223. Author Mitch Gray on How to Find Great People Even When It Seems Like It’s Hard to Find Great People

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223. Author Mitch Gray on How to Find Great People Even When It Seems Like It’s Hard to Find Great People

00:00:01 Welcome to the everything coworking podcast, where you learn what you need to know about how the world wants to work. And now your host coworking space owner and trend expert, Jamie Russo. Welcome to the everything co-working podcast. This is your host. Jamie Russo. Thank you for being with me. Happy fall to everyone listening. If you are listening to this real time,

00:00:37 when it comes out, we are getting close to Halloween, which seems crazy. It's been a super busy fall over here. I'm coaching my daughter's soccer team as usual. We are 12 U this year, which is brings on more challenges. The girls are still hard to keep focused, which I did not expect. And yet I feel a higher bar around developing their soccer skills.

00:01:05 So it is a constant sort of challenge to my salesmanship to get them to pay attention during practice. Although I'm, anyway, I'm always thinking about how to manage that better I'm refereeing this year, which is a humbling experience. I played the game for a long time, and then I've been coaching, but I've realized I don't want to like intimately pay attention to the rules and you have to know the rules really well,

00:01:35 especially as the center ref, which I got thrown into, cause we've had a referee shortage this year. So that's been a bit humbling. I would say once a game, I make some call that I shouldn't have made because I forget a rule or make up a role that isn't real. And the coaches are, are generally pretty forgiving. And when it's the 10 year group or even the 12 year group,

00:01:56 I will tell them what I've made a mistake so that they know, you know what, grown-ups make mistakes too. And we all survived them when we all move past. But you know, it's funny when you learn new things, when you're older, it's still, you know, it still takes a little bit of confidence to put yourself out there and try new things.

00:02:18 Okay. So speaking of new things, not a new thing, we're gonna talk about hiring today, which is a topic that I know is always on your mind. This topic comes up on our monthly operator flight group calls probably mostly every month. Someone's either trying to figure out how to hire, how to compensate, how to retain or how to optimize the team.

00:02:44 You know, how much should a community manager be able to handle, you know, in an eight hour day, and you know how to manage through this, like, you know, shifting time where people are thinking about their options and you know, a lot of people moving and people wanting, you know, different things that have worked. So I came across today's guest,

00:03:08 Mitch gray because I saw him on the social media of one of my flight group members, Kayla Adair. So shout out to Kayla. I think we gave her a big shout out in the recording also. So I won't dwell on that. She runs fire house workspace in Clovis, New Mexico. And I thought, you know what? I know my audience struggles with hiring.

00:03:29 So I invited Mitch to chat and he just released a book. And he wrote this book because anytime he talked to small businesses about their challenges, he said, one of the first things that comes up would be I'm having a hard time finding good people. So in today's environment where we feel like kind of everybody's questioning and it can feel hard to find good people.

00:03:52 I thought it would be helpful to get his perspective. And I would say the biggest takeaway is that his approach is to basically always be looking for talent and to do it locally and to be really intentional about it, which I thought made a lot of sense. Cause I think a lot of us don't think that way and we sort of rely on the platforms when we're ready to hire indeed social media.

00:04:16 But he really thinks, especially as local businesses, which you all are, we should be kind of analog recruiting, you know, retail outlets, Starbucks hotel, local hotels, like where would you find people who would make great talent? And you know, we talked about the idea that we're pretty compelling employers. So early in his book, he sort of asked this question,

00:04:43 why do people work? Yes. For money. Although we know that is not generally why people leave her or stay at a job sometimes, sometimes it can be, they have to make enough right. Purpose for sure. Community absolutely identity. Yes. Independence. Yes. And the community manager role, which is usually what we're talking about. It might be an operations role.

00:05:06 You might be getting to a point where you have a sales manager role with these things really apply these aspects of why people work, really apply to all of the roles in our business, which is a huge advantage. And so I think we should not have trouble selling our role. It's really about, as Mitch says, getting into this mindset of always being,

00:05:27 you know, on the lookout for who might be next, even when you don't think you're going to have to hire, you know, soon. And then with the folks that we have on our team, thinking about what we can do better to, you know, be good leaders, be compelling people to work for. Even when we have a small team,

00:05:46 I think about this a lot, you know, with my small team appreciation mentorship, things that we can offer our team to keep them with us for as long as possible. And the community manager role, I think by definition is a stepping stone to other things, depending on who's in that role, but they can get a lot out of this role and we can do even more for them.

00:06:11 And I have to mention, cause I feel like I don't talk about this often enough. I, we run a program called community manager university and it was designed to solve these exact challenges of appreciation, mentorship, professional development connection. So we have a big group of community managers, some from, you know, from all over the world and we get together two times a month.

00:06:38 One is for Q and a best practice sharing call and one is for training. And then we have a slack group and we celebrate wins and we celebrate birthdays and we do all the things. So we're trying to create an opportunity for community managers to learn and grow and feel, you know, appreciated in their role and invested in. So if you're curious about that,

00:07:01 shoot us an email, or I think you can go to everything. coworking.com forward slash community manager and get more details on that or find it on the website. We updated our website under work with us. So you should be able to grab that link there. So anyway, we are, I'm going to dive in, I want you to meet Mitch and listen to our conversation and we look forward to jump into the Facebook group.

00:07:29 If you have some thoughts on the topic, we'd love to continue the conversation. Welcome. I am here today with Mitch gray. Mitch is a small business consultant and author of how to hire and keep great people. And that is what caught my eye and Mitch. I was trying to remember, I think I saw, so here's the book for people listening,

00:07:50 watching on video. I think I must've seen pictures of like your signing event at the coworking space on social. And I think I reached out to Kayla and said, Kayla, who, you know, who is this guy? And is how's the book and should, should I have him on the podcast? Cause hiring such a hot topic. So Mitch works at firehouse workspace,

00:08:11 which is in Clovis New Mexico and did a book signing event there. So welcome Mitch. Yes. Thank you so much. I'm excited for our conversation and we're going to help a lot of people today, so I'm ready to go. I'm ready to go. Okay. Well first we have to give a shout out to Kayla Adair, who is the owner of firehouse workspace.

00:08:31 And she, Mitch was just kind of walking you through sort of the culture in Clovis and that what Kayla's doing is really forward-looking. And so she created, she bought the building, rehab, the building and is creating this community and she's really passionate about helping local entrepreneurs. So Kayla, thank you for introducing the two of us, if you're listening. So Mitch,

00:08:56 I was interested in this conversation because higher, I feel like hiring today is such a, it's always a big topic, right? And you speak on this topic, you know, based on your book, it sounds like, you know, this is kind of one of the hot topics that always really resonates with an audience. And you mentioned one of the stories you tell at the beginning of the book is,

00:09:17 you know, wanting to get people's attention and using the hiring topic as a way to kind of reel people in. And of course everybody can relate to, you know, how hard it is to find great people. And, and I was starting to say, before we hit record, I feel like especially today, we're sort of in this scarcity mindset around,

00:09:35 you know, a lot of people making changes, great people who used to do other things are kind of in the marketplace. And so can we attract those people? You know, a lot of folks seeing shortages in staff and just all the, you know, challenges and maybe opportunities, but yeah. W so welcome. Thank you for joining us and yeah.

00:09:58 Tell us, so tell us a little bit about how you got into, and your background's really interesting how you got here to, to sort of be really passionate about helping people hire great people. Yeah. First of all, thanks for touching on that pain point, because that's exactly how I ended up writing the book. So little about my background, I have kind of,

00:10:20 as you mentioned, an interesting background, it's kind of a BA you know, that old cartoon Dennis, the minutes he would show the map of Dennis and he's just, you know, the map is everywhere when it was taken in like five minutes in a linear line of, we know that life isn't linear period. And for some of us, it,

00:10:38 it becomes even more interesting. And that's kind of in mind in the book I kind of opened up with, I I'm a pastor at heart since I was 10 years old, all I wanted to do was to be a pastor. And I went to seminary and did that. And most seminaries, a lot of them are shortened. So it's basically a four year degree in two years.

00:11:00 They, they, they don't mess around. You go eight hours a day, five days a week. And boy, when you get done with that, you're like, okay, it's I, you know, I kinda equate it to my son right now is finishing up his master's degree. And he's like, I'm done with school once I'm done with this.

00:11:14 And that's how you feel. You know? And so after I got done with seminary, I thought I needed a little break, you know, had a family at the time. Our son was on his way about to be born. And so I needed to make money, but I just wanted kind of a respite from the rigors of long days, long study,

00:11:32 et cetera. So I went to work for a high fashion retail company called the buckle, and I had done a part-time retail job in high school. I was good at it. I love people. I'm like, Hey, if I got to go make money, let's do this for a little bit. Then get back into ministry. Six months later,

00:11:49 they put me in charge of a multimillion dollar store. I moved up really quickly. And that's really where I fell in love with connecting my heart for people and business. And I've never, you know, I was 21, 22 at the time. I'd never separated personal passion for people and business to meet to me. They should be one in the same. And I think the most impactful leaders in a positive way,

00:12:17 I think they get that principle that you can't separate business and person. I mean, life is life. And so to put your energy into this idea that I can't run my business and treat people the right way. I just think that's a mistake. And so anyway, I fell in love with business. Six months later, I set out to run my own multimillion dollar store.

00:12:37 I, I had not been trained how to hire. I've not been trained how to repair the buckle and the buckles. One of the greatest companies, you know, that that exists. I mean, their culture is amazing, but even a great company like that doesn't necessarily train people how to do those things. And so I just did what I knew how to do,

00:12:57 and that was hire everybody I could hire. And I think after my first year, I handed out 110 tax forms. Now my team on average was 12 to 15 people. So think about that. A team of 12 to 15, I handed out 110 tax forms. What that meant was I was just strategically going through the mill, trying to find the right people.

00:13:19 And I learned that's not the right Crazy thing is that that's kind of how most people do it. I'm going to come back to that in a second. But I did go back into ministry. Eventually I spent five years at the Barco and it was great, but my heart for ministry was still there. I accepted a job and it was my favorite job I've ever had.

00:13:39 Three years later, I got fired. No real reason. They cannot talk about that in the book as well. And so what that did is that kind of entered me into this interesting background of having the heart of the pastor no longer, no longer wanting to work in church, because I got burned there multiple times and really spending the next decade, trying to figure out,

00:14:01 man, I really love business. I love helping people, but how in the world did those two go together? And it took me a little while to figure that out. And so what I landed on was business leaders are stressed. Business leaders go home at night and they worry about their business, compassionate business leaders, worry about Sarah, who's pregnant.

00:14:24 And Mike, who's going through a divorce and you know, Julie, whose kid is graduating and how are they going to take a vacation to go see their kids? I mean, compassionate business leaders deal with all that. And 98% of the American economy is built up small business. It makes up 99% of our revenues, a country economically. And so that's the majority of business leaders.

00:14:47 And so in my head, I'm like, okay, how do we make sense of this? So about seven, eight years ago, I started kind of probing asking business leaders, figuring things out. And the thing I heard over and over again, almost every conversation I had would can't find people eight, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, 20 years ago when I was running a store in a mall.

00:15:08 And the other mall managers are like, we can't find people. I'm like, I'm finding people everywhere. So then I just started reflecting on my experience, the lessons, I learned the words I'd heard people say the actions I had seen the mistakes I've made. And I'm like, okay, there's something to this. Right? So then I started looking for books and guess what?

00:15:28 I didn't find many of, I didn't find many books on hiring. I didn't find hardly any books on interviewing. I found very few books on how to recruit. And so then that was eight, 10 years ago. Well then as time passed and all these third party agencies and apps began being introduced, that changed the game even more. What I think that did.

00:15:49 And I know those have a place. I have a lot of friends who have gotten jobs through those places. So they do have a place there, a tool in the toolbox. But what I think those third-party apps did is they made people really lazy, really, really lazy, because as a business leader, it's so much easier for me to go on one of those websites and throw my ad out.

00:16:11 And I don't have to spend two hours a week recruiting. The downside of that is you're just replicating in a different way. What I did at 22 years old, you're just running through the turn style and what I tell people all the time, there's no way you can replicate or help people clarify what your culture is through a third party app. There is no way you can put flesh and blood on a third-party app.

00:16:34 There's no way you can replicate those things technologically and there never will be because you can't replace flesh and blood. And so after all that, I was like, I'm going to write a book about it and let's see where it goes. And I I'm really proud of this book. I think it's helping a lot of people. The amazing thing about this book is a lot of,

00:16:55 a lot of employees are reading this book and they're going, oh, wait a second. I want to work at that place a hundred percent. Right? Yeah. Which was a really, to me a surprising response. I, I didn't set out with that response, but that's been a lot of the response we're getting. And so tying all my last 25 years of background and interesting things to what's going to make common sense on the workplace.

00:17:22 And I tried to make a book that was so understandable and palatable. You know, someone once said, I can't think of who it was, but someone once said a great writer takes really difficult themes and makes them seem sensible and common and understandable. And that's what I set out to do with this book. Cause I was like, I want, I want the uneducated solo preneur who has a passion for building business to pick up this book and go can do that.

00:17:50 I don't want it to be so philosophical or so deep or so misunderstood that people can't get it. So the greatest compliment I hear all the time is it's easy to read and I get it. I'm like, yes, that's right. Really actionable. I totally agree. And I think it is a real superpower to be able to do that right. To,

00:18:08 to be able to take something that is it, you know, it is complex. There are a lot of things you need to do right. To source great people. So what's interesting about my audience is you talk about, you just mentioned, you know, sort of maybe the, the apps make us a little bit lazy. So I would love to have you talk about,

00:18:30 you know, sort of your approach to recruiting because I do think the apps will become more and more prevalent because now the, for the, the, the broader world, right? Because now we can work from anywhere. And so now we're, although for my audience, that's not true. Right. So it's actually helpful. It aligns with your philosophy because we have to hire locally.

00:18:55 But to your point, it gets really tempting to, okay, well, I, the, the net is so wide now, even I've noticed. So I, we use, I've used indeed for various roles that I've had. I use it. So I used to run the industry association and I remember hiring, looking to hire a marketing person. And on indeed,

00:19:15 you had to pay for every market that you wanted to listed, which was not. So we would like pick a couple of markets and like, hope for the best. Now that's not the case. Now you just post and you can specify if it's remote and how often somebody needs to be in the office. So it's a huge shift that we've just seen and,

00:19:37 and probably right. Fairly problematic. Cause you know, nothing about the person. And I think one of the things you talk about in your book, which like I could argue both sides of is you're hiring for, as you said, aptitude and attitude. And I think in a lot of cases, that's true. There are probably cases where you need somebody to have to accomplish something,

00:20:04 but it has to be coupled with the aptitude and attitude. And I had a hiring situation recently where I was like, yeah, you know what? These are skills that can be learned. And I just need a person that is a great cultural fit and really wants to do the job. Right. And I'll right. Worry about, and again, not always the case,

00:20:23 but so the great news, I think for your approach is that we have to hire locally. So we can't go, we can use indeed, but we have to specify geography. So I'd love to hear you talk about, yeah, you're sort of the like, look, every person you talk to is maybe a lead to a candidate might be a good fit.

00:20:42 Yeah. How do you put that hat on? What does that look like? So the visual, I like to give people is a toolbox. I referred to it earlier. And when you can look at all of these assets as various tools and for someone listening that may not know a thing about tools, what they do know is is that they try and unscrew a screw that has the one line in it.

00:21:04 That's called a flat head and you try and use the screwdriver that looks like a star. They know it's not gonna work and that's the most. And so you have to have a different screwdriver. And so I really think now, you know, most times when you, when people use screws or they use, you know, whatever, they usually use the garner,

00:21:23 I'm going blank on it, the Phillips screwdriver Phillips. And so you're probably gonna use that most of the time. And if you look at all of these assets in a similar fashion, but Hey, I just have some different bits, some different wrenches, some different screwdrivers. I'm going to use all of them, but there's a couple that I use all the time.

00:21:44 That's really how you have to look at it. And the challenge with writing a book, in fact, I had had a reviewer kind of come back at me yesterday on this whole thing. You know, she was like, Hey, you give a lot of absolutes. And I'm like, yeah, well, the reason you have to do that in a book is because it's not a two-way conversation.

00:22:00 Let's be honest, a book it's really a, it's a, it's a poor form of communication. Really. So as a writer, you have to go, okay, how am I going to get my core message? My core voice across that will start the conversation. That's all a book is, is, is a thought, it's a thought spark and a conversation starter.

00:22:18 So let's begin there that we're looking at a toolbox third-party apps are great, indeed monster glass store, you know, selling us on the list goes on and you can use those as a tool. By my point to the business leaders is that should never be your foundation. I was working with a business leader a couple of years ago. They own a couple of different local businesses.

00:22:38 They probably, his entire company had maybe 75 employees across all their companies. So they are kind of the traditional American, small business, good revenue. They're creating wealth for their family. They're helping their people. Don't have a large team, $75, a hundred. They were doing 100% of their hiring through indeed 100%. And I walked in the door and said,

00:23:00 that's your first mistake? Because they were like, well, people just come and go within six months, we're losing everybody. So the advocates, you don't know who you're hiring. And so that picture we're painting and the picture you're painting of a co-working owner who maybe only has one or two people. Again, that's the majority of businesses in America. So let's throw out the legals,

00:23:20 let's throw out the doctors, let's throw out the nurses. That's not who we're talking about. Of course you need those people to have skill sets, certifications, and licenses. I would dare to say 85% of the workforce in America doesn't need certifications, licenses, degrees, et cetera. There are waiters and waitresses and secretaries and assistants and graphic designers. They're all the stuff that you can teach.

00:23:43 And so, as I told someone yesterday, in fact, I would rather hire someone who doesn't know how to design graphics, but has an interest and a passion for it and pay $500 to put them through a course. Then I would hire someone who understands graphic design, but as a terrible culture there, because the data shows us if I invest that 500 to a thousand dollars that person's going to stay with because people want to know you're investing in them.

00:24:10 And so I am 100% okay. Hiring someone who has no clue about what I need done, but has the aptitude, the attitude, the culture, and the passion. Those people are the ones I'm going to build my team around. You're rarely going to find that through indeed Glassdoor, whatever fact Indeed's new commercial. I heard it on the radio two days ago,

00:24:29 they start with this statement. Hiring is about numbers. So they're telling you their philosophy to helping you hire is to throw the net as wide as possible and hope they're disclaiming to you. That it's a gamble. They're hoping you find someone. My thing is hiring. It's about strategy and clarity. And when you know that within 10 minutes of anyone's place of business,

00:24:56 you can walk out the door, go to the coffee shop, go to the grocery store, go to the mechanic and you can find all the people you need for your team. Now it's going to take action. And what I told someone the other day is you need to, you need to budget an hour a week where you go out and recruit.

00:25:12 You don't sit and wait. You don't play the game that you actually take action and go recruit. It's. People would spend an hour a week recruiting that way. I am telling you Jamie, it would change the game on who you have right in your backyard. There are some amazing people. I go to Starbucks three or four times a week. There's four people there I would recruit.

00:25:34 And like Starbucks, Starbucks is amazing at culture. I would, I, you know, I go, I love fashion. I love buying shoes. When I go to, into Lulu lemon all the time. And I'm like, I've got over 20 Lulu lemon people that when I'm ready to expand, I'm going to recruit them. And so they're right there in your own backyard.

00:25:53 And that's how, that's what it takes. If you really want to build that all star team and you and I talked about it a little pre-show for those people, listening, who only have one or two staff, it is so critical. They get it right. But our awesome opportunity is it's also easier to get it, right? Because you can have better clarity on who you want,

00:26:12 what you want them to do, why you want them to do it. And then all you do is go out and find them they're in front of you. All you do is go out and find them. Hey, I just wanted to jump in really quickly before we continue with our discussion. If you're working on opening a coworking space, I want to invite you to join me for my free masterclass three behind the scenes secrets to opening a coworking space.

00:26:35 If you're working on opening a coworking space, I want to share the three decisions that I've seen successful operators make when they're creating their coworking business. The masterclass is totally free. It's about an hour and include some Q and a. If you'd like to join me, you can register at everything. coworking.com forward slash masterclass. If you already have a coworking space,

00:26:58 I want to make sure you know, about community manager, university, community manager, university is a training and development platform for community managers. And it can be for owner operators. It has content training resources, templates from day one to general manager. The platform includes many courses that cover the major buckets of the community manager role from community management, operations,

00:27:24 sales, and marketing, finance, and leadership. The content is laid out in a graduated learning path. So the community manager can identify what content is most relevant to them, depending on their experience and kind of jump in from there. We provide a live brand new training every single month for the community manager group. We also host a live Q and a call every single month so that the community managers can work through any challenges that they're having or opportunities get ideas from other community managers build their own peer network.

00:27:59 We also have a private slack group for the group. So if you're interested in learning more, you can go to everything, coworking.com forward slash community manager. So can you talk a little bit about that clarity? Cause I think a temptation we have is like, okay, well I need someone who knows how to use this app and do you know, like the,

00:28:18 the checklist and your point is like, look, even if you have to invest in helping them learn that. Yeah. Cause the culture piece in a small, in an even smaller business is such a big deal. And I think I'm not sure many small business owners take the time to be very intentional about culture. Cause my thought when I was reading the book was like,

00:28:43 it's probably common for us to say, well, that's a big company thing. I don't have time for that. I, you know, I got a million other things to do. And yet the culture piece is one of the biggest advantages for my audience because it's super compelling to work in a co-working space. There's an amazing network and amazing community. Most community managers,

00:29:07 that's usually the, the name of the role or something similar. Maybe it's an operations manager are really empowered and they develop to your point, like maybe they're, they're sort of, you know, trial by fire, you know, jumping into the deep end of the pool or whatever you want to say. Like that can be overwhelming. But over time the skill,

00:29:26 the transferable skills that they learned in that role are really incredible. So it's a great job, but I think a lot of times, right, we don't know how to articulate that and how to sorta make it something that's a recruiting tool. And then I would guess, right. None of us have recruiting as like an hourly thing on the to-do list.

00:29:47 So yeah. Talk about the clarity a little bit. I think that's so important and it can be tempting, I think, to avoid that to your point when you go to indeed and you're just kind of making the to-do list and you're just trying to, you know, match up check boxes, but Yeah, so let's start from the foundational kind of building part of culture and I really want to dilute it.

00:30:11 It's almost the tip of the spear for the person you just described, you know, that, that coworking space owner one or two people on staff, but they've built this great ecosystem for our community of people. So, you know, the magic to me about coworking is that it's, it's a very small business that feels much larger than it actually is.

00:30:31 And I think that's a really cool that that's the point of it, right? To build community. So let's go tip of the spirit or culture with those people in mind. The, the biggest, the kind of the biggest vision I would want people to have is if you're hiring that one person that they're your front desk person and your operations person, whatever you have to remember,

00:30:52 they're representing your brand, thus they're representing you. And here's the challenge with having such a small team. One misrepresentation can burn a hundred bridges, but if I go into Lulu lemon again, cause we're gonna, we're gonna use them as an example, say they have large, larger company. Everyone knows their brand. Everyone knows their stores. You walk in and there's a team of 15 people.

00:31:19 If I have a bad experience at one Lulu lemon, I can look across the way and see that someone else is treating a guest the right way and I can go, okay, maybe that person just isn't trained. Well, maybe they're having a bad day. I can forgive that a lot easier. Whereas if I work into your coworking spot and I know there's only one person and they don't treat me well,

00:31:39 I may write you off. And that's just how human nature works. You don't go on Yelp. You don't go on Yelp and see all the great reviews. Normally you go on Yelp and that's, for some reason, human nature keeps score that way. And so my point is, culturally, don't get freaked out by maybe the difficulty and the depth of culture.

00:32:00 Just look at it as whoever is representing me and my brand. I need to get that right from an attitude standpoint, from a presence standpoint, because they're the first and last thing, interaction, speech, whatever that people are going to see. So it's even more pivotal when you only have one or two people. And so that's so important As bad news,

00:32:26 you'll have to wait one, right? But it's a, The grand Prix news. The great news is you're much more adaptable and you can control it. And so that's the great news of it. So let's go to clarity. The greatest analogy is this because everyone gets it. When, when you start your coworking business, any business, and you may be talking to a marketing person or you study some marketing,

00:32:46 what's the first question they asked. Who's your ideal customer. Yeah. But this is a question I ask, Who are they pointing to? And then you go through, okay, what do they look like? Where do they shop? Where do they eat? What cards did they drive? What time do they get home at night? Do they have a family?

00:33:01 Or, I mean, you go through the gamut of marketing. Jamie, that's the same thing you use when providing clarity for who you want to work with you, where do they hang out? What hobbies do they have? What books do they read? What is their friend circle look like? What are their interests? What are their passions? What are their skills?

00:33:21 You can ask that question. So really what we're doing is we're taking marketing 1 0 1 and just applying it to hiring 1 0 1. And that gives you the clarity. And what I even tell people is do what they tell you to do in marketing print a picture of that for, I mean, I know businesses that they'll, they'll send off to a graphic designer to create their person.

00:33:39 If you go to almost any corporate business, you're going to walk into their marketing room and they're probably going to have something like that printed out because it keeps it top of mind. Right? And so that's the same thing where we're applying to hiring maybe where do they work? Now? I was working with someone a few months ago who was hiring his first assistant and he he's in the book world and the writing world.

00:33:59 And my first question was, well, when's the last time you went to a bookstore and recruited someone. And he's like, I never thought about that. And I said, well, it only makes sense. Cause you said the first thing you want them to be as passionate about books, but where do you find the person passionate about books? They're working in a bookstore.

00:34:13 Sure enough. It goes, so bookstore, guess what? He finds the person that you recruited. And so even someone in the middle of that world, sometimes we can't see the 50,000 foot view because we're in the weeds. And so, you know, that's really what I would tell the people listening is use that marketing scenario to find out who you want to hire a gain clarity on it.

00:34:32 And then all you simply have to do is go manifest that through finding that person. And so you go to the coffee shop, you go to the bookstores, you go to the grocery store and when people treat you, well, you take note of that. When someone goes out of their way to do something for you, you take note of that and maybe you say,

00:34:49 Hey, Jamie, thanks for your service. I'm looking for great people. Do you know anyone looking? That's the question? And it's as easy as that. And so, you know, I said, people can budget an hour a week, but really they already have the hour week because everyone goes for Uber rather. Nobody Does it. It's just,

00:35:06 yeah. It's just being alert and being aware. And it's not, not an added effort really. So yeah. When you're hiring a team of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, you should be able to find the exact people you want for the most part 90% of the time and be able to find them within your backyard. It's really simple. Yeah. So the, my little arguing voice is saying,

00:35:27 well, if I only pull from the people I'm like exposed to, I could have, I could hire anyone in the whole world. Like, am I not trying hard enough? Am I not getting the best possible person? You know, then the response is really what does it matter? I mean, if you're finding the people that you want, does it really matter where they're located?

00:35:51 And I think that is a little bit of the downside of the worldwide web opportunity. Right? What does your oyster feeling like dating apps? Like all right. So much possibility. Yeah. And so let's go back to the toolbox. Let's go back to the toolbox because you're not wrong in that argument, by the way. It is a great question.

00:36:11 Remember we said, we have a couple of tools that we use constantly and for recruiting and hiring, that's going to be having clarity on who we need and why we need them going in our own backyard and finding them every day. But still throw that stuff out on. Indeed. I'm not saying don't do that. I'm saying that that's your 1% what I call it.

00:36:28 So I'm from the south, that's your gravy on the biscuits, right? That's like, that's like a bonus meal to this whole thing that you're doing. And so still use that stuff. So you can actually still get, you know, you're kind of rebuttal there. You can still have that. What's great is you're not pressed to feel like you have to have those people.

00:36:47 So then it become an option. It's like, wait a second. I found this great person in Nebraska. I may want to recruit them, do it because you're not solely dependent on that person. That's now a bonus by the way, which is a great trip to really grow your business when you can control and really maintain the core of who you're hiring and recruiting.

00:37:07 And then you throw some all-stars in on top of that, that's going to elevate your opportunities exponentially. Okay. So I'm also thinking that your approach reduces the emergency hiring. Yeah. In Our, I talk about this a lot, so I help folks start coworking spaces and then I help them run it. I also run a program called community manager university.

00:37:39 And we'll talk a little bit about how much employees appreciate investment, but we talk often about the challenge with hiring is that in our world, if you are an owner that is cannot be in the space and your community manager gives notice, that's an emergency, that's a 9 1 1. And so now you're hiring under duress. If you haven't been doing the activities that you're talking about and you don't have that sort of Rolodex of like,

00:38:05 oh, so-and-so at the bookstore or the Starbucks or the yeah. Yeah. So you use the word that I love to use. And a lot of people don't know it because you know, you and I's generation, we used physical Rolodexes, which for those that don't know back before falls, it was like this big plastic thing on your desk that you just tap a handwritten file.

00:38:26 Right? So that's exactly the word I use is this recruiting becomes what I call lifestyle recruiting. It's not, you're not recruiting because you need to you're recruiting because you're constantly aware of upgrading. And there's a little bit of a, kind of a scientific approach to that from the standpoint of, oh my gosh, I only have a team of three. If I continue recruiting,

00:38:52 I can't really hire those people. So then, then all you do is change your phrasing. Then all it becomes is, Hey Jamie, I loved your service today. You know, if you know anybody that's ever looked at them, I'm always looking for potential opportunities to bring people on. So if I ever have an opportunity I'd love to visit. So you just change your phrasing a little bit where you don't set an unrealistic expectation,

00:39:12 but you do what I like to call you plant a seed. And sometimes I've had situations where I kind of quote recruited. I really you're building relationships is what you're doing. I've done that for years three or four, five years. And then all of a sudden, the time came that I thought, Ooh, there the piece, the missing piece to the puzzle and you go back and you've built that relationship.

00:39:32 And so now they hop on board and you're very proactive in what you're doing. And you're constantly building that Rolodex. And a lot of times people say, well, I don't have time, or I don't have the energy for that. And my statement is, and I use it in the book saying, you can't find great people saying you don't have the time to it's like saying you can't grow your posts and no successful business person would ever say that.

00:39:57 And so really that's the proactive approach to avoiding that emergency hiring. Now, does life happen? Yes, but let's go back to our toolbox to get, if I'm lifestyle recruiting constantly, I'm building my Rolodex. I will soon have 20, 30, 40 people potentially that I can contact. I may not recruit them in, you know, individually, but or directly that they have a circle of friends,

00:40:21 birds of a feather flock together. So they have a circle of friends who they can tap into as well. So I'm building that Rolodex. I also have indeed Glassdoor monster. So I have all these tools in my toolbox now where I'm not limited, very rarely in that scenario, will you face what you call the emergency hire? You just won't have them because you'll always have that role,

00:40:40 but that's Yeah. It's a great way to think about hiring. So you, I made a note, page 35 in the book. The why the why is everything? I was like, the, why is everything? But we can forget that. Especially I think going back to sort of that scarcity mindset of like, okay, I'm a smaller employer.

00:41:03 I may not, you know, or my salaries have the highest am I offering all the right benefits? You know, challenges that smaller businesses have. But yeah. Can you talk about that mindset of, of how to create a great place to work and attract people? So, first of all, let's, let's get rid of the myths about money,

00:41:23 right? Because there is a myth there and the myth is, and the data shows this as we're talking and there's some studies that go back 40, 50, 60 years and they have so much data on, do people really take a job for money? And the answer is a resounding no last year, there was some new data that came out that said the majority of people who take a job for more money.

00:41:44 So they switched jobs. It's less than a 20% increase. These aren't $150,000 a year workers. These are like 15 to $20 an hour workers. So the money isn't substantial when you start looking at that. And the other part of the data is those people that do jump ship for money, gets what they normally do. Again, jump ship again. And so that's such a minority issue.

00:42:09 It's such a small percentage of the pie that you're right. It just becomes the scarcity myth that we feed ourselves. I would argue that because of the last 18 months, people are valuing experience and culture even more at this point in time. And so actually the leverage is to the business owner. If you create a great culture and you invest in value people,

00:42:31 you're going to be able to find people like crazy moving forward. So let's get rid of that first. The why is the most important? Here's the challenge. Most people don't sit with their why they don't, it's vulnerable. It's like, okay, so why are you really running a business? Why are you really stepping into this? What, what is your purpose and vision for this?

00:42:58 That's a vulnerable place to be. It's kind of what I call sitting in the ashes, right? You're just like, oh my gosh, why do I want to start a business? Why do I want to build this community? What is there really a need or want, I mean, what's going on, but you have to identify that. Why?

00:43:12 Because I talk a lot about alignment. You're not, you're going to struggle finding people that align with your place of business. If you don't know your why, that's the first piece of clarity you have to have. So then when you know your why that's going to reflect on who you hire. So let's say you hire Susie to be your operations manager,

00:43:33 and you've got this detailed list of what you need her to do every single day, et cetera, et cetera. It's not just a list. It's okay, Susie. This is why it fits our culture. Okay, Susie, this is why this is so valuable for you to get done every day. Okay, Susie, this is why this is giving value to our tenants and to our community.

00:43:54 And when someone understands that why they're seeing the reflection of the overall purpose, and now they feel like they can walk in the door every day and go, I'm important. I'm valuable because if I don't get this done, I understand what the clarity that something's not going to work properly gone is the day that you can say, Susie, get this done,

00:44:15 has to be done. That, that, and I love it. I love it. That we have a generation of people that are like, okay, well, so what's the reason in this? Why are you asking me to type up this document all the time? I don't get it. And so give people that purpose that why? And I think a lot of business leaders,

00:44:29 especially small business leaders, they get really weird about vulnerability because a lot of small business leaders are, it's a local family business. Maybe it's been in their family for generations. And so there's a lot of mysticism there and they're like, well, we can't tell our people too much. And I'm like, that's, that's a, that's a pile because you need to tell your people as much as possible because when you do,

00:44:53 that's going to give them that purpose and that vision. And they're going to now take pride in what they're doing when people know the why they're going to go with finishing the task to the best of their ability. Yeah. And there, and the retention there because they get, they get right. You're connecting with their why. And I think that's why I kind of like highlighted.

00:45:17 It's like, yeah. I mean, you talked, yeah. You talked about why people work and you mentioned greater purpose, which we're so fortunate in our business. We can, we can show demonstrate that like in very authentically, all day long, but to your point, I, yeah, maybe we don't, you know, maybe owners don't think about sort of sharing their why,

00:45:43 because to your point, a lot of new owners are, yeah. Maybe they're not comfortable talking about it out loud or haven't articulated it out loud or they're still like, I dunno, is this thing gonna work? Right. Talk somebody into, you know, you're, you have to get somebody on board with your vision. But I think that lines up with leadership,

00:46:04 they can trust, appreciation and mentorship. You know, those were all under, in, in your section about why people work. And to your point, those don't really line up with dollars. There might be some dollars in terms of, you know, training or a thank you gift card or, you know, whatever it is, but it's not,

00:46:25 you know, a constant salary discussion. And the crazy thing is if you operate in the way that we've laid out in the book, you're going to increase opportunity and revenue. You're going to increase experience of your clients, your tenants, whatever, which is actually going to empower you to potentially pay people more money. I mean, that's the crazy thing is people are like,

00:46:50 well, I'm worried about, you know, am I going to be able to pay them enough? We'll do the right things. And the answer is, yes, you will be able to pay them enough because it's going to make sense. And we also have to remember, like you just pointed out currency, there are countless forms of currency. And we often limit our mindset too.

00:47:08 Money is the only currency, but that's not true. Humanity is a currency. Gratitude is a currency. Work ethic is a currency. Appreciation is a currency. So we can go down the line. And the more you give value to those things, a simple thank you may actually go further than that 15% raise because you know, let's just play this out.

00:47:28 We're all humans, we're all flesh and blood. We all have experiences. If we go back to higher Susie, let's say, Susie has, you know, not a great relationship in our personal life, great worker. We've recruited her. We think she's going to be awesome. That's simple. Thank you may actually be the greatest currency that Susie has in her life.

00:47:47 And when that comes from the person that hired her, you know, there's still a little bit of a mental place of a 40 there for that employee. And now salts on like, wow, Jamie really appreciates me. I'll do anything for her. And that's a different story that we're telling all of a sudden. And that's why that why is so important.

00:48:03 You know, it'd be kind of funny, kind of funny, kind of fun to across the coworking industry to ask the leaders, Hey, have you taken your team and explain to them why you began this business? That'd be an interesting thing to find out because my guess is like a lot of business industries, many of them have, and that's an input.

00:48:23 That's where it starts. We, we created this coworking place because there was a need in our community and the entrepreneurial industry was growing and we felt like we wanted to meet that need. And we were able to, oh, wow, that's a full vision. So now where are you going with it? Well, here's where we're going with it. And that's where the story begins.

00:48:40 And that just starts tapping into that potential and that opportunity of connection. Yeah. And that connection piece is the other part of, I think the benefit that the benefit of being a smaller business is because they, they have that direct align. And for some folks that's a big why to right. To feel like I always, after business school, I worked for a big food company and I just,

00:49:09 yeah. Felt like just, just like cog in the wheel. I am a small company. I want to feel like I have a lot of ownership and everything I do every day is like really important, not just a teeny bit important. And I'm not sitting in a meeting with 20 people and the meeting doesn't really mean anything. It's like, no everything's important.

00:49:27 And direct access to an owner is a, is a big deal. That's what I love about the mentorship piece, right? If you, you know, and in my opinion, if you have a team of a hundred to 200 or less, which, you know, obviously the majority of the people we're talking with today, do God, that mentorship piece is so empowering because you have the ability to impact every single person on it on a consistent level.

00:49:52 Maybe you're not in your location every day. Maybe you have multiple locations, but somehow or another, my encouragement to leaders is that even if you have multiple locations that somehow or another, you impact those people multiple times a week, I would say daily, if possible, that might just be through a phone call. It might be through a text message.

00:50:11 It may be through a simple email or whatever. It doesn't take long, 30 seconds and you can make an impact. And that's the advantage of small businesses. And small teams is as the leader, you can make a direct path, empowering ripple effect really quickly in a really short period of time. That's going to go a long way. Yeah. It's yes.

00:50:33 The, one of the rewarding aspects of what can be challenging to be a small business owner. Okay. Mitch, I feel like I could talk about this all day long, very thought provoking. And I think everybody's probably thinking about, so, I mean, so tell us, okay, so the book, where can we get the book for those watching online looks like Any,

00:51:00 anywhere you older books, how to hire and keep great people. Mitch gray, G R a Y. As I spell the last name, I encourage people. If you have a local bookstore, you know, most local bookstores are tapped into national distribution. Please go try and order it there first. So we can support local. But if you don't have that opportunity and you're a,

00:51:18 an online buyer, you can order it anywhere. Yeah. It's available. So we'll tell us if you're, you mentioned in the pre-chat that you're working on something even more detailed to help, are you ready to pre preview that? Or can you tell us where to follow you? If, if folks are interested in kind of what's next and, and getting even more practical about becoming a better,

00:51:41 better, higher, Let's announce it today? What do you say? So I actually wrote this book with a curriculum in mind. And when you read the book, I think you can tell what's very, you know, it's got a lot of step-by-step stuff. It's very kind of curriculum based. And so we're able to finally do that. We're, we're creating a curriculum.

00:52:02 That'll, it'll be, it'll probably be a couple of months before it's out. It'll be, you know, I'm not sure what the price will be on it yet, but it'll be nominal. It'll be well worth, people's time and money. And we'll have a standalone website for that curriculum as well. So it's going to be a really cool system that we're building that people can access.

00:52:19 And the great thing is they're going to be able to access the curriculum and they don't necessarily have to read the book. So, but if they read the book, they're most likely going to want to get into the curriculum because it's going to, it's going to dig into the nuts, Right? So I'm, I'm excited about that. We also have another website that's not up yet.

00:52:38 It's going to be recruit great people.com. And it's just going to have some free tools, some tips and tricks, a little bit of expansion on the book. But, but really our ideal with that website is, you know, if you're sitting there one day and you're frustrated with hiring, you could go to recruit great people, dot com, get some encouragement,

00:52:55 get some tips and take some action immediately. Or if you're sitting with your team, maybe you have someone helping you hire or whatever. So it's going to kind of be a resource site. It'll be a little bit skinny when we first bring it out. Cause I just want to get it launched and then we're going to add to it. So it's going to be a really evolving thing.

00:53:12 And then I always do consulting and coaching. So if there's a leader that just wants one-on-one leadership consulting, we have some opportunity for that. And then, you know, if you want to work with your team or come in and help redesign your culture, if you want me to come, you know, I'll fly to Washington and go walk with you for the day and teach you how to recruit.

00:53:32 I love that. I Love that stuff. I'll buy your copy. So we do have some packages and opportunity for that. And, and so we've got, yeah, it's the next few months are going to be really, really fun, really fun. So much I have in our show notes, your website, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Where are you?

00:53:51 Most often LinkedIn and Instagram were probably the best. Yeah, probably best on Mitch gray media.com is what you have on probably I'm sure. And there's some great resources there. And we'll kind of, you know, if you follow me on LinkedIn or Instagram, especially, you'll see the announcements rolling out of where to go, but oh Yeah. And your M gray media gray with NDAs on Instagram.

00:54:14 And that's all in the show notes, which you can find on our website. So Mitch, thank you. I've gotten a ton out of our talk today and from your bus. So you can take, Thank you, Jamie. This has been wonderful and I would love to work with some folks and, and let's, let's get hiring rights so we can reduce the stress level of everything A hundred percent.

00:54:37 Yes. Awesome. Thanks Mitch. Thank you. Hey there. Thanks for sticking with us through the end of the episode, don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast player. And if you were enjoying the podcast, please go leave us a review. It helps other folks find the podcast who are thinking about starting a coworking space or already operating a coworking space and are looking to stay up to speed on tips and trends.

00:55:07 And we started a YouTube channel. We'd love to have you catch us on video. You can join us for podcast, videos, and Q and a videos and other things that we post to the channel. We'd love to see you there.

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