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Hire Slow, Fire Fast: The EQ Hiring Revolution with Jeff Sophiea · Better Together

• Shawn Sundsvold: Welcome back to the Better Together podcast. I am Sean Sunsvold, along with Kelly Sunsvold, my partner in business and in life. Today's guest will tell you he was not the strongest test taker in school, and that watching sharper classmates around him left him with some real insecurity. What he did have though was an instinct for people. So in college, while teaching tennis on the side, he talked his way into job shadowing a family connection who ran an insurance agency. That turned into a part-time gig, making cold calls for a brand new hiring tech startup on top of a full-class schedule. That startup was Ideal Traits. Jeff Sophier skipped class to keep working it, got a full-time offer, and became the company's top producing salesperson. In 2021, the founders made him a partner with no buy-in required based on trust built from years on the front lines with clients. Now Jeff spends his time helping business owners across the country fix one of the most expensive blind spots, hiring the wrong people. And he'll tell you the real edge in that work has never been IQ. It's EQ and understanding emotions. So Jeff, welcome to the show. Thanks for being here. Jeff Sophiea: Thanks for having me, Sean and Kelly. Appreciate it. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah, this is gonna be a good conversation. We we talk to a lot of business owners and this topic comes up a lot, so I I'm I'm I think our listeners are really gonna enjoy this. And so for people who are just meeting you for the first time in our audience, you're a partner at Ideal Traits, but you started as basically the company's second employee while still in college. So how did that happen? Jeff Sophiea: Yeah, so as you were doing the intro, this my freshman year going in my sophomore year, I think I realized I'm like, you know what, I wanna be in business. I think when you're in college you really don't know exactly what you wanna do, but business was definitely one that was like, you know what? My parents started a business and you know, I feel like I am. I like talking to people and I like the business classes versus all the other classes I'm in I'm in. So I'm like, but I'm a hands-on learner. These textbooks aren't teaching me anything, Sean. You know what I mean? So Shawn Sundsvold: Totally. Jeff Sophiea: what did I do? I'm like, all right, well, I can't just go out cold and just start sending a resume out. I have nothing on my resume. So someone f in my family who I became super close with and I consider a mentor, a great friend, and family. it's actually my first cousin's husband who, you know, was wearing the nice clothes, driving a nice car to our family events, so I just said, Hey, what do you do? And I don't think he really thought of offering me a job when he first met me, but I was a little persistent and he's like, you know what? Why don't you come work at one of my businesses? or job shadow it. I'm like, Yeah, I'd love to. So I job shadowed his agency and then I asked him, hey, can I do more? And I started working at his like insurance agency. Then I came over to a software company, and that's when I think we all have this moment in life, maybe multiple moments in life, where you just get really excited and you found as Darren Hardy would say, you found your mo, your mojo, your motivation. That's where I was like, you know, coming back, I think my sophomore year of college, I'm like, I don't even really want to go to class, I just want to learn. I I had a front row seat in the business, learning from you know, these very successful business owners that I felt could teach me a lot more than going to class. Sorry if kids hear this, c kids in college, but at that time I felt that way and I'm glad I did for the most part because it it got me to where I am today and obviously I learned a ton along the journey along the the path. Kelly Sundsvold: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the the story about the mentors and having someone being able to guide you is so critical. I mean, I think at any age, but especially in that emerging from career, you know, into your career. in the intro, I thought it was really interesting. We, Jeff Sophiea: Mm-hmm. Kelly Sundsvold: you know, we mentioned that, you know, through the conversation that you had with Sean at the beginning was, you know, you weren't the strongest test taker growing up and you felt insecurity watching Jeff Sophiea: Yeah. Kelly Sundsvold: you know, the smarter, sharper classmates all around you, you know, getting those A's. How did that shape the way you approach business now? Jeff Sophiea: So interesting you bring that up, and it's funny, I don't know if I've really even talked to many people about this, but Sean got it out of me. have you guys you guys know the SAT and have you heard of the ACT? Shawn Sundsvold: Yes. Jeff Sophiea: Well, the ACT was when I was in school. I w I got such a low score, guys, on that ACT, and I kinda almost gave up on it because I have ADD and I just, you know, got stressed out and couldn't focus, and it was a lot for me. Well, at that time, you know, like At least all my friends kind of label it as, This is your score. This is what college you're gonna go to, this is how successful you're gonna be in life, and it's like all from this test? What? So Kelly, I would just say that it you know, it obviously had a that that's one of my insecurities I would say. And it helped me like wake up and be motivated, like, hey, you're probably gonna have to put more effort into some things or work smarter, than some of these folks, get a head start because You have a lower test score. And I wouldn't take it back. I'm kinda glad that happened in my life. But I was like, that's not gonna define me and my success. You know, I'm not gonna let that. So I would say now when I look at this, yeah, like, you know, people taking tests out there, if you're not getting a great score, well yeah, try it try again. Try to get a better score, but if if that doesn't work, you know, know that you can be successful in a lot of other areas. Some people are just bad test takers, right? So Kelly Sundsvold: I I love that, especially with the with the realization of and diagnosis of ADHD, like, you know, you have you have things working against you, but yeah, like a test does not define a person. And I love how you've been able to move on and be successful, not letting those ACT SATs define you. I also was a very herbal low scoring test Jeff Sophiea: Yeah. Kelly Sundsvold: taker as well. And as from one bad test taker to another, know, it doesn't define us. It it it makes us get creative, like what am I good at? But yeah, that Jeff Sophiea: Yeah. Kelly Sundsvold: can definitely make a difference. How did that affect your your self esteem going not to get all like, you know, you could Jeff Sophiea: No. Kelly Sundsvold: hear as much as possible, but I know for me personally, like I felt like I was dumb. but like, you know, obviously that story goes a lot deeper, but how d how did how did that push you in a way to think outside the box because you knew you wouldn't fit in this box? Jeff Sophiea: Exactly. And I'm not proud of this, but I actually lied to friends what I got back because it was so like demoralizing, right? I didn't want to like bring it up anymore. 'Cause I tried twice on that test and both were just bad. So it definitely kicked me, you know, and I had you know, gratefully I was surrounded by a lot of smart friends too. So they had really high scores and I would say the way it helped me think outside the box is, you know, asking people what they do in life. And That's when I do not really know too much about EQ that Sean brought up. It was more college when I started really becoming obsessed with it, because it's like, okay, here's IQ. That's what you know, and everyone has a certain IQ, but then what's the EQ, right? What's the social awareness? What's the relationship management? What's the self-awareness? Right? What level are you at? And maybe I it would help me getting somewhat of a head start, 'cause my my parents I would say they're psychologists, they have pretty good EQ. But you know, working on that and working on how to communicate with people because that's everything in business. Like you're s it's a people business. You're you're in the people business. You're communicating with others and the only way you can help them is by getting them to know, like, and trust you. And I feel one of the biggest ways of doing that is connecting with them on a deeper level and making sure they understand like, hey, you're on their side, you're not just trying to take some money and run, right? or just making a transaction. So In a world with a lot of AI and automation nowadays, now more than ever, like what we're doing right now, I feel like is super important. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. Yeah, it definitely is. And, you know, the relationships are really what matters, right? Is not only Jeff Sophiea: Yeah. Shawn Sundsvold: just in life, but in business. And, you know, kind of thinking about you know, we talked about it a little bit earlier, but you in college, right? You're you're coaching tennis, you're going to class and you have this opportunity that, you know, we s kind of mentioned it, you're you're working it, you've got the job, you're skipping class, right, to do the work, right? Jeff Sophiea: Yeah. Shawn Sundsvold: So There's there had to have been some moment in there where you're like, I have class and I have work, right? Like w what was it that made you trust the instinct to work first, school second, kind of a thing? Jeff Sophiea: These guys, Kevin and Jeremy, they they're two brothers that started the company, and then their partner, Todd Dawson, which is my partner now, learning from them was just like, whoa. Like you taught me more in two months of a summer than I probably of of what I wanted to learn in all of, you know, five years of high school and college. So I'm like, I I'm listening to whatever you say and I love doing it. And I think I got not gonna say lucky, 'cause luck is just about what you created the opportunity to be lucky, but I'm grateful that we were just a startup. Like we had they had like a hundred or so customers and now we have you know, we've helped over twenty thousand. So at that moment, like I'm making a big impact. So when you ask like, you know, when do you feel like, hey, ski you know, skip class if it's, you know, you're doing okay in the class and work it just stay in your room and and work. Well I'd have the the website up and I'm either doing selling or marketing or recruiting for the company because I know it's helping too. It's not just I'm learning, but I felt like, shoot, they need help, right? we need to make this more successful and I can't I don't have money. I can't invest money into the company at that point. I'm a sophomore in college. But what I can do is do everything I can and and listen to their advice and follow their path because listen, that I'm not gonna reinvent the wheel. They are very successful in what they do and I trusted them and it led me where I am today. So I would say that would be a big reason why I trusted them, seeing their success. Kelly Sundsvold: Yeah. Well let's go ahead and walk through that. So was ideal traits where you were when you were was that the job that you were working with or the company you were working with when you were sophomore in college or was that a different one? Mm-hmm. Jeff Sophiea: Yeah, so it was like a small insurance agency at first, 'cause the owner of the company also had an insurance agency. So I started with him at the insurance agency and I was about to like get licensed. I think he saw me one day, like take it upon myself to try to like get an insurance license and he like, you know what? I might have another you know, I have a side hustle going on. I mean, I think he called it that at the time. I mean, it was really just Kelly Sundsvold: Yeah. Jeff Sophiea: a startup and I just started flourishing in that. I loved it. Cause I'm calling like these other insurance agents trying to sign them up for our system. And that was a lot easier to call business to business than business to consumer. You know what I mean? So I'm sure you guys have stories with that too. So Kelly Sundsvold: Yeah. yeah. yeah. Jeff Sophiea: for me, I'm like, my gosh, they're answering and they're listening to me. I'm just a kid. So Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. Jeff Sophiea: yeah. And everyone now, more than seven years what was that? Te eleven years ago, people needed help with hiring. Now it's like you know, even bigger, so yeah. Kelly Sundsvold: Yeah, so so walk us through what ideal trades actually solves for business owners and what's the problem with just posting posting a job on Indeed, ZipRecruiter, LinkedIn yourself. Jeff Sophiea: Great question. So we're a hiring platform designed for small to mid size, some large businesses too, that are always looking to hire. So you could go out there if you're a business owner and go on Indeed or ZipRecruiter and you could have success. But these job boards, like Indeed, have the most unqualified candidates out there, but they also have the most qualified. So there's two things you gotta do. One, you gotta make sure you have a good job ad out there. And it's kinda like Facebook and Google right now. If it's not the ad's not looking good, if it's not optimized, if it's not mobile friendly, if it's not attractive to the eye of the candidate, well, you're just gonna be it's gonna get lost. And so doing it yourself as a small business owner, like you didn't get trained on how to create good job ads. So when I hear a customer or sorry, a prospect talk to me like, I put an ad out there and I didn't get any hits, well there could be a reason why, right? And then the second thing Is filtering out the candidates. So you might have a lot of applicants applying or word of mouth. You might have a lot of people that might want to work for you, but how would Sean filter those? Well, typically, people just look at a resume. With us, we have a resume, we have AI that will help score the resume. We have an assessment helping determine what personality traits they have for the specific role. And then we have problem-solving portion to see how they think outside the box, more of an IQ. And then finally there's a video interview where they can actually record themselves and send it back. So if you were the business owner, Kelly, you're not really doing anything on your end. You're just having the ad go out there, making sure that it looks good. People apply, they get sent the next steps, it's very automated, and now you have the finishing product. Now you had, let's just say, 50 people apply. Well, we want to filter. Instead of you talking to 50, you're gonna talk to five of them. Shawn Sundsvold: Hm. Okay. And and when you're just talking to the five rather than the fifty, how much more does that give you the ability to really dig in with those business owners and understand what's happening and really solve their problem? Jeff Sophiea: Great question. So we have a whole support team too. So typically as one of the partners here, I'm responsible like getting corporate contracts, getting new businesses to sign up, right? So I'm finding out their pain points and I'm seeing if we can help them with it. So if we can help them, I'm definitely gonna have our service team take over and when they're in the platform, making sure that anything that they need, right, we have set up for them. So for example Let's say a business was looking, that's at a accounting firm, and they were looking for people with that were certified, right? Well, we'd have pre-qualifying questions to make sure that it was like a yes or no if they had the certification or not. And then we could automatically reject people and put them in a different pile if they didn't have that certification. And if they did, they'd get a text message and go on to the next step. So without you having to be there and you know, doing all this manual work, which you need to do, but most business owners don't, right? They want the outcome. They want like, you know, I wanna I wanna have a great body, but I don't really want to go to the gym. You know, that's the same thing with recruiting right now. You have to do like the daily task. Text the candidates, you know, filter them out, call them, follow up with them, have them do things to make sure that they are prepared for the interview. And those are some things that we can do in the back end for them. So when you asked about the fifty, we're gonna go in there and we're gonna help them determine who might be a better fit. And every business is different. Some businesses aren't as let's just say, not strict, but not they might prefer someone who has certain experience, but they're okay with someone who doesn't have experience. So it's all up to the business owner and what they're looking for. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah, and and I somewhere y we talked about early in the show, but the the idea versus like emotional understanding or emotional, you know, EQ, right? Versus the IQ side of it in and when it comes to business and I think it really ties into this well. you know, especially in the sales side of it. What does that actually look like day to day when you're working with a client and and having to really understand what is their real pain point in trying to hire somebody? Jeff Sophiea: It's a great question. Well, when this is a good example, the last couple calls I had today, I really don't go into it trying to sell a software. I'd like to think that it's you know, I want them to think of me as someone in their corner, right? And part of it is a little psychology, right? Because what are you doing? Well you're hearing their pain points. You gotta uncover those. There's a reason they might want to take the call or be on it. And what in my case it's typically that they got burnt. They hired someone and it cost them a lot of money, or they've been struggling to hire someone, or they're getting ghosted. Ghosted is a huge thing right now. People just not showing up to the interviews. So, you know, it's it's extremely important right now to listen to their pain points, understand what they've been through, acknowledge it, of course, but then say like, hey, there is a solution. But it does take some time in the beginning to get it set up. But once you have it set up, once you have a process in place that's, you know, measured and reoccurring for these candidates, you're gonna feel a lot more confident and you're gonna be in front of more qualified people that you know when they show up to the interview, this is someone that has a better chance of succeeding in my role because of the personality assessment matched up to my staff, matched up to my culture, because I saw their video interview, it looked great, right? The resume looked like something that I'll someone I want to talk to. You just have more confidence and you're you're betting more on science and logic than just gut feeling. And I think in s recruiting we all do that where it's a little bit too much gut. Kelly Sundsvold: So I think it's really great. you know, Ideal Traits also works with about 5,000 in insurance agents too, correct? Yeah. Jeff Sophiea: Yeah. Yep. Kelly Sundsvold: So what what is it specifically about how insurance agencies hire that make them such a strong fit for what you do? Jeff Sophiea: Good question. So in the beginning we were created by agency owners. I mentioned Kevin, Jeremy, and Todd. They were all three agency owners. So it made it pretty easy without having to do any sort of marketing, spend any money on marketing. It was just like, hey, here's what the most successful insurance agent at Allstate insurance at the time, that was Kevin, is doing to hire staff. He's using his own platform. And so then all these other agencies wanted to hop on board. So with insurance agents to answer your question, they're looking for service reps, and then the most important role for them is salespeople. And if you're not bringing on people who can be profit centers, you're losing. Because then you're not making hitting your bonuses, right? A lot of these companies, like all state, corporate's gonna set a certain amount of bonuses that you gotta hit. And that comp plan is changing every year. And guess what it's changing to? Typically every year is We want you to sell more. We want you to sell more. Well, how do you sell more? Right? Of course you wanna get more marketing. Maybe you as the agency owner can try to get more production out of Kelly, more production out of Sean if they're the employees, but eventually we'll have to add more producers. And that's where we come into play is just helping them continuously look for the next best option. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. So y we you you talked about a little earlier, but you you've got the resume, you've got the video interview, you've got the psychometric assessment. What's a moment with a client where you could where basically the assessment and the data that came from that caught something a resume would have missed? Jeff Sophiea: This is maybe the best question yet. I like how you define the assessment too. you know, there's a lot of stories with this too. So one of them is actually one of my clients looked at a resume and the guy was from McDonald's. Okay. And His gut at the time really did not want to hire him. Like, you know, McDonald's. I want someone who's already in the industry. Right? I want someone licensed coming from State Farm or farmers in this case. Well, he took the chance on him. He because of the assessment. The assessment came back, it was labeled as sales leader. That's one of our assessment results in Ideal Trades. There's sixteen different results, came back as sales leader. Well, not only did that guy he hired end up being the top producer in all of the area, but he ended up owning his own agency and buying that guy's agency. Shawn Sundsvold: Wow. Jeff Sophiea: Yeah, so, you know, if you asked him today, he would absolutely say that it's because of the assessment. And listen, I'm not saying the assessment's the end all be all, but if you can get more information about a candidate versus less, I say do it. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. Kelly Sundsvold: Yeah, it's never too late, right? Yeah. yeah. Jeff Sophiea: Yeah, right. Kelly Sundsvold: so kind of on to the like, you know, we've talked about the interview process. We've talked about, you know, the hiring platform and what you guys do. but you also talk about hire fast, sorry, fire fast hire slow. Okay, let me get Jeff Sophiea: Yes. Kelly Sundsvold: that right. Fire fast, hire slow, which was an adage, you know, like obviously like that's you know, smart business leaders that have an IQ or high EQ, hopefully we'll understand this too. because what's a hiring mistake that you see business owners making over and over that a slower process would have caught Jeff Sophiea: So this this leads to a good conversation, right? Because you gotta imagine in in our position, we do get quite a few people that call in and are like, I need to hire yesterday, right now. I need a body, I need a person sitting right here. And we tell them, Hey, you did come to the right place, right? And we can absolutely help you. But our philosophy is hire slower. Don't just hire anyone, make sure they're a good fit. So How do you make sure they're a good fit? Well you use assessments, you use obviously you don't want to just get one candidate, interview them, and think, my gosh, they're gonna be perfect. It could happen, but typically you want it's a numbers game, you want more candidates applying. But the gr the the rooted cause of this, I would say the number one rooted cause of this is because they don't have a pipeline. And they only hire when they absolutely need someone. So think about that. When you need someone 'Cause someone put they they didn't even give their two week notice. They just got up and left, which we're seeing that now more than ever. In i in any industry, more than ever, right? But if you're not always accepting resumes, then you don't have a pipeline. And when you don't have a pipeline and someone just gets up and leaves, well, what are you doing? You're freaking out. Let's say it's a dealership, it's a technician position. Well, most a lot of dealerships make more money off the service than they do the sales. So now you don't have a technician in the position, you're losing, you know thousand maybe thousands of dollars a day right I need a technician and that's what happens though and so we're gonna help them we're gonna help them get candidates but we want to break it down of listen you can hire anyone but let's not settle on average let's try to help you find the best fit we don't want you hired someone and then two or three weeks realizing my gosh that's not a good fit or even worse I'm sure you guys have seen us or experienced this Six months later, and how much money did that cost you? Because not only did they not produce or not do what it was headaches, but what could of another person, let's say it was a sales position, what could they have done for your business in those in that six months? Kelly Sundsvold: It's almost like Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. Kelly Sundsvold: if people would stop and slow down and just go Jeff Sophiea: Yeah. Kelly Sundsvold: through, you know, the proper hiring steps and go, you know what, we're gonna be really shorthanded for a month, six weeks, two months. And but we wanna get this right. We wanna hire this right and make sure we have the right fit for the position, the company, all of that. and if they would just sometimes just slow down, we probably could escape a lot of the you know, just ghosting after a couple of weeks in the position, and just Jeff Sophiea: Yeah. Kelly Sundsvold: not showing up to work, you know. Jeff Sophiea: Hundred percent. And one thing I would say about ghosting. For for anyone on this podcast who like wants to become better at recruiting, ghosting, there's a couple reasons it happens, right? and I would say this there is a percentage of people that are just gonna ghost because that's in their DNA, right? There's nothing you can do. But don't get down on yourself, right? But there could be a reason you are getting ghosted more than another business. First thing I would look at is your reviews online. Trust me, if it's a good a good candidate, They are apt, even if they committed to the interview, they're going to look at your reviews online. They're going to check out your website, Sean, right? And they want to see what it looks like because that person would be representing you. There's Shawn Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Jeff Sophiea: so many times where someone's like someone's like, my gosh, they didn't show up. And then I look at their website or their indeed review. They even know they had Indeed reviews, and it's a couple candidates saying the office was, you know, it smelt bad or whatever. And it just lies, right? Because they got fired and it didn't work out. I'm like, r get people to remove those, right? And then second thing that you should know that if you're not texting the candidate, texting, I mean it's got a 98% open rate versus, you know, you're talking email and voicemails. What's the first thing Kelly's gonna check on the weekend? Probably her text, right? Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. Jeff Sophiea: Maybe Instagram, maybe social media, but usually it's text, right? So you need to be texting the candidates and following up with them in an automated process and reminders being sent to them. and having them complete things before you talk to them, the more skin they have in the game, the more likely they're gonna show up to the interview. Shawn Sundsvold: Love that. Love that. And that's so true. And even just thinking through my own process, you know, in in before I own my own business, you know, the the companies that stayed in touch with me, you know, I always felt like I had a better opportunity there than the ones that didn't. Jeff Sophiea: Nice. Shawn Sundsvold: Right? you know, looking at at you and your experience here, y you're spending a lot of time on the phone talking to business owners. Would you say you're a pretty good reader of people? Jeff Sophiea: I hope so at this point, you know. I think I would say that's probably one of my better qualities is reading people. it's always fun to to have a conversation for even five minutes and then think of what would their personality result be if they took the assessment, right? Yes, reading people is something I I do like to do, but I also know and I think I did this early on in my career, I try to do a lot less of it is assuming. Shawn Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Jeff Sophiea: Right. You think you know it all. You think I'm gonna label Sean as like this other person I talked to and they're not gonna be a good fit for our business. It's like, whoa, you gotta hear their story. Just because they say the same thing as the the last person It it could be totally different. They could be in a totally different situation. Or I got on the phone with this person, right? And getting back to what I do, you know, I know that's all we've been talking about is what I do, but but getting back to having a conversation with someone, it's sometimes people that call and complain that their staff is, you know, driving them nuts or they went through a lawsuit or something horrible that happened. So I you know, you can't judge at all. You gotta just be open and un you know, express empathy versus sympathy and just say listen if you want to improve this you know I hear I I feel horrible that this happened to but you know let's take these let's is this is our action items moving forward to to make this Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. Jeff Sophiea: better Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah, and and and the reason I asked that question, something you shared with me in our initial call, is that both of your parents are psychologists, right? So you bring that experience in right at the beginning of of any conversation to just understand and be able to kind of dive into what is going on with people. so how much of your ability to read people do you think it was you were born with it, versus it being something you've as skill you've honed over the years? Jeff Sophiea: So I've done a lot of research on this in general. I had a presentation in front of, I don't know, at the time, like 5,000 5,000, sorry, no, not 5,000, 500 like business owners. And it was a webinar, and they wanted to know more about like personality assessments and vetting candidates and something I did some research on and looked up is how personality changes over time. So it is part of it is how you were born, right? But then it also is the your role models and then the environment that you're in. So it's completely normal to see that someone out of college, their personality changes significantly, you know, in ten, twenty years. But someone who's developed in their career, and you'll see it on an assessment like ours, their assessment, th they know themselves, you know, what they're gonna do in the office, what they think others think of them, it's very correlated, right? There's not the numbers aren't that different. So, yeah, for me, you know, I'm fortunate that I got good qualities from my parents in terms of definitely under Thinking of others before yourself as much as possible and putting yourself in other people's shoes as much as possible too. I would say that would be something Kelly Sundsvold: Two very important skill sets that I wish more people had. yeah. Jeff Sophiea: In this world, Kelly? Yes, for sure. Kelly Sundsvold: Yes. Yes. Very much so. So kind of changing it a little bit, and the way that you structure your life right now. So like you spent you kind of split your time half between Michigan and Florida throughout the year. so tell us about that. What made you structure your life this way? Jeff Sophiea: Wow, this is personal. I like it. so Michigan, I live here and my family's here and I got friends here. I play at a a golf course here, I love the members. I've I've found a home here, right? And it's pretty fun because the my place is on the water and our office is right on the water too. So when I first lived here, we were in person at the office, but then there's this thing called COVID that happened in 2020 where we tr we had to go remote. And it's funny with our company because at first we were like, No, this sucks and then we adjusted and we're like, We don't want to go back to the office. Like, you know, my laundry's clean and I'm able to travel and do all this stuff. Well, I travel a lot not only to you know, I got people in different states that I like to see, including my brother who's in Tennessee, but I travel a lot for work. I go to conferences and I got to see what's out there and you know, although I love Michigan, there's a couple things in my area where I would say like You know, I I like to go go out and connect with people more and here it's probably not the the best spot to do it in the middle of winter, right? Everyone wants to stay inside. So, you know, going to places like Florida has really helped me see a new lifestyle, meet new great people that share similar hobbies, and I'm also closer to the airport so I can travel to events, you know, quicker and and more efficiently. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, again kind of focusing on you and what's coming up here in the near future, what does the next chapter look like for you? Is it, you know, I'm gonna stick with ideal traits and really ride this out, or do you have another kind of project or something you're working on as well? What what does the future look like for you? Jeff Sophiea: I think AI is gonna be, you know, my my my avatar is taking over. No, I'm just kidding. no, I tell you what, I I love this company, I love everything we stand for, and I'm here for the ride, you know. I'm very loyal to it. They've treated me well and the energy and the pro the effort I put in has has paid out and I'm excited to see where we go. So I'm I'm I'm here and not saying I'm not looking for, you know, obviously other businesses start or or join in the future, but love what I do. I love building relationships, connecting with people, turning, you know, connections into lifelong friendships and helping people succeed. That's the number one thing I like about this business is you help people hire staff, you're gonna help them succeed if it's successful. with everything they want to do in a small business because I don't think they wanna be the employee of their own office. They want to go on be able to go on vacations with their family, have a better, well balanced life. And again, to do that, typically you gotta bring on good people and know how to use AI now. So yes, I appreciate that question, I would say. I'm I'm stayed stayed put for now. Kelly Sundsvold: Yeah, I love that. I think, you know, we worked with a client. We worked with a lot of business coaches and they're some of my favorite people to work with because usually they have a high EQ and I we had one several years ago that always said that people don't leave bad jobs, they leave bad bosses. And that always really stuck Jeff Sophiea: Right. Kelly Sundsvold: with me. And so, you know, I'm glad that you're in a place where you feel like you can grow and thrive in your career and you have that that loyalty. That you really want to grow that business and really grow your skill set and help others. Like that's a very unique position that you're in, Jeff. And I just wanted to thank you as we wrap this up here. I want to thank you so much for being on our podcast. How can people learn more about ideal traits and what you do? Jeff Sophiea: Yeah, thanks so much, Kelly. You guys are great to talk to and I wish I could ask you guys more questions. It was all about me. appreciate it. Yeah, me sharing some inpportunities. For sure. Yeah. Well I'll have to Kelly Sundsvold: This is all about you. You can read our story on our website. Yeah. Jeff Sophiea: if we end up doing more of our podcasts, I'll have to have you guys on because it's been great. Great connecting with Kelly Sundsvold: thank you. Jeff Sophiea: you guys. So my email is Jeff at idealtraits.com. Not trades. Sometimes people do that. Traits, like character traits. And my I'll include my number too, but a simple email, you know, will be just fine. We'll set up a call. If it makes sense for us to do business, great. If not, the worst you know, at least I can give you some recruiting advice and tell you what's going on in your market and what I'm seeing across different industries. but yeah, hopefully I can build some value for you and we can get connected. Kelly Sundsvold: Awesome. That's awesome. Well, thank you so much, Jeff, for your time and sharing your wisdom about hiring and about you know, just ideal traits and what you do. So thank you so much. Jeff Sophiea: Thank you guys. Appreciate it.