214. The Science of Hiring for Natural Strengths and Talents w/ Guest: Dr. Michael Neal

Tired of wasting time and money on hiring the wrong people? Dr. Michael Neal knows your pain. As both an optometrist running his own practice and the founder of Build My Team, he's cracked the code on finding and keeping top talent without the traditional headaches.

The journey began in rural Alberta, Canada, where Dr. Neal grew up in a town so small it didn't even have a traffic light. His path to entrepreneurship started unexpectedly as a high school co-op student working as a secretary in an eye care office (a position he admits he was terrible at). What drew him to optometry was the perfect combination of helping people while running a business.

But like so many healthcare professionals and business owners, Dr. Neal found himself trapped in the nightmare of constant hiring and rehiring. "Talk to any doctor who's in their own practice. It's the number one problem we all face," he explains. After pulling out his hair in frustration, he began studying how elite hospitality companies like Disney and Four Seasons hired their exceptional staff.

What he discovered fundamentally changed his approach: ditch the resumes, stop trying to "fix" mediocre performers, and focus instead on natural strengths and talents. "Using resumes to hire entry-level positions is a complete waste of time," Dr. Neal asserts. "What does a resume actually tell you? The answer is nothing, virtually nothing."

Perhaps most surprising is Dr. Neal's counterintuitive advice on experience: for most entry-level positions, you're actually better off hiring someone without experience. Why? Because experienced hires bring bad habits that need to be "untrained" before they can adapt to your way of doing things.

The impact of proper hiring extends beyond just individual performance. As Dr. Neal explains, "A players on a team only want to work with A players. They'll tolerate B players, but as soon as you ask them to work with a C player, they're gone." Want to transform your company culture? Start by hiring better people.

Ready to transform your hiring process? Visit buildmyteam.com to schedule a free consultation and learn how their assessment-based approach can help you find the right people with 97% certainty.

Chapters

• 0:00 Podcast Introduction
• 3:40 Dr. Neal's Journey to Optometry
• 7:50 Origins of Build My Team
• 12:20 Common Hiring Mistakes
• 17:40 Hiring for Strengths vs Experience
• 25:15 Building Team Culture with A-Players
• 31:50 Legacy and Leadership Lessons
• 38:26 Closing and Contact Information

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Yeah, it's Mindset Cafe. We all about that mindset. Gotta stay focused. Now go settle for the last. It's all in your head how you think you manifest. So get ready to rise, cause we about to be the best. Gotta switch it up. Gotta break the old habits. Get your mind right. Turn your dreams into habits. No negative vibes, only positive vibes. What is up, guys?

Speaker 1: 0:20

Welcome to another episode of the Mindset Cafe podcast. It's your boyin, and today we are joined by a special guest, dr mike, dr michael neal. He is a practicing optometrist, he is an entrepreneur and he is an expert in really the hiring strategy. As the founder and ceo of build my team, dr neal has transformed his own hiring strategies into a game changing solution that now serves his clients in eight healthcare professions across 40 states and Canada. So that is no small feat. So you know, without further ado, I don't want to get too much into his stories. I love hearing it from them, you know. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for taking the time out of your day. Thanks so much, evan. I'm excited to be here. So let's dive in, right? You know what was your? I always like to you know before we get into, like the accolades and everything like that. What was your bring up? You know what led you to. You know go the doctor route and you know entrepreneur route. But what was your bring up? What was your childhood like?

Speaker 2: 1:19

Oh, I lived. So I grew up in rural, like literally rural Pennsylvania, sorry, canada, alberta, canada. As a kid I lived in a town of 500 people. We didn't have a traffic light, so that gives you an example of what rural means up there and I had a great, just just. It was a wonderful place to grow up.

Speaker 1: 1:43

Didn't like it at the time, but in hindsight it was truly fantastic. That's so awesome. And what? What did your parents do when you grew up?

Speaker 2: 1:48

So my dad, uh, folks were divorced early. Uh, mom's a school teacher and dad, uh did sales, essentially.

Speaker 1: 1:56

Okay, and did he? You know, was it like door to door sales. You know, just I'm kind of painting a picture right now.

Speaker 2: 2:01

Yeah, like life insurance sales, primarily that type of thing.

Speaker 1: 2:06

Okay, very nice. And so you know, growing up seeing your parents, you know you had both parents working and really, you know, had them to kind of develop you as well. But what was that Did you go to? Obviously you went to college. You're a doctor. You know what was your initial like start in college? Did you always know you wanted to be a doctor?

Speaker 2: 2:24

I started in eye care as a student. Co-op ed is the program In high school. You have a program trying to get you into the workforce, see if you like something, that type of thing. Well, I did that and started, believe it or not, as a secretary. I was awful at it. Looking back, it was uh, you know, build my team is all about your natural strengths and talents. I had none for that position, zero we. I mean. What I was brought on for essentially and I found this out later was to help computerize the practice okay and so like, did you have a background in computers?

Speaker 1: 3:02

or just because you were young, they assumed that you knew computers yeah, a lot of that background in computers. Or just because you were young, they assumed that you knew computers yeah, a lot of that background in computers as well, but like what kid doesn't.

Speaker 2: 3:10

But yeah, the practice had no idea how to do any of that and I helped them do that.

Speaker 1: 3:16

Okay, so you were working as a secretary. What was that transition to, you know? Move into your next step.

Speaker 2: 3:23

Well, I realized that I really liked iCare and iCare is a for an entrepreneur. It's kind of interesting because you get to run a business, but the business is helping people and making them see, so it's a hell of a great. It's kind of. I honestly think it's a bit of a noble profession. That sounds arrogant, but you know, we're helping people see.

Speaker 2: 3:45

So this isn't something that that was a tough decision per se. I'm always fascinated by how the visual system works, and if you're not fascinated, just read up on it. And I don't know how a person couldn't be fascinated by it. But yeah, I got to help people and run a business. That's really what it came down to, and I knew I wanted to do both.

Speaker 1: 4:03

No, that's so awesome. So now you're running a business, and what was that? I mean because you got into optometry and you're scaling that business. What led into you understanding that you had a different way to go about hiring and everything like that?

Speaker 2: 4:18

Yeah, eye rolls for anybody listening on audio. So why did we get it? I didn't get into it on purpose. I didn't get into it to build a company. I got into it to solve the most miserable problem you can shake a stick at for a healthcare practice, and that's a revolving door of hiring. Talk to any doctor who's in their own practice. It's the number one problem that we all face.

Speaker 2: 4:42

And so we just we're just hiring the wrong people over and over. We were using resumes to hire, we were interviewing people. We were manipulated in interviews. We tried to fix everybody. We try to be doctors, not, you know, not business leaders per se. We didn't know we were doing it wrong. We had no training in this.

Speaker 2: 5:01

So what went right? Random chance, just a randomly, occasionally, somebody great would come in and make and make the cut. But we really didn't know what we were doing at all. And so that transition to build my team. Oh boy, I got to the point back in 2016, where I just pulled, as you can see, pulled all my hair out, couldn't believe that other companies were doing this well, and like what the heck was wrong with our practice? We were hiring the complete wrong way. We didn't know it, as I said. So I did some executive coaching with some organizations, found out how they were hiring, did some research on companies like Disney, the Four Seasons, ritz-carlton, like really high-end customer service type positions where they take wonderful care of people. It's an amazing experience when you go to these types of establishments and over the course of a while it took a while reverse engineered how they were hiring and that's how it got started.

Speaker 1: 6:08

That's interesting. I mean, it's always interesting to me. Like entrepreneurs, you don't necessarily have to reinvent the wheel. Sometimes, right, it's analyzing what other people are doing in different industries. That's working, and how can I apply that to my industry? How can I? What lessons can I take bits and pieces of to essentially make my own masterpiece Right? And so that's what it kind of sounds like you did.

Speaker 2: 6:35

Well, there's a lot of people who can invent stuff from scratch, and I have invented things from scratch but let me tell you that to take something that's working in another industry, and working well, and apply it to your own industry or your own profession, you don't have to reinvent the wheel. It's so much faster and you don't have to, um, make the the million mistakes that are required to commercialize something. You know that type of thing, um. So we ended up taking this approach and it has worked out really, really well.

Speaker 1: 7:10

No, that's awesome. So I would say, let's start off with what were some of your biggest hiring mistakes that you made early on that really impacted this direction that you went.

Speaker 2: 7:19

Well, if we've got 10 hours for the podcast, I can list them all but.

Speaker 2: 7:23

I think number one was that we were hiring fixer uppers works great in real estate. You make a bundle of money. You do that in hiring, you're getting nowhere. We would hire the way doctors would like patients. We we naturally um are hell bent on helping and fixing people. You know them, treating them, all of that stuff. And what you found out the hard way is that you know we were looking at the C and D level performers and trying to bring them into a practice and coach them up to an A and B level performer. It doesn't work. It just doesn't work.

Speaker 2: 7:59

You want to be a professional time waster? That's one of the most awesome things I can think of to waste time and spin your wheels. So that's one thing. The second thing is when candidates come in and they're being interviewed by a doctor, they are a lot of times deer in the headlights type thing. They aren't going to give you anything close to accurate answers. Sometimes we flat out have pretty hardcore manipulation in those interviews. They tell you what you want to hear just to get the job, and so you know again, doctors don't have any formal experience interviewing and are very easy to manipulate. So that was another issue. Late, so that was another issue and I think also I know this now, didn't know it then but using resumes to hire entry-level positions is a complete waste of time.

Speaker 2: 9:03

Why do I say that? Well, what does a resume actually tell you? And in the proverbial old days it used to tell you a decent amount. Now it's made up. There's no way to confirm it. You try and call references, they're not going to tell you much of anything. The resume is entirely authored by the person trying to get the job, so they can say whatever they want. There's always a level of embellishment, and the hardest part was entry-level positions. Most times the resume doesn't say much of anything like there's just not content on there. I worked at this job, I worked at that job, but what does it tell me about what you're good at? And the answer is nothing, like virtually nothing. That's the problem with using resumes to hire for entry-level positions. Look, it's a completely different ball game. If you're hiring a ceo or a cmo or like c-level positions or senior, senior leaders, that's different, but for the entry-level positions it just didn't work well at all no, it's.

Speaker 1: 10:00

I mean, I can say from my own experience too I'm not huge on resumes that with my trainers and all that kind of stuff, because you can fluff up your resume to look amazing, and then you come in and it's like what was all that stuff, all those words on that paper. It's crazy.

Speaker 2: 10:20

How many times have you looked at a resume? You look down, you look up, you look down, you down, you look up and you're like are you the same person that? Like, am I wrong? Like, did I print the wrong resume? Am I like? The first thing I was thinking is I screwed something up? No, actually, this beautiful resume that's now written by chat gpt and edited by grok and run through perplexity and claude, and it's, it's the most gorgeous thing authored since, uh, romeo and juliet. And then you're talking to the person in front of you. I'm like hey, bud, you're not shakespeare, you can't even spell shakespeare. What is going on here? There's such a mismatch, you know this is so true.

Speaker 1: 11:00

it is so true I've definitely seen a handful of those and I'm like these are some big words, you for the fitness industry that this is just a base level position. So I was like this this person does know a lot and then all of a sudden, during the interview, start talking and then you're like are you, are you certified? You know, you know what?

Speaker 2: 11:18

Well, the better question is are you certifiable?

Speaker 1: 11:21

Because some of those folks like who, who wrote this resume, Did mom help you out, right, you know it's, it's so crazy. Um, yeah, you know. So there's a thought, I mean because I've heard this saying and and there's, I guess, two sides of the coin as well for it. And I want to get your take with hiring. You know, people say that the best people already have jobs or aren't looking for jobs. Right, and I mean to to a degree, I get what, what, why they would say that, but at the same time, that's not always the position. So how do you weed out, you know, someone that's good, someone that's, you know, doing that fluff?

Speaker 2: 12:11

fluff. Yeah, I would argue that that type of mindset is letting yourself off the hook when you think that, oh, all the good jobs, all the good people are taken, okay, well, look, as an entrepreneur, you still got a problem to solve. You can't scale a business without people. It's impossible. So what we've done with Build my team is we created an end to end process where we will find people for our clients based upon natural strengths and talents, what they're actually good at, not what they tell you they're good at, because that's usually just made up. It's what they're actually good at, and we do that through a series of assessments. Um, that's all done automatically. We write the job description initially for the clients, we publish it to over 20 different job boards and then candidates just start applying and those candidates are asked to take a set of assessments. It's all branded for our clients and they go through the assessment process or they don't, and that's the first filter.

Speaker 1: 13:09

So it's almost like a pre-screening, essentially.

Speaker 2: 13:13

Well, we don't only just pre-screen screen, but we can actually select the people with 97% certainty once they go through the process. The whole purpose of it is for our clients to be able to spend less than an hour's worth of net time on hiring for a position, and it's completely automated. So when we have candidates applying, the whole purpose is to get as many candidates as possible. It's a massive filter, if you will, or funnel I should say, and so we pour as many people into the top of the funnel as possible and at the other end of the funnel, the bottom end of it, out pops just a handful of people and by that point in time we know they can do the job. Our software literally gives us a thumbs up behind the scenes on whether or not they can do the job, and we know that with, like I said, about 97% certainty do the job, and we know that with, like I said, about 97% certainty. So the next step past that is to do we send them a one-way video interview and we we're looking.

Speaker 2: 14:16

We don't care what they look like, we don't care if they're male or female, we don't care if they're purple, pink, green, it's completely immaterial. What we care about is how they're going to represent your business. And you know, luckily, in a fitness industry you've got a lot more leeway than, let's say, a doctor's office. But what we're really looking for is is this person going to be able to do the job well? Is it a natural fit for them? So, for example, we recommend somebody to your business. They walk in and we know that they can do the job and we know that it's just a natural fit for them. They're just going to show up for work and be themselves.

Speaker 1: 14:58

Just be themselves all day long and perform. So why would it be a mistake to I mean looking at a resume right and doing I mean I get the whole the screening and're hiring for a job and you know they perform and everything like that but would it be a mistake?

Speaker 2: 15:15

to hire someone solely off of experience.

Speaker 1: 15:18

Well, boy, that's a leading question.

Speaker 2: 15:20

So our feeling on experience company-wide, and mine personally, is, unless it's a licensed position, okay, so you have some certifications, let's say physical trainers or otherwise I understand that. But unless it's a licensed position, you are virtually always better off to go with somebody without experience for entry-level positions. We've proven that so thoroughly throughout North America. I just wouldn't go back to the other way and I'll tell you why. So for almost all entry level positions, you can train the person very quickly. Well, one of the things we measure because there's a caveat to this is their speed of learning. We actually measure that as part of the assessments. If they are not an intelligent human being, that's okay, but they're not going to work for most of our clients. On the other hand, if they're immensely level geniuses, that's great the world needs a lot of those folks but that's also not going to work because they're going to leave most of our clients because the job isn't challenging enough for them. So there's a sweet spot.

Speaker 2: 16:28

And when it comes to the experience side of things, now you get somebody in with experience. They tend to be folks who are very financially motivated. They can jump from one job to another, because the people that do hire experience it's. It's very easy to get them, but when they're coming into your business you have to untrain them. So, especially with small businesses that don't have a lot of systems and processes in place, you have somebody coming in as a business owner. Do you want them to do it your way or do you want them to do it the way that they used to at the previous business? Right, right, and sometimes that can be okay. Most times it categorically is not, and so you end up having to take a person and try and unlearn things, try and stop those bad habits before you build new ones. It just takes forever to do something like that versus bringing in somebody who doesn't have those bad habits and is a natural fit for the position.

Speaker 1: 17:29

They are off to the races in no time no, I, I agree, like and I think that's one of the biggest things even for, like our trainers, we, we actually have two levels of trainers here. We have non-certified and certified, and we took the doctor approach you know, and you know we always have to have one certified trainer on the floor, but it's like sometimes we'd rather hire a non-certified trainer that is competent, that is energetic, that is, all these things we can teach. The rest they can get.

Speaker 2: 17:59

The certification later on you know, yes, yes, and they're going to love you for it, because you took them from here and you moved them up to here, up to here, up to here as they go through this, versus somebody who comes in, who has the certification and clock punches, just walks in punches a clock. In the fitness industry, especially, enthusiasm is critical, so you want to get me. I'm a I'm a long distance runner. Um got the Boston marathon coming up in April. When I started running in 2022, there was no enthusiasm. There was, oh my God, like I can't even. No, I don't want to do this, no, and there were some folks in my life who were unbelievably enthusiastic about it. And, lo and behold, I absolutely love it now. Without enthusiasm, I would still be on the couch, running between the couch and the fridge. That's hilarious.

Speaker 2: 19:00

It was a very heavy remote control for the TV.

Speaker 1: 19:03

You know what I mean heavy remote control for the TV. You know what I mean. Yeah, yeah, that's, I mean, it's true. I mean it is true, but I mean it. All the other stuff comes later. But there's certain qualities that you need to have to be successful in a certain job. So what would those top performance factors be that you could predict, you know long, like a long-term employee's success?

Speaker 2: 19:27

that you could predict, you know, like a long-term employee's success. Well, I mean, it depends on the type of business. So in healthcare, for example, being detail-oriented is critical. If you are not detail-oriented, I'm telling you it's not going to work out. If you can't follow process generally doesn't work so well, because healthcare is all about details and following process.

Speaker 2: 19:52

If you are somebody who and notice, I didn't say personality at all yet right. You know, if you're outgoing, terrific. If you're more of an introvert, terrific. There are positions for everybody in those types of roles. On the fitness side of things, in terms of things that you look for for success, I think number one enthusiasm. Maybe it's not number one, but it's certainly in the top ones. You have to be able to communicate well, and so one of the things we measure is the type of communication preference a candidate has. For example, I talk reasonably quickly now if you're the type of person that wants to talk like this and you're matched up with a guy like me or you're matched up with a guy like me, or you're matched up with somebody who talks twice as fast as I do.

Speaker 2: 20:47

it's not going to work Right Right. So there are certain things that are relatively straightforward, that you can predict the person's success in any type of business. Speed of learning is one, but there's all kinds of other stuff as well, and that's specific to the position.

Speaker 1: 21:06

I don't want to say it's super interesting. Um, now going into personality types, like you were saying, because you, you could, I'm not. I'm not not personality types per se, like for for hiring right, but meaning that, meaning that everybody has their own personalities right and you might hire the best person or a great person to fill the role, but how does that impact overall, like team culture or energy or all those other you know, things that you know a company thinks about.

Speaker 2: 21:35

So just a minor correction. We don't do personality testing. In in what we do, it's all about strengths and talents. Folks love the whole concept of personality testing like it's a magic bullet. It is absolutely not, and more often than not it leads you in the wrong direction. You can have a bubbly person who is terrible at the job and personality testing will fly like congrats. You pass all the the personality tests, but you're terrible at the job because you don't have natural strengths and talents for it.

Speaker 1: 22:08

So the maybe help me with your question again, um so, so you hire, you're hiring someone, right, but there's a natural. There's a natural team culture, a team energy that gets built and it's obviously not built on day one of someone getting hired. But, at the same time, if you're hiring someone that has all the skills and they fit this role, but they're they don't fit with the rest of the team, like the rest of the team, let's say, would go to a barbecue and they wouldn't invite this other person because, right, complete polar opposites to a barbecue and they wouldn't invite this other person because they're complete polar opposites.

Speaker 2: 22:48

So there will always be a component of that that is is personality driven. But and here comes the big but what we found is that it's more based upon performance. So the way I I describe this is that a players on a team only want to work with a players. They will tolerate b players, but as soon as you ask them to work with a c player, they're gone. They're just gonna, they're just gonna leave, because an a player won't even begin to think about being, uh, weighted down by a c or a d player.

Speaker 2: 23:22

And what we found in terms of culture, the easiest way to change your culture in your business is have more a players on your teams. Well, okay, great, what's this guy talking about? How, what magic wand do we have to wave uh in order to make that happen? Right? Well, how do you get more a players on your team? You stop repelling. You stop providing an environment where they're like I can't wait to get the heck out of here. How do you do that? Well, you let the D players and the C players off your team it doesn't mean they're bad people or you change the roles for them so that they're now in their strengths and their natural strengths and talents and in.

Speaker 2: 24:04

In our practice we've done both. The vast majority of folks who aren't performing well are let go because they're not working in the particular job. That's great for them. And this is before Build my Team. Since Build my Team, this is really not an issue at all anymore, because we're hiring for natural strengths and talents.

Speaker 2: 24:25

So you get those A players. They walk into your business. They do what they love to do, they do what's super easy to them. They don't realize why it's so special that they get these types of results. And, on the other hand, you contrast that to like a C or a D player which is going to walk in look at the clock, I got seven more hours. Look at the clock, I got six more hours. They're going to do like, like these are the people who require spoon feeding. They require you to be a cat herder so you can herd cats all day, in combination with a kindergarten teacher. So if you enjoy both of those roles as a kindergarten teacher and cat herder and professional spoon feeder the third role, then cnd players are for you, but otherwise I mean all joking aside they have to be let off your team and, by the way, those folks.

Speaker 2: 25:15

You're doing them a favor because you're going to help them get a role that they're actually great at and performing. Nobody likes to suck at their job no, it's, it's definitely true.

Speaker 1: 25:25

And with like, with that, do you I mean this? I guess goes away from like you know, the build my team, but with your own practices. Do you have, I mean this? I guess it goes away from like you know, the build my team, but with your own practices, do you have? You know, you have your hiring process. You hire someone and then there's the onboarding process. Right, do you believe in like a probationary phase essentially, where it's like the onboarding and essentially a test run is a bad word for it, but essentially you have a deadline to basically be able to fulfill the you know requirements of the job or at least demonstrate that you are capable of, if not, you know, essentially basically trying to weed out the, the dnc players you know, ahead of time, I guess well, that's what build my team does.

Speaker 2: 26:06

So our baked into our process is to not have the C&D players anywhere near what we recommend to clients. So you simply don't get C&D players with Build my Team. You get A players and B plus. That's it. That's all we're sending over to our clients for them to interview and hire. So those types of folks never make the teams because we don't send them in the first place.

Speaker 1: 26:33

Okay so, but do you still, even for A and B players? They might be an A player, but maybe not an A player for your team. They're an A player for someone else's team because of you know, whatever X factor or the culture or whatever, right. So do you? Do you still believe in those probationary periods or anything like that?

Speaker 2: 26:52

We generally don't have those probationary periods. What we find like what makes an A player, it's the fit to the role. That's the primary requirement for them to be fantastic. So if they have an incredibly tight fit for their natural strengths and talents and the role requires them to be themselves, then you're off to the races where you can. Also, we had this happen in our practice a long time ago.

Speaker 2: 27:20

A person who was working our front desk had this is before build my team absolutely terrible. Fit for her natural strengths and talents disastrous almost almost got fired. Fit for her natural strengths and talents Disastrous Almost got fired. Instead, we created a position that used her incredibly strong natural strengths and talents and I'm here to tell you she's perfect. Wouldn't change a thing. She's unbelievable.

Speaker 2: 27:44

She was extremely empathetic for patients working at the front desk, gave away all kinds of stuff, put their needs first, couldn't schedule. Our schedule was a disaster because it was all based around when patients were available, not when the office, the doctor, the resources like the different equipment was available, the instruments, and instead now she's the patient coordinator and she's unbelievable at it. She will do anything to get these patients in for surgery, for like referrals. She prints maps for them, she'll give them driving direction. She will walk like you name it. We have, out of everybody we've referred over the last decade, I think we have less than five people who didn't actually go through with their appointments. It's something ridiculously so, and in healthcare that's unheard of. We might be in the top one percent of the nation, um, but that's how good she is at her job, and all we did was move her from one position to another based upon her natural strengths and talents no, that I mean that is huge, because it's not like, just because she didn't fulfill one one, it's like, okay, you have to be let go.

Speaker 1: 28:52

It's like you noticed a strength that could be an additional strength, that wasn't even a current job position or current thought of the business, and now I mean that's going above and beyond as a business. That's what sets a business apart from another business.

Speaker 2: 29:09

Well, thanks, yeah, what makes her awesome and what she does now made her terrible at what she did then Same person, it's just how it goes. These were different requirements of her and she's an absolutely wonderful human being. Think the world of her. And she was worth it. She was worth the business making that that pivot, but on the other hand, the business needed that at the time. So it was not only a combination of the right thing to do, but it was the right, the right thing to do for her but it was the right thing to do for the business at the same time. And just by coincidence, they intersected that rarely happens, let's face it.

Speaker 1: 29:50

And just by coincidence, they intersected. That rarely happens, let's face it. Oh yeah, definitely. I mean that is so awesome. What are some of the most rewarding parts?

Speaker 2: 30:04

for you, you know, with helping other businesses and other professionals really find their A-team. I mean, in the healthcare side of things, it's very straightforward it's delivering outstanding patient care. So you got all these docs and here's the. This isn't just docs, it's any business owner, you buy this business. A lot of times you're saddled in debt. Or if you're a doctor, I guarantee you you're saddled in debt from student loans. You don't get any training on how to hire these, how to hire folks.

Speaker 2: 30:46

Your expertise lies in something incredibly specific On the doctor side. It's in doctoring. On the fitness side of things, you're going to know all kinds of stuff about how to train people. Right, because, like I suck at HR. It's an incredible thing to hear. I have a company that finds people, but I'm terrible at HR. Well, I have a team who's unbelievable at it. They are unbelievable at it and I get out of their way and let them be unbelievable. Now, if I had to do something that I was horrible at day in, day out, over and over again, you just become incredibly depressed. It's miserable. And on the doctor side of things, it's not like you can leave. You got handcuffs, you got debt handcuffs. You your names on leases, on, uh, financing arrangements, all kind of that stuff. Um, I would imagine it's pretty darn similar in the fitness industry.

Speaker 2: 31:39

all that, all that fitness equipment doesn't just show up for free, right, right you know a lot of capital and requirements for that type of, so you need people on your team that can convert that from just dead time, where equipment's sitting there, to people using it and paying the fees. No, definitely.

Speaker 1: 32:01

You know standing team, yeah, so what were the some of the mindset shifts that you've had along your entrepreneurial journey, from starting your first practice to you know growing it, and now with the whole, you know growing it, and now with the whole, you know build my team's company as well. What were some of those levels of mindset, you know shifts, that you've had to have?

Speaker 2: 32:21

Well, moving away from the resume was critical, but I didn't know what to move away from or what to move away to. I should say and build, my team provides that as a. I don't have anything to do with hiring people in our own practice now Build, my Team handles it all. So if we need, if somebody's moving, we say we need a technician or a secretary, one shows up and they're fantastic. I mean, that's, I'm not exaggerating, that's how it works for us. So it was moving away from the resume.

Speaker 2: 32:54

The second thing was the concept of hiring for strengths and talents. I cannot tell you how hard it would get me to go back to being to the old way. I wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole. So for your listeners out there and folks watching, imagine you go to the old way. I wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole. So for for your listeners out there and folks watching, imagine you go to the eye doctor and the eye doctor says hey, what's your glasses prescription? And you say well, today I think it's blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And the eye doctor goes okay, here's your prescription.

Speaker 2: 33:26

It doesn't measure anything doesn't measure anything that sound like a solid plan. It's a disaster, right, you wouldn't even know where to start. But that's how we do hiring. That's how traditional resume hiring is done. Build my team. We measure the heck out of the candidates that are coming in. We know exactly what they're good at and when we send over a candidate to our clients to hire, they're going to hire them. We're at about 97% certainty that they can do the job to that process. So the big shift there with strengths and talents is I would never, ever, ever, go back to the regular hiring approach because I've, you know, our company has discovered a way and commercialized a way to find those a players reliably throughout north america and it's you know, as you try to scale a business, you realize very quickly that, um, unless your team's fantastic, you're not going anywhere no, definitely so.

Speaker 1: 34:24

The final question I have for you right and I know I didn't give this to you ahead of time because I like the first thing that comes to mind I will preface it by saying it's not a tombstone. For some reason, people start to give me that answer. It is the Dr Mike's legacy wall. On this legacy wall, it is one lasting message that you would leave for the up-and-coming generations. Basically, this lesson can be shorter or long. It's whatever you've learned along your life's journey that you would like to leave.

Speaker 2: 35:00

Holy cow, that's wild. I have a couple that popped the mind right off the bat in terms of legacy. I think helped tens of thousands of candidates get better jobs. Helping people. That's the work legacy From a leadership standpoint, leadership by example. Nothing comes touches that. You have to lead by example, no matter what. If you're the type of leader that doesn't lead by example, go get a job, because your business is going to tank, and I don't know exceptions to that at all. And something else that has more personal is be kind and work your butt off. Those two things are undervalued in the culture, the culture today, and I don't know very many extremely successful people who, um, who don't have those two in their um. You know their talent sets it is very true.

Speaker 1: 36:04

The lead by example and be kind and work about all three of those, like people want to to help you build your vision. If, if they know you care about them right, they want to be that now it's part of their vision, right?

Speaker 2: 36:17

so that I I agree with that 100 but you have to authentically care about them too, right? I mean, you can't just, you can't just, uh, oh, we care about you because it's on our mission statement. That's garbage. You either do or you don't. I mean, one thing that humans are fantastic at is determining if somebody's authentic or full of it, and so, as a leader, you have to be authentic. Be honest. All that stuff and things were you know the universe will work very hard to make you successful.

Speaker 1: 36:51

That's awesome. Where can people connect with you and learn more about what you have going on, as well as build my teams?

Speaker 2: 36:57

Sure Uh build my teamcom. That's our website. So for anybody out there in the fitness industry or any other listeners that wants to uh, to take our approach, best thing to do is go to build my teamcom, schedule a consultation and just start telling our team members it's a free phone call, of course, but start telling our team members just unload, absolutely unload on them. Here's all the problems I'm having. I hear like the more honest and candid you can be, the more we can help you. That's awesome and it's okay to admit you have no idea, or you have some idea and it's not working out. That's totally okay. That's what we do.

Speaker 1: 37:36

That's awesome. I'll put that in the show notes, guys, as well, as it'll be. If you're watching on YouTube the video description, make sure you guys share this episode with a friend, right? Make sure you guys help someone else understand the mindset of not only hiring. But there's a flip side to it. You know there's the employee side, right? You know getting hired. You know if you want to become an, a player, you need to understand what the job actually entails and do your best to fulfill it. Don't just clock in, clock out, but with you know. That being said, I want to thank you again, you know, for taking the time out of your day to hop on and drop so much knowledge for the Mindset Cafe. Thanks so much.

Speaker 2: 38:13

This was fantastic. You're an outstanding interviewer, by the way.

Speaker 1: 38:16

Outstanding. Thank you, I appreciate that. We'll definitely talk soon. Guys got my mind on the prize. I can't be distracted. I stay on my grind, no time to be slackin'. I hustle harder, I go against the curve Cause I know my mind is rich to be collected.