The Hiring Mistake That's Costing Companies Millions | Kejal Shah

Hiring isn't broken.

Most companies are.

In this episode of the Gold Coast Podcast, Eric Winegard sits down with Kejal Shah, Founder & CEO of Keepro, for a conversation that goes far beyond recruiting. They dive into leadership, AI, entrepreneurship, faith, company culture, employee development, and why so many businesses struggle to attract and retain great people.

Kejal has spent years helping companies solve one of their biggest challenges: finding the right people. But as he explains, hiring isn't just about filling positions; it's about building systems that help people grow, creating workplaces where employees actually want to stay, and leading with purpose instead of fear.

In this episode, they discuss:

Why great employees are harder to find than ever
How AI is changing the future of hiring
Why company culture alone isn't enough
The biggest mistakes business owners make when hiring
How to develop A-players instead of constantly searching for them
Why leadership starts with serving people
Faith, entrepreneurship, and finding purpose
The future of work and the changing economy
Why retention matters more than recruitment
How to build a company people are proud to work for

The conversation also takes a deeply personal turn as Kejal shares his journey from growing up in a Hindu household to finding Christianity, how that transformed his outlook on business and leadership, and why he believes success is ultimately about serving others.

Whether you're a business owner, manager, entrepreneur, or someone trying to build a meaningful career, this episode is full of practical insights that can change the way you think about leadership and people.

Guest:
Kejal Shah
Founder & CEO, Keepro
Website: https://keeproinc.ai
Instagram: @kageshah

Hosted by:
Eric Winegard
CEO of Rare Blue Moon Marketing

Thank you all for listening in on today's episode of The Gold Coast Podcast!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

But I just kinda did some consolidating with people. I allowed some people to work remote. Yeah. You know.

SPEAKER_02 0:04

A little bit more flexibility. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:06

It's all good. It's fucking expensive. I mean, this place alone is like ten grand a week.

SPEAKER_02 0:10

Yeah. I mean, dude, I talked to so many people that are in South Florida that are trying to build out their office space and like they've had to send some people home because it is super expensive. Dude, it's bonkers. Yeah. I mean, I was living in Cincinnati, you know, before I moved down here, and even in Cincinnati, like rent is going up like crazy. It's not like here. Like here, you get what you pay for, I feel like, for the most part. In Cincinnati, you know, some of the office spaces are just running like I think for for a similar size space, it was probably just a little bit less. But it's Cincinnati, Ohio. It's not like here. Yeah. So I guess it just depends on where you're at. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

Here the opportunity is the person right next door to you could pay for it. Right, exactly. As a client.

SPEAKER_02 0:56

Well, it's like environment is everything. That's something I've definitely come to learn.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Well, this is brand new for us. Like, like this is my first day filming with this new setup. Oh, really? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:08

Oh shoot, I'm honored, bro.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

No, I'm I'm happy to have you on. I mean, I think that is a nice touch.

SPEAKER_02 1:14

Yeah, no, it's great. I was watching a lot of the podcasts that you've been doing. You had the uh construction guy on, what was it, a couple days ago.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

Which one?

SPEAKER_02 1:22

He was wearing the green shirt.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Oh, Jorge.

SPEAKER_02 1:24

Jorge, yeah. He seemed like he was a cool guy. Awesome guy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Yeah, cool, cool people only. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:30

Well, I was talking to Jeremy this morning too. Oh, yeah? Yeah. So I was texting him. I literally woke up at like 6 30 in the morning. I was like, oh shoot, there's this one guy, my friend Devin, that is helping teams like what they do is uh they work with a lot of financial advisor firms and they actually do all the lead gen for them to get them qualified clients so that the FAs can like sell to them. So like I'm getting him connected to like all the financial advisor and the CPA firms I know, like all over the Midwest, and then like now down here in South Florida. But yeah, Jeremy's been amazing, man. Like I have a really good friendship with him, and yeah, like even there's a couple people that are going through career transition that I've been able to connect him with, um, or at least connect with that he sent me. And dude, it's just a lot of people are suffering right now. Like a lot of business owners are having to make hard decisions around laying people off or you know, maneuvering them into a totally different position. And I find it as like, how do you minister to those people? Like, how do you bless them beyond the paycheck? How do you love them beyond the paycheck and then like create opportunities for them to find something better if you have to let them go? So that's been a conversation I've had with them a couple times.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

Why do you think businesses what are the biggest challenges businesses are having now? Why why are they having to make these hard decisions about employment?

SPEAKER_02 2:51

I think it's a two-fold thing. Um I think a lot of companies, so if we go back 2020, right? Um, COVID, you know, the PPE loans were something that were propagated to small mid-sized S and B companies. So one of the parts of the PPE loans was you have to prove that you are consistently hiring people.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 3:11

So what did companies do? They posted jobs on Indeed, they posted jobs on LinkedIn, left and right, and they never made hires. But they at least could prove that they were quote unquote trying to make hires.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

So, okay, so all that they fact-checked it was indeed posing? Nothing was fact fact-checked.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

Wow. And so on top of that, we're now moving into this wave of everything's catching up to us, right? Business owners are realizing they might have overpaid a little bit for some of the talent, whether it be through working through a third-party staffing agency or they started working with, you know, some of their own internal team and trying to like say, hey, we need to keep increasing salary rates to keep up with things. So now companies are saying, hey, all this extra money that we were spending in overpaying people or paying staffing agencies, we're gonna take some of that money back, we're gonna reinvest it into AI, and then let some of these other people go that we really don't necessarily need. So it's like this trifecta effect that's been happening over the last two years. It's not just all of a sudden. People think that this AI wave is just now crashing in. No, it's been happening. We're just not paying attention, if we're being honest.

SPEAKER_00 4:22

Yeah, I just made some rearrangements, you know, in my company that were definitely AI driven.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Yeah. And it it's actually irresponsible not to take advantage of it. Um, it's it's interesting. I have another theory too. Tell me if you agree or disagree. Shoot.

SPEAKER_02 4:39

I'm I'm open.

SPEAKER_00 4:40

Yeah, well, I think I think the economy has been a fake economy since 2008 or nine. Yeah. You know, after the crash in 08, September of 08, I believe it is when it was, the economy was really slow for a couple years, but then they reduced interest rates substantially to try to incentivize um, you know, people, you know, uh try to what's the word I'm looking for? Not liquidate, but uh, you know, fund small businesses, right? Or fund fund uh you know construction, development, whatever it may be. And but interest rates were so artificially low. So now you have the real estate market artificially ascending and climbing, right? Which artificially raised um you know property values because it raised demand, right? Because you could buy X car or X house for a you know, now you can buy the bigger house, or you could buy the BMW that you couldn't afford, right? You think you can buy the bigger. I think you can. Yeah, yeah. Um and then so it was really a fake economy forever. And then and then once COVID hit, as you said, that was another fake economy because of all the money that was, you know, the PPE loans, and um, you know, there was just a lot of you know unnatural forces or events economically that I don't think we've ever actually had a normal economy. No, yeah, you know, and it's like so now so now, now, oh, the stock market's up, dude. Average business I talk to isn't crushing it. You know, so I just think the economy has never really been right.

SPEAKER_02 6:32

Yeah. And I think you highlighted something really important. So there's two big factors that a lot of people usually point to when they look at the balance of the job market or the labor market, and then like what the actual economy looks like, right? So everyone goes back to 2008, 2006 financial crash because of the real estate marketplace. What a lot of people don't realize is that the bigger precursors are actually two things the automotive industry and also AI technology and infrastructure for these companies. So, like commercial real estate, for example, you know, there is a small wave of businesses that are starting to come back into the office, which is probably one of the bigger cash cows, is how much money is actually sitting in real estate. You look at New York, you know, billions of dollars in infrastructure, and all that money is just sitting in buildings. It's not being used. And then I also look at the the dynamic of the automotive industry. This is the one that everyone is missing right now. And I was just talking to one of my other clients about this last week, is that most people are over-leveraged in their homes and in their cars. But the only two of those two factors that make the biggest impact right now, because most people have moved to renting because they can't afford regular housing, right? If you don't have a car, if you don't have a mode of transportation and you're spending 100K on a car or 80K or even 60K, your payments per month are somewhere between $875 up from there. And if people are losing their jobs left and right and they also can't afford to pay for their own mortgages on their own houses, those those two factors alone are, I think, the bigger things paired with the commercial real estate marketplace, you know.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

Yeah, yeah, fascinating. You know what's interesting? Someone will pay eight hundred dollars for an eighty thousand dollar vehicle versus uh paying two four hundred dollar a month payments for two and lesser vehicles, even though the family needs two vehicles.

SPEAKER_01 8:43

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 8:44

What is that warped psychology? I think whatever that is is also a big problem.

SPEAKER_02 8:52

Well, I mean, I take it from like a I think there's this facade in America that we keep buying into that you either have to look like you're successful in one way, shape, or form, and that's gonna look different for everyone. So, you know, in this situation, if someone is buying two vehicles or they choose to buy two vehicles and they can afford the payments that would normally be one, you know, how does that look to the populace of people? You can afford two cars and keeping maintenance on two cars, or there's this weird other dynamic where people are gonna buy a more expensive car, but yet it's gonna hinder their lifestyle, or they're gonna make compromises in other parts of their life to afford to do that. It's just a weird dynamic, man. And I've told you a million times, man, I'm I'm a huge car fanatic. So I've invested in my own supercar, sports car, and you know, I believe like there is the other side of that dynamic where if you're smart and you're wise with your finances to the best of your ability, also buying cars that do elevate your life experiences, there is like a net return on investment for something like that if you're responsible with it.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:00

I think some people, many people are not necessarily being super responsible when it comes to making that those two dilemmic decisions, if you will.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

Yeah. Do I think uh a realtor selling, you know, $10 million homes can show up in a 1995 Honda Civic?

SPEAKER_02 10:20

You're gonna wonder how successful are you, really?

SPEAKER_00 10:24

Like I get that. You know, I I I do. There is an element to that, right? Um you know, I went to this big event about a year ago, this big dinner down in Fort Lauderdale, a bunch of I was Was it on Las Olas? No, no Casa de Angelos.

SPEAKER_02 10:41

Okay, yeah, I've heard things.

SPEAKER_00 10:42

I was probably like medium wealth compared to everybody there, but certainly half of the room was much higher than me. And uh, you know, I I I was there in one of my cars, I was there in a Range Rover, nice new all-black one, autobiography, beautiful car. Nice, yeah. But, you know, there's million-dollar cars in the in the parking lot. But I remember they were taking, you know, some of the organizers of the dinner were taking their cell phones and tagging everybody at the dinner, going, hey, look at look at all the types of cars here. So there's like an element of status too, and I get that. So I I do understand somebody's yearning to drive a nice car, but dude, if you're just Joe Plumber, actually a plumber probably wouldn't do it. But if you're if you're Steve the teacher, like there's no reason to do it, you know. Get get get get the outback.

SPEAKER_02 11:42

I think a lot of people, I think that they don't have a vision for what they really want in their futures. And so it's hard for them to also imagine themselves paying a thousand dollar car note per month on a supercar or a sports car. But for the average of people, I would say in South Florida, you know, eight hundred to a thousand dollars for a supercar payment per month, if that gets you in the door to close a deal for five to ten thousand dollars for every single month MRR, was the thousand dollars worth it if you're in the supercar community. I mean, I'm always a big proponent, like honor God to the best of your ability with your finances, trust him with your finances, but also don't be afraid to live in abundance because I think so many people are scared. Right now, people are ludicrously scared of what the economy and what the future is gonna look like.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 12:35

I've chosen definitively not to live in fear because I think so many people right now also too want good examples of what living in faith really looks like in the marketplace. And don't get me wrong, I haven't always been successful, man. Like it wasn't only until the last year or two where we really started to pop off. Yeah. But leading up to it, I had my months where I was like, barely could pay my bills, barely could make payroll. If you're a business owner, you know what that feels like. And making the decision to do something that I believe I've tried to do to the best of my ability with my own team is love people beyond the paycheck. And that's something I always lead with too. Like whenever we meet with our clients and we have our meetups each month, I always try to remind them and I say to them, look, what can we do to bless your employees the most? Because they are your greatest brand ambassadors. Think of them as like, not necessarily exactly, but think of them as your greatest marketing team. And if they don't feel like they're getting a great value proposition, employment value proposition, which I preach all the live long day, people probably are tired of hearing me say that. But if your people don't feel like they have a holistic employment value proposition working for your team, and you know how to market that in the marketplace as an employer, you'll never win in the hiring game. And everyone's playing this game of, oh, we're gonna spend tens of thousands of dollars on Indeed or you know, thousands of dollars on LinkedIn or ZipRecruiter or whatever it might be. Your people, your people will always help you win in the hiring game first. So treat them well, honor them, and also give them something to believe in more than anything.

SPEAKER_00 14:15

Yeah, it's like you have an external reputation, but you also have an internal reputation with your employees, right?

SPEAKER_02 14:22

Yeah, it's EVP and IVP. It's your internal value proposition and then your external employment value proposition.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

Oh, you said it way cooler than me.

SPEAKER_02 14:31

No, I mean, dude, so here here's a funny story. So many years ago I worked for Indeed Corporate on the staffing side. Okay, I didn't know that. We we were in a unique situation where I had the privilege of working on the Cybertruck project.

SPEAKER_00 14:45

Oh, cool.

SPEAKER_02 14:46

So, you know, the gigafactory that was built in Austin, Texas, right? So our team was responsible for creating like marketing strategies to not only get people engaged and attract them to going and working for Tesla and some other clients and some other opportunities, but you know, also taking advantage of the opportunities to to maybe network to some broader audiences of people that maybe never considered working in more of a tech-based environment. And there were some other clients that I won't get into, but one of the most powerful decisions that I think our team made during that time was like we threw out bonuses and opportunities to help pay for people to, you know, get to the working site because they may have not had a car or you know, pay for, you know, food or something else, like little things that you can do to show people love and humility and respect for their time, energy, and effort. And so if you're intentional about doing that, then obviously you can see an ROI from it. But um, yeah, every company is gonna be different, man, with your recruitment marketing approach. It's it's huge now. Yeah, you know, trying to find good people is not as easy as it was ten years ago.

SPEAKER_00 15:53

It's interesting. I have um I have this side of my business now. This is I guess this would technically compete with you, but I've had a lot of clients that have asked me if I can help them recruit through digital marketing. And and I actually have a handful of clients that I've been doing that with, but it just kind of shows me the the desperate times employers are in. They're they're really looking for not say alternatives, but but but other and better options for than just you know slapping up a posting, you know.

SPEAKER_02 16:31

Well, see, I I think it's a holistic approach. So I don't see anything that you do or anyone else does is really competition. We have our own recruiting and hiring and marketing strategies that we implement for our clients and we always try to advise them to the best of our abilities. But man if you don't know how to really attract, develop, and retain people holistically, you can have a great marketing strategy, you can even have a great indeed strategy, you can have all these different strategies. It doesn't matter. Like you have to create a holistic, centralized, founded and grounded system around attraction plus a strong development process and procedure that equals higher retention rates. It's an all-encompassing thing, and we a lot of times we only think about it from one side of it is just how do I get people in the door.

SPEAKER_00 17:22

Well, with your analogy, if somebody so basically you're saying somebody needs a good culture, a good culture.

SPEAKER_02 17:28

Has to be a good place of employment. It's it's more than culture, man. Like culture I I I've had this conversation with several people over the years. Compensation and from the outside looking in, culture, a good culture, compensation and culture from the outside will attract people. But how you treat them, how you nurture them and develop them, really investing in their development holistically is really where the culture is built. And I think so many people just they don't know how to develop people. When I started KeyPro, when we started KeyPro seven years ago, I didn't know how many people were really desperately dying for better career paths and wanted to grow. They were hungry, they were desiring to build and to create and to do more in their lives, and they just never got that chance because their employer didn't stop to ask the number one most important question: What do you want to do? It's so simple, but yet in every interview I have with every candidate that we've hired from my team, the first question I asked them is, What do you actually want? What is your roadmap over the next five years? And how can I build that with you?

SPEAKER_00 18:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:46

It's putting your people first and what their desires are. We got it so backwards, man. Like we always have candidates applying to us, they're booking times to interview with us, you know, they want to be part of a great culture that's part of our team. What if we just flipped that script? It would change everything, and that's what my team is really trying to do.

SPEAKER_00 19:10

How so what are the okay outside of, and I'm I'm asking you this for a for a friend.

SPEAKER_02 19:19

Tell your friend, I will bless him and help him as much as I can.

SPEAKER_00 19:22

Or her, her her. All right. Oh, this is a dude. He's got a beard, about six foot, two hundred and fifty pounds. Um in terms of developing people, I understand that you need to understand what motivates an individual. Is it they just want to get rich as fuck? Do they just want to provide for their kids? Do they want to feel significant and you know, become a manager or lead a team? Right. Yeah, what's their what what's what makes them tick, right? But what are the actual mechanics of development? Like once you know that, okay, cool. What are the actual mechanics of development?

SPEAKER_02 20:10

So I think every company is gonna have a different way of going about it. For us, what I've discovered, I think what God kind of gave me a vision around is three core pillars when it comes to developing people. It's purpose, alignment, passion, understanding, and promises, non-negotiables. So whenever you're sitting down with a candidate, whenever you're trying to coach them and develop them, we have our own cheat sheet, if you will, we've developed where we go back to whenever we're doing our team huddles or we're doing our one-on-one coaching sessions. What is the purpose that God is calling you back to if you believe in God or whatever your higher entity is that you're putting your foundation and your worth in? What is your purpose that you know that God is calling you toward? What are the key things that you're genuinely passionate about that honors God or the higher power in your life? If it's you, that's your choice. And then what are your promises? What are the non-negotiables that you said before coming into this team of what you were gonna do both inside of this team and outside of this team? And then creating a 30, 60, 90 day plan around that and revamping that. Like the problem and the mistake that a lot of HR people and a lot of business owners make is that they're not intentionally re-evaluating, they're just setting it and forgetting it. You know, they'll have an annual review with a candidate, but they're not actually doing a full-on review. They're saying, hey, you know, you hit certain goals, you hit certain metrics. Right. Great. We'll give you an eight percent raise. Great job. And that's it. That's where the buck stops. It's so much more than that. It's continual investment. And, you know, I think one of the things that we've also changed recently, because if you're looking at culture and and growth and development for people, uh It's not being afraid to also push back and ask people how they're doing in their personal lives and are they taking care of themselves. Because I truly believe spiritual, emotional, and physical health is more important today in the workplace than it ever has been before. And so many companies are afraid to touch that because they don't want to get HIPAA compliance issues. They don't want to have HR banging on their door and giving them red flags. But there is a way to have authentic conversations around those things, as long as it's coming from a place of good intent and you know how to do it from a definitive way of not being too nosy, if that makes sense. It's a hard balance.

SPEAKER_00 22:38

Yeah, no, no, you're you're very insightful. Um I get selfish on these podcasts and I want to learn from myself.

SPEAKER_02 22:46

No, dude, I I want to learn for myself. I think that so many people, man, and this is from me as your brother and as a friend, like I'm so sick and tired of seeing so many business owners and hiring managers suffer. And I'll tell you a quick story. So when I was growing up, my dad was an immigrant from London and from India. So family was originated in, I want to believe it was New Delhi, moved to Guyana for a very short time, and then springboarded into London. Pretty much lived most of his life in London, in Leicester, and you know, played chess, went to university for two years, dropped out of college or university, and then he moved to the United States. He always was entrepreneurial, he always has been, and he was willing to take risks on himself and really build something unique and amazing. And I commend my dad for that. You know, I think that he always had a passion for trying to do things to invest back in his community. So I give him all the respect in the world for that. And my mom, she grew up in this Southern Baptist, you know, gunslinging community of northern Kentucky and Cincinnati and Virginia. So everyone around Cincinnati knew me as a cowboy Indian growing up. So all that to say, I remember seeing my mom and my dad build their business together in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio, in a very rough neck of the woods. And I just remember, and I look back, of when my dad would get home at 10 o'clock at night, my mom and him would be sitting there, you know, going through the bills. We had this round table, you know, and they would be writing down, like, okay, we got to make payroll, man. We might have to let so and so go because they're not showing up or, you know, they're really not paying attention, they're not growing, they're not developing, whatever it was. And I just think back to that every single time I sit down with a business owner, man, and I think, if I can solve that, if I can take that pain away from a business owner and say, we're gonna find you the right people to the best of our ability. We're gonna show you how to invest in them beyond the paycheck and love them beyond the paycheck, genuinely love them. I'm not saying just throw out a quarterly bonus and a pizza party. Like, really, really care for them. Um that goes so far.

SPEAKER_00 25:10

Let me can I ask you a question? No. Okay, you have one? Yeah, yeah. I'm gonna throw you for a loop here. All right, hit me. Because you're very smart, and I gotta I gotta raise my level, I gotta raise my level of intelligence with you. All right. How would you answer this? So, how would you say to an employer that wants to have the best staff possible, the most uh well-oiled machine possible, and you know, we're talking about nurturing and developing, etc. What would you say to the person that believes it's all about the selection process? And let me tell you about a selection process that I believe is potentially case in point. You use Harvard University, okay? To get into Harvard, what are your grades?

SPEAKER_02 26:06

Oh, 4.5, 4.3, you know, I don't know how many, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:11

I don't know, right, right. The requirement is valedictory. It's super high. Yeah. Okay. Now let's unpack that. Who is a valedictorian?

SPEAKER_02 26:21

Yeah, I mean, if you're asking me directly, it's uh a child that for two reasons or another, they were naturally gifted in particular ways in which they could use their d definitive mindset and their reasoning to be able to do well on exams and tests. And also they had the motivation, either it be through their family or through external factors that push them to excel in all parts of their life, whether it be, you know, in sports, most of the Val Victorian kids were super athletic. They're winners, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:56

Okay. So if you only allow winners into your university, then what's the likelihood that they're going to continue to win? You would think high. So can it be said, and I'm trying to challenge you here and get help you get creative, can it be said, can't it be said that nothing else matters other than the selection process itself?

SPEAKER_02 27:23

I think there's a balance between seeing someone's past and letting it be a indication of what they could potentially achieve in the future. I mean, it's talked about on almost every single podcast, man. How many AA students end up working for the B and C student, right?

SPEAKER_00 27:40

Oh, I'm talking about Harvard.

SPEAKER_02 27:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:42

Well well, Ain't too many Harvard kids working for No, I think I think with Harvard.

SPEAKER_02 27:51

The thing, the interesting thing about Harvard is that I look at the unique ability and creativity for innovation. I think Harvard, and there's only limited information I know about Harvard. I've in the past researched and seen different colleges, because I used to recruit off of college campuses many years ago when I was first kind of getting started in recruiting. This was ten years ago or so. Certain universities do not allow for students to express their full potential in their creativity and their innovation. One of the biggest things that I've always been a proponent of is get students out to do internships and to start building business in their freshman year and make it part of their college credits. Like if you're gonna keep college in play, like a Harvard or a bigger a bigger university, you need to allow for these students to get off the freaking campus and to do something with their lives. Right now, they're sitting behind a desk. They're already smart kids. Why are you trying to get them to retake all these gen ed classes to prove again that they're more than capable of doing this? And they're spending hundreds of thousands of dollars doing all this. The college education system is going to go through a substantial revamp, I guarantee it, in the next two years. Because with the advent of AI and all this, teachers are saying left and right, you know, these kids are wicked smart, but they're also leveraging technology far above and beyond anything that we're even capable of, even as teachers. So what's that mean for Harvard? Even the most intelligent people at Harvard are gonna have to make a change. So I hope that kind of answers your question.

SPEAKER_00 29:25

Yeah, yeah. Um, see, I I'm of the belief, i and and it's a double-edged sword because I'm of the belief that if I want to start a basketball team, you know, uh I'm not going to the suburbs. Yeah. Okay. I'm gonna go down to the urban games, I'm gonna look for a guy of a certain physique, height, etc., and I'm gonna recruit them, and then I'm gonna try to nurture them, right? So what I'm talking about is the selection process. I I feel when I hire people, like I I can give you the nurturing, I can give you the the the coaching and the training, but brother, you got it or you don't. Is there some truth to that?

SPEAKER_02 30:14

So I think yes, I think to an extent. And you either want it or you don't. I think that a lot of times when it comes to hiring people, one, you have to have a keen eye for talent. You know, I think there is a sense of intuition. I think that's more so what you're referring to of being able to see good talent to build a relationship with that talent and then motivate them far above anything that they've ever been motivated by. You know, Michael Jordan, you know, LeBron James, whoever you want to look at, they always had someone in their corner whispering to them, you are so much better than this. So, yes, I think that there is a sense of intuition and being able to establish you want to look for the best of the best, you want to establish who is the best of the best. But also don't forget there are some hidden talent out there that if you're not careful and you don't have a keen eye, like that's one of the problems that we're running into with resume sparsing, is that AI and ATS platforms that are reviewing and analyzing resumes, they can only read what's on the resume. Until you pick up the phone or you meet that person face to face, you're never really going to understand what's motivating them. So all these companies that are sending candidates through their HRIS platforms, their ATS platforms, and sparsing resumes and only taking from the top line, you're actually probably missing some people that are kind of right here at that are a B player that have the potential to be an A player, but there is that coaching and an opportunity for you to get them there. And also, too, let's talk about the cost behind it too. If you want an A player, you're gonna pay A player prices. If you find a B player and they're reasonably more affordable for you, and then you invest in them, that's the higher level, that's the bigger play for growth. And we saw that with college internship programs. The most successful hires I ever had were college interns that were hungry, that were motivated, but they were never given the chance. But they proved that they were at least kind of a B player that were willing to work for an A.

SPEAKER_00 32:19

I got a cool, another cool question. Good, good, good answers, good responses. Doing my best. No, it's good. Do you think that um Google, Apple, Tesla, Meta, do you think they develop people or do they just buy the best people?

SPEAKER_02 32:34

Oh man, you're you're hitting on a good one. So I've been thinking about that recently. I was watching a diary of uh of a CEO yesterday. Yes, I love that. And I'm a huge fan. And uh Stefan, he does such a great job. He's such a great interviewer. But one of the things that I I've come to understand is that AI is probably one of the only instances with maybe some other technologies that Google and through the last 20 years, Microsoft has been super competitive around, right? The technology in the AI space is probably one of the flukes that we were never anticipating in the job market. So poaching has always been a problem, but with AI, it is becoming dangerous. It's becoming dangerous to the point where the top talent, if you can buy them, my question in my mind goes, is the company that they're leaving allowing them to leave? Because you gotta think too, a lot of these companies have NDAs and non-compete. So are they allowing them to go and work for their comp competition and then maybe feeding some information back to them? I can't confirm or deny that. And then down the road you fast forward the button, you hit the button, five years from now, what does AI look like? You got all these guys that learned all the trade secrets of someone else, who's to say that they don't come back? I think that Chat GBT is just right now in a in a valley. Who's to say that Sam Altman and all these other guys aren't allowing or waiting, waiting for the right moment to poach him back, or even find some hidden talent that nobody's paying attention to in a whole different marketplace? You don't know.

SPEAKER_00 34:18

Yeah, it's pretty good. Yeah, it's it's a war out there.

SPEAKER_02 34:23

It's always been a war on talent. The only reason why it's become worse is because big companies are worse than ever at finding and keeping people. It's it's also harder now because you look at the cost of living, right? So the poaching game, right? Cost of living, statistically speaking, has gone up 7x in the last 50 years. Full stop. Wages have only gone up by one to one and a half X in the last 50 years.

SPEAKER_00 34:53

Is that true?

SPEAKER_02 34:55

The wage gap in our society is the biggest problem we're experiencing right now. And, you know, I told you about the new career portal and all the different software that we've invested in from an A AI perspective. You know what the most the the averages of salary, like expectations across the board is now, just from some of the data that I've looked at. It's anywhere from $75,000 all the way up to $130,000 for one person.

SPEAKER_00 35:24

That's the expectation?

SPEAKER_02 35:25

That's the expectation. Wow. Because the cost of living is super freaking high. People have no choice but to expect more from employers. And if the employers can't meet those expectations, sure, the candidate might take a lesser salary, but people are now diversifying. Like the registration of more LLCs in small businesses has gone up by I think 15% in the last two years. Why is that? It's because more and more people cannot trust companies to pay them what they feel like they're worth if they are good candidates. And so people have to diversify and choose other ways to make money. You know, the average, I think millennial now has two to three side hustles. That was me six, seven years ago, man. And it's only going to continue to get worse. And I think that's the reason why in the next five years, you're going to see this huge shift in our tax code around how we're paying for taxes and for the government and how the government should probably be a little bit more responsible with our finances. I'm not going to get too much into that. So you're going to see the shift where a lot more people are becoming more financially independent and self-sufficient and working independently. What does that do to the tax brackets? More people potentially could be paying into the pr tax brackets or less, depending upon the way that the economy is moving with AI. You couple that with all the people right now in all the companies that can't afford to hire people at the wages that they're looking for. And then everything is going to move to project-based work. I can almost guarantee you in the next five years, we're going to see where more and more companies are only having 1099 contractors and they're already starting to do it. They started doing that since COVID. The amount of recruiters and HR people that are right now looking for a job is astounding. Why is that? Because again, companies can't efficiently hire and retain people. So who's the first person on the chopping block? It's HR and recruiting people.

SPEAKER_00 37:17

Yeah, interesting. Um tell me so tell me about your business today.

SPEAKER_02 37:22

Well, I mean, first of all, it's not my company, it's God's company. So that's the thing that I always try to lead with. So seven years ago, when I got this vision for Key Pro, you know, I was a director of recruiting at Northwestern Mutual. Um, you know, I helped with the college internship program. I was kind of alluding to that earlier, and then um, you know, I just felt lost, man. I felt like I wasn't doing everything that I was called to do for whatever reason. It was, I guess, the Holy Spirit or God just talking to me in that moment. And I remember I had my first investment property. It was like 15 minutes from downtown Cincinnati, Ohio. And um I went home that day after I left at NM, left NM, and I sat at my dining room table. It was actually a black table, not too different from this. And I said, God, I'm sick and tired of feeling like my gifts and talents are not being fully utilized. I'm sick and tired of feeling like the managers and the teams I'm working for don't really honestly care about my future and they don't really see my full potential. And I feel like I'm not making the kind of compensation that I feel like I should be, given the unique gifts and talents I'd built leading up to that point. So I think God put on my heart and he said to me, How, how do you change that problem for everyone else? How do you bless millions of other people beyond the paycheck? And so for me, we I built a whole career coaching curriculum, you know, to help people that were in a simp similar situation as I was, um but that felt hopeless in their careers, wasn't making enough money, and you know, hated working for toxic bosses and toxic cultures. Not to say all the managers I worked for at that point were toxic, but you get my drift. Um from there we had about 200 career coaching clients in two and a half years. Unbelievable. Wow. Unbelievable. And a lot of that work I also gave out as pro bono. I'm not saying this to get, you know, round of applause or anything, but there were a lot of people that were struggling. So I felt like I was called to, almost like an attorney gives out pro bono hours, you know, to hit their certain metrics by the bar. I felt like taking a very similar approach of like, hey, you know, I can make some money off of this. It was just a side hustle. I was still working a day job, and I could still bless people out outside of the office. And then in years three and four is when we started doing talent consulting. So my first consulting client was a logistics company in Cincinnati, you know, third party. They were struggling with finding, developing, and keeping their people. And that was always the mantra I went back to with them. So I worked with them for, I want to say, eight months. Three or four other clients came to the table and I was like, all right, sure, I can help you. I moved out to Carmel, Indiana in Indianapolis, you know, kind of in that middle period. And I just started seeing God working, like in very special and unique ways, and seeing the blessings that came out of that. I mean, I worked with business owners that owned coffee shops, that owned, you know, window and patio door companies, the whole nine yards. And I am very honored and grateful I had those opportunities, especially at a young age. You know, I was probably 25 or something like that. And, you know, I was this 25, 26 year old. I worked my assets off the first six, seven years of my career, and I got these opportunities and I didn't take them for granted. And then the last two years is when we came out with the first holistic recruiting subscription model. So essentially the way it works is that business owners now can sign on to our subscription, a couple grand a month. And we do all the pre-screening, sourcing, offering, and supporting onboarding. And we have AI assessments that we do with all of our candidates. We have um, you know, bi-weekly calls with all of our clients, and we also offer once a month HR check-ins to where I'll sit down with their HR and recruiting team and say, okay, we're doing good, we're getting some hires in the door, amazing. That's what we wanted. How can we make it even better? How can we define our parameters and make sure that we're keep improving the level and the quality of talent? Because companies don't have anything like that. They're HR people are really great at payroll benefits and pizza parties.

SPEAKER_00 41:42

Yeah, yeah. And I'm not saying that to dog on them, but it's just I lived it at another company I worked with.

SPEAKER_02 41:48

But all that to say, man, God put it on my heart four months ago as we've been building KeyPro to say, how do you bless a billion? I was like, God, what the hell are you talking about? Bless a billion. I haven't even scratched a million yet. And he he was like, Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. You can bless a billion people, but it doesn't have to be directly. Focus on touching a million business owners nationally and then eventually internationally, and then that's where I'll show up. And I truly firmly believe, and this is what's helped build our company, I think a million times over, the secret that nobody really believes in or they don't understand is the biblical principle of forgiving and giving seven times seventy. Give seven unique means of value to the people that you're working with, however that comes, whether it be through a relationship, uh a free tool that you can offer them. We got several on our website that we give out for free, no strings attached. And even networking relationships to go out there and to go to networking events. I've taken people to networking events with me to help them get connections. And then allow God to bless that 70 fold. And also extend forgiveness, that's the hardest part, is when you've either been wronged in business or you feel like you've been treated unfairly, how are you gonna react to other people? And can you still be generous in those moments? That's the way we try to run KeyPro. I'm not perfect. I'll be the first one to admit it. I am not perfect, but I trust God and I try to give as much as I can. So I hope that helps.

SPEAKER_00 43:29

Yeah. No, I love it. Who's your who's your target like ICP, would you say?

SPEAKER_02 43:34

So things have changed in the last year. You know, we've had the blessing of starting to work with a couple of franchise groups. So what we've found is that a lot of like skilled trades businesses, healthcare businesses, you know, and a lot of companies that are still trying to hire sales and marketing people, more outside sales, give or take, those are really the ICPs that we're going after, one million to twenty five, thirty million, right. Roughly with five to fifty employees, you know, if you were asking me directly, but we built the subscription model to bless even the smallest business owners. We've had small companies, small business owners that only have teams of one or two people that we've done the subscription model with, and we found them a hire in 30 days.

SPEAKER_00 44:18

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 44:19

You know, I mean, talk about being a blessing to a small business owner that's really trying to get up and running. You know, if you go to a traditional staffing agency, man, here's the dirty secret. You ready? Traditional staffing agencies, if you approach them and you said tomorrow, hey, I need a digital marketing specialist. I need to hire them at 60, 70 grand for the year. Reasonable, you know, within reason. They're gonna charge you 10 to 30% on that one higher salary.

SPEAKER_01 44:50

Right.

SPEAKER_02 44:51

That may not even be considering retention bonuses, extra sign-on bonuses that you have to pay for the candidate if they're demanding it. And also to what happens if that person doesn't work out after the 91st day?

SPEAKER_01 45:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:05

Because a lot of recruiting companies, they'll only have a guarantee up to 90 days. So we've discovered that if you do your best at hiring and doing consistent hiring support for the companies at a reasonable price every month, it can bless them beyond belief. And from a stewardship perspective, I think it's highway robbery charging someone for a sixty-five, seventy-five thousand dollar salary, salary, eight to fifteen or twenty thousand dollars from one hire. I think that's ludicrous. And most business owners can't afford to do that today. That's why they've tried to bring hiring in-house. They've tried to hire recruiters, and even those recruiters don't know what they're doing. Most people don't know what they're doing on Indeed, LinkedIn, or any other job board.

SPEAKER_00 45:50

Yeah. They're just doing a post, reaching out, they don't even know what they're looking for, right? Yeah. Um so what would you obviously it sounds like you're I I don't I don't want to say this disrespectfully. No. Outside of God, what would you attribute a lot of the success to recently?

SPEAKER_02 46:14

I mean, my first rule is I could never take the credit.

SPEAKER_00 46:17

I promise God, so what strategic thing have you done? I've always said of prayer.

SPEAKER_02 46:24

I've always been an innovator. Okay. If you want a good entrepreneur, you want someone that really can withstand the test of time, you gotta keep innovating. You have to adapt. You have to evolve. The market is moving at a million miles an hour with AI.

SPEAKER_01 46:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:41

If you don't adapt, and if you don't find ways with a good heart and a good intent to bless other people, with or without God, you're not gonna survive. Period. I think the best chances for your survival as a business owner is put more faith in God than you do in yourself. That's why I always go back to, because at the end of the day, who is it all about? Is it about you and your selfish desires? Or does God have something bigger in story where you could bless more people than you ever imagined? Yeah. That's the question I keep coming back to. Is it all for God or is it all for nothing? So I'm sorry, I can't leave God out of the equation.

SPEAKER_00 47:22

Where where did your uh were your were your parents spiritual or so I have an interesting story on that front?

SPEAKER_02 47:29

So um I grew up Hindu until I was about 13, 14 years old. Wow. My parents got divorced. Um, one of the hardest parts of my life. I think every entrepreneur, at one point or another, they go through something pretty traumatic that changes their their worldview, the way they see themselves, and the way they have they relate to people. Um so when my parents divorced, I was the oldest in the family. It's me and my sister. That's it. I was the oldest, and so there was always a high level of expectation that I think was indirectly put on me. You know, my dad was not really in the picture that much, you know, and he was working hard. Like I want to give him respect where it's due. You know, he was trying to build a company even after the divorce, he was still running that company for 20, 30 years after. Um, but I grew up Hindu, and one of the things that I think I've come to realize is that I can still relate and respect everyone, no matter what their religious beliefs are, because I was that kid. I I didn't know exactly what I believed, I just knew I had a belief position because my parents believed a certain way, or my dad did specifically, and that's just how life was. You know, when you're a kid, you really don't think about those things. And then the divorce happens, I was bitter. I hated people. Like I hated my own mom. I hated extended family members. I just there were times where I even was questioning whether or not it was worth it. And um I was broken. Very broken. Yeah. And I got to a point where I wanted to surrender. And it wasn't a surrender in the sense of everyone makes it this whole facade of oh, it's overly spiritual. I just literally broke down crying one night on a Thursday night at a youth group service. I didn't go into that. I matter of fact, I hated being there. But a buddy of mine invited me and I surrendered. And for the very first time knowing Christ and having a relationship with God, I finally felt a sense of burden lifted off in my shoulders. And I think what what ultimately we all really want, especially for men, we want peace. And even in our own lives. Like, if we're not taking care of ourselves too, we feel like crap, you know, literally. And when I finally surrendered, I I felt that burden lifted off, and then I had a new zest and zeal for life. And I felt like there was so much more that I could do if I truly trusted and I had faith. And there's been times where God had to show up, and it was only because of him I barely survived. Um, and even some personal family things happened even after I got saved. Like the the fallacy a lot of people think is that as soon as you believe in God, or the moment you accept Christ, your life is perfect. Or, you know, you're never gonna experience any problems in your life. That's bullshit. I will be the first person to own that. It's bullshit. Matter of fact, your life gets a hell of a lot harder at times. And the reason it gets harder is because you finally see the broken, sinful nature we all live with. And if you're like me, you're a deep thinker, that weighs pretty heavy on you. And you feel responsible and accountable and embarrassed.

SPEAKER_00 51:26

So yeah, no, you uh great great story, great insight. And yes, you're a deep thinker, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_02 51:36

Just a little bit. I've only been called a deep thinker 50,000 times.

SPEAKER_00 51:41

Um religion is is fascinating. Spirituality is fascinating because and and I'm really fascinated by your story because you know, if if you're born and raised in Iran, it's unlikely you're gonna be Christian. You know, if mom and dad are saying uh praise Allah, and that's all you hear, that's all you see, it's pretty hard to have a coming to Jesus moment. Literally, literally, right? And but if you're born in a Christian or a Catholic, you know, whatever society, obviously you're gonna be impressed upon those types of teachings. So I'm always really fascinated by somebody who was born a certain way that had the spiritual insight to maneuver their spirituality. You know, you going from Hindu to Christian is fast, is fascinating. It really is. Um and I think it's a testament to how much how much you internalize things, think about things, process things, don't take things for as they are. I think too many people, too many people today take things for as they have been told, and it's not always the truth, and it's not always right, and uh sometimes it is. Um, but man, you got a this was awesome. I I I hope you feel like you got a lot off your chest because I feel like you did.

SPEAKER_02 53:15

No, I I love sharing amazing stories, and I love spending time with people that honor that. Yeah, so I I respect and honor you, man. You've built an amazing team here, and I'm just I'm excited to see what God is gonna do for you and this team very, very soon.

SPEAKER_00 53:35

Yeah, I'll I'll leave you, I'll leave you with this. You know, I had this dream probably two or three years ago, and I was on a private plane and I was doing like humanitarian missions and all these things. Yeah. And um, and I thought to myself, I was like, what? I was like, hmm. I was probably like age 55 years old.

SPEAKER_02 53:58

Silver Fox.

SPEAKER_00 54:00

Yeah, we'll see. I don't I don't have any in the top up top yet.

SPEAKER_02 54:03

So um we all get there at some point. We'll see.

SPEAKER_00 54:07

I'm holding off, man. I'm holding it up. No, you're doing good.

SPEAKER_02 54:09

You got the classy hair, man.

SPEAKER_00 54:11

The beard the beard is uh is definitely getting a little you know sulfur. It's like a classy biker.

SPEAKER_02 54:17

Yeah, I like that, dude.

SPEAKER_00 54:19

That's great. Yeah, yeah. But um, but you know, I uh at the time, you know, I was wondering like what you know, you think about your calling or what's your mission or what's your duty, and you know, how can you have the greatest impact, right? And what I've started to realize is because I'm I'm very new in my faith as of last maybe July or August. Yeah, man. And the one skill set I do have is I'm a hell of a salesperson, right?

SPEAKER_02 54:48

I mean, it's showing, man.

SPEAKER_00 54:49

Yeah, I'm I'm a strong salesperson. I can sit down with somebody and not I don't want to say persuade them, but um articulate, yeah. Enlighten them, articulate, right? Yeah, and give them a perspective that maybe they haven't thought of yet. And and maybe my God-given duty is to spread the word through my salesmanship, yeah. You know, and through um my voice and my teaching. Like, so maybe maybe that dream wasn't so fake after all. No, you know, maybe it is to spread the word, you know, throughout places that need it. So we'll we'll see if it comes to fruition down the road.

SPEAKER_02 55:28

I think your life can be paralleled to Paul in the sense of Paul was on the road to Damascus, was blinded, and and Jesus asked him directly, uh why are you persecuting me? You know, I I I made you, I care about you. Flipped him back, he went back the opposite direction, and then he used his entrepreneurial endeavors in all facets of his life. He was a philosopher, he had, I think, what was it, like eight degrees in masters and philosophy and all these different things. He was the top dog, you know? And I look at someone that is so motivated like you, and I think to myself, man, what amazing ways are you gonna change the world, bro? Like, that's the most amazing thing, is that we don't know. Like, what I found is that there's those, there's a moment of spark where you think of something innovative, you think of something different. Paul had many of those moments if you look through scripture. You're gonna have those spark moments, man. I've had those moments just recently in the last two weeks where we offered things that I never thought we could.

SPEAKER_01 56:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:42

And AI did have a part to do in that. But I think God can use your unique capabilities and abilities to give people hope. And if you're I don't think your goal, you're not the kind of person that strikes me as a seller. You're a sharer. You share value, you give value. And I'm a firm believer if you're living a life of being a go-giver and you try not to expect too much in return, God will honor that a thousand percent. And you being on a jet is a byproduct of you trying to honor God, and there is nothing wrong with that.

SPEAKER_00 57:18

Amen.

SPEAKER_02 57:18

Amen, bro.

SPEAKER_00 57:20

Do me a favor, this is fun. Take a look into that camera, the handsome face of yours, and uh give a brief 20-second elevator pitch about your company. And if someone wants to reach out to you, where's the best place to look you up online?

SPEAKER_02 57:37

Yeah. My name is Cajol Shaw. I'm the founder and owner of Key Pro. We are one of the fastest growing recruiting and HR firms in the country. And if people would like to get connected to me, I would love to share my story with you and hear yours as well. Uh, you can find me on LinkedIn. It's just Cajol Shaw. I'm one of the only ones that's on LinkedIn. And my uh website is www.keyproinc.ai. Thanks all.

SPEAKER_00 58:07

Guys, thanks again for tuning into the Gold Coast podcast. Make sure to like and subscribe. We'll see you again.