you then have someone who's gonna leave anyway, leaving on great terms, that's a raving cheerleader for your organization instead of somebody that leaves under a cloud or worse.
[00:08:33] Tiffany-Ann: Exactly. Yeah, it's interesting because I think oftentimes people hold on to people they know have outgrown I often talk about like a long term business relationship is really kind of like a marriage. You know, people get together when they're very young. I mean, you can look at the divorce rates and know that people grow together or they grow the same or they just don't, but a business is much the same. And so if you have mentored someone and taught them and this and that, ultimately, if your business doesn't keep growing at the rate that that person is growing, sometimes they outgrow you. And then they're looking for more opportunity than you can offer. Or, I think, unfortunately, there's also a big group of people where the business in high growth, super successful organizations, where sometimes, especially people who got in at a startup phase, they often just kind of find themselves a little bit lost in the sea of people and they don't feel the same connection, especially if it's growing really quickly and then they end up leaving.
[00:09:21] Gerry Gadoury: A hundred percent agree, much like in personal relationships, some folks will be in your life for a season. And some folks will be in your life for a generation and as it relates to the business mindset, people that thrive in a startup environment, aren't necessarily the same people that will thrive in a large company environment and vice versa. Startups, I've been a part of several of them and they're a hair on fire crazy place. Period. Full stop.
[00:09:46] Tiffany-Ann: Yes.
[00:09:47] Gerry Gadoury: It's just the nature of the beast. And there's a certain type of personality that loves that. That's their thing. That lights them on fire. You put them in a stage environment, 9 to 5, and they'd sleep under their desk all day. It would just bring them to tears. And understanding that is key. But, one important thing there to keep in mind, a lot of the fear and concern that the owner has in letting those people go, as you mentioned earlier, it's a scarcity mindset they've developed because they haven't established a network of potentials, which again, is one of the things we talk about in the book, but your job as a founder, who's looking to grow. Now, if you are content being a solopreneur or an X size business, this doesn't apply. But if you're a founder looking to grow, the largest part of your job is team building. If you can't hire a team as good or better than you are, then you're not going to grow.
[00:10:37] Tiffany-Ann: Yes, absolutely. And I think not shying away from people who will be better than you or are better than you in certain aspects, because no one person, even if you think you're pretty great at a lot of things, and a typical entrepreneur is very resourceful. So they are good at a lot of things, but that doesn't mean that they're the best at those things. And so, you know, as your business scales and grows, not being afraid to hire people that are better than you, and be willing to be open minded about their feedback because they might come in and say, Hey, you know, I often come back to what it takes to get here isn't what it takes to keep going. And so, you know, if you grew your business based on, you know, ABC. Now you hire some really talented people and they come in and say, "Hey, C is not the way we need to change this. We need to modify this." A lot of business owners will be like, "no, C is the way this is the best. It's always worked for us." And then you've hired talented people, but you've almost kind of tied a hand behind their back and said, "you might be super talented, but we're going to do it within, you know, these parameters." and I think that it's a, almost a insecurity piece, but it ultimately just stymies the growth.
[00:11:38] Gerry Gadoury: I couldn't agree more. I will take it again, one step further and say, not only should be "okay" with hiring people better, that should be your litmus test. To your point, founders have to be resourceful. It's the nature of the thing, because in the beginning you do have to do everything. You have no budget.
[00:11:53] Tiffany-Ann: Yeah.
[00:11:54] Gerry Gadoury: So my first website, I wrote myself, full disclosure, it was not great. But I did it. I got it up. It's there and it works. So when time came to upgrade it, if I limited myself to someone who could do as good a job as me, I'd be replacing five out of 10 with another five out of 10. Where's the sense in that? So I couldn't agree more. You've got to not only be comfortable, but need people better than you. Otherwise, you're creating a ceiling for yourself. What's the point of that?
[00:12:21] Tiffany-Ann: Yeah, it's knowing where to find good people. And, you know, Service Based Business Society, so most of our audience is service based businesses, and most services are provided by people. I mean, sure, there is exceptions to the rule, but whether that's, you know, plumbing, electrical, home organizing, massage therapy, photography. Whatever that service someone is going and ultimately, every single person, whether you're a billionaire or someone who has no job, you still have the same 24 hours in the day. So you want to hit those revenue targets that everyone keeps talking about. Well, you got to be able to sell more than just your own time or, you know, you can either sell your time for more or add more service providers. A lot of times people think, "Oh, you know, I, I don't know if I want to hire," because they're worried about the management of the team. What would you say to those people who are on the fence for this year thinking, " I think I might want a team, but it's been a headache" or, "I don't know where to hire." So what do you say to those people?
[00:13:15] Gerry Gadoury: Great question. You know, the first thing that you need to do, this is true of everybody, but much more so on the services side is understand that for your end customer, whoever they interact with is your company. So up until this point, that's been you, you're the face of your company as far as people are concerned, you're it. But if you hire a salesperson or a photographer or anybody that's in a client facing role, as far as everyone who works with your company from that day forward, they are your company. So even more than in a product based company, you have to make sure that the people that you hire are a cultural match to the ideals your company has and that they understand your mission and communicate it effectively Not the same necessarily. The beauty of hiring a diverse staff is that they're going to express your ideas differently, but, they have to express the same idea differently, if that makes sense. So that's the first thing is really establish, this is my culture. This is my mission. This is what this company brings to the world. That's step one. Step two, identify, regardless of the skill that you're hiring for, the type of candidate that thrives in that environment. So going back to our earlier example of a startup, if you know darn well that you're a hair on fire, crazy place to work, don't hide that. Don't try to con the local librarian who's used to work in eight to four every day that this is the same type of job because two months in they're going to leave. So identify what your culture, your work environment, your mission are really like, and then find a candidate that matches that once you've got that, start working, start working your professional network. And we'll talk about that later. But those are the things you have to do prior to going forward. When you do that, managing those people will be easier because your mission and values align. That's really for me always been the big test.
[00:14:59] Tiffany-Ann: So when we say mission and we say vision I think so many people come back to a lot of big corporations have them posted on the website. You know, it's the the mission statement that these are our core values and I think that there is definitely a marketing ish element to those items. And I think that when we go back to like business 100, there's the, we need a business plan. It's going to be a 70 page document and we need a mission and we need a core, you know, the values of the business. And I think that oftentimes, those mission and vision and business plan and all of those kind of paperwork ish items often really don't resonate the way that they're delivered or not with our team. Or there's a lack of understanding, or they're literally posted on the website never to be spoken of again. And I think that oftentimes there, it's just like the left hand and the right hand aren't talking to each other.
[00:15:52] Gerry Gadoury: I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing because darn near verbatim I wrote that in my book. Darn near verbatim. Mission, vision, uh, you know, culture, all of these things get lip service. Here's the test of what your culture is. Your culture is two things. What your team does when you're not there. And what, when asked by their family and friends about the company, what they tell them. That's what your culture is, period. Full stop. And alas, 25 years of consulting rarely has that matched what I've seen behind the CEO's desk.
[00:16:28] Tiffany-Ann: 100%. I've worked with a lot of talented business owners over the years, and some have a very distorted view of what the team feels. I think that oftentimes that is a real piece because especially in a small organization, if you are the singular leader as the business owner. And you are helping drive down that vision and whatnot, if there's a misalignment, it spreads quite quickly, I think, because it's almost becomes worse that it's so out of joint that it, the misalignment becomes part of the felt vision. It's one of those pieces that moving forward, if you want to have that stuff on the website, fine, but I think it's important for me, it's quarterly team meetings where we can really dive into what is the bigger picture? What is the plan? What is the vision? And those touch points people left on their own devices for too long. In a service based business, sometimes you have people that you never really, they just go, maybe they work on, you know, at a customer site or whatnot. And so maybe they pop by the office every once in a while to pick up paperwork, but in a virtual world, sometimes not even. Remote culture, whether in a service based business or a remote team is actually a different challenge entirely.
[00:17:30] Gerry Gadoury: Yeah, one of the companies I worked with for years. When I first started working with them, it was run off of the owner's kitchen table. When I left them, they were nine figure acquisition in three countries across nine offices. So a little bit of growth there. Um, and there's a couple of things that really apply to what you just said. The first is the owner's personality is the personality of a small company. Whatever that person's personality, whatever their nature is, will become the personality of the organization. So as an owner, you need to be self aware enough to know that that's true. I'm not suggesting you should be unprofessional, don't misunderstand what I'm about to say, but you need to be true to yourself and realize that I am the way I am, and hiding that, it's going to come out. It's like dating. Your first couple of dates. Everybody's on point, six months later, you know, you don't have socks. You've got to be mindful of that. The second part that's key. And I include myself in this. I might add, I have yet to meet a business owner or founder who has an objective view of their company. Their company is their baby. They work seven days a week on it. They work twice what most people on my team. Well, it's their baby and it's very difficult to create boundaries with your team when they're asking to leave three hours early, and you know, you're working three hours late, and you just have to accept as an owner that you have more skin in the game, you have more upside in the game than they ever will, and you just have to learn to be okay with it.
[00:19:00] Tiffany-Ann: Yeah, no one will care about your business as much as you do, even your top employee. Still, it's a different relationship with the business. So, people hear all this and they say, "okay, maybe I should hire." Or maybe in their 2024 plan, they're thinking hiring is the way to go. You know, a long time ago, I used to put an ad on Craigslist. Originally, they were free and you talked about a newspaper ad, that's before my time. Craigslist, the free Craigslist was at the beginning of my time. Then, you know, it went to paid Craigslist. And then, you know, in came Indeed and LinkedIn and, you know, then there was the rise of Facebook job postings, which then, I'm not sure I've ever received an in country application to an in person job. We're not talking remote. Our team is remote. We're a global team, but service based business, like if you're a plumber and you need to be down the road at Mrs. Smith's house, I need you to be in the country. And so Facebook, I feel like has been phased out for the most part. But I think that the big piece is that there's just not a lot of people, you know, you used to get hundreds of applications and now people aren't getting those. There's just not as many people to fill the roles.
[00:20:05] Gerry Gadoury: That's part of it too. The other part is social media has really distorted the landscape. And it's very difficult to separate the signal from the noise. And by that I mean, a lot of these posts don't get seen by the people who would need to see it. And then the inverse, like you said, I posted a software development role and in less than 24 hours, I had nearly 900 replies of which three of them were in country, and in the area. And this was an in person role. It had to be in person for a lot of reasons. It's, it's just crazy. So what I'm about to say isn't universally true. So to your earlier example of knowing you have a hiring plan for the year. One of the most important things you can do as a business owner at the beginning of your year, towards the end of the prior year is to lay out your plans for the next year. And it's a bit of an, if then, um, diagram in that you say, if I hit my sales goals, I will need to do X. If I exceed my sales goals, I'll need to do Y. If I don't hit my sales goals, I will need to do Z. And from those plans, you want to create at least a framework around what that means from a personnel perspective. So maybe for your photography example of earlier, it means you need to hire another photographer five or six months into the year. If that's the case, then you want to start the work to do that. And about three months out, you want to work your personal network. Number one. And when you're working your personal network, not just people to come work for you directly, but people they know that they can refer. So if you were a photographer, Tiffany-Ann, I might talk to you about it. You say, "gosh, you know, I'm really busy. I'm interested right now." So, "you know, thanks for listening. Let me ask who are the top three photographers you would recommend." So you want to take that second layer referrals. The third thing you want to do is ask all of these photographers. You know, "where do you congregate? What LinkedIn groups do you belong to? What local groups do you belong to if it's a local only job?" You know, "what associations are you a part of?" And you want to start creating a presence in those spaces. So using your local plumber example, maybe there's a local plumbing union. Maybe there's a local association that plumbers do a lot of work. I'm not a plumber. So I hope these examples are good. Maybe there's a local hardware store where most of the plumbers get their gear that has a physical board that you can post your job. Places like that you can utilize if you have the foresight to proactively recruit. Now, if somebody leaves suddenly, obviously that's unavailable. But if you do that right away and you establish that presence, you're that much more insulated and protected. If that does happen.
[00:22:40] Tiffany-Ann: Right. The trades here in Canada, they kind of go in these cycles. And I know here, like, for your plumbing example, you could page after page after page of plumbing, ads online, you go into the suppliers and the, you know, recruitment boards are covered in flyers, people be sneaking them under the windshield out of the vans parked out front. You know, my corporate history is in technical trades, so I'm well versed in the plumbing, hiring challenges. And ultimately, those who are unemployed, there's almost this kind of stigma of, "well, why are you unemployed? There must be a problem if you're unemployed." And so to bring someone on, even if you can lure them over, by the time you connect with them, convince them this is a good idea, then negotiate with them, then they give notice, now you bring them in. By the time you now have gone through training to start the actual work process, I mean, you're six weeks, at least, at least, out from that person starting. And so if you have not had some, you know, forethought to get organized, and you're doing this at the last minute. I mean, you will go without. I mean, you'll have less plumber hours available to sell and therefore your sales will go down. Customers will wait.
[00:23:50] Gerry Gadoury: A hundred percent agree. And that's one of the harder things for newer entrepreneurs and startup founders to understand is that proactive nature. We can lament the state of the market all day every day and every founder including myself does, but it doesn't change the marketplace. If a plumber costs and I'm making this up, 75, 100,000 dollars a year, then that's what they cost. You can yell till the cows come home. It doesn't change that. If it takes six to eight weeks to bring them on board. Well, that stinks, but it is what it is. So, as a business owner, that's where that proactive piece is so key. And the second part that I mentioned is creating that pipeline of candidates and referrals. So I might reach out to you in our photography example, two times over the course of four years, and you're not available. But on the third time, or when you become available, remembering me, you might come back. Taking a couple of pages back to earlier in my career, when I was doing sales and recruiter management, that's one of the things I always told my recruiting managers and sales managers, part of your job is developing a pipeline of salespeople or recruiters that you know that you can call when we have openings. My expectation is that you're developing that network. So when the needs arise, we at least have a leg up.
[00:25:01] Tiffany-Ann: For sure. And so as a business owner who already feels so, you know, pulled in 100 different directions, you know, we kind of talked about at the beginning of so resourceful, you're wearing so many hats. How does that fit in with your networking to meet clients, your networking to meet potential people, planning, marketing, and, you know, sitting down to even plan out the budget, plus you're probably still doing something in the business versus, you know, we talked about in the business versus on the business. So how much time, like, you know, if someone's thinking, "Oh, my goodness, I'm just too overwhelmed. See, I knew I shouldn't have hired." How can someone fit it in around set some tangible plans, you know, I often say, hey, let's for sure set aside three hours a month to go through the financial statements once they're ready and, just put it on your calendar and keep it going, make sure that you got that afternoon, you know, maybe it's a day of social media planning. What should someone be setting aside? Obviously there's fluctuations, but what is a good rule of thumb for someone to be thinking about, "Hey, I need to be putting this on my calendar. So it's not just forgotten about?"
[00:26:00] Gerry Gadoury: So the first big effort is your annual planning. That's when you're making those proactive three tiered hiring plans I described a moment ago. You want to revisit those briefly monthly. I recommend when I'm mentoring business owners that you look over all of your numbers, at least once a month in detail and hiring plans are one of them. So you make sure that everything still seems to be aligning, or if it's not, you make adjustments. When you get three months out from that potential hire. That's when you start to become active. So you start asking referrals, you start creating a presence in the places those candidates are likely to be. I would say in the early stages, it's probably an hour or two at most a month. When you get closer though, now, keeping in mind. In your example, with the Canadian plumbers, if it's six weeks after you hire, you need to start being active at least eight weeks out, probably 10 or 12. So when you get there, you know that you need to start posting and things like that. Now, I don't generally advocate multitasking because it's typically just a way to do more than one thing poorly. An example where that's not the case though, is when it comes to sales and recruiting. Many of your sales and recruiting efforts can be put together. So for example, if there are conferences that you go to for your business, very often there will be sales and recruiting exempts. I use one of my own personal ones. A big part of my business is cybersecurity. Okay. All of the big cybersecurity conferences have vendor sections. They also have what's called CEU sections. In order to maintain your credentials, and your certifications in Cybersecurity, you have to get continuing education units. So all these big conferences have CEU sections. Well, guess who goes to those? Cybersecurity engineers, so if you're there to sell and to recruit both of your targets are there. So that's an example of how you can actually multitask in an effective way
[00:27:53] Tiffany-Ann: Yeah, very interesting that you say that I actually, a huge part of our agency work is bookkeeping. I would say about 70 at this point and we're a QuickBooks partner, and I was at the QuickBooks event, same thing, continuing education credits. They were running a bit behind, and sitting there kind of chatting with the people around, fellow bookkeepers and whatnot. And there were a group of us that were just, there were some that were just stressing so much about having taken the day away from the office to go and be at the event. I was chatting away and they said, "Oh, aren't you just so stressed and like the work's piling up and here we are learning things we already know in order to make these credits and this and that." And I said, "Oh, I said, actually, my team is working. I'm, I'm good. I don't actually do any of the bookkeeping myself. I do a lot of the review and the strategy and whatnot, but I don't do the bookkeeping." And a couple of ladies were like, "hang on, how long have you been in business?" And I said, Oh, you know, we were kind of just at the two year mark at that time. And they were like, "and you have a team?" And I said, absolutely. And the one lady's like, "I've been in business for 23 years and I have never had an employee and I like to do everything myself." And I thought, "well, you've been stressing for 23 years because that was that piece." And so just a different mindset, you know, I mean, the work stressed her out less than the thought of a team. But it's just a very different organizational structure. And I think that's when it comes down to that plan. What is the objective? What do you even want your business to be?
[00:29:14] Gerry Gadoury: My favorite business book of all time is still Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. It is not an exciting read, full disclosure. But one of the things that really clicked with me was beginning with the end in mind and you just hit it on the head. That person that you're interacting with, if their sole goal is to be a self employed solopreneur, more power to them. That's great. Just stay in that lane and you're great. But if they ever do decide they want to be more than that, then it's just a matter of, you know, accepting those changes.
[00:29:42] Tiffany-Ann: Mm hmm. Yeah, I think it was my second year university. We had to do a full business plan. Lay out exactly how we wanted it to be. You know, that traditional 70 page business plan. With all of the bells and whistles. And everyone had to present. The presentations went on for, like, what felt like days. And I remember distinctly this one person who gets up there and she presents. And the professor says, "how much will you make this year?" And she said, "oh, $100,000." "And how much will you make the following year?" "$100,000." He goes, "okay, so the plan is to make $100,000 indefinitely." and she said, "well, that's what I need to take home to pay my bills." And he says, "so the whole purpose of your business is just to make the hundred thousand dollars so that you can basically be employed by your business, but not answer to anyone." And she says, "absolutely." And he was like, "oh, okay. I mean, I guess you hit it." Just different objectives, right?
[00:30:31] Gerry Gadoury: Interesting. I've got a very good friend. He was actually the person that taught me direct hire recruiting 25 years ago. He owns a one person permanent staffing firm that focuses on technology field service people in the Northeastern United States. That's all that he does. He has a house up here in Massachusetts where I live and a house on the coast in South Carolina. He splits his time between here and the beach and works from both. He knows that when he's done, when he's tired of working, he's basically turning out the lights, his company has no resale value. It'll just end, but he's living a great life. He's extremely happy. He's making frankly, you know, significant income. He's doing very, very well. More power to him. Solopreneurs are awesome, but it's a different world. You know, he has no resale value. He will not sell. He'll just turn off. Um, just a matter of what you're looking to do.
[00:31:24] Tiffany-Ann: And you know, I say it in so many different podcast episodes, but it really comes back to what is your objective and not being distracted by you know if you want to be that person, I mean how many people along the way have told him, "Oh, you could do this. You could hire that you could change this you could grow
[00:31:40] Gerry Gadoury: I have!
[00:31:43] Tiffany-Ann: And if he
[00:31:44] Gerry Gadoury: I've told him that!
[00:31:46] Tiffany-Ann: Yes, because so many people, they're like, "well, but you could do that." And so it's really being committed to your vision at least for a certain length of time and not, you know, kind of getting down the path of I'm going this way and then someone saying, "well, you could do this and you could do that." and really just keeping your eyes on your prize, whatever that is.
[00:32:04] Gerry Gadoury: 100%. And by the way, I say that in jest, he's very happy and he's killing it. He shouldn't change anything. Uh, not in jest because I really have told him that, but, yeah, he's a great guy and his business is amazing and his clients are happy. And there's no reason to change any of that but, you need to know what you want to be when you grow up.
[00:32:21] Tiffany-Ann: A hundred percent. And if it changes, then you can change, but it has to be your decision. So you've mentioned your book a few times, what's it called, and where can they find it?
[00:32:30] Gerry Gadoury: So the book is called Destination Employer, How to Consistently Attract, Recruit and Retain the Top Talent on the Market. It's on Amazon now. Ebook, paperback, and hardcover. I'm also excited to announce in probably two months. Our course will be done as well. So the book is designed to teach everybody hands on step by step, how to do the things I've described in this episode as well as in the title of the book. The course is designed to give them, for example, one of the things we talk about is creating an employer brand and personal brand when it comes to recruiting new talent. So, in the book, you learn how, in the course, you actually get templates. Um, at the end of it, you actually build the same deliverable that my consulting company would do for you for about, an eighth of the price.
[00:33:13] Tiffany-Ann: Amazing.
[00:33:14] Gerry Gadoury: So, I'm excited about that. And then, of course, my company, Red Beard Solutions, we do that for companies. We teach them how to do it on their own. And if they want additional support, we give them that as well. But the book is on Amazon right now. Super excited. anybody's interested to check it out. And I'd be even more excited if you do, to please leave a review, an honest review. An honest five star review would be even better. Just joking. But an honest review. Uh, because that's how people find things these days, is they read reviews and make sure it aligns. So that would be awesome.
[00:33:44] Tiffany-Ann: Yes. Yeah. So important. You know, business owners always talk about getting reviews. You know, the, five golden stars of Google that can make such a difference in your business. But those who want them most are often the ones that shy, you know, that don't give them out so willingly. And I always say, go, go, you know, find someone that you found online this week or that you worked with, go leave a review for someone. It really makes a difference, whether it's a book, a podcast or anything. So, we've talked a lot, a lot of different pieces today. What is that one tangible tip that someone should start today? So, yes, they want to hire. They know that. What is that one thing that everyone should go do now?
[00:34:17] Gerry Gadoury: So most business owners are wired to understand if they have any level of success that they've got to talk about their businesses often as it relates to finding customers. So using the photography example, if you were in a photography shop and some couple you knew were getting married, you know darn well, you want to mention, "by the by I'm a photographer, I'd be happy," you know, if that was your specialty to do that, but all of that also applies on the candidate side, on the growth side. So if you know that it's in your plan to hire a secondary photographer in six months, you need to start thinking about that. Talk to the people in your network. The power of a professional network is not in the people you know. That's not a secret. That hasn't been new since the 1950s. The power of a network is in who the people, you know, know, who can they introduce you to? And if you ask many of them will, and all of this becomes that much easier.
[00:35:14] Tiffany-Ann: Right, absolutely. All right, where can someone connect with you, other than the book which I'll link in the show notes. Can't wait to get my own copy, it sounds amazing. But where else can people follow you? What's your go to social platform?
[00:35:27] Gerry Gadoury: That's easy. I live on LinkedIn. I am on there an embarrassing amount of time. I tell people often who ask that question. If you can't find me, you're not looking. I'm the easiest person to find. Follow me on LinkedIn. I talk about this stuff. I talk about leadership and team building all day, every day.
[00:35:44] Tiffany-Ann: Amazing. Well, it comes back to that. We all, you know, if you're passionate about what you do, then sometimes you do it on the weekends and you know, we just don't feel guilty about it.
[00:35:54] Gerry Gadoury: Yeah, I truly am. You know, I will say this at risk of sounding like a super nerd, but I have a passion for the startup community, the early stage companies, and the small businesses, because in the United States, at least, it's the number one employer in the country. This is the backbone of the economy. And yet, they get a fraction of the resources that the big dogs get. I've worked for the big dogs. I've provided resources for the big dogs. I now can provide those to smaller companies and it lights me up. It's awesome. It's such a different thing to watch something click in a founder's head and know you just tripled their business versus a publicly traded company where that same thing is going to take seven layers of approvals to get implemented in the next quarter. Gross.
[00:36:38] Tiffany-Ann: I could not agree more. I absolutely could not agree more. 100%. Thank you so much for being here. It's been so valuable for our audience. It's been an enjoyable conversation, and I will drop all of those links and resources into the show notes. Thank you so much.
[00:36:53] Gerry Gadoury: You are welcome, and I deeply appreciate you having me on the show. It was great. If I can do anything to help you or your audience, never hesitate to reach out.
[00:37:00] Tiffany-Ann: Awesome. Thank you.
[00:37:01] Gerry Gadoury: You're welcome.