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215: Understanding the Gen Z Gaze · Customer Service Revolution | Customer Experience & Employee Experience for Business Leaders

• 0:58
  Hello, listeners.
• 0:59
  Welcome back to another episode of the Customer Service Revolution podcast with Mr.
• 1:06
  DiJulius How is the CX Authority today?
• 1:09
  Fantastic.
• 1:10
  How are you?
• 1:10
  I'm doing great.
• 1:12
  You have a revolution t-shirt on.
• 1:14
  love it.
• 1:14
  I do, do.
• 1:15
  And yes, I'm on a mission to revolutionize.
• 1:20
  Have you ever watched anything or read anything Don Quixote?
• 1:23
  Yeah, I've watched two movies and I'm listening to the book.
• 1:28
  Crazy Guy, Who Wants to Change the World.
• 1:31
  uh I relate to it.
• 1:34
  I relate to it.
• 1:38
  Both.
• 1:40
  The Greater Fool.
• 1:41
  Who was the one who was that quote by?
• 1:43
  The ones, the crazy ones, Steve Jobs.
• 1:48
  in it for commercial for Apple.
• 1:50
  Here's to the crazy ones.
• 1:52
  Yes.
• 1:52
  Love it.
• 1:53
  Hmm.
• 1:53
  What do we got going on in the news?
• 1:56
  Well, you wrote recently about the Gen Z stare and it's become a thing.
• 2:02
  So in addition to TikTok, New York Times did a story about it, Forbes did a story about it, and now there is even a Wiki page for the Gen Z stare.
• 2:13
  So according to...
• 2:14
  Z gaze.
• 2:17
  Yeah.
• 2:18
  The wiki page, if anybody wants to look it up, is the Gen Z stare.
• 2:23
  And according to the New York Times, what many social media users have said is the blank stare that members of younger generations give in situations where a verbal response would
• 2:34
  be more common.
• 2:36
  It has garnered notice in mainstream media.
• 2:38
  Forbes said that
• 2:40
  The conversations on, according to the conversations on TikTok, users believe that many members of the Generation Z have difficulty with small talk and fundamental social
• 2:53
  curtesies.
• 2:54
  This is often described as a blank stare that they give when some questions are asked.
• 2:59
  The stare is most common during customer service interactions.
• 3:03
  Similarly, servers and bartenders say that Gen Z customers respond to pleasant questions or pleasant conversation with a long gaze or stare, as if they're uninterested in talking.
• 3:14
  So where is this the result of?
• 3:17
  And millennials have spoken up about it.
• 3:21
  So they're coming down on Gen Z for it.
• 3:24
  Yeah.
• 3:25
  I think it probably happens on every generation, but I think we love to pile on the newest generation because they are always going to be the most different, right?
• 3:35
  So do you think there is a decline generation by generation when it comes to customer service being weak at delivering a good experience?
• 3:45
  100%.
• 3:46
  Yeah, um I think every generation, including mine and yours, since we are in a different generation by six months.
• 3:54
  Yeah, every generation is weaker.
• 3:56
  Every generation is weaker.
• 3:59
  than they were 10 years ago, 15 years ago, the same generations weaker just because of the digital revolution.
• 4:05
  We all have less and less people skills.
• 4:08
  But I always say it, no fault to their own, the Gen Zs, 28 and under, I think they are, grew up only with these devices.
• 4:18
  There's a 2024 study found that 40 % of adults
• 4:22
  go three or more days without a single face-to-face conversation.
• 4:28
  This suggests many people today may have fewer than one in-person interaction per day.
• 4:34
  The so-called friendship recession describes a long trend.
• 4:39
  Since 1990, the share of people with 10 plus close friends dropped from 33 % to 13 % in 2021.
• 4:48
  fewer closer social ties like likely mean fewer daily interactions.
• 4:53
  Teen habits also change dramatically where as teens in the 90s typically go hung out in person regularly, only 25 % of teens today spend time with friends outside of school
• 5:08
  daily.
• 5:09
  So I mean, you all this is just...
• 5:13
  There's telephobia that we've spoken about before that Gen Zs freak out, have anxiety if they have to use the phone at work because they've just never have.
• 5:22
  Gen Zs are not, they're great.
• 5:25
  We've seen it, we've worked with a lot of clients that seen it.
• 5:28
  have probably close to a hundred employees that are around that.
• 5:32
  that age group and they're rock stars.
• 5:35
  The two things that businesses have to do is first,
• 5:39
  interview and look for these characteristics.
• 5:43
  There's some things you can never change.
• 5:45
  And if they're not friendly, if they don't like people, you can tell that on an interview.
• 5:51
  Do they beat the Greek?
• 5:52
  All those things.
• 5:54
  And then the second thing that companies have to do, and the best are, is have people skills, part of their new employee and ongoing employee training.
• 6:05
  I think that's uh really, really important.
• 6:07
  It's vital.
• 6:08
  It's critical because they're not going to come with the skill set, the service aptitude that the previous generations were forced to have.
• 6:16
  They're not asking people out in person.
• 6:19
  They're doing it through apps.
• 6:20
  A lot of them weren't forced to go to school because of the pandemic.
• 6:26
  They're not working from home.
• 6:27
  I'm sorry.
• 6:30
  They're not working.
• 6:31
  Their first jobs could be work from home, which is really during those development years in your young 20s, I think that's so important.
• 6:38
  What do you think?
• 6:40
  I agree.
• 6:40
  So I want to back up to um you talked about interviewing for for this skill set.
• 6:46
  So there are a lot of companies now and I think this is something that you wrote about and we probably spoke about as well was the AI for interviewing.
• 6:57
  So how is that affecting it?
• 6:59
  Yeah, so, you know, I think AI, the way it's being done, and we've interviewed people about this in the past, is that they do that initial interview and ask you questions and
• 7:14
  then, you know, it scores it based on your answers and it's supposed to weed out, you know, the initial round of people who just...
• 7:22
  do not.
• 7:23
  you feed it things that you want, questions you want it to ask and things you want it to look for, but it's not going to catch everything.
• 7:32
  it's supposed to be able to read emotions and answers, but I don't know what level that is.
• 7:40
  And usually the first couple of generations aren't good.
• 7:43
  I don't have enough experience with seeing what these things are like.
• 7:47
  I have reached out to some CEOs of these AI interview companies to try to get them on our podcast to see what it's actually doing right now.
• 7:59
  All right, so if you're interviewing in person, what do you recommend?
• 8:03
  I know we have interview questions and I'll put those in the show notes that people can use.
• 8:08
  Yeah, I mean, those interview questions are great, because you're looking to see if they are people, they enjoy people.
• 8:17
  A lot of things can be taught, enthusiasm, liking others, having a positive mindset, I don't think those things can be really taught.
• 8:25
  All the training hours in the world can't be.
• 8:28
  But of the nine or 10 critical people skills, five to six can definitely be taught, but four can't.
• 8:35
  So we can make that a future podcast.
• 8:38
  and how do you teach them?
• 8:39
  Well, so, you know, teach them the skills that can be taught.
• 8:42
  Curiosity, right?
• 8:44
  Listening.
• 8:44
  We've just had a podcast on that.
• 8:47
  Being curious, Ford.
• 8:49
  Having better listening skills.
• 8:51
  All those things.
• 8:52
  I think, you know, at least for myself, I'm still learning and still trying to uh cultivate empathy.
• 8:58
  A lot of these things.
• 9:00
  come with life experiences, but we can't afford to only hire 40, 50, 60 year olds, right?
• 9:08
  And so I think it can be taught at a younger age with the things that we teach, the day in the life, understanding what the customer's perspective, that they, customers, why it's
• 9:19
  rational for customers to be irrational.
• 9:23
  And we talk about that, that, you know, why did she just freak out over something so simple?
• 9:28
  Well, if you understood what her expectations, what she's going through, you know, it's the straw that broke the camel's back.
• 9:35
  It's not necessarily what happened here.
• 9:37
  It's what's going on in her life.
• 9:38
  Is it fair that she took it out on you?
• 9:42
  I don't know.
• 9:43
  It comes with being in business.
• 9:45
  It comes with working in business that...
• 9:47
  You know, if she's going through something, you know, or he's going through something, they're going to be easier agitated.
• 9:55
  So all good future podcasts.
• 9:58
  Plus we address them in our chapters of uh our books.
• 10:01
  Yeah.
• 10:01
  All right.
• 10:02
  So one last question on this or maybe one last.
• 10:05
  Do you think the stare, the gaze is here to stay?
• 10:09
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 10:10
  It always will be.
• 10:12
  Because most companies don't train on this.
• 10:14
  But I always say Chick-fil-A, the Ritz-Carlton, John Roberts Spa, we're all hiring from the same generation.
• 10:22
  And while I like to think we do a better job hiring, I think it's really in the training that we bring in and that people are attracted
• 10:30
  to that type of business.
• 10:32
  I doubt Chick-fil-A gets a lot of applicants that don't understand Chick-fil-A's culture.
• 10:38
  So their reputation weeds out people who don't like conversations, don't want to have conversations, don't want to smile, don't want to beat the greets.
• 10:48
  You know, all those things.
• 10:49
  So yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 10:51
  I think it's here to stay.
• 10:52
  It's like bad customer service is here to stay in a lot of businesses that don't invest in it.
• 10:57
  Do have a quick tip for Gen Zers who find themselves in a position where they are now providing face-to-face service within an organization and maybe have been called out on
• 11:11
  the stair?
• 11:12
  How do they stop?
• 11:13
  How do they, I mean, recognition, right?
• 11:15
  Acknowledgement is the first step.
• 11:16
  Yeah, so, you know, I saw on some of those TikTok chains, or TikTok, what's it called now, Axe, where people were badgering the Gen Z glaze, the Gen Z stare and how horrible they
• 11:29
  are.
• 11:29
  And then some Gen Zs got on and defended it and said, if you made what we made and had to deal with the abuse.
• 11:35
  Listen, we've all been there.
• 11:37
  We've all been frontline employees that...
• 11:40
  had to deal with that.
• 11:41
  I don't think it's any different.
• 11:43
  The pay was never great for us, whether you're working at McDonald's or whatever it may be.
• 11:49
  But the advice is, if you care about moving up, if you care about working at a company that provides an experience, they are going to hopefully train you.
• 12:02
  but uh you have to work at it yourself.
• 12:05
  You have to work at seeing people in person.
• 12:08
  I tell Bo, my youngest son, you gotta go out, you gotta get out there, you have to bump into people, you have to have conversations.
• 12:14
  And he's pretty good at this.
• 12:16
  But he struggles with dating.
• 12:17
  And he struggles with confidence in dating.
• 12:20
  When I ask him, I haven't even dating, he's like, I'm not six, two.
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  And it's so sad that that generation thinks that they have to be.
• 12:27
  I never knew I was short.
• 12:29
  I knew I was short, obviously, but I never knew how short or that there was a disadvantage of being short.
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  I really thought I would, you me being short was like that guy having red hair and that guy having brown hair and that guy, I didn't, I just thought it was, that's what I always
• 12:44
  thought.
• 12:45
  I don't know, do you think?
• 12:46
  from a female standpoint, it's bigger or I was just ignorant to it and a short guy was really at a disadvantage, has always been at a disadvantage.
• 12:59
  Here's why I think it's gotten or might feel that it has gotten bigger is because people are checking boxes and literally checking boxes, right?
• 13:08
  So if you're on it, correct.
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  And you're creating what is my, what was that movie in the old day?
• 13:15
  Remember Weird Science where they made a woman?
• 13:17
  So it's the same kind of thing, right?
• 13:20
  You're going online and picking up.
• 13:21
  a guy, you're exactly right.
• 13:23
  You are making your perfect guy because of the criteria you're choosing.
• 13:29
  So yeah.
• 13:32
  Why would you choose a five-seven guy?
• 13:34
  Yeah.
• 13:35
  meeting people, because Boat, I mean, look at him.
• 13:38
  I mean, he is a great looking kid.
• 13:40
  in charisma.
• 13:41
  He has such good charisma.
• 13:43
  He's so kind.
• 13:45
  Yeah.
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  But none of that comes through in, or you're not giving someone a chance in that.
• 13:50
  Yeah.
• 13:51
  Yeah.
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  And there's funny people or comedians, Nikki Glaser, who got famous for the Tom Brady roast.
• 14:00
  And I think she's doing the Oscars or Grammys next year, which is really good.
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  So I saw one of her clips and she talked about her boyfriend of 10 years.
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  And she says, oh, I got the best guy.
• 14:12
  He's a little guy.
• 14:13
  And you get so much more with a little guy.
• 14:16
  And she kind of acted like it was like she was shopping at Costco and got this great deal.
• 14:21
  You get guys with personalities and kind versus the taller guys.
• 14:26
  So yeah, so it's all that.
• 14:28
  It's all that.
• 14:28
  It's a self-esteem and they get really uncomfortable talking to people because they don't have to growing up in their world.
• 14:36
  So businesses have to try to find the people that, and there are, there are a lot of, strong percentage of younger generations who do have good inherent people skills.
• 14:48
  whether it came from their parents or whatever their environment was.
• 14:52
  a good majority can be taught that don't have it.
• 14:54
  But you got to put them in a lot more role-playing situations, a lot more service recovery situations.
• 15:02
  We just did this week, we had our Summer Customer Experience Executive Academy, and it was about zero risk.
• 15:11
  and above and beyond in zero risk.
• 15:13
  I talk about, don't take it personal.
• 15:16
  When I've overreacted as a customer, it's typically because of something I've been going through that week or that month that I just overreacted.
• 15:24
  So all that needs to be taught.
• 15:26
  think that's good.
• 15:27
  It was something I was gonna ask you.
• 15:30
  about being short.
• 15:30
  Now about the I know what I was going to bring up.
• 15:33
  One of the things that we've talked about in the past is the loneliness factor, right?
• 15:38
  The lack of true friendship.
• 15:41
  And now they're trying to use AI to solve that as well.
• 15:44
  So I just I mean, is it going to create a larger impact?
• 15:48
  Are we going to see if you're talking about role playing?
• 15:52
  in different situations, whether it's service recovery, whatever it might be, it has to be with real people, don't you think?
• 15:58
  Yeah, I would think I mean, there's AI everything there's AI porn, which I guess is really no different than any other kind of porn, right?
• 16:05
  If it's, if it's porn online, it's porn online.
• 16:08
  But the other trying to replace it.
• 16:09
  I have heard some companies God, I wish I remembered it was on a podcast.
• 16:15
  that are trying to create, well, there are things out there where you can rent a friend.
• 16:20
  Literally, a real one.
• 16:22
  Someone to spend the day with.
• 16:23
  an escort?
• 16:24
  No, I think it's like, you know, you want to go hang out at the coffee shop or you want to go to the game tonight and you have no one to go with.
• 16:32
  But there's other people there trying companies, they're trying to start more social things to bring groups together.
• 16:40
  that's obviously necessary because every generation is reporting their all time.
• 16:48
  loneliness.
• 16:49
  It's not just a younger generation.
• 16:52
  It is a...
• 16:52
  Not a pandemic.
• 16:53
  What kind of demic is it?
• 16:55
  Epidemic.
• 16:56
  It is an epidemic for the younger generation, but every generation is reporting its all-time loneliness.
• 17:02
  And it all is due to the technology craze and that we don't leave our houses anymore to shop.
• 17:08
  Right?
• 17:08
  Why am I going to run to Dick's Sporting Goods store or Home Depot?
• 17:12
  I mean, unless I absolutely have to have it within the next 45 minutes, which rarely I do, I'm ordering online.
• 17:18
  I'm not going to sit in rush hour and...
• 17:20
  to hunt down an employee who's going to point me to aisle 27.
• 17:24
  Do you go days ever without face-to-face interaction?
• 17:27
  I probably do.
• 17:28
  When I'm home and I'm in town.
• 17:30
  And I was just talking to someone yesterday, a client.
• 17:33
  Or this week, we went out to dinner and she was talking about challenges she had.
• 17:37
  At first, she loved working from home and then the challenges and the thing.
• 17:41
  she was talking about her husband.
• 17:43
  that he knows the rule that do not walk in the house unless you're prepared to be present, which is great.
• 17:55
  And I brought up that the best thing about the pandemic to me or the work from home was that we got a 25th hour in a day.
• 18:05
  You didn't have to necessarily shower and sit in traffic and...
• 18:09
  and all that.
• 18:11
  You could roll out of bed and start working and do your Zoom meetings, all that, which was great.
• 18:17
  But the drawback was your commute time.
• 18:20
  Now, while commuting sucks, it did serve us purpose of unwinding, of, right, that was a crazy day.
• 18:28
  I got beat up by some
• 18:30
  clients, things went wrong, had to have some not so pleasant conversation, whatever work brings you.
• 18:37
  So whatever we decide to do, might listen to sports radio, might call a friend just to bust balls and totally get your mind off it, might listen to a podcast, whatever that is.
• 18:49
  But that worked to change you from...
• 18:54
  professional to spouse and parent.
• 18:57
  When the pandemic worked from home was your commute was opening your office door and stepping into the kitchen or living room.
• 19:06
  And that just, know, at least for me, I wasn't a good person, as good of a person I wanted to be because I was still.
• 19:13
  you know, amped up from trying to catch up all day to, you know, those things.
• 19:18
  Yeah, the commute was great for catching up by phone with people.
• 19:22
  It's funny how I get in the car and I'll call people if I'm on a drive somewhere versus if, yeah, I don't make time at home to not worry about it.
• 19:34
  I'm really bad about that.
• 19:36
  If you call me, I'm gonna text you and say, do you need?
• 19:39
  Like, I do, I hate the phone, but I love the phone in the car.
• 19:43
  Cause I gotta be productive.
• 19:45
  Like, you know, and so I'm thinking, who do I need to speak to or who haven't I spoke to?
• 19:50
  And, know, I used to hate driving.
• 19:53
  but five, six hours I'm fine with.
• 19:55
  Now I actually prefer it because I can knock out three podcasts, Lindsey scheduled me some calls that don't need me on Zoom to be that, or I'll have her on to take the notes if not,
• 20:12
  and listen, get caught up on my Don Chiodi audio book or whatever it is.
• 20:17
  But it's such a...
• 20:19
  I know, like now I like those car drives because of that.
• 20:23
  And so I could do all those things on a flight except for the phone call.
• 20:27
  Do you ever talk to the neighbor next to you on a flight?
• 20:30
  No, so I try not to.
• 20:33
  I do, I do.
• 20:34
  So I have two sets of headphones.
• 20:36
  Imagine that, I love technology.
• 20:38
  uh But I have the AirPods for working out.
• 20:43
  And then I have the Apple big headphones like this.
• 20:47
  You have them, are you familiar with them?
• 20:48
  I'm familiar with them, but I do not have them.
• 20:50
  They are so good.
• 20:52
  Like when you put a noise cancellation, I can't hear a thing.
• 20:55
  And you don't realize it until you maybe accidentally hit the noise cancellation off and you're like, my God, like everyone around me is so loud and the engine of the plane.
• 21:06
  They don't work for me to work out.
• 21:08
  They're always falling off if I'm laying down or whatever exercise I'm doing.
• 21:12
  They're clunky like that.
• 21:14
  But man, they are great.
• 21:15
  referring to the AirPods or a headset?
• 21:19
  Okay.
• 21:21
  No.
• 21:22
  So I love the AirPods for working out and around the house, you know, whatever.
• 21:28
  But I love the, I forget what the headsets are called, but the Apple headsets, I love them for traveling because it's better, you know, better listening, but it also just politely
• 21:38
  sends a message that I'm tied up right now and.
• 21:41
  I'm not open for, which is a Gen Z, right?
• 21:44
  It's such a Gen Z.
• 21:45
  But I'm so, I'm so anal about all the things coming to get done and caught up and clean up my email and write a blog.
• 21:55
  like that's like, I love my travel time for that type of stuff.
• 22:00
  Like I actually, you know, will procrastinate and say, I don't need to do this because I have a seven hour travel time Monday to Jamaica.
• 22:07
  So I plan that.
• 22:09
  I don't watch movies ever.
• 22:11
  just get stuff done.
• 22:14
  So Gen Z, they are, we would have been Gen Z had we had the technology.
• 22:20
  It's not, you know.
• 22:21
  And if you had have grown up in that case.
• 22:23
  Because we were being blamed for...
• 22:24
  The telephone and the TV was gonna rot our brains.
• 22:28
  And maybe it wasn't us, maybe it was our parents, but every technology has been the predicted the end of humanity.
• 22:37
  hanging by a thread.
• 22:39
  All right.
• 22:40
  you know, it's already been almost 30 minutes.
• 22:44
  I was going to say, do you want to just add a little more and then make this its own?
• 22:49
  The gents.
• 22:50
  talk about?
• 22:51
  Do you me to go into the skills?
• 22:54
  I don't know if we've talked about that before.
• 22:56
  what skills are trainable and what aren't.
• 22:59
  I feel like we did go into those, but if you have them.
• 23:03
  Is there something else on this?
• 23:04
  Now the wiki page is pretty short.
• 23:06
  Yeah, I may have them here if you want them.
• 23:08
  I don't know if you're able to fit this in back when you asked me which skills are, I kind of blew it off.
• 23:15
  I don't know if you want, I don't know what you want, if you want me to talk about them and.
• 23:20
  can drop it in there.
• 23:21
  All right, so let's, ready?
• 23:23
  Yeah, do you want to re-ask me?
• 23:25
  So what are the skills that people should be interviewing for?
• 23:28
  What are the most important ones that cannot be taught?
• 23:31
  You know, before I answer that, just saw a video reel and it was advice to people interviewing, which I don't think there's enough of out there.
• 23:42
  Interviewing, you're being interviewed for a job.
• 23:47
  Interviewing, did I say it right?
• 23:49
  Yeah, well, you said people interviewing and I just wondered what side of the interview we were on.
• 23:54
  And I love the advice they gave.
• 23:56
  And I use this, you know, but maybe it was just confirmation that someone else was saying it, is ask more questions than you're asked.
• 24:02
  no one's going to do that on an interview.
• 24:05
  So if you're interviewing 10 people today, especially 30 and under,
• 24:10
  And one just says, you know, tell me, you know, you know, whatever, what are you looking for?
• 24:16
  Tell me what's the most important thing?
• 24:19
  How long have you worked here?
• 24:21
  What do you like most about the company?
• 24:23
  Right?
• 24:23
  Getting you talking about your career and your company.
• 24:28
  You're going to enjoy that.
• 24:29
  You're going to like that person better, but no one else is going to ask you those questions.
• 24:33
  So I really like that advice.
• 24:35
  I always say that to.
• 24:36
  people I know that are going for a job.
• 24:38
  And it's part of our interview questionnaire is ask what questions you have for us and if it's not very many or they are only here to answer, they're just interviewing at different
• 24:53
  places looking for the best deal if they're not curious about the job.
• 24:58
  All right, which service aptitude skills are most important for customer-facing employees to deliver?
• 25:02
  an exceptional customer service.
• 25:04
  So I have nine service aptitude, soft skill, people skills, whatever the heck you want to call them.
• 25:09
  Not all them can be taught.
• 25:11
  Genuine and like others is one.
• 25:13
  Happy, positive, optimistic is two.
• 25:16
  Friendly, kind, caring is three.
• 25:18
  Charismatic, none of these are a must, but these are nice to have.
• 25:23
  Well, some of them are a must.
• 25:24
  Charismatic is four.
• 25:26
  Five is empathetic.
• 25:27
  Six is good listener.
• 25:29
  Seven is sensational curiosity.
• 25:32
  Eight is.
• 25:33
  strong at making a connection, building a rapport, relationships, and nying as trusting and charitable assumption of others.
• 25:41
  Of those nine, not all of them skills can be trained on.
• 25:45
  The first four that I mentioned of the nine cannot, I don't believe, cannot be trained on.
• 25:51
  Maybe I'm wrong, but I...
• 25:53
  Genuine like others.
• 25:55
  I don't think 10,000 hours will help you move that needle if you just don't like others.
• 26:00
  There's a lot of people that actually, it's not a, I mean, they just don't, they're not a people person.
• 26:08
  They prefer not to be around people.
• 26:09
  Number two, happy, positive, optimistic.
• 26:12
  I don't know.
• 26:13
  I don't think you can move that needle.
• 26:15
  I want that.
• 26:16
  Number three, friendly, kind and caring.
• 26:18
  And number four,
• 26:19
  I don't think you could change someone's, make them outgoing.
• 26:22
  Now we've written a blog and I don't know if we've ever talked about this and is.
• 26:27
  are shy introverts, can they be good at customer service?
• 26:31
  Absolutely.
• 26:33
  Absolutely.
• 26:34
  So it's not like if you don't have charisma or you're outgoing, there's a lot of strengths of the other things.
• 26:40
  But generally like others, happy, positive, optimistic, friendly, caring, kind, and charismatic, those four things of the nine, service aptitude skills, need to be...
• 26:51
  filtered out in the interview process.
• 26:53
  You know, I don't know where enthusiasm goes.
• 26:55
  Enthusiasm.
• 26:56
  Enthusiasm is something, I don't know where I have that, but that's another thing I'll ask, and I brought it up, what do you like to do with your free time and why?
• 27:05
  And I don't care what they like to do, I just want to see if they get excited about their favorite thing to do.
• 27:10
  I want enthusiastic people, positive people.
• 27:13
  And so those are the things that our interview questions, our 30 interview questions, don't use them all, help you look for these traits.
• 27:21
  Now the other five.
• 27:24
  We interview for them.
• 27:25
  It's great if you have them.
• 27:26
  It's an advantage if you have them.
• 27:29
  But I'm not as worried about those because I know that we can train and move the needle.
• 27:34
  Thoughts?
• 27:35
  I mean, think they're all important.
• 27:37
  The ones that you train on, that's the biggest thing, right?
• 27:39
  So if you hire for the first ones, they might not have the others, but it's making sure that you do train for that.
• 27:48
  Because I think a lot of companies skip that part.
• 27:50
  OK, well, we'll hire for these.
• 27:52
  We've got somebody that has this criteria, the part that we know we can't train for maybe.
• 27:57
  But then they
• 27:58
  skip the part about training them on the other part if they don't have it.
• 28:01
  So training is, well, training or hiring, what's more important?
• 28:06
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 28:07
  that creates debate.
• 28:10
  I love to open up some presentations with, right, if you're going to build a world-class customer service company, hot dog stand, restaurant, doesn't matter.
• 28:22
  What's more important, the hiring of new employees or training?
• 28:26
  and culture you bring new employees through.
• 28:29
  And I tell everyone, they have to vote, they have to raise their hand, there's no right or wrong answer.
• 28:33
  I always say that the obvious answer is both.
• 28:36
  You absolutely cannot achieve that without doing both.
• 28:39
  But I ask my audience to give me one extra percent, 51%.
• 28:44
  And rarely, it's always,
• 28:46
  The majority do go with be the training and culture, but we do get a lot of hands up for hiring of new employees.
• 28:55
  people, I agree with that if I'm going to give one extra percent, it's going to be the training and culture.
• 29:01
  And people get adamant, how are you saying hiring is not important?
• 29:05
  Hiring is so important.
• 29:06
  I'm only giving one extra percent and we spent...
• 29:09
  chapters and books on the importance of hiring.
• 29:12
  But the old Disney quote, don't put your people in Disney, put Disney in your people.
• 29:19
  Chick-fil-A, Ritz-Carlton, all these great companies brainwash you in a positive way to these things that we talk about and how important they are.
• 29:30
  and being a day maker and being a positive moment in all those things.
• 29:36
  Do you agree?
• 29:36
  No, not with that.
• 29:39
  I'm sorry, I know you agreed with that, because you brought it up.
• 29:43
  The four, genuine like others, happy, positive, optimistic, friendly, kind and caring, and charismatic.
• 29:50
  are much harder to teach
• 29:53
  It definitely hard to teach, but I think it can be difficult to hire for that too.
• 29:58
  I mean, you get somebody that comes in and they're nervous.
• 30:01
  They might not.
• 30:03
  Or they may show up being the happiest they've ever been in their life for that day and then when they start.
• 30:10
  the same enthusiasm.
• 30:12
  People put on a show, I guess is what I'm saying.
• 30:15
  why we talk about it.
• 30:16
  And we'll have to do a podcast on this about the hiring and the questions.
• 30:21
  And they're not all weighted equally.
• 30:23
  And you have to allow for nervousness.
• 30:26
  And unfortunately, they might be telling you what they think you want to hear.
• 30:32
  Right?
• 30:33
  Like I've seen these great salespeople.
• 30:36
  subject matter action, which Grant Cardone or whoever, say, sell me this pen.
• 30:40
  But then they say, they can care less.
• 30:43
  I don't even know what the point of it is.
• 30:46
  But they're really not judging you on how well you sell the pen.
• 30:50
  They're just trying to put you in an uncomfortable situation.
• 30:53
  I mean, all of this is uncomfortable.
• 30:54
  And that's why a lot of times you ask the same question five different ways.
• 30:59
  And you're trying to, if you're a good interviewer, you're breaking the ice and all those.
• 31:04
  Yeah, and I think it depends on the position.
• 31:06
  So if you talk about a position like we brought up earlier with the stair, if it's a bartending position, something where you have to be face to face, the person has to have a
• 31:17
  personality.
• 31:18
  Think of, I know you guys like to eat at the bar as well.
• 31:21
  So if you're, if you go into a restaurant, they can have fantastic food, fantastic cocktails.
• 31:27
  But if that bartender doesn't have a personality,
• 31:30
  I mean, that makes or breaks it, doesn't it?
• 31:32
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 31:34
  so when we go back to this list of nine, again, charismatic is the least of it.
• 31:40
  It's a nice to have, but that's not critical.
• 31:43
  But even if you're not going to be in a customer facing position.
• 31:47
  but you're gonna work with people, coworkers, and you're gonna be a positive influence on the culture.
• 31:54
  I still want you to genuinely like others, be happy, positive, optimistic, friendly, kind and caring.
• 31:59
  At least those three, I don't care about the charismatic and that, but we've all worked with complainers and they just suck the energy out of you.
• 32:10
  So I don't just feel that these are service aptitude or people skills that are only good for customer facing.
• 32:17
  I think it will determine your culture.
• 32:19
  Go to the trainable ones, empathy, good listener, curiosity, strong at making a connection, entrusting and charitable.
• 32:27
  I still want my coworkers to have that too.
• 32:29
  And these are all covered in the interview questions that will be in the show notes for our listeners.
• 32:35
  as well as there's a blog.
• 32:39
  called the relationship disadvantaged epidemic.
• 32:42
  We'll link the blog that you wrote about the Gen Z phase.
• 32:50
  Gen Z Gaze.
• 32:51
  All right.
• 32:52
  Any exciting plans coming up, Denise?
• 32:55
  It's the weekend.
• 32:56
  for us.
• 32:56
  So yeah.
• 32:57
  ah
• 32:59
  by too fast.
• 33:00
  Doesn't it though?
• 33:01
  Yeah.
• 33:02
  Yeah.
• 33:02
  Are you in town for a while?
• 33:04
  no, you're leaving for Jamaica.
• 33:07
  Again.
• 33:07
  our clients in Jamaica.
• 33:11
  It is, it was actually warmer here in Cleveland than it is in Jamaica right now.
• 33:17
  Yeah.
• 33:17
  Yeah, I'm speaking like them.
• 33:19
  Yeah, Yeah, Hmm.
• 33:21
  And they are proud of using the term no problem.
• 33:25
  In the Caribbean, which is fine.
• 33:27
  They're just chill.
• 33:29
  Yeah, no.
• 33:30
  you notice they're the same?
• 33:31
  So and I'm sure they hire people though, not everybody's from the island.
• 33:36
  But when it comes to the island Gen Z, they're the same characteristics that we're seeing here with their
• 33:43
  is kind of universal, except for maybe, you know, some countries, but yeah, they're dealing with the same thing.
• 33:50
  I tend to think of, I don't know, different places though.
• 33:54
  And we talked about this a while back too, like Ireland, Scotland, how friendly the people are and that they are more social.
• 34:02
  And I don't know if that's pubs, people don't hang out at, know, in their homes, they go out, they meet at the pub, they watch games.
• 34:10
  that, well, it is cultural, but we'd have to ask people from Scotland and Ireland, we're going to pubs because we're tourists.
• 34:22
  Are the locals going to pubs or is that more of the tourists, right?
• 34:25
  I mean, I'm.
• 34:27
  always understood that in a lot of places in Europe in general, they go out because they have smaller homes, right?
• 34:35
  So you go to the public house to hang out.
• 34:39
  So that's the secret, build smaller homes and be drunk all the time.
• 34:46
  It definitely works in, right, it definitely works in Ireland.
• 34:51
  have solved the Gen Z stare issue.
• 34:54
  All right, John.
• 34:55
  Well, have a great trip to Jamaica.
• 34:57
  Thank you, and I will see you next week.
• 35:00
  Sounds great.
• 35:00
  Bye, listeners.