PodCrash with Matt Ebert
PodCrash with Matt Ebert
How to Stop Making Bad Hires with Ryan Hogan
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I'm Matt Evert. I turned one collision repair shop into a multi-billion dollar business called Crash Champions. Now I'm sitting down with people who have also built great things so you can build something of your own.
SPEAKER_01So Matt, excited about our guest today, Ryan Hogan, who's gonna crash the pod. He's a former military officer turned entrepreneur who spent years studying leadership under pressure. So quick question for you. When you think of high pressure moments at Crash Champions, what what comes to mind?
SPEAKER_02Oh, there's many, but uh quickly, uh COVID was high pressure, right? Everybody was told to stay home, nobody driving, so half our business went away. That's high pressure. Twice we've bought companies bigger than us, one of them bankrupt. That's probably the biggest high pressure one. Uh strapping a bankrupt company onto us and then having to transfer them, transform that. So that's probably the highest pressure one.
SPEAKER_01That seems like a podcast all of its own. Probably sometimes talking about that. Yeah. Looking forward to the conversation with you and Ryan.
SPEAKER_02Yep, here we go, everybody. This is Podcrash. What got you wanting to go into the Navy? Did you do it right after high school? How'd you do?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I was a lost kid. I I was one of those kids that was like failing out of high school and into all the wrong things. Like we were we were fast and a furious before fast and a furious ever came out. Street racing and just doing doing stupid stuff. And like I always had this energy and and ambition and drive, but it was always focused in the wrong areas. And so where you go and were you did you win some races or what what car did you have? My races were were much like entrepreneurship, where I lost all of my races up until I started winning. Um, but it was the lessons learned from all the failures. But uh it started, oh, this is gonna be embarrassing, but it started with a Honda Accord. Um, but then I got uh a Mitchell BC Eclipse GST and um and then the reason I'm really in the Navy uh is because I blew it on nitrous and I lost my job. I was a an apprentice for the local electricians union in Baltimore and uh lost my job, couldn't get there anymore. And so I was just staying at home at that point. And my mom was like, No, like this isn't this isn't what you're doing for the next 20 years. Um, so you pull up the motor and you couldn't drive to work.
SPEAKER_02There goes so there goes the job.
SPEAKER_00That's correct. Oh man, yeah, that's a tough break. That's maybe one of the best breaks. Like that's you know, at the time I was like, man, this really sucks. Um, but now looking back at it, it's like I wouldn't be I wouldn't be where I am today without um without that blown engine.
SPEAKER_02Interesting connect the dot story. So uh your mom said, Well, you don't need a car in the Navy, probably.
SPEAKER_00It was like uh when the barcodes are like, we don't care where you go, but you you gotta get out of here. Like that's uh that's basically what my mom told me. And uh and that was it. And that was the start of a journey. I was still 17 at the time. My mom literally signed my permission slip. And so the the only way I was able to join the Navy is because uh she signed off on on me because I was a minor, went to boot camp, uh, became a naval air crewman, and so I flew in the back of helicopters for the first 10-ish years of my career. Okay. Um and uh we did mine countermeasures out of this gigantic helicopter. It's called the MH 53 Echo. The Navy thought that they were gonna take the systems off of that and put them into the smaller helicopter. So I went and did test and development out of Pax River for a while. Um, and then ultimately got picked up for uh a commissioning program. And so that was like that was really kind of the start of the journey. But the thing with those first couple years, well, we'll we'll scrub the first year because I was still getting into trouble the first year. Um, but the thing with uh with the second year forward is like the the Navy, the military in general, I mean, this is kind of a common thing, but like it taught me how to focus that energy. Um, it taught me discipline, it taught me patience, it taught me a lot of things that I needed to be successful in in other areas of life. How long did you serve? Thanks for your service, by the way. That how long did you serve? Thanks. Yeah, this is kind of a crazy thing, but I'm actually still like so. Um I did 15 years active duty. Um, I wound up having a company that took off and and allowed me to transition into the reserve. So it was 15 years active, and I I've been in the reserves now for the last nine years, and uh I'm the commanding officer of a unit out of Spokane, Washington.
SPEAKER_02Oh wow, so still at it, and that's a good that's a long run. That's great. So the entrepreneur part of you came what what seeded that for you?
SPEAKER_00Like as far back as I can remember, and I and I'm sure it's it's you know, my dad as a um as a real estate agent and kind of like owning his own time and and things that that I witnessed, experienced early on in life. But like in third grade, I was selling creepy crawlers. And I don't know if you remember, but that was like the easy bake oven for boys. Okay. And you used to put like this gel on these metal trays and put it into that that oven, the plastic oven that was in the cooking it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00That's that's it. And um, and I would take them into third grade and I would haul them. And so I would sell them for 10 cents. And if people wanted certain colors, I would take custom orders for 25 cents. That was probably the start of it. And from there, mowing grass. We had this company called Lawnmower Men. We were just boys, we were like 12 years old. Um, but uh, but we named the company lawnmower men. Shoveling snow, mowing grass, washing cars, like like you name it, I was doing it. And uh that was really kind of the seed, and the things that I was missing, which we kind of alluded to, was like figuring out how to take all of that and actually build something larger. Yeah. But it it's really just as far back as I can remember.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I I I've talked to quite a few entrepreneurs. It it starts those early years, those uh little side hustles that you do as a kid to get some money. Started that way for me. Somebody I was talking to earlier today, same thing. So that list of stuff uh rang true to me because I hear it all the time.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's just in us. Like and I like I I coach, I mentor, I I talk to entrepreneurs, and entrepreneurship is not for everybody. Like, I think there's this weird thing, entrepreneur magazine, Fortune 500, like all of these things that people see, and they're like, oh, they've got the good life. What they don't see is like the grind. And like you get like it's one of those like you can build leadership, like you there's a lot of skill sets I think you can build over time. Um entrepreneurs are like I I think it's just innate. Like you you you either have it or you don't, and I think some people chase it for all the wrong reasons.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think it's a in the DNA personally. I think you just like you said, you have it or you don't. Yeah. You know, you you've said that you feel uh kind of a calling and a purpose to lead and create value. Where's that come from for you? Is that just a in your DNA thing as well, or did something inspire that?
SPEAKER_00It probably a little bit of both. And and it might have always existed. It was just a matter of like finding it. And and really where I find value and purpose in life is helping people reach their maximal potential. And whether that's through coaching or leadership or mentoring or whatever the case may be, um, that's where I find purpose. And one of the most common questions I get right now is like, how did you get into recruiting? And for the record, I'm not a recruiter. Okay. Um, I I'm not a game designer, I'm not an obstacle course race designer. All these businesses that I've that I've started, I was not the person that executed on the delivery of the promises of the company. What I have found is that I like bringing world-class humans together and solving really hard problems in industries that are basically stagnant. And and that that's where I find my my purpose and my passion is like bringing that team together and just solving problems. And and fortunately for me, like that's been able to translate into some success. There's been there's been some failures along the way. Um uh, but that's really where I that's really kind of what gets me up out of bed each day.
SPEAKER_02So uh let's talk about a failure. Because I think your first out of the gate swing was did fail, right? It with and I'm talking about the uh run for your lives game.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02Now I'm curious what what what world problem you were solving with this game.
SPEAKER_00But um I don't know what I was solving. There, there was, I I think I was solving my own problem. Here's the here's the backstory to this. So I had a t-shirt company. This is I was talking about the test and development on the helicopters I was doing out of Pax River, and I'd started this t-shirt company. Okay, and and we had $100,000 worth of t-shirts stacked up in our garage to the ceilings, and they weren't moving. This was like two years of just trying to figure stuff out. And I opened up the uh men's health that month, and there was this advertisement in there for Warrior Dash. And I had just called Men's Health like a couple weeks prior to that, and I knew that it was like a hundred and seventy-five thousand dollar ad that they just ran. And I was like, well, if they can afford it, there's probably a market or something there. And the reason my wheels were turning was because I needed a way to move all of these t-shirts that nobody was buying. Like that warware was my first t-shirt launcher company and thrown in some t-shirts. I I don't know if the money would have came back though. At that point, we're just like launching free free swag. And what happened was um I called a childhood friend and I was like, hey, there's a market here in the obstacle race industry, and I can sell the t-shirts that I have in my garage to this company and let's throw an obstacle race. And we came up with the name Run for Your Lives. And what we realized is like with that name, they should be running away from something. And so we started to look at trends in the industry, and this was back in 2010. So The Walking Dead had just launched and it was just starting to catch fire. And so we were like, what if everybody put on a flag football belt and they ran away from zombies through this five kilometer obstacle course race? And it was great, it it took off, and and it was also great because I got to clear the garage and actually put cars in there then. Um, but that was my first experience of when a business gets traction and your post-product market fit. There are certain frameworks, there's certain things that you need to understand um how to hire the right people, all of these different things. And I did it all wrong. I hired all my best friends from high school.
SPEAKER_02Um and but from the from the business idea concept, you were on to something because it was especially for timing, it was hot at the time, right? So you had that. Super hot. But then super hot. Okay, didn't mean to cut you off, but so great concept, especially for the time, but the mistakes you were hired your friends.
SPEAKER_00That that was it, and like to your point of attraction. So the first event, we just wanted, I think I had like 4,000 t-shirts or something. I was like, we just need 4,000 people. It was like 12,000 people showed up on our doorstep in this little campground in Darlington, Maryland. We jammed up, there was one road off of 95 to get into Darlington. Like, if if uh any of your listeners pull up the Aegis newspaper, like we got trashed because basically we put a traffic jam for seven miles on this one-lane road. The event took off. We scaled from one event, we did 13 events the following year, and and we did uh well, we got through about 18 events. We were supposed to do 24 in um in 2013. Okay. But um that goes back to like hiring the wrong people. So it was zero to five million bucks over a 24-month period, and we didn't know what we were doing. So I I couldn't spell PL. I didn't have a network or a peer group, like we were just fumbling our way through it. And the first realization of this was when we got the report back from the first event, we had generated $733,000 in revenue. Then we look at what we invested, and it was 1.1. Like we had fireworks, we had 18 bands, we we just did stupid stuff, and we invested 1.1. And so I was like, boy, we actually just lost money on this event. Um, and we got better at that, but we didn't get better enough to uh to be able to dig ourselves out before uh yeah, before it all came to a crashing end.
SPEAKER_02Well, I appreciate you uh sharing it though, because um, you know all of us along the way make mistakes, have to have to learn some lessons. What do you think if somebody right now is in the middle of a startup that they're struggling, what would you tell them to pay attention to first?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I think it it would probably depend upon their phase. So there's there's two phases I see in business. There's pre-product market fit and then there's post-product market fit. And so it with startups or people that I talk to that are that are pre-product market fit, it's like stop with the brand, stop, you know. I sometimes I talk to entrepreneurs and they're like, oh, should I be a C Corp or an S Corp? And like the only focus in the early stages is like finding paying customers. And I realize that could be debated. You could raise venture money for 10 years and and hit certain milestones, but real business is about making money. And so as fast as humanly possible, and and like one of my gospels um for startups is the lean startup. And that book is built for mostly technology startups, but I use the MVP in every business that I've ever started, which is like you have an idea, you take that idea to market, and the market tells you how to evolve that idea to get to a place in which you're actually solving a problem. And even like we're gonna get into some of the other consumer um businesses, I'm sure. Like sometimes we were selling stuff we didn't even have. Like we were building websites and putting paid advertisement, and what we're trying to measure for is how many people show up on the website, how many people converted, what was our customer acquisition cost. We would refund the money immediately and be like, oh, the site wasn't supposed to be live yet. But everything that I do pre-product market fit is trying to find like the actual idea that's going to start to solve a problem.
SPEAKER_02Well, that was pretty intuitive. That's a great idea.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. It just depends. Like, and if it's post-product market fit, there's a whole there's a whole list of other things. But it's just when I talk to founders, it's like move as fast as you can to find product market fit and ignore everything else because that stuff becomes a waste of time when you can't even figure out like what the business actually is.
SPEAKER_02Great advice. So you found an your next company was the next one, Honakiller, and that one that one did really well.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so we it it was interesting because so spoiler, run for your lives. Uh zombies do die, or at least zombie events die. And uh that just imploded. And you know, some of the lessons there is hey, this is what a PG actually means um if the business can't support its bills. And so not only did the business go bankrupt, it took me down with it. At the same time, I started, or I got a commissioning in in the Navy, um, transferred out to San Diego, started driving ships, had been dabbling in some other concepts. And then eventually a a business mentor of mine came and he was like, Hey, why are you trying to get into SaaS and this and that? Like your background and experience and expertise is live entertainment and live events. So why don't you try and do that again? So I wound up calling Derek, my co-founder of Run for Your Lives, and I was like, it was three years later, so 2016, and I was like, let's run it back. And so that's what we did is we used the same exact methodology. We looked at emerging trends and themes in the consumer space. This was the prime time for like uh podcasts that were popping up. My favorite murder sword and scale, everything was about true crime. And so we were like, Well, what if what if we created a live experience that was basically like an escape room, meets a murder mystery dinner, meets uh, you know, all of these kind of different things, immersive theater. And that's what we did. So Hunter Killer's first iteration in 2016 was a live event. Uh, we transformed a 200-acre campground into a living crime scene. Um, but there was a problem. We could not have a thousand people standing around a crime scene trying to investigate this fake kind of crime scene murder that we had stayed. Crowded, right? Yeah, we like you can't have uh a hundred people trying to interrogate suspects. And so we could put 15,000, 20,000 people through a run for your life experience, and we were only able to put through 600 people through this experience. So we said, hey, we found product market fit, which is great. We had more demand for this event, this experience than than we could actually execute on. Um, but we were missing the business model. And so we looked at the industry, and what we realized is that the loot crates and the birch boxes, this this subscription box industry was was on the verge of just exploding. And so we were like, that's what we'll do. So we took the experience that we created and we put it in a box. And so this was like clues and items and correspondence, police reports, case files, and we sent it out to doorsteps episodically each month. And that business, once we pivoted, that was zero to 55 million in five years. Um, we wound up picking up Target, Walmart, Barnes, and Nobles. We created unique one-time experiences to sit on store shelves. Okay. Um, and that one just that one took off.
SPEAKER_02And so what was different in that one, business lesson-wise, was it just that it was popular for longer, or you you learned some lessons? Biggest thing you did different.
SPEAKER_00I I would say you just keyed in on something there that's really interesting. Because you you're right, like like one of the lessons there was, and not even a lesson, but like the the trend or the genre held on longer than zombies. And there was also this like subscription component, and there was also like a different format. So there was you some unique differences, but the the reality is it's how we manage the business. Like, I I couldn't even spell PL back in the the run for your lives days. And what is deferred revenue? I just there's cash in the bank, and so we're gonna take this cash and invest it in these areas. That's the wrong way to run, especially a deferred revenue company where you're collecting money up front. Um and so the first thing that I did one, Hunt a Killer allowed me to transition from active duty into the reserves. And so the first thing I did was I joined a peer group. There's a ton out there. There's Vistage, there's EO, there's YPO. Um, I joined Vistage. There was a a guy that I knew in Baltimore that was already a part of a group, so he he let me um he introduced me to the chair and and uh and I joined two groups.
SPEAKER_02So you find the groups like that helpful. Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_00Like if there's three, like if there's three things, and and this probably goes into post-product market fit, three things that like I deeply believe in. Every business uh leader should be in some sort of peer group. And that's at all stages of leadership because everybody's solving very similar problems and they're doing it differently, and there's so much that can be learned through osmosis, just being able to process issues like that in the open. Number two is a business coach. I I think I think some sort of like true coaching, leadership coaching, entrepreneur coaching, I think that's incredibly valuable. And then number three is an operating system. Okay. The the uh the elephant in the room is EOS, the entrepreneurial operating system. Um, it there's others out there, but you need some sort of framework to be able to manage and operate the business.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I I found it beneficial too to seek out peers and share ideas. It's been super valuable to me, both within the industry and and outside of it. I belong to CEO groups today where some of the best ideas come from when those groups get together.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I d I was talking to a guy yesterday and and uh we were just jamming on on EOS and some of these other things, and um, and I was like, Oh, you've you've heard of Vistich2. And he was like, My business, this business in its like current state was built out of a TA group um because he was offering services to somebody, and that person was like, Hey, you could productize it. And someone else came and was like, Hey, this is the market that needs, and he's like, The business that I have today is because I had a peer group of folks that were like telling me exactly where to take this thing, and there's just so much value in that.
SPEAKER_02I'm assuming that you sold then uh Hunt Hunt the Killer. Did you did you exit that business with the sale?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so we we did the the standard sale process. Um we had raised we had raised equity in it, um, and we went out and got an investment banker. We ran about a nine-month process. It's like you know, three to three months to clean everything up, get the books right, build the sim, the teaser, um, go to market, and then really kind of managing that that last phase, which is where you've got um hopefully more. We had three horses in the race, so that was good. Um, but hopefully once you get to the final stage, you've got more than one and you're you're driving value at that point. Um, but yeah, we ran a standard the IB process we sold to a company called What Do You, well, now they're called Relatable. Um, but it was the What Do You Meme card company. They're based out of New York City.
SPEAKER_02And for you, since you view the business as a vehicle, there was not much emotional attachment. Like that was a win, no, no, no remorse, or what do I do next? Worry from you, huh?
SPEAKER_00No, none. Like that's it, I have not uh lost a wink of sleep. I I don't my my former co-founder is still there. He was a critical component of that deal because he's again, I I'm not the designer, I'm not, I'm not the creative. And so he was a big part of of that entire deal. Um, but like I I just don't I don't care. Like it could it could go to a billion, it could go to zero. Like it's not it's not mine, it's not a part of me, and and I moved right on to the next thing.
SPEAKER_02So that was gonna be my next question, actually. Did you take some time off then? Or was the uh was the next idea already there for you? Or sometimes you got to create space for the new ideas to come along. Um, how did it go for you?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I this gets back to like coaching. I I had a a business coach pull me aside. Uh we were in the final stages, so the final thing. Three months of the transaction. And uh, and so we knew there was going to be some sort of transaction at the end of it. And he was like, Hey, you're not going to be able to sit still. What I want you to do right now is go pick your favorite line item and plan to go do that for a while. And so for me, it was easy. Like for me, it's people, um, the investment, development, growth, mentoring, everything people related. But we spent about a million bucks on recruiting. I was like, what a stupid industry. Like, what an archaic dinosaur industry that that is just ripe for innovation and a different thought process. So we went through the transaction. I like to say that I took six months off. The reality is I was at the Naval War College at the time, going through postgraduate uh school. So my my time off was six months of finishing, um, finishing my master's. Graduated, drove, road tripped it back to the family in Seattle. I was living in Newport, Rhode Island for that 10-month experience. And uh once I got back to Seattle, um, called the best recruiter that we had ever used at Hunt Killer. And she had her own shop, and then she had sold, and then that shop had sold. And I was like, You wanna, you wanna, I'm gonna launch a recruiting firm. I don't know anything about recruiting other than it's an archaic industry. Do you want to join forces? Uh, and she was like, say no more. So um we co-founded Talent Harbor together, and the whole thing is like, how do you do things different? Like, how do you approach with a different value proposition? How do you do quality work for quality clients? Um, and now this company, I I can't say it's growing as the growth driver in in Hunt to Killer was paid advertising. And the more money you put into paid, the faster it grows. We've built this company through relationships. Um, and so I I can't say it's it's at that growth level, but um we are we're growing very quick.
SPEAKER_02So I I love this because I've heard from others sometimes the best thing to do is approach an industry um from the outside in, and like if I were gonna rein if I were gonna invent this or reinvent this, how would I go about it? And the great thing is if you're not from that industry, you don't have any biases to what you're already doing. So interesting though, I never thought of it as being archaic or broken. Um what do you what did you see that's obviously wrong with traditional recruiting?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so uh it's so funny you you say like the outsider perspective. So one of our strategies is social media and and what I do, um, I try and do it consistently on Mondays. It hasn't been hasn't been going too uh, I haven't been consistent over the last couple weeks, but I I try and like hoo-poo on the industry in general. And what happens is people come out of the woodworks and and exactly what you just said is like the outside thought. They're like, oh, we've seen this a million times. Like they come in and they come and they go and they're not gonna make it, and blah, blah, blah. Um, and so I'm just constantly getting crapped on in the comments and just love it. Um the there's a lot of things that are wrong with the industry, but I I'll talk about one very specific thing, and it's the business model. A lot of parts of recruiting is is experience and it's expertise and it's process driven and it's licenses, it's licenses to databases, it's licenses to um you know, to LinkedIn recruiter. Like you could almost say that the the act of recruiting is a commodity with some assumptions. Like that assumption means that the proven process is correct and you've got well trained and and experienced recruiters, but generally speaking, like if all of those things are a check, check, check, then uh the recruiting is a commodity. The problem is the business model. How recruiters think and how recruiting shops think is they all use this thing called contingent recruiting, which is you're gonna spend 20 to 30 percent of first year salary to go and and find that next human. So when when recruiters think about this this art of closing, it's not once the client signs the uh agreement to say, I will pay you 30% of first year salary once you bring me the person that I hire. That's not closing. When a recruiter thinks about closing, they're thinking about when they actually get paid. So when you think about the sales process, it changes the dynamic. The client is the actual person that's being sold to. And so what generally what recruiters do is they go out, they'll post this thing on Indeed, they'll take just the top three, they'll send the top three to the client, and then they will sell the client on one why one of those three is their next perfect hire. And that's asked backwards. Like recruiting done right is recruiting for culture fit, it's recruiting for the right person that's going to come into the organization and do the things that need to be done.
SPEAKER_02Um so everything that's not on the resume, basically.
SPEAKER_00That's it. Like you can't look at a resume and and understand like what makes that human tick. And also, you can't understand if what makes that human tick aligns with the company unless you have a true partnership with the company. So that's like they all kind of a part of the process and kind of part of what we do and the and the framework. But like once you change the business model, then the dynamics of the relationship changes, and then you can actually do good work for the client.
SPEAKER_02So you view it as a core competency is is not something that should be like outsourced, so to speak. It's I think I've heard you talk about it in that kind of way. Like there's a distinction between the two.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And like, you know, talking about that just uh just for a few minutes, where what generally happens, especially in the small to medium-sized businesses, is you've got uh an owner, a GM, a CEO, you've got somebody, and um, they need to hire somebody. So let's say they've got a full uh core function leadership team in place, they've got sales and marketing, operations finance. Well, your finance person has spent the last 15 years understanding finance inside now. Your operations person has 25 years in operations and is a skilled and and has mastered the art of operating the business. Same thing with sales and marketing. Recruiting is the same thing. Like a good recruiter has spent 10 to 20 years recruiting. They've got intuition, they've got experience, they can look for visual cues. There's a whole bunch of things that a recruiter has built as core competencies that your operations manager hasn't. And so what generally happens is the the CEO or the GM or the owner goes and tells the operations guy, hey, we need um, we need a head of fulfillment. Go, go find me that person. Well, like, where are they gonna look? How are they gonna convince them? How are they gonna properly vet them? How are they truly gonna understand like what the need is? And and oh, by the way, now add the stress of nobody ever goes and hires someone three months in advance. Right. Like what happens with organizations is like there is a fire and they need someone now, now, now. And so that operations leader is already at a hundred percent capacity, and now you just threw recruiting at them. Now this has become like a uh in the military we call it a collateral duty, but it it's not the primary responsibility.
SPEAKER_02You're so right. I see it, I see it as much as I fight it, I see it in in our company. That's what we've had to work to not to not do. Um and even the questions that the operators ask, like they'll hire somebody based on their experience uh in the industry rather than rather than their talents, so to speak. That's just because they know the industry doesn't mean they're good at the job.
SPEAKER_00Uh a hundred percent. And that's my my uh former CO used to always say there's two things you can't train for, and that's care and effort. And like that's that is like the I would take care and effort all day long over a background in whatever that because like care and effort, like they care enough, they'll figure it out, we'll grind, like we'll we're just gonna keep going. Um growth mindset. Obviously, there there are there are situations where like we want that experience, but first and foremost, like we need the care and effort, and that's very hard not only to find, but that's very hard to vet for.
SPEAKER_02So in recruiting, how do you identify the the these values in the in the candidates? Um what are the trick what are the tricks that you've you've kind of learned to you know figure out somebody's values? Sometimes in an interview, for example, they know the right answer. Doesn't mean they really feel that way. Um how do you vet it out?
SPEAKER_00Let's start with like first understanding what's what we're vetting for when it comes for values, which is before we go out and and try and understand what the values are um of the actual candidates themselves, we need to understand what the values are inside of the organization. And there is no right or wrong here, but if you took a person out of Zappos, um, or you took a person out of uh Ben and Jerry and you threw that same human into SpaceX um or you know Tesla or something else, like just two completely different Netflix, two completely different cultures. And one's not necessarily right and wrong, it's like right for the right person and it's wrong for the wrong person. And it's just how it's how we form organizations and it's how we drive success. So the first thing that a company needs to understand is what are their values? What are the core behaviors inside of the organization that are driving that success? And then once you have that, then you can translate that into how we're going to vet. As like standard practice, like one of the things that we do is we dive into the candidates' core values. And what we won't do is immediately give them the actual core values of the company, but we're just trying to understand like what makes them tick. And the questions that we're asking, you're right, like and so true in sales. Like what we find, because we're we specialize in recruiting for salespeople, salespeople are incredibly charismatic, they're optimistic, and trying to vet for sales is hard because just because they can sell themselves doesn't mean that they can sell your product or your service. Um, and so how we start getting to the bottom of that, number one, is then we do introduce the values aligned questions. So we're, you know, let's say number one for us is go givers. And what that means to us is like we just want to put value into the world. And we have this deep, innate belief that if we do goodness in this world, the world will repay. Um and we won't have to sweat and we won't, you know, we won't be looking for for the next thing. And so far that's panned out. And so go givers to us is like you have to always want to give before you receive. And so we'll throw in a question like that of like, hey, have you ever heard of Go Givers or or Help First or any sort of concept like that? What does this thing mean to you? And then what we do is we start to get into the granulars of like, give me an actual example of something that you've done in the past that is an action or represents that core value. And then this is where we're gonna get into good recruiters, and because I'm I'm I'm not a recruiter, but good recruiters are looking for those cues. Like, do they get excited, genuinely excited? Is the story that they give very detailed? Can you ask questions and they've got follow-on answers to the other events that happened? And so it's just like different techniques and nuances that we're both looking for and doubling down on that will be pretty pretty queer tells if they're bullcrapping us or not.
SPEAKER_02I love it. I believe what you're doing is the correct way to go about it. It it's so much better than just hiring for the skill. In my company, our hiring got so much better when we started testing. You know, we basically looked at people who were successful in the roles, had them test, and then we found, you know, consistencies and patterns in those that were successful. And you know, the test could be wrong, but it's it's it's wrong a whole lot less times than the human judging it, uh, trying to judge another was wrong. So it it it it helped us tremendously, and and that was all quality-based stuff. Do you have the resilience you know, for example, in a GM position, are you resilient for one? Like, if you're not resilient, you're not gonna make it in that position, you'll fail.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I and that's keyed in on something amazing. Like we have a three interview step process, and so like number one is a quick vetting call. So it's it's 20 minutes. Hey, how you doing? We've got this. What we do is active outreach to passive candidates, meaning that the only reason we post the job boards is because we need something to point back to. But we've got a database of 50 million people in the United States. And once we understand exactly what the client's looking for, we call that list down to about a thousand people. Once we have that thousand, that's our prospect list. And we run a targeted sales process towards those candidates. So we're actively reaching out, we're calling them, we're texting them, we're we're reaching out via LinkedIn, um, and we're trying to convince them that the opportunity that we have is worth their time and exploration. And so if we can get them on a phone call, the first thing is like, who are you? Who are we, who's our client? And and we, you know, exchange pleasantries and just see if it's going to be worth another call. Number two is uh the experience interview. And so this is like really digging into their background. And again, it's all about detailed questions. Cause like you can ask a question, like, hey, what did you accomplish in your past? And they'll be like, Well, I grew revenues from 20 to 30 million. And you could be like, oh my gosh, like that's that's crazy. Um, cool. All right, well, that's checking the block. No, it's not. How did you grow revenues? How did those leads come to you? How did you position or reposition the value proposition based upon the customers or the clients that that you were trying to um trying to close? Digging deep into those things is incredibly important. Number three, then we bring them on another hour interview, and this is specifically just for core values. And we're trying to make sure that the core values align um with our clients. And so now our recruiters have spent a couple hours with this person understanding visual cues, understanding like how articulated and detailed can they get into the stories and examples that that they're providing. Um, and then you just brought up a great point, which is this whole art of like once they get through all that, we have assessments as well. And like assessments is kind of like that that extra check in the block that that organizations should use.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I I I believe in them. Um, and and even from a personality perspective and stuff, some of that reveals all of that stuff has been valuable tools for us, especially, you know, executives and and and middle management.
SPEAKER_00Yep. I'm I'm right there with you.
SPEAKER_02So if somebody wants to be a better hire, what are a couple quick things you you throw out and maybe that you haven't covered in this conversation already? What do you think um is the easiest thing for somebody to fix in the in the way they go about hiring?
SPEAKER_00I I think the the first thing and maybe I'm just biased here because it's the first thing that that we deal with. Um it's the first thing that we help correct with our clients when we get through the door. What we find is what organizations think they need and what they actually need are two completely different things. Really? And so back to the example of of like the operations person. So let's say, let's say they need a director of uh supply chain. But by the way, director of supply chain could mean many different things. Supply chain could be like where are we acquiring stuff from, supply chain could be like the quality of getting it here, it could be the art of like from the vendor all the way to our front doorstep. That that means a lot of different things. But when that CEO tasks that operations person with going out and finding their new director of supply chain, what that operations manager usually does is they go to Indeed and they type in supply chain manager and they see all the job postings and they'll just copy that job posting, they'll paste it into their own job posting, they'll put their company information, they'll post it, and they'll start betting. What that organization needs, well, one, that's probably already a recycled job description, but exactly what that organization needs is not what your organization needs. And so we spend time going through like how is how is success actually going to be measured in this role? We call it the blueprint, but it's like, what are those three to five kind of KPIs that this individual is going to be responsible for? And then we we develop three to five like actual no bull crap, like these are the responsibilities of this role. Yes, you can get into the 10 page of like needs this, needs that, looking for this background, everything else. But what we really want to know is like, what is this person going to be responsible for? If it's supply chain, it's acquiring new vendors in um maybe it's China, acquiring new vendors in China for this specific thing, ensuring that quality is at X percent, whatever the case may be. Like that is very specific. Director of supply chain and and managing and overseeing our organization's supply chain, like that's not that's not specific. So again, like I I'm a little biased just because like I see where so many organizations get this wrong and they haven't even started recruiting yet. And recruiting actually starts with understanding the needs of the organization.
SPEAKER_02So rather than a job description, you go at it with I need you to accomplish these five things. Are you are you capable of doing it? Forget the job description. There's forget the job. So here's how we look at it. I like this, by the way. Because I've been guilty of copying a job description. Uh yeah, you change a few things. You change a few things, but every recruiter would tell you, well, you need a job description first. So I actually love that that's not even what you feel is important.
SPEAKER_00Here's what job descriptions are. Job descriptions are marketing. The reason it's marketing is because you put a job description into the universe and you are marketing your company to candidates. You're trying a job description is selling your opportunity to the public market. What we look at number one is the blueprint. What is the candidate blueprint? So the very specific three to five things that they're responsible for and how success is going to be measured. And then what we do is we take that blueprint and then we transform that blueprint into a job description, which is probably, you know, the same things that you're seeing online, but we translate it into that marketing document so we can be successful in in our own searches. But yeah, like I deeply believe in doing the blueprint first because like that'll clearly articulate and it it'll distill it down. Like when everybody starts writing down 10 different things, well, which one is it? And and like, are they measured against all 10 of those things? But the forcing function of getting a leadership team to sit down at a table and say these are the three things that this person's gonna be responsible for, like it provides so much clarity in the process.
SPEAKER_02Love this, you know. Um, I'm looking at mistakes that we've made because we grew so fast. I mean, we went from uh 11 locations to 650 in a five-year period. So we've we've made any and every hiring mistake, you know, and we figured some things out. But what is your thoughts on retention is a huge issue um that we have to deal with? And um I would say like we're we're finally paying attention to better onboarding. Um, because I've been through periods where I would make statements like we onboard like shit. Like, how do we expect to be successful? Like if if they're making a decision on their first day of whether they're gonna stay here or not, like we don't have anything ready for them. Whether you know, if it if if they need a computer, do we have a computer even ready? Are they gonna sit there all day waiting for one? Um, if they're a technician in a stall, like do we clean a spot for them to welcome them, or are they standing there watching us make room? Like though those types of things. Um curious as to um what you see in in that regard with companies you've worked with. Are we the only failures? I guess is maybe what I'm asking.
SPEAKER_00No, I've I've failed it all. Everything you just said, like I I there was a time we were hiring so quick that people would just show up and be like, hey, who are you? And they're like, Oh, we're here. There's this um there's this thing in the Navy, and and we do we do a presentation on this, but it's called the first 72. And what the Navy had identified was that every four to five years, sailors are changing duty stations. And so maybe they're checking on board a ship, maybe they're checking into a squadron, um, maybe they're going back to shore duty, so they're checking into a schoolhouse. Like there's there's these constant check-in processes. And what the Navy realized was the difference between success and failure was the first 72 hours. And and uh they've got a whole like video on this thing, and and they force everybody to watch it.
SPEAKER_02Well, those first or first three days, two weeks of work. Are we talking about the first three days or two weeks?
SPEAKER_00I guess it really doesn't matter, but we've we've translated that to the first 90 days. So everything you just talked about, like we've put together a first 90 plan. The Navy is all about the first 72 because what they've realized is the first 72 hours will dictate the success or failure over the four years that that sailor will be at that duty station. And he gives a video, and like one video is you know, you got a sailor fresh out of boot camp. He's he's all in his dress whites and he's got his his book bag on. He shows up to the quarter deck and he's like, request permission to come aboard, new check-in, and they're like, Oh, who are you? Oh, yeah, yeah. Hey, just just go find a rack. You know, you just go downstairs, you make a right, and just go pick out an empty rack. And and then that person like gets onboarded with someone that may not be the role model sailor. They've got this other video where someone comes on and someone rushes down and they're like, Oh, yeah, we were expecting you. Hey, and they've got a mentor that they immediately um partner with and they give them a tour of the ship. And that was the difference. And so everything you just talked about right there is spot on. Like being prepared, you just spent whether you went with a recruiting shop. So let's say, let's say you just spent $40,000 with a ridiculous traditional recruiting shop, or you spent your hard-earned time and energy where it could have been applied in other areas of the business, but you just spent three months finding this perfect person, you can screw that up in the first couple of weeks. The reason that we're so focused on making sure that our clients on board correctly is because they've spent so much money and time into this new candidate. And we know based upon data and experience that the first few weeks will make or break the experience for that candidate. Love it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, same lesson. I've again watched it, seen it, same lesson I've learned. I believe in it big time. Do you find, you know, one thing that's been great about being the the founder is um I've never worried about like my job. You know, as companies get bigger and bigger, there is, I believe, you know, below me competition for positions and stuff, which I hate to see. Um Do you find people are hesitant to like the big my hack has been hiring people smarter than me, surrounding myself with people that know more than I do. But I feel sometimes some are hesitant to do that. They they're they don't want to be outshined. And so um what do you see is people's tendency usually?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we we I I think you and I are we're very similar in that respect because you and I have both learned that like we don't know everything, and the quicker we can get out of these like positions that we don't have like a clear understanding of, one like the better that that organization or that part of the organization will operate. But number two is like our time is now freed up to go do the things that we are best in the world at. It's so hard because that's hard to translate down, and that that the bigger the organization, the tougher time that they have with this. Because why would somebody want to hire a replacement only to have that replacement either take their job or or go above? What we've tried to do, and I've only operated organizations up to Hunt a Killer at its peak, had 150 employees, and so like that's probably the extent of my experience in this. Um, being able to hire and and drive and and lead an organization of that size. But what we would do is like we would we would drink our own Kool-Aid. And so we would we would evaluate people based upon how good they were at at mentoring, at coaching, how efficient their operation was. And so what we focused a lot on was making sure that the correct folks were getting the recognition, and not to say that the folks that they brought in that are smarter and doing things and and like did not get recognition, but we wanted to make sure that like the teammates that that understood that concept, like that we were recognizing that either through promotions or bonuses or or recognition or whatever the case may be. I'll tell you, Matt, like that's that's the hard it's hard because not everybody thinks the same way, and a lot of people like they want to move up, and the way they move up is by outshining everybody else. Um, it's a tough problem to solve.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, I I don't know uh exactly how to solve it either, but I wondered if it was common or not. And it sounds like it is. Very common. What is next for you, Ryan? Like, is this business gonna be a little bit longer run for you? Um will you start something else alongside of it? Just curious. And I think it's pretty awesome that you're able to to jump into something new and and make a a great business out of it. I've went you know a hundred miles deep in one industry. Um I think I could do something else, but um haven't tested it like you have, so it's pretty cool to see.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I I think you haven't done it, but I know you could just because of like we're problem solvers. Like we're able to spot opportunities and go and go um get after it. And like one of the things I learned through all the either through the bankruptcy or through the the warware that wasn't selling is like what we do is just find other problems to solve. My brain is always going, like, I've got I've got another consumer product idea, I've got another B2B or business service, and and I know that these would these would take off, but I'm happy right now. And that's like, you know, from the outside looking in. So Hunter Killer did incredible things. And it was a sexy business. Like we got press, we were number six on the ink list, like all those things were great. I I don't care about those things. Like I I care about like bringing out the best in people. So I cared about my team and my team getting recognition um for the hard work that they that they accomplished. It was a hard business. So all these accolades and and the sexiness and all these other things, like on the inside, it was falling apart each day. Like something was stuck in poor. Where's the cash gonna come from? Why hasn't this vendor paid us? Why you name it normal business reason? Yeah, that's good. Yeah. Uh it's hard. And the business I'm in today is it I won't say it's easy, but it's simpler. And and we don't have inventory. So I guess that's long-winded for like I've got a thousand ideas, um, but for the first time professionally, like I'm I'm having a lot of fun in what I'm doing.
SPEAKER_02Oh, that's pretty cool. If somebody were to ask you, you know, best advice you could give to an entrepreneur, what would it be?
SPEAKER_00Getting a peer group. I mean, I the peer group was like like I could talk about the coach, I could talk about EOS, I could talk about books, I could talk about uh all of these different things. And the reality is, is most of these things started with my peer group. Which book should I read? Started with my peer group. EOS came through my peer group because someone else was using an EOS implementer, then they came through. Um, they did this half day presentation, and so that's how it was exposed. When when I think about all of the all of the things that that I've um been able to accomplish, it's started with a group of 12 people sitting around a room a half a day each month and and really talking about the hard problems.
SPEAKER_02I think that's great advice. The one thing that before I wrap this up, name of the company is and how do we find you?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, name of the company is talent harbor. Um, and I'm all over the place. You can find me on LinkedIn and usually getting crushed in the comment section from uh frustrated recruiters, so that's always a fun one. And I never do this, but I'll do it here because it it like your audience is entrepreneurs, they're people that are building, and like I love just being soundboards. And so um, if anybody wants to text me, it's 310-562-0796 and would love to just have a conversation. It's not sales related. I like my job is literally to come and talk to incredible humans like you, Matt, and um and just kind of share the the battle scars along the way.
SPEAKER_02I appreciate that. Love it. And then we always finish with a question. We're all about championing people, and so given the opportunity, uh who's an individual in your life, personal or work, that you would champion and why?
SPEAKER_00I'll go with like my coach, who's probably had the most life-changing on me. His name's Tom Leonard. He was a vista chair, he just retired recently, and I I've been able to retain him as a as a personal coach, even into his retirement. But when I think about you know the trials, the tribulations, the ups, the downs, everything, getting somebody that will like speak truth, like we usually say speak truth to the power, but like you're not you're not in a powerful position when you're the the person being coached, but someone that will just like no bull crap, just tell you what you need to hear um and doesn't care about your feelings, like oof, that's um that's an important person, and and that's been Tom for the last gosh, seven or eight years. Uh good for Tom.
SPEAKER_02And you're right, super valuable to have that. That's the only way you grow. Yeah. Ryan, the time flew by, but thanks for doing this. Really enjoyed talking to you today. Awesome. Thanks for having me, Matt. Appreciate it. I hope you enjoyed this conversation. If you want more podcrash in your life, which of course you do, make sure to like, follow, and subscribe to us on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. Catch you next time.