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The Profitable Creative
Hey, Creative! Are you ready to discuss profits, the money, the ways to make it happen? The profitable creative podcast is for you, the creative, how you define it. Videographers, photographers, entrepreneurs, marketing agencies. You get it. CEO of Core Group and author Christian Brim interviews industry experts, creative entrepreneurs and professionals alike who strive to be creative and make money at the same time. Sound like you?
Tune in now. It's time for profit.
The Profitable Creative
The Power of Customer Service | Francis Flair
PROFITABLE TALKS...
In this episode of the Profitable Creative, host Christian Brim speaks with Francis Flair of Flair Consulting Group about the importance of client retention and customer experience in business. They discuss how businesses often overlook the competition posed by other service providers and the need to focus on existing clients. Francis shares his journey from Ghana to the U.S. and how his experiences shaped his consulting approach. The conversation emphasizes the significance of building trust, empowering employees, and creating a strong company culture to enhance customer loyalty and satisfaction.
PROFITABLE TAKEAWAYS...
- Client retention is crucial for beating competition.
- Businesses often overlook the competition from other service providers.
- Customer experience should be prioritized over just acquiring new clients.
- Investing in customer experience yields better returns than marketing.
- Trust and loyalty are built through consistent customer care.
- Empowering employees is essential for delivering great customer service.
- Education is more effective than rigid training for employees.
- Culture reflects leadership and should be intentionally developed.
- A players want to work with other A players.
- Defining what good looks like is essential for organizational success.
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https://www.coregroupus.com/the-profitable-creative
Are you ready to pay yourself more… yeah it’s called an S-Corp. ➡️
https://calendly.com/blouia/s-corp-evaluation
Christian Brim (00:01.574)
Welcome to another episode of the Profitable Creative, the only place on the interwebs where you will learn how to turn your passion into profit. I am your host, Christian Brim. Special shout out to our one listener in Noble, Oklahoma, just south of Norman there. I think you're still in Cleveland County, but thank you for listening. Joining me today is Francis Flair of Flair Consulting Group. Welcome to the show, Francis.
Francis Flair (00:31.758)
Thank you, Christian. It's a pleasure to be here.
Christian Brim (00:35.152)
So let's start out with like your CV, your bona fides. What is Flair Consulting Group and who is Francis?
Francis Flair (00:43.982)
So Flir Consulting Group, help scaling businesses, service-based businesses build client retention systems by building clear, actionable systems that is repeatable and be able to keep clients because we believe that for every client that you keep, every client that you keep, it's you beating the competition. So for every client that you keep, you beat the competition because
A lot of the times, most leaders and entrepreneurs think your competition is the one in your industry. Like, well, if I asked you or if someone asked me, I'm thinking about the next consulting firm who is probably adjacent or parodied to what we do. But the real competition is that your customers, your clients are interacting with other businesses when they are not with you. And those are your competition because they are always wondering and thinking.
to themselves, well, why don't XYZ treat me like that? Because they can do it. And a good example of that is Amazon. Amazon came and broke all the rules. Now, when you interact with a business and they cannot get your shipping to you in less than 24 hours or 24 hours, it's like there's something wrong. So they wrote a script for everyone. And that's kind of their competition. And so, yes, that's what we do.
Christian Brim (01:53.351)
Mm-hmm.
Francis Flair (02:11.936)
Me personally, I, if you can tell from my exotic accent, I come from Tulsa, Oklahoma. I'm kidding. So I was born in Ghana, raised in Ghana, West Africa, grew up in an orphanage there. And I had a dream, a dream to go to college in the US, had no idea how that was going to be possible. And so there was an American missionary at the orphanage who said, sure.
Christian Brim (02:20.082)
Of course you do.
Francis Flair (02:41.558)
You know, I mean, how are you going to be able to afford it? But what he told me, which I took with me until today, is that, well, if you do what you are supposed to do, if you do your part, then we'll see what God will do. Like, but you still have to take care of your your part. Like you have to do your part, which is me going to school, getting serious with my studies and making sure that I get good grades. so long story short, we were blessed.
Christian Brim (02:55.378)
Mmm.
Francis Flair (03:11.116)
that Oklahoma Christian in Edmond gave me a scholarship to come and study, being the first kid from the orphanage to be able to do that. And so that's how I ended up in the US. So graduated from Oklahoma Christian, went to OSU to do my graduate degree in leadership and entrepreneurship. I wanted to go on and help health care, like working health care. I thought to myself, I was going to be a CEO of a health system one day. But then when I graduated,
It was hard to find a job because all companies are applied for like, well, you need healthcare experience. And I couldn't fathom why that was the challenge because I had a master's degree and like the programs always tell you, yeah, you're going to get a job once you are done, you know, and that didn't happen that way. And
Christian Brim (03:59.048)
Right.
Francis Flair (04:08.366)
This I had moved to Florida. So this time I was back in Tulsa because there was a capstone portion and this was back in 2019 and so in my frustration like one time I drove to Houston and back just for an interview and it didn't work out and from that frustration I was like, well, I already had a skill set in transforming my last business my last employer
we had built systems in how to create a great experience to deliver that level of experience that no one can really conceive for an industry in a dry cleaning industry. And so I was like, well, I mean, there are so many companies out there who could use this. I mean, if they knew how and building a clear client retention. And so that frustration from a master's degree, not being able to find a job,
Christian Brim (04:48.764)
Mm-hmm.
Christian Brim (04:55.665)
Yes?
Francis Flair (05:04.353)
And my area of study then came out, flat consulting group. So now we've been able to take this across multiple industries, higher education, medical, dry cleaning, course, insurance agencies, I mean, all that. So any business or any companies out there who are focused on client retention, trying to use service and experience as a mechanism, that's what we help them do. So.
Christian Brim (05:30.521)
There, there's a lot to unpack there. I don't know where to start. Let's start with, the frustration because I think that's, part of every entrepreneur's journey is the frustration. Maybe it's with their employer. maybe it's with just the potential that they see. there, there's some.
Francis Flair (05:35.757)
You
Christian Brim (05:59.677)
burr under the saddle that just causes them to move forward. I think this idea that you put out there of your own competition, not competing against somebody else's is very wise because I think existing businesses have a tendency to...
lose focus of a couple of things. you know, one of which is, is, is looking at the marketplace and thinking that you're in competition with everybody else that does what you do. But you speak to the most important thing that we have, which is our existing client relationships. And if we don't take care of them, it's a lot more expensive and difficult.
to go convince somebody that isn't doing business with you to do business with you. Right. so in, in a lot of ways, it's a cheaper allocation of your resources to, put that effort into taking care of your existing clients. So what is that? What does that look like? Big picture when, when you're in a service industry and you're, you're, you're, you're say, say, I want to make this shift from looking at the.
competition as my competitors and looking at the competition as myself. What does that look like big picture?
Francis Flair (07:32.492)
Yeah, I mean, big picture, it's really committing to the process. That is it. mean, the reason why a lot of companies struggle with clients retention is because they never committed to it. And they think it's harder to do that. But it's actually easier to do that. Like you mentioned, like it's cheaper. Like you can make five to 25 times more if you focus on like
your allocation of budget in marketing and advertising. If you reinvested that back into your customer experience, you get far more better returns and then let your customers do the marketing and advertising for you. Right? No one talks about average. And so if as a client, if I am blown away every time I can trust you, you're consistent. And I think there's a notion here that we need to underline. Customers don't care about perfection.
Christian Brim (08:16.731)
Mm-hmm.
Francis Flair (08:31.672)
They know you are going to drop the ball. They know that things happen. They understand that, right? What customers care about is preparation.
Christian Brim (08:31.698)
Hmm.
Christian Brim (08:42.192)
Yes. Yes.
Francis Flair (08:43.438)
They want to trust you that no matter what happens, you will take care of them. And that's the point where a lot of scaling businesses don't get. on the front end, it appears that it's easier to spend more money to go find more clients. But when you find them, which is great, what happens then when they come in? Because you can have a great marketing project advertising. And this is not
Christian Brim (09:01.126)
Mm-hmm.
Francis Flair (09:11.53)
anything against marketing or advertising, you need to do that. What I'm saying is if you're going to do that, make sure that you have things tied in up so when they come, they have a great experience. Your marketing matches the experience with your brand so you don't have to go spending more just to find new ones, the existing ones who do the marketing and advertising for you. So on a bigger picture, it's committing to it and understanding that it's...
Christian Brim (09:29.478)
Yeah.
Francis Flair (09:39.606)
something that not everyone is willing to do, but that's also what gives you the leverage in the marketplace.
Christian Brim (09:45.232)
Why, why do you think there's a resistance to making a commitment to the process? Like what you're saying makes sense. What, is it people don't make that commitment?
Francis Flair (09:58.05)
I think it's ignorance. Ignorance in the sense that I think leaders don't understand or know the financial implications of the customer experience. I think a lot of leaders don't know the financials when it comes to, okay, what does it look like instead of investing in the client experience? What is the return on that? And I think a lot of leaders don't know and understand the output of that.
Christian Brim (10:02.194)
Hmm.
Francis Flair (10:28.302)
So I attribute that to ignorance.
Christian Brim (10:32.41)
Yeah, I I think for me, we really dove into this whole referral thing about three years ago with re-educating our team. And in the sense that, like, we knew we had raving fans.
Right. We knew, we knew from the feedback of our clients that they were generally satisfied and looking at the numbers that supported that. But you know, a bunch of accountants, they weren't real clear on how to ask for referrals. Right. And so I think part of that process of the great customer experience is leveraging them for that marketing, through, referral referrals, et cetera, because
It's, I think as a business owner, you say ignorance. And I think that's the correct term. It's, it's not, it's not stupidity. It's that it's the, don't see how a connects to be like, I don't see how having a great customer experience. Leads to more customers, right? That that's the disconnect. think.
Francis Flair (11:56.942)
Absolutely, absolutely. That's a disconnect. And you know that. And it's not ignorance in a bad way. I guess a softer term will be lack of awareness. Right? Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, if you don't know, if you don't understand, because I really, in addition to that, the customer experience is a long game. It's a long game. It's not.
Christian Brim (12:05.658)
No, I like ignorance. I like ignorance.
Christian Brim (12:21.222)
Mm-hmm.
Francis Flair (12:23.426)
one that you kind of it's easy to see the return on right you can't just turn it around just like that because what you're doing is building trust and ultimately loyalty you don't buy that you earn that and that is a long-term agenda
Christian Brim (12:29.404)
true.
Christian Brim (12:41.158)
So when you write and so like foundationally that has to be who you are, right? And you can call it culture, which would be a good term, that's just you as a business owner or if you have team members, either employees or contractors, like everybody agrees that that is who you are, right? Is that we're going to...
Francis Flair (12:49.249)
Yes.
Christian Brim (13:11.1)
take care of these people. not to your point that you're not going to make mistakes. I think it was Ritz Carlton did a study a while ago about customer satisfaction, their customer satisfaction, and that what they found was that the people that had had a problem that had had their problem solved had a higher customer satisfaction than the people that had never had a problem at all.
So to your point, it's not about not screwing up. It's not even really about perfecting what you do. It's how do you handle it when something goes wrong?
Francis Flair (13:52.052)
Absolutely. And you are talking about a satisfaction paradox. There's a study, a research that actually shows you get higher satisfaction from a customer. If you drop the ball, but really, really recover like that, they never expected you to, it's like, it blows your mind. I mean, talking about the risk culture, for example, each employee has up to like $2,000 to make a decision in the moment.
Christian Brim (14:05.99)
Mm-hmm.
Christian Brim (14:20.018)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Francis Flair (14:22.314)
without that of a manager, without consulting a manager. Anyone in the company can make that decision. That is empowerment. And that's what it takes when you talk about culture. How do you empower? you have to equip your team, talking about the process, the whole bigger picture. You have to equip them. And that starts with the leadership, committing to the process, that this is who we are, and this is
Christian Brim (14:32.54)
Yes.
Francis Flair (14:50.03)
who we are going to become. And so this is what it's going to take. So you equip them by giving them the tools and everything that is going to require to ensure that they can do it consistently. Because it's not just doing it, but it has to become part of your identity. And then you have to empower them. After giving them the tools, you have to empower them. So equip, empower, and then elevate. You share those great stories when they come up. When someone does a good thing, someone does something that relates or
that is what you're looking for, you share more of those stories. Oftentimes leaders focus on the bad aspects of things that employees are doing. And so that just perpetuate that and they can seem to understand why this keeps happening. Why don't you switch focus and share the good stuff happening, encouraging that, share those beautiful stories, examples of employees who have gone above and beyond, employees who are creating raving fans. That begins to build the culture, 100%.
Christian Brim (15:49.659)
I, it, that, that reminds me of a statement that I've made to my team multiple times and reminds me that I probably need to do it again soon. that we, we, I lay out very clearly. This is, this is, this is, these are our values and, and, and we, we talk about our values all the time, but like, I say, these are our values and this is our goal. And.
You as an employee are never going to be questioned. If you are following these values and trying to attempt this goal, whether you screw up, whether you do the right thing, the wrong thing, you're empowered knowing these things. This is what, know, like you can't just put it in a vacuum, right? They have to understand what you're trying to accomplish. and the, the other thing, that came up for me is.
We have this, and it's something that we've just added in the last year. I call it, I call it campfire, not real original, but like when we meet, we, we, we do this tribal thing where we share stories about where are so, so, so our mission, our purpose is enhancing the lives of our clients and our team. That's our, that's our purpose. That's our why. And so.
we have these spots in our meetings where we say, okay, give us an example. Tell us a story where we enhanced our clients' lives, right? And most of the time there's a story. I mean, we're doing this every week, so it's not like there's something every time, but to your point, we're elevating those stories to where we share them and we learn from them, right?
Francis Flair (17:44.534)
Yes, absolutely. That's what the focus should be. You are spending the same time, energy, and probably resource advertising or bringing to light the badge stuff. You will get far better results if you focus on the positive because it just reinforces that over and over and over. And that's what the world-class brands do. They focus on that. Behind the scenes, they continuously work on equipping them because
If something is happening in your organization, and this is something that I am mindful of because of what I do, like when I interact with a company and the employee was not as good, like I don't blame them. actually feel sad for them. Like I have empathy for the employee because it's the leader's responsibility to ensure that they are equipped enough to do their job. And so if you are hiring people and saying, well,
Christian Brim (18:30.034)
Yeah.
Christian Brim (18:37.798)
Yes.
Francis Flair (18:42.318)
And I guess a big mistake most leaders also make is that they say customer service is common sense. No, common sense is not common practice. Common sense is not common practice. So we view the world differently. We have different worldviews, perspective, how we grew up, how I, right? So even within us, we are different. And a great example is like if you have never been to a five-star resort or flown first class, like,
Christian Brim (18:51.794)
Mmm.
Christian Brim (19:04.999)
Yes.
Francis Flair (19:11.882)
If you are put in the cabin or if you are put in that situation, would you be able to deliver that level of service on the experience? Absolutely not. You are going to do your best, very best, because that's what you know. Like you're going to do what you can, but would it meet the expectations of those customers to the point that it might even exceed them? I don't think so. And so it lead us truly understand that.
Christian Brim (19:17.692)
No.
Francis Flair (19:37.646)
Common sense is not common practice, and customer service, customer experience is not common sense. When you hire them, it's now the time that you go to work for them. You create the systems, build the tools they need, the training, and make sure it's not just a one-time training, because those don't work. Those are just like deodorant, right? They just...
Christian Brim (19:53.637)
No, no. Yeah, we stopped using the word training on purpose and we call it education because I don't know where I heard this phrase, but I said, you you train dogs, right? We're dealing with people here. We're not trying to, you know, give them treats or give them the stick to perform according to how we want. What we're trying to do is educate them.
to give them the tools that they can do what they need to do, right?
Francis Flair (20:27.022)
Absolutely, absolutely. And great insight on the education part because the training, it's very rigid. It's like policies, right? It's black or white, right? No one wants to go against policy. But when you educate, you are giving them the flexibility and the tools and awareness they need to handle situation because sometimes there are things going to come up outside their training. What happens then? Right? That's where the education comes in for them to make.
Christian Brim (20:36.059)
Right.
Christian Brim (20:51.228)
Sure. Yeah.
Francis Flair (20:55.68)
a well-informed choice decision for the customer.
Christian Brim (20:59.164)
Yes, yes, absolutely. So when you work with a company, how do you decide what a good retention rate is?
Francis Flair (21:12.13)
Well, it depends on where they are, right? If your retention is a little compared to someone who is doing well, but feels like there's a room for improvement, then yes. So it varies and it depends. It's all based off of what you are trying to accomplish and what your goals are, because it's different for everyone. And so that's why our process is very customized. It's not cookie cutter. It's coming in and truly trying to understand where you are.
Why you even want to do this? And you made a point earlier when we're talking about leadership. There's been situations where we've not taken a client on because they just wanted to just say they did it, not commit to it, just to say they did it, but not actually commit to the process. And that starts with leadership. So it depends.
Christian Brim (21:55.372)
Mm. Right.
Christian Brim (22:03.588)
So who do you normally work with? Like who's your ideal client? I'm going to say you need to talk to Francis, Francis is your guy, who are you the guy for?
Francis Flair (22:16.397)
A scaling business leader, a scaling business leader who is growing and need to make sure they have the same standards moving forward. There's a joke in my country that when you get more customers, your service and experience depreciates because you don't have the same bandwidth that you used to have. When you start as a one man team or a team of 10, five, like you can touch every aspect of the business.
Christian Brim (22:33.81)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Francis Flair (22:43.97)
But as you grow, you can't. And so that's why you need to start building systems. And the earlier you start that, the better, because then that dictates your culture moving forward. Because when a customer or a client interact with your business, they don't care whether it was the location in a mall or Norman. What they care about is the interaction with your business and was the experience great or not, or was it consistent to what they are used to? That's what they care about.
Christian Brim (22:44.55)
Right.
Christian Brim (22:48.891)
Right?
Christian Brim (23:14.832)
Yeah. And, and to a large extent, then you become like your, your weakest employee, like the person that gives them the worst possible outcome, you know, is your weakest link. Like you, you, you can't, you can't have any bad apples in that batch because you know, they're, they're going to run it for everybody else.
Francis Flair (23:31.266)
Yes.
Francis Flair (23:41.07)
Absolutely. mean, your customer experience is your strongest with your weakest link. Like it's only strong as your weakest link, your customer experience is. And I mean, that's the whole point of building culture. That's the whole aspect of it. Because then now you are very peculiar in who you hire, who you bring on board. You're not just hiring people just because you need a body. And a lot of leaders
Christian Brim (23:48.834)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Francis Flair (24:08.43)
just focus on finding people, but not finding the right people. And so it starts with there as well. And your employees are your clients too. They are your customers too. Like employees are your first customers. And so it's critical that you find the right fit. They have to be coachable, of course, but when they come in, that's when you need to ensure that you have the proper tools and standards and systems in place. So it's easy for them.
Christian Brim (24:20.401)
Yes.
Francis Flair (24:38.318)
to be successful.
Christian Brim (24:39.878)
Well, and what I, what I hear you saying is, that it's, it's not something to do in the future. Like you say, I'm a business owner and, I've got one employee, therefore this doesn't apply to me because what, what happens, what my experience has been, because I was exactly like you. mean, I, I, what you said in the sense that I viewed employees as more.
cogs and wheel interchangeable like, and, and it wasn't until we actually started this journey with a entrepreneurial operating system, EOS, where we started hiring and firing, promoting, et cetera, based upon values, the values actually really kicked in. And, you know, I, I,
I, one of my, one of my colleagues who wrote a book on culture, he, his, his, he equated it to a game. and he said, if you, if you, if you're playing basketball, your culture is like the rules, right? and if, if you come into a basketball game and you start kicking the ball, someone's going to blow the whistle, right? Like we don't do that here. This is.
You dribble the ball, you don't kick the ball, right? And, and, I liked the way he phrased that because it's like, it makes it non-negotiable, right? It's, it's, like, these are the rules of the game. If you don't want to play this game, that's fine. Go somewhere else and play some different game. But in our game, these are the rules and, and you really have to treat culture that way. Like it, it's like, if, if you're, if you're not following the rules, if you're not
adhering to our values, then you don't belong here.
Francis Flair (26:40.256)
Absolutely, absolutely. It starts with leadership truly defining what that looks like, like who you are. And that's why I keep bringing it back to identity. You have to figure out what your retention identity blueprint looks like. Like what is it? What's the first day experience like? What's the 90 day experience like? Like you have to take them through that experience, reminding them consistently that this is the best place.
Christian Brim (26:51.015)
Mm-hmm.
Francis Flair (27:07.522)
but you first have to ensure that you find the right people. But that's where it all starts. That's where it all starts.
Christian Brim (27:15.878)
Yeah. And, and to your point, you, you can check the box and say, we did this, but it's, it's like anything else in your business. You can, you can check the box and say, did it. but it's, what are you really committed to? What do you, and I wish looking backwards, like when I remember I, I hired my first employee the first year I was in business and
To be frank, I'd never hired anybody. I was 27 years old. I'd never hired anybody. I'd never managed anybody. And I didn't know what I was doing. But if I knew then what I know now and hiring for culture first, I would have saved myself an inordinate amount of pain and time and money.
So for those of you out there, the listening say, well, that doesn't, that doesn't apply to me because I don't have employees. It does apply to you because it has to be your attitude first. Like it, it can't, it can't be anybody else's attitude until it's yours.
Francis Flair (28:32.526)
Absolutely. And you can only define and measure what you manage, what you measure. And so even if you don't have employees, you still have to have standards because customers have expectations of you. And it starts with you if it's just you. I think it's even more critical that you have standards and systems in place to ensure that you always deliver the great experience possible.
Christian Brim (28:48.53)
Mm-hmm.
Christian Brim (28:54.492)
Mm-hmm.
Francis Flair (29:01.772)
The client is relying on that and expecting you to. And it doesn't matter what phase of business you find yourself, you still have to set expectations. And what are those expectations? What defines you in your culture, whether it's one man team or it's a thousand? You still need culture. Because culture is always happening. Culture is always happening, whether you're working on it or not.
Christian Brim (29:04.924)
Mm-hmm.
Francis Flair (29:30.412)
Because culture is a verb. Culture is a verb. It's thing that you do, what you do, what you don't do, what you see, what you didn't see, how you reacted, if you didn't. Culture is happening every single time. Every time culture is happening.
Christian Brim (29:33.148)
Mm-hmm.
Christian Brim (29:46.119)
Yes. And every business, even a one person business has a culture. It's a question of whether you're intentional about it or not. I've said that multiple times. I used to think culture was just like this bolt on thing. And it got really confused whenever the tech companies were
Francis Flair (29:50.893)
Yes.
Christian Brim (30:13.998)
creating these work environments where, we've got a bar and we've got ping pong tables and video games like, right. And so I thought that was culture. No, that's not culture. Culture is who you are and what, what are the best parts of you that you want to emphasize? Right? So the culture is not aspirational, right? It's not, it's not putting
the posters on the wall that say teamwork, right? Where everybody's rowing in the boat. that's, those are platitudes. That's not who you are, right? Now teamwork may be one of your core values. It may be, but it's not, it's always, it always reflects, the culture always reflects who the owner is, right? You can't say, well,
This is what I value and then the values of the company be at odds with that because that won't work
Francis Flair (31:20.482)
Yeah, 100%. And you know that because culture is a reflection of leadership. Whatever your culture is currently, it's not because your employees are not good enough. And I think that's one misconception that culture is happening because we hired the wrong people. No, culture is a system problem. You don't have a system that defines your culture. And even if it was a people problem, it's still your fault as the leader because one, it's either
Christian Brim (31:32.978)
Hmm.
Christian Brim (31:44.07)
Mm-hmm.
Francis Flair (31:49.224)
You got them that way. You knew they weren't in a good fit and you still hired them. Or you made them that way. You brought them on board and you never gave them the tools they needed. You never showed them how to do things or how things are done in your organization. And that's still your fault. That's still your problem.
Christian Brim (31:51.036)
Mm-hmm.
Christian Brim (32:06.428)
Yeah, because every, every bad behavior you allow, and I'm defining bad as against your values, right? Like I'm not, it's not a moral thing. It's contrary to your values, drives a wedge with those people that, do adhere to your values because it's like, well, they look at it and say, well, the, the standard wasn't applied to that situation or that person.
Francis Flair (32:16.749)
Mm-hmm.
Christian Brim (32:34.79)
Therefore, it's not really that important.
Francis Flair (32:37.216)
Yeah, yes. And that's what leads to turnover. Because to your point, A players don't want to be playing with D players. mean, let's call it what it is, right? A players want to be with the A players and A classes, right? And it's the same because at the end of the day, people are people and people are consistent. People want to feel valued, cared for and appreciated. And at the end of the day, if they don't feel that
Christian Brim (32:59.1)
Mm-hmm.
Francis Flair (33:05.578)
if they don't feel like management cares enough to ensure that everyone is on the same page or they can get away with something, the A players now begin to drag along and begin to pull their feet knowing that nothing is going to happen because they've allowed this behavior to go on for so long. And that's what happened with quiet quitting during the pandemic. And after we're like, we still have this going because during the pandemic, especially like people were re-evaluating their lives and it's like, whoa.
Christian Brim (33:25.862)
Mm-hmm.
Francis Flair (33:35.148)
I could have died tomorrow, right? And so like, am I in a place that makes me feel valued, cared for, and appreciated? And if there are instances or actions in a workplace that are bad, that does not promote your values, then you are more likely going to have high turnover because no one wants to work with someone who is not pulling their weight, especially when leadership is not holding anyone accountable. That's where it starts.
Christian Brim (34:04.912)
I think it was Patrick Lencioni, author of five dysfunctions of a team and the ideal team player. He's written several books, but I think it was him that coined the phrase that it may not have been him. don't know. Anyway, culture eats strategy for breakfast, right? And the idea that like you could have the best product in the world, you could have the best strategies to bring that to market, executing on marketing, all these other things.
culture trumps at all if if it's if you if you do it right like and I think I think you know what you said is is why most people don't address culture issues is because it's not easy like you've got to you've got to want like if you have if your culture is not what you want you're going to have to put some work in to get it to where you want it to be.
Francis Flair (35:05.344)
Absolutely. And that's why I think a lot of leaders kind of put it to the side because it's work and you have to look at yourself and answer some hard questions. You have to look at your organization and say, is this who we really are? And oftentimes you hear leaders say, well, we were never like this before. Yeah, but that's because you never define what good looks like. You never define your identity as an organization. You are just winging it. And it was easier when you were smaller.
Christian Brim (35:17.339)
Mm-hmm.
Christian Brim (35:27.271)
Mm-hmm.
Francis Flair (35:33.516)
But as you get bigger with new identities, new personalities, you don't have the same bandwidth that you had in the past. And so things are going to get difficult and harder if you don't have the guardrails, the guidelines, and the systems and standards in place to ensure that everything is happening in order like you started when you started the company or how things were when you were smaller. And so it all starts by creating those systems and standards for your organization, by culture.
Christian Brim (35:41.66)
Mm-hmm.
Christian Brim (35:57.266)
Mm-hmm.
Francis Flair (36:02.4)
It's work. It's work. It's consistent work and it's a long game. Long game. No, culture never stops. are all, I mean, you have to always be improving culture. Always. Always.
Christian Brim (36:04.21)
Hmm?
Christian Brim (36:07.972)
It never stops. No.
Christian Brim (36:15.696)
Mm-hmm. Francis, how can people find out more about working with Flare Consulting Group?
Francis Flair (36:24.012)
Well, you can find me on social media platforms, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube. Find me at Francis Flair. You can go on our website, our Flair Consulting Group. I invite you to look and come to our five-day challenge. We actually have a challenge on helping organizations and leaders build a client retention system. And so for five days, you get to spend, if you upgrade to VIP.
you actually get to spend 10 hours with me for the five days. So two hours each day, you get to ask me questions. And then I will show you on each day how to build a client retention system. So, yeah.
Christian Brim (37:03.602)
I love it. Listeners will have that link in the show notes. If you like what you heard, please rate the podcast, share the podcast, subscribe to the podcast. If you don't like what you've heard, shoot us a message, tell us what you'd like to hear and we'll get rid of Francis. Until then, ta ta for now.