Latest / The Spiro Podcast: Managing your Real Estate Photography & Videography Business / Critical Communication - Hard Conversations: Part 2

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Critical Communication - Hard Conversations: Part 2 · The Spiro Podcast: Managing your Real Estate Photography & Videography Business

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Coming up on this episode of The Spiro podcast.
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understanding your team
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is part of the culture you have to build as a leader
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and it’s hard, it takes time, it takes commitment.
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I mean, yes, you have the business to run,
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but you have no business without your team.
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So investing in your people and getting to know them
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and what makes them tick and motivates them is hugely, hugely important.
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Welcome to the Spiro podcast.
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Managing your real estate photography and videography business
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with your hosts, Todd Kivimaki
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and Craig Magrum
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Hi, and welcome to the Spiro podcast,
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Managing your real estate photography and videography Business.
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Spiro is a software platform designed to help you breathe.
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Basically, that's what Spiro means, is breathe.
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So it's managing, scaling and making your load
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a little bit lighter each and every day in running your business.
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Welcome to the podcast.
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I'm Craig Magrum, host and along with us each and every week,
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Spiro founder and owner and co-host of the podcast Todd Kivimaki.
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Good.
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Good day, sir.
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I will say I don't want to say good morning because,
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you know, when someone is watching, it might not be morning, so I'll just say
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- Good day. - Yeah. Good day to you, sir.
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That was for us, terrible.
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But for all of our
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that our
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UK users, I don't know that they're going to roast me on this,
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but I think as I talk to all of you around the world, I learn like, you know,
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like in the South or, you know, we say, y'all use that around here.
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You know, that's our kind of country twang.
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But there's a lot of beautiful things are beautiful in the UK.
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The people go on a
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holiday instead of a vacation.
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Yeah, So just trying to get in those and you know and then Australian somewhat
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connected but a lot of mates of course but then some of the same verbage.
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So anyways I'm not going anywhere
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great with this but it's great to be on with you all.
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I'll stop my rambling and we've got an exciting topic for you this week.
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we're going to pick up last week's conversation, right, Craig?
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Yeah.
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So where are you were going with that?
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Talking about differences in language
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actually is related to what we're going to be discussing this week.
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So last week we talked about critical communication,
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which can span several different areas in people, groups and whatnot.
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And last week we kind of talked about critical communication with staff,
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with, you know, with our employees, with contractors, things like that.
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And awkward, hard conversations that we have to have sometimes in leadership.
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And this
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week, we're going to be talking about communicating
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to our staff the idea of culture,
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a culture, a workplace culture, right?
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So that's what we're going to dive into and how to effectively communicate that.
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And more importantly, even the why of doing that.
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But before we do that, Todd,
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is there anything you want to talk about in terms of Spiro.
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Yeah, and you know, Craig,
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I love how you just make my rambling ones actually sound like they're intelligent.
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So I really appreciate that about you because I'm just rambling over here.
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And then Craig's like,
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I got to make this guy seem like he knows what he's talking about,
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and then boom, it's like, Well, Todd actually kind of knows something.
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So thank you for that. Craig That was fabulous.
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You know, lots of things, Todd
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I try.
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I try not to be just a
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well, I can't even see a pretty face because I have a face for radio.
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- But anyway, - Oh, no, you're a pretty face.
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Yeah. Let me let me give you that.
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Okay, so let me give you the lineup of what we just launched.
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So you all would have gotten an email by now.
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And so we revamped the upload and download process.
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So we heard from some of you that the upload into the gallery was slow.
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And actually what was happened is the thumbnails were getting clogged up
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and we were using high res before we had the thumbnails.
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Anyways, not to get too technical, that is completely revamped.
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This is just a small subset of you users.
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If you're still having slow uploads, just click the little pink chat bubble.
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But also can you send us an internet speed test?
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So there's a ton that has to do with your internet speeds.
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I talked to some you like when you're in a coffee shop.
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If you're uploading at a coffee shop,
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it's everything's going to be slow in uploading as the coffee shops
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typically turn that upload way down or they just don't pay for a high upload.
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So that has been changed and revamped.
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And then also there's a lot of user quality of life
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things that we just put in and like it's
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you can run a report for more than 30 days now, you can go 90 days at a time.
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So if you want to grab reports at a quarter by quarter basis
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and it can be outside of a month, many of you ask for that copy in a service area.
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You can quickly do it.
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Now, you don't have to start from the beginning.
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Log in token so some of you will get logged out as an admin
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and you'd have to log back in again.
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We retain, we revamped that token so you shouldn't have to log in again.
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You can copy coupon codes.
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Now this was a cool one. So think of this.
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Let's put our marketing and sales brain on and if you use coupons to
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help get business in, you now can
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create a or you can copy a link to your realtor
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that they can click on the link.
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It will pull up the order page, but it will also autofill the coupon for them
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so they don't have to put the coupon in the last step.
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We save the coupon code in the URL and then when it gets to the last step,
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we automatically fill them form so that they don't have to remember filled in.
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So we try to make things simple.
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You can copy the link from Spiro, send it to your agent,
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say Hey, click here to apply the $50 discount
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and it will automatically apply to them
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So that was kind of cool.
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One thing on that, another marketing and sales tip is
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I have a video on the Spiro support knowledge base that's about how to use the
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your referral code to give your first time shoots for free
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or to give $100 off your first time shoots.
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I just went over this with a new user
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that I onboarded yesterday and like his mind was blown.
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He was like, Wow, this is really cool.
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Actually, when I thought about it again,
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I'm like, This actually is a pretty good idea.
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So if you're giving away free shoots, this will streamline it for you.
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It uses your your name of an agent referral code, so just go watch the video.
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I'm not going to go too much into it now, but use that if you're giving away
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free shoots on your like your IG method to try to get new business in,
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well put the link to that video in the show notes on
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both YouTube and the audio for you.
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Yes. Thank you, Craig.
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Also, there's a ton of optimizations,
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mobile optimization, desktop optimization a ton in there.
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So quality of life is going going to improve in there.
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We're listening to you all
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the next big thing we're working on is the reshoot process.
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So that is when you need to go back out to a property
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or you need to go twice, once for the normal hours and once for twilight.
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That is going to be revamped here shortly.
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Perfect. I'm doing a reshoot. Today.
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We had the remnants of Hurricane of the barrel
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roll through and ruined my outdoor shots.
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Yeah, yeah.
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And that's a very common thing in that the idea of, Hey, I could shoot drone
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or the outside the first appointment I need go back again.
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It's going to be super quick, just click or two save boom, done.
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It's on for the next day or whenever you're available.
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Perfect.
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All right.
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Well, thank you for those updates. Appreciate that.
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If if you guys have questions about Spiro, if you're not currently a user,
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check out the website at spiro.media.
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And like Todd mentioned, there is a link to the knowledge base.
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It's and it's in the top nav, isn't it?
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Yeah.
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So once you log in, if you go to spiro.media it's in the top now.
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But also once you log into the admin panel as a user,
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the upper right hand corner has a question mark bubble.
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You can click that to go straight to it.
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All right, so let's dive in again.
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This is part two of critical communication.
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Again, Last week, we talked about critical communication
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to your staff, to your contractors, hard conversations, awkward conversations,
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and why it's important to be able to effectively communicate,
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you know, say, performance issues or things like that.
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This week we felt this was important
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in building a good, healthy business.
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All of everything we talk about relates to running a business right?
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Great resources out there on composition and equipment
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and approaches to how to shoot real estate photos.
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We want to talk about running a healthy business and culture we felt was something
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that's important to talk about and know how to communicate culture to your team.
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But Todd, before we can even really talk about how to communicate,
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communicate culture, let me ask a couple of initial questions
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and have you kind of share with us your thoughts on this.
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First of all, what is culture?
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What are we even referring to when we talk about building a culture
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at your business?
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Yeah, great question. Craig.
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So I was in a training, it was a couple of years ago
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and it was at a local kind of school.
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It was an entrepreneurial school, which is kind of cool is
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it's called Aileron.
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It's down in, it's just north of Dayton.
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And the individual who started the Iams
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Dog Food Company was from around the area and built this humongous complex.
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And so we went there and this is called the course for presidents.
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And they went over a lot of things like this.
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And we had a discussion as to culture.
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And I just love the way that the individual that was leading that day
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talked about culture.
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So he was kind of the same thing.
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And he started off with what culture is not.
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And it was really quite I still remember it in my head.
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Culture is not having a ping pong table in your office.
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And I, I thought about that.
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I was like, Well, wait a minute.
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Well, one, we have a ping pong table.
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We do?
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Yeah.
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It's like, okay, so what am I screwing up here?
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And so culture is not
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just this one to look cool.
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Want to look like we're in style?
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Want to look like work is always fun kind of idea.
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Yeah, we're not when I think of culture and the way that I think about how we've
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we've had many different cultures at Wow over the last 20 years
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and we have by far the best culture right now.
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It's not perfect.
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We have some gaps that we know about and that we actively work on
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and that we're going to solve.
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But looking back to some of the times that we didn't have a great culture
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or I thought we had a good culture, but we actually had a really,
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really toxic culture, Those were the that's the toughest
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one culture, I think, of the human, the human aspects
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from the top down as to how you all are
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humans and work together in this day and age,
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this digital age as well.
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And how you leave
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every day walking out the door
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or turning off your computer
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feeling like I got something done.
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I was accomplished today.
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I was working towards what I need to work towards.
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I know what I need to work towards and I feel good about
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now going home to my family.
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And I don't have to drag all this crap with me.
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And in those times
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when I think back to when we had some toxic culture,
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I think I focused too much on and they were times that we were grown
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really, really fast and we brought a lot of people on
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and we
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just didn't spend the appropriate time with those individuals.
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And unfortunately we didn't.
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I didn't know from the top down that there were these subcultures
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that were toxic in that we're growing.
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So I think in those times we grew really fast
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and I thought, Hey, let's get the ping pong table.
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There's nothing wrong with having a ping pong table back.
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We never played ping pong on it.
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I just bought the ping pong table
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because it's a lot cheaper than a conference table.
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Is there a price to your a pricey, huge conference table?
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They're really expensive and I'm cheap I bought a ping pong table.
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But it's the times that we bought like, you know, we have a massage chair,
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you know, like we have an espresso machine.
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You know, we had chickens.
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Yeah. Yes, that's correct.
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We had chickens. At one point I say, hey, we're in the.
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Yeah, I know. Craig.
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I remember that.
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I wasn't around much, but I heard talk about the chickens.
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Yeah. Yeah.
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And we had just moved into this huge new building.
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We gutted the thing.
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We made it beautiful. We made it feel new.
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And I thought, Let's just put some lipstick on the pig.
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And that was going to be culture.
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So I made the mistake of doing that.
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And it's in those times I look back, I'm like, Okay, where were the gaps that, Todd.
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Well, the gaps were at the fact that you just needed
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to spend the time
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with all the employees,
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You know, at least in onboarding, you won't be able to do this as you grow.
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You don't do all this
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with everyone you know, or make sure you have leaders in place.
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So some things that we worked on as we worked on
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getting the right people in the building and really being specific
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about who the right people were, we began to hire better.
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But also, I don't want to say that the people that left were the wrong people.
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I think I shared last week that there are some people that left.
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Wow. That I was like, Oh, that really hurts.
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Like, I look back on it now.
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I'm like, Oh, that name.
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That name was a rock star.
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Now I just didn't set him or her up to actually succeed here.
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Like, I like it.
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It's like
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and you can't get those people back, you know, the damage is already done.
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So in those times,
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core values became really important for us.
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Communicating better, onboarding people better.
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And these are all things that you'll grow into.
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You know, as I look back over our journey, you know, remember, it took us 20 years.
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I look back and it's like the think about
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when you hire your first person, there's so much that you have to do.
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How do I hire somebody?
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Will somebody want to work for my little company?
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What do ask?
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What do I ask them? Do I hire a friend?
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You know, and then, okay, what do I pay them?
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How do I what does it mean to have an employee?
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What are the laws? How do I get them on payroll?
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What systems do I use? How much do I pay them?
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And literally the list goes on and on.
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So you're not going to have this from day one.
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but I think it's important to understand what you need to focus on to
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start to find those gaps, to close the gap so that your shell can grow bigger.
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Okay. Let me rewind just a little bit.
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So we talked about what culture is not,
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but I think you started to build the foundation of what culture is.
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You mentioned values.
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Would you say it's fair to say that you have to
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have your own values, system and worldview?
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Figure it out before you can even start to build a culture at your your business?
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For sure.
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You have to and you have to define that and you don't have to force it
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on everyone.
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You don't have to force your worldview on everyone.
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You know, Craig and I were both very open about our faith.
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Like literally, I was I was in a meeting yesterday
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and I got there late and it was a working lunch meeting
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and we started working and I had Sardinia and I was like, hey,
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just let me let me just thank the Lord for the food real quick.
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And I just prayed to myself like, it takes like, if that's your value
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that you need to stop and pray because you believe,
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you need to thank God for everything he's given you.
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Like, trust me, there was a point.
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I'm like, Oh, this feels strange for me too.
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I'm like, I'm not imposing.
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I'm just saying, Hey, let me let me do what I think is right.
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And and the response I got back was,
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we need to thank God for everything we did.
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I was like, Oh, and I didn't expect it from this person to say that.
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And it wasn't that I forced it on them.
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It's just like, Hey, this is what I believe in.
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From a world, from a spiritual, from a business.
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They all fit together.
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They really do. You can't keep them separate.
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You can choose
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not to force them on people and that be a whole nother podcast.
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But it definitely starts with being strong in your values.
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And remember, you are the leader, you are the CEO of your company.
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People that look for jobs
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at your company don't want to own a company.
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And that's one thing that I did not have figured out for a very long time.
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I thought the way that I thought was the way that they thought.
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And I assumed that what I thought made sense to them
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and I wouldn't have to verbally communicated to them,
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assumptions can kill really quick.
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Yes, I like I like what you said, though, about your worldview.
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You're your value system isn't something you have to impose on others, meaning
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they might have a different worldview, but leading with authenticity
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and and conviction that you're going to be consistent
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in living out the worldview that you're communicating to the team is important,
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but also with the understanding that we're all humans, right?
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We all do make mistakes.
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And that's one of the biggest criticisms you see of people towards each other
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is, well, you said you believe this, but you're not living it out.
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And so they just throw out the entire viewpoint that you might be bringing.
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So I think something important in any culture,
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any worldview, is grace for another human being.
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The allowance that, hey, we're all going to screw up, right?
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And with that understanding that, okay, we're going to allow for mistakes,
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we're going to allow for unintentional
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inconsistency, Is that fair?
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Craig I think that is so key to what you just said
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to setting people up for success.
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We had a lot of times where
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at Wow, individuals would quote unquote
18:37
screw up and
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examine it a little more, really no fault of their own,
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it was either a training or onboarding or it wasn't communicate.
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There was a gap in the process,
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and there were some times where people just made a mistake.
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They were trained and they just made a mistake.
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We're humans. We all do that. I screwed things up every day.
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But for a while we
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had a culture here of that we blame the person
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and it wasn't until
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I'm working with coaches
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that they opened up my eyes to the idea
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that you never blame the person You're responsible for that.
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For what?
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Blame the process.
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Where did you screw up. Me, Todd
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Where did I screw up?
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So I think that's so key.
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Craig Because they expect people to come in and for them to be perfect
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is just something that's not obtainable, not realistic.
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And it's so much pressure that nobody will want to continue
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to work at your business if those expectations are set.
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So how does that tie in?
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Okay, let's let's let's dig in here.
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So say you have a very diverse staff and most of us do,
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especially if we have VA’s that are perhaps overseas.
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You have multi-generational, you know, teams.
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Todd, you and I are on the older
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end of of the ages of our staff probably.
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So, you know, I'm Gen X, we have millennials on our staff.
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I do it.
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I don't know if we have anyone young enough to be Gen Z or not,
20:08
but you have all
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you have all these different, you know, age differences,
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how we see, you know, culture.
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Even just here in the U.S., we have differences in how we see the world.
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But then you have your team members that are overseas.
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They have an entirely different culture than American culture.
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So my question and it's just give me a really broad question,
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it might be hard to answer.
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How do you communicate culture,
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a critical conversation that you have to have with your team?
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How do you communicate culture to a team?
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It's multi-generational, international and different worldviews.
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How do you even
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get your arms around something like that?
20:49
Craig, it's such a good question.
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You know, the first thing that that comes to my mind
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is just being authentic
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authentic and transparent.
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And there's time.
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So I'm I'm trying to think of where I screwed up.
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It's such a good question, Craig.
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I'm trying to think of where I've screwed up
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over the years with this and what I wasn't.
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So times where I wasn't transparent
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and not trying to hide something, but just not communicating well.
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And then there's other times where I was not authentic because it was like
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I felt like I was the business owner and I needed to act like everything
21:24
was great and everything was so perfect and there's no problems.
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And and that I think, can turn people off even faster than addressing and saying,
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Hey, guys, we have this gap that we're aware of
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and we don't exactly know how to solve it right now,
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but we know that you guys hold the answers to fixing this gap.
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And what we're going to do
21:47
is we're going to schedule some time to do a roundtable to brainstorm.
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So like just
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not acting like everything's okay when it's not, you know, I can think back
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to some really big screw ups that I went in front of our leadership team.
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I'm like, Guys, this is this is like a red flag problem.
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Like, it's like a huge problem that if we don't fix this,
22:07
we are either going to
22:11
or we're going to be on a path
22:13
of potentially losing a ton of business that we have to let go.
22:16
A lot of employees that potentially could lead to a lot of other things.
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So just trying to conclude in my head, I think being authentic
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about what is going on and communicating properly and clearly
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and transparent about what's going on now, I want to be careful
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because I'm not saying you need to just share everything because
22:37
sharing information with some people is a burden
22:40
and they don't need to know that information.
22:42
Right
22:43
One, everybody wants to be in the know and they do.
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It's just part of our humanness.
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you know, the FOMO is a thing, fear of missing out.
22:53
But those individuals don't need to know necessarily
22:58
at a capacity or at a interval that you will know information.
23:03
You know, it's much like think about when you have children
23:06
and if you don't have children and think about how you grew up,
23:08
Did you go to school?
23:10
Did they push the physics book over to you
23:13
or calculus or any other higher level item?
23:18
No, we we didn't grow like that.
23:20
We grew with the very basic things and we started laying a foundation.
23:25
And the same is true with your communication
23:27
as to where you don't need to just throw physics
23:29
at somebody someday, if they don't need to know about that.
23:33
Right
23:34
And that can be too heavy for them.
23:36
There's like, Oh, holy crap, I got to learn physics now.
23:40
And then they
23:41
go and they tell their coworker like, Hey, there's this thing called Physics.
23:45
Like, Todd probably wants you to learn it too.
23:48
And that's, that's the way communication travels.
23:50
So put anything else?
23:51
So maybe somebody's leaving the company, maybe you terminating somebody,
23:54
Maybe you getting a contract or losing a contract.
23:57
That's what physics is. That's what I'm talking about. Okay?
23:59
If everyone at your company knows that, they might not need to know it right now
24:05
because your announcing your expectations about moving on from an employee.
24:10
But if they know before you've set those expectations that spreads
24:14
throughout your company
24:15
and then everybody sets their own expectations as to what does that mean?
24:19
And then everybody thinks they're not going to have a job tomorrow
24:22
because the sky's falling and
24:25
because you came in the room and, hey, Craig, can we talk on the on a Friday?
24:29
You come, Hey, hey, can we talk on Monday,
24:32
going back to last week's episode? Yes.
24:34
Yes. So true.
24:36
Yeah, we can read a lot of things.
24:39
in the statements
24:42
So, Craig, in your experiences there, what is your opinion on
24:46
Because I think your question was so great.
24:47
So what, what is your opinion on that with setting that culture
24:52
and making sure that that is.
24:53
In a way that it needs to be communicated.
24:55
So yeah, being authentic
24:56
and transparent with people but not communicating everything, I agree
25:01
there's things that you're dealing with day to day at a very high level
25:04
in the business that if you were to tell me
25:07
everything, it doesn't affect what my role is in my job is.
25:10
So if I'm stressed about things,
25:13
it at a higher level.
25:15
The business
25:15
that don't directly impact my day to day job, that's just going to add a burden
25:19
to what I'm already carrying in my own responsibility is so my responsibilities
25:24
for the company are to develop business in
25:27
in the market that I'm in and to go out and shoot the you know, shoot
25:31
those services that we provide our clients and do that at a very high level
25:35
and serve my people, you know, my, my area of responsibility well.
25:40
But if I'm then added, adding the stress of high level decisions
25:44
that I don't actually have responsibility for, how is that going to impact my day
25:48
to day performance and what I am responsible for?
25:51
So I don't know if I answered the question or not, but
25:54
that's kind of what I'm thinking is, yeah, don't overcommunicate be real.
26:00
The thing I've always appreciated about managers
26:02
that I've worked for before, or owners or whatever,
26:06
is them being real with me
26:08
and being understanding.
26:11
I don't need to know everything that's going on
26:13
in their in their world, but at least be real with me and be honest.
26:17
If there's something that is going to impact me, then yeah, share it with me.
26:22
Empower me to do what I can to help,
26:25
you know, if if that's appropriate.
26:29
A leader showing
26:30
trust in the team that he or she has built
26:34
is huge for building morale and building trust in that culture.
26:38
If you trust me to help provide to the,
26:42
you know, the success of the business, I feel valuable, I feel needed.
26:47
And in part of the team.
26:49
You brought us to a great segway into another topic of communication.
26:53
And so I think we've talked
26:57
about that good communication can build culture.
27:00
Culture needs to be authentic to you, and it needs to be,
27:04
you know, what's ingrained in you with your values and beliefs
27:08
and in your company, you know, core values and so on and so forth. But
27:14
communications, interesting.
27:16
And it's like, so you feeling that you're a part
27:20
of the company in the success of the company
27:22
is important to you, Craig is that correct? That's what you said.
27:25
Yeah, absolutely.
27:26
And, and I think one thing from
27:30
an owner's perspective is that
27:33
what Craig just said is going to be true for everyone,
27:36
but it's going to be. you’ll communicate it differently or show them differently
27:41
depending on the way that they
27:46
appreciate or
27:47
naturally want that information to come in.
27:50
You know, on the flip side.
27:51
So Craig, Craig's happy when Wow was successful and why
27:56
and when he's contributing and he feels good about that.
28:01
And I know that Craig likes to know
28:05
that, like verbally, like it's great to verbalize that to Craig.
28:10
There's some people that
28:12
they don't really want to verbalize at all.
28:15
They might just want their check to reflect, you know, their paycheck
28:19
to reflect it.
28:19
Yeah, there's some other people that
28:23
they don't necessarily want to know.
28:25
They want all of their coworkers to know that they're doing that.
28:29
So they want more of a community kind of praise, if you will.
28:33
So there's different levels of that and and understanding the individual's
28:39
personality and how they want that, I think is really important.
28:43
Craig, what do you what do you feel in that?
28:45
Yeah, well, I mean, it directly ties into a book.
28:48
I know we've mentioned several times the five love languages.
28:51
There's different ways to show people appreciation
28:54
and that you care about them and are concerned about them.
28:57
So yeah, my, my, my main way of
28:59
receiving affirmation is words of affirmation, you know, literal.
29:04
Hey, you're doing a great job in this and couching,
29:07
you know, any corrective action.
29:08
Maybe I need to work on something that, you know, one aspect of my job,
29:12
but couching it in terms of, hey, you're doing a great job overall,
29:15
especially with this, let's tweak this a little bit.
29:17
If you couch it in terms of what I'm doing right and hey, let's just improve
29:21
in this area, I can receive that really easily.
29:24
I don't feel condemned, I don't feel beat down.
29:27
But if you come at me with with harsh words and hate,
29:30
you know, you're really dropping the ball here.
29:33
And there's been no context of, am I doing anything right,
29:36
then I'm just I'm going to spiral down.
29:38
So yeah, understanding your team
29:40
is part of the culture you have to build as a leader
29:44
and it’s hard, it takes time, it takes commitment.
29:48
I mean, yes, you have the business to run,
29:51
but you have no business without your team.
29:54
So investing in your people and getting to know them
29:57
and what makes them tick and motivates them is hugely, hugely important.
30:03
Yeah.
30:04
So question, Craig, like, okay, so wow, this information is incredible.
30:08
Like, okay, so I have a team.
30:11
It's super important to know how
30:13
they want to be communicated with
30:16
and what drives them
30:18
and how to then correct them.
30:21
Wow. Craig This seems like and I have to
30:23
oh, I have to manage all this and I'm running my what?
30:27
Like, I've heard there's some personality test
30:29
and there's a love language book I could read.
30:31
Like, this seems so difficult,
30:35
like I have to figure this out.
30:36
I don't think you're ever going to figure it all out,
30:39
but there's principles you can start to apply day to day.
30:42
Wouldn't you agree?
30:44
I would agree and I would. So.
30:48
Okay. So let me pause for a second here.
30:50
Not not pause the podcast, but just pause with you all
30:55
and so you all know that I'm
30:57
I gear towards the way of lazy.
31:01
Like if I can be lazy, like, just give me the the easiest least path of resistance.
31:06
I'm a smarter, not harder type of individual.
31:08
Like I'm always looking for the most efficient, easy way.
31:11
And so when I started to understand
31:14
these communication styles and these things,
31:18
I was I felt the weight of it.
31:21
Like it just opened up my eyes.
31:23
I was like, Holy cow, Todd, this is what you screwed up.
31:26
But it was great because it's like, okay, I know how to fix it now.
31:29
But then it was like, I need to learn all this stuff and
31:34
and what a coach told me, he's like, Oh, no, you don't have to know.
31:36
Like it's good to read books on and be aware of it so that you can,
31:41
you know, you can do this with your clients
31:43
and you can do this with people that you don't ask these questions, but
31:46
you can simply just ask your employees,
31:51
how do you like to be recognize
31:55
when you do something good?
31:59
When you
32:02
need some training or when you've maybe screwed something up
32:07
and we need to tell you how to do something different.
32:10
How would you like me to communicate when we need you
32:13
to do your work a little bit differently?
32:17
Let me put a pause on your pause.
32:19
Just ask.
32:20
Oh, I see what you did there, Craig.
32:23
Even just asking that question to me as an employee
32:27
makes me feel part of the process and part of the team, like
32:30
I'm actually being valued like management.
32:33
They're not just giving lip service.
32:35
Well, follow through on the information your employee gives you
32:38
when you ask that question, just because if you don't, then they're going to lose.
32:43
You're going to lose them.
32:45
Act on what you're the information that you're getting from them
32:48
because here's the thing.
32:50
You ask me that question and you actually make movement on
32:53
relating to me as a staff member in the way that I told you that I react
32:59
well to, I will run through a freaking brick wall for you and for the business
33:05
because I've been heard and I've been valued.
33:07
There's there's a guy to this day that I worked for at
33:11
two different radio stations that led very well.
33:14
Now, he wasn't perfect.
33:15
No one is, but he he ask questions.
33:18
He showed
33:20
appreciation for who I was.
33:21
He invested in me, he mentored me.
33:24
And to this day, I will run through a wall for that man
33:27
because he cared about me as an individual.
33:29
And he took the time to get to know me and set me
33:32
up for success in in the man that I am today.
33:36
And that transcended just the job.
33:38
It was just he mentored me just in life in general.
33:43
So show value and show interest in your team.
33:47
Ask the question that Todd just asked, How do you best feel?
33:52
You know, how can I provide?
33:54
Well, what you ask it, I feel like I'm rambling again.
33:58
No, no, it's perfect. I just.
34:00
So let's give him something practical.
34:02
Craig, this is something practical for you when you are on board.
34:05
Anyone that's going to report to you and you should create
34:10
a employee questionnaire. simple.
34:14
Okay, Birthday
34:17
and tell me not to put the year if they don't want to.
34:19
What is your favorite color?
34:22
What's your favorite food?
34:24
What's your favorite snack?
34:26
What are your hobbies do you have a spouse?
34:28
Do you have animals?
34:31
Okay.
34:32
What are names of your do you have children?
34:35
What are their names and ages?
34:37
Okay. Very simple things. And I'm serious.
34:39
Like, I'm not joking.
34:40
Like, create this thing we have it at Wow.
34:42
And then
34:45
what do you do for fun? Items like that.
34:47
And that right there is going to let
34:50
you know a lot more about that employee.
34:53
What do they like when?
34:55
So if you're going to praise them for something
34:57
or if you're just going to leave a note on their desk with a with a treat,
35:01
like if you put their favorite candy bar, they're like,
35:04
it just shows a little bit more care that you know about them.
35:08
Like, oh, hey, he remembered that I like Snickers.
35:12
And then and I don't know if you go on this questionnaire,
35:15
but maybe in your onboarding, you ask them those questions, Hey,
35:19
I just want to make sure that we set you up for success here.
35:22
And we really believe that all of our people are the key to our success.
35:27
So we are so excited to have you come into our company.
35:30
We ask everyone
35:31
the same questions when they come in, so just know this isn't anything special.
35:35
You know, anything that we only asked you,
35:37
but we want to make sure that we really set you up for success.
35:40
And we grow as a team here and we like to know informs that communication.
35:48
When you're doing something good, how would you like to be communicated to
35:53
and let
35:54
them answer that question and write down the answer to that question and then say,
35:58
okay, on the flip side, and remember again, this isn't just for you.
36:02
So we're not anticipating that you're going to do this,
36:04
but when we need to correct some of the activities you're doing
36:09
and when we need to let you know that you did something not correct
36:13
and here's the correct way to do it,
36:15
how would you like us to communicate that to you?
36:18
And what would be the best way to deliver that?
36:21
And I think those are two key questions to understand.
36:25
And there's probably a ton other
36:27
that we can think about, maybe give you guys a list, but
36:31
and those are all things that you can continue to add to your documents.
36:35
And in fact, like if you think of something, just add it to your list.
36:39
But if the list only has two items on it right now, don't not use it.
36:45
Use it for your next employee.
36:47
And then when you think of another question, go back and update
36:50
the draft of that questionnaire and just add the third question.
36:53
The fourth question. The fifth question.
36:56
And those are some practical things that you could begin to build.
36:58
So there I'm just giving you two documents that you can build.
37:02
So it's a cheat sheet, a two document.
37:04
So if you don't have anything, document to know.
37:06
SOP’s. There are no onboarding guides.
37:09
That's a very simple way to have the employee questionnaire
37:14
and then the onboarding guide for critical communication.
37:19
Just by doing those two
37:20
things, you're already communicating, communicating a culture,
37:23
and it's a culture of I care about you as an individual and I'm
37:27
you're you're more than just a number and a profit center for me.
37:30
And those are questions you can ask any generation.
37:35
Those are questions you can ask any international,
37:39
you know, part of your team
37:41
were what I found.
37:43
Todd Especially with with international friends, is,
37:46
yeah, we might have different cultures, but honestly, when it gets down to it,
37:50
our core needs and wants are pretty much all the same.
37:54
We love our kids.
37:55
We care about our families, those things
37:59
that transcends international boundaries.
38:01
So yeah, very simple things to do right off the bat.
38:06
Let me ask two more questions too, to kind of hone in on communicating culture
38:12
to our teams before we wrap this up.
38:14
First,
38:17
how do you how do you communicate
38:19
that you're going to be guarding that culture?
38:22
You know, say you have somebody come in that
38:27
is part of your team, but
38:28
they're not quite gelling with the culture
38:32
and you need to guard that is as the leader.
38:35
You need to guard that culture.
38:36
How do you communicate,
38:39
guarding and protecting the culture that you've worked so hard to build?
38:43
Yeah, So.
38:46
That's a great question, because if you don't protect it,
38:49
it crumbles way faster than it takes to build it.
38:52
Yeah, I mean, it crumbles instantly.
38:55
It could take you years to build it and it could be gone in no time.
38:59
So it's
39:02
understanding that that little it's
39:05
understanding that when it becomes a ripple and not a wave.
39:10
Well, how do you do that, Todd?
39:11
Well, you have to have constant
39:13
communication check ins and feedbacks with your team.
39:17
And again, it might not be you personally like I have check ins
39:20
with my leadership team and then the leadership team checks
39:22
in with everyone else.
39:23
So there can be a hierarchy there,
39:26
but you need to make sure that you have those times.
39:29
So daily check ins there.
39:31
Quick walk around a quick thing.
39:32
Go walk around. Hey, everything's going.
39:34
Are there any gaps I need to know about Anything I can do to help you?
39:38
Three quick questions.
39:39
It's a it's a 1 to 3 minute conversation
39:42
and there's typically some small talk and that builds as well.
39:46
And then on a monthly basis,
39:49
I meet with every all the leaders on my team.
39:53
So we have a
39:54
it's about an hour long conversation in this format, just works good for us.
39:58
And we go into depth as to what's working well,
40:01
where there are gaps and then what can I do to help?
40:05
And I keep notes month after month and we'll follow up from the previous month.
40:09
Last month, you told me these were the things that you were working on.
40:12
How are those These were the gaps.
40:14
How did this work?
40:15
And then, oh, I sent you those documents that those help.
40:19
So I think understanding that in communicating with your team,
40:22
you're going to find out real quick
40:23
when that new person comes in and they're making ripples.
40:27
Yeah.
40:28
At that point you have like the golden ticket.
40:31
You can now go to that employee
40:34
and you can let them know about that ripple.
40:38
Now be careful, but you don't want to come and say so-and-so.
40:40
Craig told me that you were doing this.
40:43
Okay?
40:43
So you have to have you know, you have to be strategic about
40:47
how you tell them
40:48
go back to last week's
40:50
episode on how to ask some of those questions and get that conversation going.
40:54
Yes, you can do it. Yeah, exactly.
40:56
And then I was also going to say, go back to the form that they told you
40:59
of how they want to communicate, too.
41:00
And you can say, hey, remember when and you're going to hold up the forming
41:03
or say, Remember when we onboarded?
41:04
I asked you a question about how I can communicate
41:08
when you need to make an adjustment for us here
41:11
and you told me that you just wanted a face to face conversation.
41:14
So this is what this is. No red alarms.
41:18
This is going to be super simple, but I wanted to bring it up to you today
41:21
that you were doing this and we expect this
41:26
moving forward.
41:27
Do you have any questions?
41:29
And it's that short.
41:31
The first time it is.
41:33
And then after you have that conversation, let him ask questions.
41:36
Okay? Don't go into the weeds.
41:38
You're not you're not accusing them of murder at this point.
41:41
You're just saying, hey,
41:42
when you use the coffee machine, if you're the last person,
41:45
just clean out the carafe, You know, like it's a small thing at this.
41:48
It's a ripple.
41:50
And then what you need to do after that meeting with them,
41:53
you need to email them and say, hey, thank you so much for your time today.
41:56
I just wanted to reiterate,
41:58
this is what we discuss and this is what we expect moving forward.
42:02
So excited for this, yadda, yadda, yadda.
42:04
Make them feel great. Thanks, Todd.
42:06
And that's how you will squash it before it gets to a wave.
42:10
By the time it gets to a wave or a tsunami, you have to take
42:14
much larger steps in getting rid of that.
42:17
And sometimes that means that
42:18
that person or groups of people have to leave your company.
42:22
There you go.
42:25
Good way to guard culture
42:26
and communicate that you are guarding that culture.
42:29
And it takes work.
42:31
I think that's the biggest thing, is it takes constant work and if that's hard.
42:35
So for some people that's easy.
42:37
Some people it's you, you naturally, you see people around or you're like, Hey,
42:41
I haven't talked to so-and-so, I'm going to call them.
42:43
Okay? And that's easy for you.
42:45
If that's not easy for you, just put it
42:48
on your calendar.
42:51
Literally.
42:52
I had a leader here that it was very difficult for him to do, and I was like,
42:57
okay, we just we need to put these these are all your direct reports,
43:02
add them to your calendar at this frequency
43:05
and it might you might feel guilty about like, Oh, I need them.
43:08
Remember, I got to go check in with Craig.
43:10
But no, like that's just a mechanism that you actually do
43:13
go check in with him and be authentic when you have a conversation with him.
43:17
But if you need a reminder to just go check in with them,
43:21
then add it to your calendar and it doesn't have to be long.
43:25
The thing is, if you put off check on check ins for a very long time,
43:29
typically there's a lot to talk about and those conversations get long and heavy,
43:34
so you don't want to do them again.
43:36
Right.
43:37
But when you can make it light and quick and easy
43:40
and schedule it, they be it's like cake.
43:42
It's like, Oh, yeah, I can do that. No problems can take 5 minutes.
43:45
Awesome.
43:47
All right,
43:48
last question and I think we can wrap up.
43:51
So we've talked about, you know, the why of building culture,
43:56
how to, you know, how to communicate that culture,
44:00
guarding the culture, all which involves communicating it but
44:05
when we get down to brass tacks,
44:07
you know we're we're owners were leaders we want to see results.
44:11
We like measurables.
44:12
We like measuring things. What's the ROI?
44:15
What's the ROI on communicating culture effectively for the day to day business, Todd?
44:21
If you if you had to summarize it and boil it down to one or two
44:25
measurables, what impact does this actually have on on your business?
44:29
Wow, that's a
44:32
holy cow.
44:33
Craig doesn't Great question, because that's why we're doing it after all right.
44:38
You know, why do I do
44:39
I have an answer in the back of my head.
44:41
But I'm curious if if we agree on what that is.
44:45
We didn't script this.
44:45
People. We know we did.
44:47
We didn't talk about this.
44:49
We didn't at all.
44:50
We may have
44:51
we might have two different takes on this,
44:53
So the question is, is what is the ROI on spending
44:56
- the time the buiild culture? - Yes.
44:58
it is ultimately succeeding at the definition of why
45:02
you started your business.
45:04
It's creating a profitable enterprise that works for you
45:09
and you achieving your personal goals from your business.
45:15
And none of that's going to be possible
45:18
unless that culture understands what you want,
45:21
how you expect it, what the goals are, and that you care about them.
45:25
And this is what this is where the ship's heading.
45:28
And we're all together as a team headed in that direction.
45:32
And we get excited
45:33
when we succeed and we pick each other up when we have a gap or a failure.
45:38
And we're able to do anything because we know we have the right people here.
45:44
I'm going to tie this together and you kind of did.
45:47
So you're looking at it from I'm going to look at it
45:50
from two different perspectives.
45:51
You approach the owner perspective,
45:54
making a profitable enterprise that works for you.
45:56
So you’re leading a business and communicating culture.
46:00
Well, there's little drama for you, right?
46:02
If you have a healthy culture, you're enjoying what you do as a business owner.
46:07
And ultimately, I want to I want to live my life without drama.
46:11
So if we now, we're always going to have some drama.
46:14
But if we can minimize that
46:15
and make it a healthy culture, we get to enjoy what we do.
46:18
So there's the measurable for Todd as the owner.
46:21
Now for me is the staff members, the employee, the contractor, whatever.
46:25
The importance of Todd communicating that culture
46:28
to me and me buying into that and him taking all that effort to communicate it
46:33
and live it out is I'm a happier employee and guess what I'm going to do?
46:38
I'm going to stay with that company longer because I've found a healthy place
46:41
to work where I'm being fulfilled in my purpose as well.
46:47
I hate to break it down
46:48
to numbers, but how much does it cost to re to lose an effective
46:54
an effective employee and how much does it cost you to hire a new one?
46:58
Yeah, for for many of you out there, it could cost you your business.
47:02
Literally. Yeah, your business.
47:05
Right? Hmm.
47:08
That's.
47:09
That's what it kind of boils down to.
47:11
I mean, there is the numbers, but I mean, I would rather stick with a team
47:15
that I just enjoy working with and be happy in my life.
47:18
I mean, there's there's a intangible value to that as both an employee
47:23
and an owner.
47:24
If you can enjoy what you're doing as the owner and the employee or the contractors
47:28
enjoying what they're doing as an employee or a contractor? Man
47:34
there's a good quality of life there
47:37
that's just worth the effort of communicating culture.
47:40
Yeah.
47:42
Craig not to go too philosophical, I'll take 20 seconds
47:44
to say this, but that's literally the key to everything you all do in life.
47:48
Now, your relationships, if that's with a spouse,
47:51
if that's with your kids, like when you don't think of self first
47:56
and you think of them like I and I am happy when they're happy,
48:00
yeah, You begin to make decisions that are in
48:04
other's best interests and they make it in your best interests.
48:07
And that's how you push the ball so much faster.
48:11
Because when Craig and I are in different directions
48:15
and I have to self-serve and then he feels as a Oh crap
48:18
like if I don't stick up for myself, like Todd is going to take over like I
48:21
so I've got to start to dig in my heels a little bit or, or just leave.
48:24
That would probably be Craig's more person.
48:26
I was like, Hey, I'm just I'm not wanted here.
48:28
Like, I'm just going to transition on.
48:30
And it depends on the personality.
48:32
But when you get past that and you think of the others
48:37
and think of the team first for a better, you know, for a sports
48:40
analogy, it's so it's so simple.
48:43
But not easy.
48:45
Right
48:46
Right.
48:47
Yeah.
48:48
- What could good conversation,Todd - It it yes, it is.
48:52
I've enjoyed today.
48:53
Yeah.
48:54
And it's a good reminder and a good just find it
48:57
kind of fun and painful to go down memory lane there.
49:01
Yeah.
49:02
And you know, Craig, I think a lot of our listeners are going to be sent out there.
49:06
Oh, Todd, Craig, it's busy season.
49:07
Like I'm, I'm shooting mor houses than ever.
49:10
Yeah, I know I shot more house.
49:11
I was shot before and what I would say is, one,
49:17
you're doing the right thing where you're putting in to yourself, okay,
49:22
so not everything that I say has a lot of value, but I will tell you
49:26
that my company, if I would have known this 20 years ago,
49:32
I would have gone through a lot less pain
49:36
and we would have grown faster and bigger.
49:38
I'm not unhappy with where we're at.
49:39
I'm happy we're at.
49:41
It was it was the learning.
49:43
But if you can put this in your brain and then you find some time
49:47
to focus on this and just think about a simple thing.
49:50
If you have employees and you don't know how they prefer
49:53
to be communicated to with praise and with correction
49:56
tomorrow, ask them that individually.
50:01
And you've moved the ball forward and they're going to go just like crazy.
50:04
Like, whoa, They really think like I'm really impressed
50:07
that they asked me that question.
50:08
I can tell you that you will.
50:11
Gain good grace from them, and you’ll also
50:13
Then know how to effectively communicate with them.
50:16
Good stuff.
50:17
All right.
50:18
Thank you, Todd.
50:19
Appreciate it.
50:20
Thanks, Craig. You.
50:20
That was a good one.
50:21
A break here. Just on a different note.
50:24
Some of you have emailed me questions, emailed us questions.
50:27
I have saved them and we will get to them.
50:30
So thank you for asking those questions.
50:32
Keep sending them in.
50:34
We do get them and I compile them in a list.
50:36
So if you have questions, keep sending them in.
50:38
hello@spiro.media.
50:40
We will pick some podcasts here in the future
50:42
to do go through those questions.
50:44
Maybe we'll devote a whole podcast to it
50:46
or we'll go through a quick fire like we've done the past
50:49
and answer those questions, but we love to hear from you.
50:51
Thanks for emailing us.
50:52
And I just want to say that I wanted to communicate that with you here on the air,
50:57
that we have received your questions and we are going to definitely answer them.
51:02
Perfect.
51:03
Again, hello@spiro.media.
51:05
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51:07
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51:10
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51:13
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51:18
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51:22
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51:24
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51:27
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51:30
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51:35
You know, click the like button all the stuff that all the podcasters say.
51:40
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51:41
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51:45
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51:46
But we do appreciate when you share and like things as well. So.
51:50
All right. Well, that's going to wrap things up this week.
51:52
Make sure that you take time to be thankful for the blessings in your life.
51:56
Make sure you take time to take a breath and have a great week.
52:00
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52:01
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52:03
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52:07
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