Welcome to savvy business life unscripted with your host, Cristina Rivera where our guests share their wisdom and valuable business tips, empowering our audience to expand their personal potential. Hi been and eric Hoffman, welcome back to savvy broadcasting the audience doesn't know this, but we had a slight mishap and we had to do a do over but I'm so grateful you guys could come here today, you're the, gets it guys, I love the title of your website, gets it guys dot com. So if anyone wants to go check it out after the interview, um and we're going to talk today about your book, who gets it? How to find motivate and retain top talent? Oh boy, there we go, boys and girls. And you know, as business owners, a lot of our audience is business owners. That's one of the biggest problems I hear from business owners. How do I retain and keep my top talent? Uh they've gotten out of the box are so phenomenal, we don't wanna lose them, but then a little bit down the line, they go off somewhere else. We don't want that to happen. As we talked about when we first had our conversation how hard it is, once you get a top talent to retain them and how much it costs to get, you know, to train the new staff.

All right on right on Christina, it's definitely a issue. For sure. Oh my God, so Sharon how you came together to starting your book and creating your book and working together. How did that all come about? Well we were in a family business in the trade show industry, we produce trade shows and so we find ourselves at new cities, new locations and no, no one and have hundreds sometimes of union employees standing in front of us ready to go ready to move this thing in three or four days and we had to find people that got it That really people that get it and understand how to get things done. And so we talked to them quickly, we watch their body language as they walk in and this is all in the 15 or so minute period. We have to really move through talent really fast and we started utilizing as we grow our business to the same type of thing. You really try to look for those people that get it. They understand how to problem solve, how to take things, how to motivate people, how to get things done in a short period of time and efficiently And along the way we determined that it was about one of the 10 that was, a gets it person and then, and To test that when you go to a restaurant, you go out somewhere, think consciously about yourself about your, your server and you'll find like one out of 10 really is exceptionally there.

The gets that person and on the other end of the spectrum we found that one of the 10 didn't get it And we defined it and we talked about what those traits and characteristics are and that was the foundation of our bell curve. So we had one of the 10 on the left side doesn't get it. And as you move up the bell curve, the next level is doesn't care. It's a little bit better than doesn't get it. But it's not that much, there's a few more there than the largest zone is what we call the comfort zone. And that's people that are doing good work. It's the majority of your workforce, they're coming in, doing their job and they're going home and there's something wrong with that but they're not the next level which is engaged. Energized. Excuse me and energizes when you start a job for the first time where you come out of college and you're just ready to go and go get it. Now remember that energized feeling and then as you push the final of the five zones is gets it, you're a problem solver, you're taking risks, you're doing things to enhance your brand and represent yourself and your company Well, yeah.

And you know, you could start as a gets it person and really be excited and being a star employee and then sometimes drop off. How does that come about that? That happens? Well, that's a great example. See we believe there's movement up and down this curve at all times, sometimes daily, weekly, monthly. So a great manager is going to monitor what's happening with their team at all times. So they're ahead of the game. We talked earlier about motivating or how do you retain the town? Will you retain them by keeping a great communication. So you understand where they are on the curve? Have they fallen, have they lost an account? And they fell into don't care anymore. They just don't care about their job. So let's bring them back up, let's assign them a new account and motivate them back up the curve to energize and possibly back to get it. So sometimes you'll find talent in the zone, it looks like they've dropped down. But in the actuality everybody's moving based on what's happening in their life and their business organization. Yeah. So what is the first questions that business owners need to ask when they maybe see an employee that was against an employee but starts to move down that ladder?

What can they do to start moving them back up? Uh empathy number one is what we promote with leadership. Good leadership is getting to know your employees and asking them those questions. Hey, instead of accusing them of having bad numbers and something's wrong here. Get a little deeper, use your emotional intelligence. Use empathy to say, hey, how are you? You seem to be and doesn't care mode right now with regards to this particular aspect of your job, Maybe it's sales, Maybe it's working with other departments, whatever it might be, your, your conflicting with other departments, you're kind of, this doesn't care mode versus the current vernacular is in a rating scale europe to you tell someone there are two out of five you're in for a fight no matter what it is. And the point evaluation versus our vernacular is a lot softer, A little more emotionally intelligent saying, hey, you're in, doesn't care. And most times people say, you know what I really am, I just don't care. I don't care for that person or I'm just not engaged my sales. I did lose a big account in the hay.

How did you get that big account? Let's go back in time and learn. What did you do to get where you were when you did when that account? Well, I did my research and I did this and then let's reinvent that. Let's go back, let's improve that process. It takes a lot of coaching and helping and empathy to get people back up And when you ask people, you know, for help, hugely, hugely important. Yeah. You know, even being a little vulnerable as the manager, you know, if I ask an employee for help or delegate something and they trust me, they feel great about it. It's a motivator versus, oh, I'm so busy. You don't know what I have to deal with and what was me and the person sitting there saying, why doesn't he delegates? I'll just do it myself because it's just faster that way. I'll just do it myself. Yeah. You get the sense that he doesn't trust you and that you don't feel that he believes in you and it's going to come across in the work turn that person that isn't doesn't care mode into the person they were when they joined the company and they should have been energized and we always say if you didn't hire someone in the energized hide the wrong person, you blew it, you know, so get that person back in the mindset that they were when they started their, what they, what were they like and what would they were so gung ho get that energy back and what I'm wondering because I remember a company I worked with, I done a whole redo of all the management.

So I had started with a group of managers and you know Ceo whatever, whatever top um C suite peeps and they got all new peeps and then they did a review of us two months later and I'd always gotten like BB plus a like really pretty up there. They raided us A B C D E F, you know whatever like in back in school and the new woman had just started gave me a c minus. I was like and all I could think is, but what are you talking about? I'm awesome. Aren't I awesome, Why am I not awesome? So it was just like totally and then I got to that, I don't care mode because I was like, well why bother? And so you could, you know what Christina. Everybody goes up and down this curve. If you sit here and say, I am always against a person. I'm always, you know, driving, driving. You're not things happen in your life. And so if you have a boss that or uh, someone that understands even appear or mentor someone that understands what you're going through, they can help you through because they've been there before. They've all been there before I've been and don't care before I've been and doesn't get it.

You know, you, you get to a place where you're creating havoc on your brand. Your, you don't get it. You've got to get out of that quick. Somebody's got to help you get out or you're going to leave and like you said, you lose great talent and it costs a lot of money to replace people and a lot of times you'll have people that don't get it or even don't care. That will pull that majority, which is in comfort zone, Those good workers, but they're toxic behavior and their negative attitudes. If you don't fix it, they'll start to pull those comfort zone people into doesn't care and that can be really dangerous. Yes. That will just damage the whole culture. I could totally see now you had mentioned when you are at these trade shows that you could within, you know, make a quick assessment who would be good talent and not. I'm curious because I had heard in the talk a while back that you could tell By someone's presenting themselves in four seconds. Is that true? You know, it's uh, it is true. Maybe maybe that four, maybe it's 12, maybe it's a three, but it's true. You can tell just the way somebody approaches you and when you, when you approach a group of people and, and they're preparing to start work and they're kind of just looking around and who's going to tell me what to do or is it, is it somebody moves forward and engages you and says, hey, you know, can I help what's going on or what are we doing today or what's the project today?

What show is this or whatever it might be. And we're like in that industry, we were like a concert. You know, he had only a finite amount of time to move this thing and and move it out with a whole bunch of strangers looking at you in the face. We really learned fast how to look at those cues. You could, you could look by who's got the tools, doesn't have tools and you're looking okay. That guy has a crystal clean toolbox. He's on time. He's setting himself, Well, he's not drinking a cup of coffee. He's attentive. He's ready to get all of sudden. You're like that person gets in, look at that guy over there and give the animal nudge. Okay. And then the guy, the guy sleeping, still waiting for the things to start sleeping on a chair, it doesn't get, you know, there you go. That's like look for the obvious first and then the middle is a little harder. So I think they were extreme back then when you're doing that kind of work, it was sort of extreme. And then as we managed hundreds of people through our careers, you realize that there's different versions of that same type of mentality and you can move people, you can motivate, motivate, I love the motivated because you know, it's interesting and we talked earlier how important it is when you get someone that if you have to lose them, it's going to cost a lot to train them.

So it behooves all of management, business owners to figure out how to motivate their top talent. How did they begin to do that? Let's say they start to see some of their top talent, not looking so rosy or happy. What are some of the ways they can start to motivate their crew? You know, uh, there's self motivating, hey, I can motivate myself, there's team motivation and there's community motivation, like the whole community, what can I do to bring these groups of people together to move this business forward and what we found is there's a rebound effect. If I motivate someone, I feel good, it motivates me back. And so as we explain that to people, they realize like as I motivated this person to try to help them to do better at their job or position or train them or talk them about training process that were involved in whatever it might be. If I can provide a jump, I feel good too. So why wouldn't you do it? Why wouldn't you do that? But the easy tactical stuff is to support dance. Uh, comment. There is recognition.

I think it's number one. It actually makes more to most people than money does. And money is a simple one. But money only lasts for so long. And the big mistake that a lot of managers make is they give the money and then they start to dump more on behind it, right Instead of then you then you didn't give the money for the right reason. And oh, this person wants to take a job somewhere else. I'll throw some money at them. Great. They'll come back. Now I'm gonna dump. I'll show down. That's a, that's, it doesn't get it manager. And it happens a lot as you can imagine. And, and title change the title. And when you change the title, it's a big step, it's a big jump milk that thing for all it's worth, right, push it out on internal media, you know, congratulations to so, and so put it in the news to push that out there every time that person sees their name and their new title, they feel good. They're getting energized. You can milk that thing for months. Sometimes they don't, people managers don't do that. They just give the title and they walk away. This is so imperative that people really get this because no, no, it's true.

I just heard a talk today where someone was doing a I think it was ted talk and they were mentioning how she's a boss owns a company and she had given her star employee a race. She was so excited. She was moving money about, she's like, I'm so excited. I took her out to lunch. I couldn't wait to tell her I'm going to give her some money. And she's like so Sarah, you've done such a great job, I want to thank you by giving you a raise and a increase in your salary and said, okay thanks. And she's like, wait, you know, like she felt really bummed like what to say, why is she not jumping for joy? She should be excited. So she went home and she thought about it, she's like, well you know, maybe that's not what's important to her. So she called her back in, she said, you know, I gave you a raise because I really want to show my appreciation, but you didn't seem too happy, what would you, what would make you happy and you know, in this organization. And she said, well I've been looking to move into management. I'd like to explore that. And so let's do it, and so, you know, so that was just such a great story, which, implementing what you're talking about a great example and you know, really, that's one of another motivator that's really important is a career path discussion.

Surprisingly enough, very few career path discussions are done out there in a way that is consistent, not once a year at review time, we're talking like every month or so, like what, what makes you tick? What try to exact what eric's earlier, little empathy and what are you trying to come from? What are your objectives? Maybe I can create something that you'll be able to follow in the path that I took, is it management? That's what I went to management from this area of business. So this is how I took the steps to get there. So you outline the steps now, you're on the same page of that motivation process and along the way you're doing training, here's management trainings, lots of stuff online, go to a class, whatever it might be. Now they feel engaged, they feel empowered, they're committed to that company because they're investing in that person and they're constantly energizing that person of the curve. So they're always on the edge of in the comfort zone, we call it motivated or on the brink of energized. So you're right on the edge and you'll have brief moments of, gets it, they'll get to get to a point and all of a sudden will solve a problem and they'll they'll do some great work and you keep that person on the upper, You know, 15% of the of the performance curve.

Yeah, I love that you mentioned that bring that to the table your career path because one of my boss is a long time ago, I thought I want to be, I said to my boss, I was so arrogant, my twenties, I like I want your job and he's like Ceo or something, he's like, yeah, you're a little bit far from this job. Uh but I had said that and then he called me in, this is before my review and he said, you know, you're doing great work, but I heard you mentioned that you eventually want to move to C suite uh but let me give you some tips that you know, you kind of don't dress the part of a leader, a leader needs to dress the part, it's not just the clothes you wear it the way you present yourself. And so he gave me a whole like what you just laid it out, what it would look like if I were walking in the Ceo, you have to just be that. And so when he laid it out for me for what for when I was a little um take him back that I wasn't looking the part already, but also empowered because now I had some ideas of what I could do to actually be that part. You're right. A candid conversation from someone you trust and admire. Even if they're not, your boss could be just a mentor that candidacy is so important in helping to support a person to high performance absolutely has to happen.

And if you can't accept that criticism, that's your issue and have the bosses issue, that's your issue, you need to look in yourself and say this person legitimate wants to see me grow. I need to listen to them. And the second area of critical thinking that we talked about in a book in addition to our bell curve is what we call our CPL diagram and it stands for culture policy and logic and that's how we define companies that get it or don't get it. And it starts in the center of our CPL diagram with with our culture and we we select core values within that organization and the and the core values that you say that you have are they represented in your policy that you have that is acceptable to the to the general public because on the outer rim the logic part that's the general public, that's the community that's going to voice their concerns or their praises it. Especially nowadays it's the voice is huge.

So that logic is going to say that doesn't make sense or that does make sense based on your core values. That makes a lot of sense. That policy looks like you're trying to help support your customer service area or Core values are all about customer service. But yet you have 15 surcharges to get my bag from L. A. to Toronto, you know, bag charges. So you know which is it that you're going to be and you need to stand firm with that. And if your if your core value is you know, customers first or customer service is number one. Are you really relying that and then when you are engaged in with a particular customer and they failed to have good customer service, you go back and say you failed the CPL diagram, you failed the test. So we constantly challenging companies. Are you against the company or not? A gutsy company we love is trader joe's and it's in the book and trader joe's core value. One of them is being the neighborhood grocery store and they are there people are engaging, they laugh, they have fun.

You feel like it's a pleasure to go to shop at trader joe's. It really is. Yeah, they really, really do get it. And I love that because there's been places I've, I've been at or worked with where there's like customer service customer service but they don't give that same attention to their employees. So they'll say that their employees go out there and get the best customer service. But then they'll dump on the employees and the employees are the front line to your customers. So if you dump on them, it's gonna be really hard for them to give exceptional service to your customers. When you see some of these policies, you just want to go into the company and say, who is the person that did this policy? Like I want to find them because this makes no sense whatsoever, logically. All these penalties and surcharges that you're hitting me with where there's claims that you're making that really aren't true. And you see it so often and so many people, especially in many industries, but so many people will have these discussions with customer service over and over and over again. And what will the upper echelon C suite say when they hear those things?

Oh yeah, we always hear that. But this is a revenue generator. The extra charges on baggage. So we don't want to lose that. Well Southwest doesn't do it and they seem to doing fine. So you know, they're really, there are other ideas out there and idea generation is the way to improve your customers or your core values to match up with your policies. Absolutely. Well, you know, we could go on forever because you guys have such exceptional insights but I don't want us to leave without everyone finding out how they can get their very own copy of who gets it? Where did you get a copy? They get a copy of amazon and you can also visit our website, gets a guys dot com. Follow us linked in. We've got great videos. We put out talk series where we talk about distressing issues, like returning work, returning from a covid, how to get people who are taking unemployment. Getting people who are taking unemployment are total, doesn't care and you can take you a sledgehammer to get them out. That's interesting. I I want to just end with that. How do we get people motivated off their couches when they're getting a paycheck and they don't have to work because I've heard some people say to me, well, you know, I could just, you know, they have a job, but they're saying maybe I should just give it up instead of my college and watch netflix.

I'm like, no. Yeah, be the employer of choice. Be true to your core values. Have a career path, everything. We've talked career path discussions. You know, the other thing too is join us. You know, some of those people you may not want true, you may not want you to be there. That's always stay with your dog. All right, well I, I for one get very bored just sitting around doing nothing. So I'm not one of those people, but I thank you both so much dan and eric, um, for coming today to share, agree with them on tv broadcasting, thank you. You're awesome. We're big fans, Christina. Tell me what you said when we talked last that you have a nickname for yourself. It was very close to get to person you said I was, I'm going to make it happen, make it happen. So you're a gets at first. For sure. Well that's what they say, that number of the companies I work with when they have issues, you're the make it happen gal. I was like I love that you're well, everyone, please go to get sick guys dot com and get their book today and find out more and thank you so much dan.

And eric for coming to savvy Broadcasting like subscribe and share this episode to listen to more savvy episodes and savvy biz tips. Go to www dot life Unscripted radio dot com to find out about our paid sponsorship opportunities or how to become a guest, email Christina at life Unscripted radio dot com. Yeah.