July 3, 2025 • 38 mins
I had fellow agency owner JC Hite join me on the pod to discuss some really important topics. Namely, is it possible to scale with stability - which for JC means scaling your business while prioritizing, family, faith and personal relationships.
Here’s a look at what we discussed:
Key Takeaways
- The "Video of Awesomeness" Hiring Hack - JC's simple 15-minute interview addition that reveals more about candidates than traditional methods, including real examples of applicants who wrote songs about his company
- Overseas Talent Strategy Mistake Most Make - Why the "how cheap can I hire" mindset kills results, and JC's approach to paying international talent competitively to get world-class team members
- The 5 Love Languages for Workplace Retention - How applying Gary Chapman's principles in business dramatically improves team satisfaction and reduces turnover (especially crucial for the next generation workforce)
- Building a "Bench" Like Sports Teams - JC's systematic approach to always having pre-approved candidates ready, eliminating the panic of unexpected departures and empowering leaders to make tough decisions
- Mentorship Through Fear, Not Ego - How JC built relationships with icons like John Maxwell, Damon John, and Dr. Gary Chapman by being honest about his fears and willing to invest in proximity to wisdom
—
Sponsored by OMG Commerce - go to (https://www.omgcommerce.com/contact) and request your FREE strategy session today!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
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Well, hello and welcome to another editionof the E-Commerce Evolution podcast.
I'm your host, BrettCurry, CEO of OMG Commerce,
(01:28):
and today I am delighted towelcome to the show Mr. JC Hite.
He's the co-founder andCEO of Hite International.
You'll hear more about that in a moment.
He's all about scaling with stability.
You'll also hear what that meansand why that's so exciting.
And I first heard JC andhis lovely wife, Karen,
(01:48):
speak at my partner and friends event,
Tom Shipley deal Con,and so just hit it off.
Similar values, similar faith,
similar approach to businessI think in a lot of ways.
And so we're like dude andalso Midwest guys. And so hey,
let's hit you on the pod. Sowith that JC Hite, welcome man,
(02:09):
and how's it going?
Oh man, it's going great.I'm excited to be here.
Hopefully we can add some good valueover the next 30 minutes, so I'm.
Excited. Let's deliver some value. Yeah,
so want to get into a variety of topics.
I know one of your specialtiesis recruiting and hiring talent,
retaining that talent. And one thing wesee, whether it's in the agency space,
which I'm in on a day-to-day basis,or we help e-commerce brands,
(02:33):
if you don't have top talent, and yes,
we know that AI is disrupting andgetting the right tools and the right
approaches, that's all good,
but without the right people and withoutthe ability to attract and retain
top talent, you're goingto be a step behind.
And so I'm excited to talk about that.
I'm excited to talk about mentorship andyou've actually formed friendships with
(02:53):
some real leaders in the leadership space.
I'm excited to unpack that storyhere about your event. Also,
you and your wife work togetherand you genuinely appear to
each other and you appear toworking together most of the time.
And so I think we'll throw a few nuggetsin there too for those that may end up
working with their spouse as well.So we're going to be fun times,
(03:16):
but first of all,
what is Hite International and whatdo you guys do to get a little context
here?
Yeah,
I mean our big focus as you said therein the beginning is how do we help people
scale with stability?And what we mean by that,
obviously we want to scalethe business, we want to grow,
but what I have found isbusiness could be one of the most
(03:38):
destroying things in the world.It can be the most stressful.
You throw your finances off, youtake big risks, you can fail hard,
but it can also be one of themost freeing things in the world.
I never miss a ball game. I got tocoach my kid. I can give to the church,
I can help, I can serve, I caninvest time in my marriage,
and it can also be the greatest thing.
(04:00):
And so when we talk aboutscaling with stability,
it's really about having a business thatcan allow you to have a really great
deep marriage,
to be very involved in the church andyour relationship with Jesus and as well
as serve and help andraise amazing children.
And so these three principles,
and so we do that really focused onthree areas, Hyatt International,
(04:22):
we have an advertising firm,
and we got about 80 employeesin our advertising firm.
And then we have our education side,which we have events and a mastermind,
and then we have our investmentwing, which I'm really excited about.
We started investing in companies thatare on that same mission of growth and
how do we get more involved inthe details of helping them scale?
(04:44):
I love that man.
And you and I are a hundred percentaligned on that scale with stability
framework.
It's one of those things where whywould you do this if the most important
things in your life fall by the wayside?
And so I think the idea for everybodyis how do you get your business to align
with your personal mission and tohelp fuel healthy families in a
(05:07):
healthy relationships and things likethat rather than destroying those.
And so love that approach.That's awesome. And Yemen,
just excited to dive in.
Now you are just coming off theheels of a really big event.
Can you tell people about.
Scale.
With stability, what that was, wherethat was, and kind of how that went down?
(05:28):
Stupidest thing we've ever done,but it worked out really well.
So I'm always really honest with ideas.
Sometimes it's just you take jobs.And so we wanted, on this framework,
we wanted to do an event, and sowe did Skill with Stability Summit,
and then we had the crazyidea, we have a university,
Harding University in Arkansasthat we're very passionate about.
So one day I told my wife, what if wehad the event here? And she was like,
(05:52):
why in Arkansas? It's inArkansas. It's 45 minutes from,
there's not a Marriott here.There's not wide. I was like, well,
let's think about it. They alreadyhave av, they have all the rooms,
they have space, theyhave food, they have all,
and then we're bringingpeople to our alma mater.
We're bringing in celebritieshere. Could this be something that,
(06:14):
and it worked really well. We had750 people. It was a brand new event.
That's crazy, man, from logo toyou name it, and seven 50 people.
We had Daymond John came down.
We ended up inviting three collegestudents and pitched Damon and I.
That was super cool.
Many shark Tank. By the way, dideither of you invest in these pitches?
(06:34):
Well, we did not investin anything on that one.
They got an award for the best pitch,and so we actually got all three of,
makes a lot sense, the money sense.
So it took the pressure off ofthe table there. We actually were,
the premise of the pitchwas that as entrepreneurs,
we all have millions of ideas.
So which ideas do we jump on and whichideas do we shelf? That's brilliant.
(06:56):
Brilliant. And that's based on timing.It's based on who you've got around you.
It's based on money, it'sbased on a lot of factors.
And so the calling was for thesestudents to pitch the idea that
should be the thing that theytake off the shelf and jump into.
And then which one had thebest. Anyway, it was fun.
We had Willie and Corey Robertson there.
(07:17):
They talked a lot aboutmarriage and faith and raising
children and how you're in themiddle of this huge jump and just
everyone's pulling you and everyone'swanting you and wants access,
and how do you raise really healthy,
God-fearing amazingchildren in that cycle?
(07:38):
And so I feel like they'vedone really well, which.
Is really the hardest thing. And youand I have talked about this a lot.
I mentioned it on the show as well.I've got wife and I have eight kids.
There's really nothingharder than raising a family.
There's nothing more rewarding andthere's nothing more important.
And so getting that right in themidst of businesses is awesome.
And you have a limitedbusiness, we can fail and start.
Over again. Totally,totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
(08:00):
I guess technically you could justhave another child and do it over,
but probably not the best approach.
And Karen and I, anyway, we got two,
you've got eight, so
it's fun. So yeah, we had Dr. GaryChapman came to the event as well,
and Dr. White and who wrotethe book Appreciation at Work,
(08:23):
which we can talk about here in a minuteas we talk about team. But it was good.
It was fun. Super fun.
That's amazing. And yeah, Iknow you mentioned John Maxwell,
one of the all time greats as faras leadership goes. And so yeah,
Harding University in Arkansasattracting some big, big names,
attracting 750 people,
which if anybody has done anevent or tried to do an event,
(08:44):
they know that is a monumental lift.
And we do events a couple of times a year,
but they're for just businessowners and smaller events. But dude,
it's still a lot of work.It's a massive, massive lift.
And so kudos to you guys for doing that.
I want to talk about attractingand retaining talent.
And I want to kind of frame it this way.
(09:05):
I was listening to one of my favoritepodcasts on the drive in today called
Founders Podcast, and thehost was reading the original
Jeff Bezos shareholder letter.
And one thing that JeffBezos talked about then,
but he is talked about ever since,
is our success hinges
(09:26):
on our ability to continuously raisethe bar in terms of who we hire.
And so they've got this ideacalled the Bar Raiser program.
And I'm not going to get this exactlyright, but it's something like, Hey,
with each new hire,
we're going to ask how willthis person inspire us or
how will we admire this person?If we bring them on board,
how will they raise thebar in their department and
(09:50):
collectively? And thenthere's a third component,
there's always a third component,but it's kind of along those lines.
It's not how do we just hire the nextperson who fills a role but makes me
look good, not quite assmart as me type of thing.
How do we raise the bar with those hires?
Now that's difficult to do and it'sdifficult to do if you're a small business
because sometimes the best talentcomes with a really high price tag,
(10:13):
but not always. That'snot always the case.
And so I'll kind of make this a broadquestion first and we'll dig into some
details,
but how do you approachhiring and hiring the right
talent? And I don't know if you wantto start with any kind of frameworks or
philosophies around thatbefore we get into the tactics.
So a few things that we do. So number one,
(10:35):
I'll mention something on the interviewprocess that I have found works stupid
good for us,
and I stole it fromMindvalley forever ago.
I don't know if they still do this.And then two, let's chat about
where and how I recruit from a standpoint.
Then we can talk about the teamitself and how do we retain them.
(10:58):
So we require every single person thatapplies for high, they do one interview,
15 minutes,
and by the end of that interview weasked for what's called a video of
awesomeness. And on thatvideo, it's very simple.
I say, Hey Brett, you goingto do a video of awesomeness?
I want three things that make us awesomeand three things that make you awesome.
(11:20):
And that's it. And they're going toask questions. They're like, okay,
how long should it be? I don'tknow, when is it due? I dunno, well,
can I use friends? I don't know. Justthe video, three things. That's it.
And I have learned, Brett, youcan learn so much by this video.
So some examples I have some peoplethey'll take two, three weeks,
but I mean it's like perfect.Well,
(11:42):
there's certain positionsthat that's really,
and then they have people that justtake out their phone and film it.
They give me exactly what they, butno more, no less. But it's done.
Immediately.
I.
See people with their personality andsome roles, you want that some roles,
you want that person. Yeah, that'sright. And you see their personality.
You see, most people aren'tcomfortable filming videos. Well,
(12:03):
welcome to the life of working atHite. We never know what we're doing.
JC is always tellingus to go do crazy junk,
like start a event in the middleof Arkansas. There's no roadmap.
So there's no rules, there's noboundaries, there's no anything. Hey,
can I get friends to help?Sure, any job you have at Hite,
you can go have as manypeople help you. So I.
(12:25):
Learn, this is kind of like if youlook at personality tests, right?
So we used to do it calledCulture index. We love it.
We also use Patrick Lencioni'swidget, the Working Genius.
There's some tools like that.
They do it in some ways this cuts throughall of that and just allows you to
see it. Their workinggenius shows up their disc,
(12:47):
whatever. You're going to see it ondisplay on this project. That's really.
Really, and I can show you some videos,
but we have so many ofthese crazy creative videos.
And what's interesting thoughis you start making it where
first off, people wanting a job arenot going to take the time to do it.
It's just it's too much, right?They'll show up for another interview.
(13:09):
But those that really want,
then I'm actually hearing whatdo they actually know about us?
What made them want to applyare the things that they think.
Are your website's awesome?You were really friendly on.
The.
Surface level stuff.
All that type of stuff.And so that's my one tip.
I think it's the easiest from atime standpoint for me as the CEO,
because I like to be involvedin a lot of our hires.
(13:32):
It is the easiest way for me to getto know without a 30 minute meeting.
I can watch a video intwo minutes and learn.
I could see probably did they use Brent?
I have probably six people thathave written songs about hype.
I'm talking about full on banjo songs
edited, and I'm like, dude, this is thecoolest thing ever. Amazing. Anyway,
(13:54):
that's a big one. Big one for me.The second thing, I'll say this,
obviously a lot of people aregoing overseas for talent,
but I think one thing wedo way wrong there is that
when for some reason in the us,
our mindset is here's my budget.What's the best person I can do?
I can afford 6,000. Who'sthe best I can find?
(14:18):
But yet when we go to latam, it's like,
did you know you can hire someonein the Philippines for seven 50?
Did you know that you can hire someonein Nicaragua for 2000? Like, dude,
I'd have to pay six grand in the US inNicaragua, I would only have to pay two.
That's the wrong mindset. So oneof our big secrets is going, okay,
(14:38):
I would've to pay someone 5,000 inus. Who could I find for 5,000 in you?
Get out.
Yeah, yeah. It would just bethe best of the best there.
I mean, holy cow. So if you're willingto pay this Now, this has gotten
more competitive in thelast couple of years,
but I really encourage companiesto go find the top layer.
(15:02):
So for example, yes, you can findsomeone in the Philippines for 600 bucks,
but you can also find someone with an MBAthat's worked for Verizon for 10 years
and then a bank for fiveyears and pay 'em 2000.
And that lift is undeniably better.
Clearly going to be a barraiser in your department,
(15:24):
whereas the 600 a month person is goingto save you some money on your p and l
potentially, but you mayget what you pay for there.
But for some reason, our mindset whenwe recruit overseas is always different.
It's alwaysHow do I save money?
The lowest is the reason whyI'm going is to save money.
And if you go with that intention,
then just naturally you're going tobe thinking, how cheap can I pay? And
(15:48):
we don't pay perfect. We went throughsome really bad seasons there.
We made a couple of bad acquisitionsand it was really, really tough for us.
And so that's where it comesto my next point of view.
Ron Kaufman wrote the bookLevels of Service and it's
all about how do we uplift our serviceand serve our team as the best way
possible.
(16:09):
I built Hite with the intention thatevery single one of those team members are
going to pay for my kid's college.
This company will bring everydream I have and my job as CEOs to
serve them. We had atour event, Dr. Chapman,
along with Dr. White as I mentioned,
and they together wrote thebook Appreciation at Work,
which is the five level languages forthe workplace. So it's the same once.
(16:33):
Right? Interesting.
Works of affirmation, quality, time,access, service, tangible gifts,
physical touch, but we don't thinkabout that. So often the workplace,
this next generation ismuch more into appreciation
versus rewards.
So they want quality time with people.
They're really interestedin words of affirmation.
(16:54):
And so just like I do withmy wife, how do I figure out,
especially my team around me,what is their love language?
How do I connect with them?And it's incredibly different.
Some of my people, man,they just want money.
I mean tangible gifts is whatit's about if you pay 'em.
And nothing wrong with that at all.
I used to have a personalassistant, I love her to death,
(17:15):
I love her to death,
but her appreciation at work,
her love language was words ofaffirmation. And that is not, I mean,
I do really well with my wife and mykids, but outside of that, I'm the most,
I'm just not very lovey word wise.
(17:35):
With your words.
And it was a problem because I wouldgo a week without talking to her just
because I was busy and she got the workdone. She was so efficiently, so gc,
are you mad at me? No. Whathappened? Did I miss something?
Did I say something? Did Isay that I was mad at you?
No, but you haven't like no,
because you're crushing it and you don'tneed me to tell you what to do right
(17:55):
now. Words of affirmation,she wanted to just be told.
And so I think, okay,
how do I find the right talent where andwhat if my strategy around finding the
right talent, and then once I get them,
how am I loving on them asmuch as humanly possible world,
this next generation, they'll quitand they don't need another job.
(18:18):
They'll quit and they'll gomove back with their family.
They'll quit because they got30,000 in the bank and shoot,
I can go live in the Philippinesfor six months without much money.
And so they think differently.And so we got to be prepared.
How do we build therelationship with them?
Yeah, it's so good, man. And it'sone of those things where yes,
you got to pay people competitively andyou have to have a job and a role that's
(18:40):
structured well that givessomeone a chance to succeed.
But people really need that appreciationand those extra things and they need to
be seen and loved. We'lluse the word loved,
even though it's maybe not a wordyou use in business a whole lot,
but I love that. And we're big fans, bigbelievers in the Five Love languages.
It's true at work as well.
It's going to be the work versionof those things that work.
(19:02):
And so how do you see that andrecognize that in your team,
and then how do youshow them appreciation?
How do you lead them in the way theywant to be led or to see appreciation?
That's.
Right. That's great, man. And I alwaysthink about it, a good coach, man.
I think about coaches I had becauseI love playing sports growing up.
And who were the coaches that they werefine. I learned and they pushed me.
(19:23):
And some were justhardcore and that was fine,
but who are the coaches that I love?
The coaches that I would runthrough a brick wall for?
And I think we have thesame thing with bosses.
Who are the bosses that I'llshow up for? I like the job,
I'm going to do the right thing,
but who are the bosses that Iwould run through a brick wall for?
It's not just about pay.
It's about those intangibles of how am Igetting appreciation and receiving love
(19:46):
from this boss?
That's right.
Really, really great. Hey,what are some of the other,
but before we talk aboutretention, some of those things,
I want to talk aboutthis overseas recruiting.
I think that that's just becoming moreand more common in every business that I
know from the agency spaceto the e-commerce space and everything in between.
What are some of the othermistakes that people make there?
So I love that you pointed out ourdefault is how do we go to the cheapest
(20:09):
rather than how can we pay more thananybody else and just get an unbelievable
team member.
What are the mistakes do people makewhen they're hiring internationally?
Well, I think a couple of things here.
I think the mindset aroundit is very different.
Most in our culture and eventhe digital marketing world,
we call almost anyone that'soutsourced a VA in some way shape.
(20:30):
We have our team in the US andwe got 10 or 15 VAs in Nawa,
and it's like we just have amindset problem around what team
looks like. This is the team.
And so I have an issue with that.
I think one of the things that we justhave a huge opportunity for is that
(20:51):
Nick and i's three and a halfhour flight from Dallas, Honduras,
all these things beforehand.
So a lot of things are shifting tolatam from the Philippines and Asia,
things like this, which createsan opportunity to visit the team,
be a part of them. So again,
just like these love languages,physical touch trainer for gifts,
acts of service, quality time, four ofthose can be done in person quality time,
(21:15):
being present, being able to touchsomeone. Hey, here's what it is.
The affirmation of course can be online,
but there's very different when theyfeel the body language around it, So much
can be done in person.
So I think that's a hugeopportunity. And again,
us we're really like,what does comp look like?
(21:39):
The world is getting flatter and flatter.
I feel like there was 10 years ago wewere talking about the world is flat,
it was opening up the doors, but it wasn'tlike it was still very unlevel wise.
That is starting to graduallyequate more and more over time.
Yep. Yep. Love that. Well, let's talk,let's shift gears. Talk about retention.
(21:59):
And this is one of those things that ifyou've been in business for any length
of time, you've had a key teammember leave and it's painful.
And we've all had experienceswhere someone turns in their resignation and we're
like, oh, I've got a fake. I'msad here. This is so terrible.
But then there's some people that theyleave and you're just gutted, right?
Oh my goodness.
(22:20):
We had someone on our team whoI mentored him and trained him,
and I invested so much timein him. And then when he left,
it was almost like a gutpunch. I was also proud of him.
He was going to pursue somethingbigger, which was just tough.
Some people are really tough whenit's really tough when they leave.
So how do you think about retentionstrategically and also tactically.
(22:43):
Have you ever read of thebook, the Dream Manager, Brett.
The Dream Manager? I have not.
I love it. It's a little fable abouta company that scaled and grew and
they were a cleaning company, cleantoilets for a living. In that book,
it talks about how theyfinally realized that
(23:03):
they were a stepping stone elsewhere.There's certain roles in their company.
I think I struggledespecially earlier where
it was like an ego Hite was the saviorfor everyone. You couldn't leave.
Why would you leave? You aregoing to be served your best,
we're going to be able to pay you,we're going to be all these things.
And I think finally I got wherethat's not the case for most people.
(23:27):
And so I try to segment and go, okay,what is my retention rate on leaders,
managers, these types of individualsand then everyone else at Hite?
We don't get a lot ofleadership roles that open up.
We just don't turn over,
which means I actually need to expectthere's a big group of people that
will move because there's no spots forleadership unless I'm trying to scale
(23:50):
Hite. I am in growth mode, whichquite frankly right now, high digital,
we're not because I don't know wherethe world of digital marketing is going.
And so how do we treat our companymore as a, I like sports teams.
I think they do two things really well.Number one, they don't get affected.
Well, I mean they do, but peoplemove. That's just part of.
It. People move, people gettraded, people contracts.
(24:12):
Don negotiate that. But another movereally well is they're always recruiting.
They always have this bench.
And so one of the things that we'vereally tried to do from an HR standpoint,
even if I don't have a, let'ssay a Google Ads person,
I have a bench waiting now. It evenchanges the framework to my leaders.
(24:32):
I mean, you've done thisand I got a B player,
and it's like they're not super good,but do I want to go recruit and find No.
My leaders are going, I have a B player,
and we got Sarah on the bench.Sarah's got right?
So what our HR team isfor all of our core roles,
we try to have someone on the benchsomewhere and we'll literally just like
(24:55):
sales. We'll call 'em up everymonth and go, Hey, Brett, hey,
we don't have the role just quite yet.
My thinking is maybe thenext two to three months.
But you still wanted to join Hite if anopportunity came up, right? Yeah. Okay,
cool. And so that's the conversation.
We have two or three of them that arealready approved, already have the videos.
We're just waiting.
And that brings so much securityto our company. And so again,
(25:19):
I think we have as owners justa huge God complex that we are
the lifeblood of our team. And once weget over that, we just realized like,
dude,
I have had so many people that Ihated to leave and one of two things
are not true either. One,
I didn't truly care about them becausethey ended up with a way better job or a
(25:39):
way better opportunity or whatever.
So either one or two thingsare not true either. One,
I didn't care about themquite as much as I thought,
or two as you thought you did. Exactly.
And so I think we got toloosen up there a little bit.
If your deal is retention, I thinkthat goes back to appreciation at work.
I think at the end of the day,
(26:00):
nonprofits are your greatest example ofpeople that have a lot higher retention
than most for-profit companies yetthey normally don't pay that much.
They focus on what they're good at.
And so there's been seasonswhere we're like, guys,
we're really struggling with,we are going to love on you.
We're going to be ableto serve you. I mean,
I've got two people right now at Hite.
(26:21):
One just had cancer treatment,
another one's got a daughter withcancer. Both of them are fully out.
We're paying them. We have no rush back.
We're taking care. We want to be anorganization that serves our people in the
greatest way possible.
Same here for sure.
And that's where we can win. It doesn'tmatter where you're at or who you are,
that's possible.
That's so great, man. Andit's a really important thing.
(26:43):
And one of the things I reminded myselfvery early on in business is if you look
at the best companies,
the Googles and Facebooks andother Mag seven companies,
they attract really great people.But with attracting great people,
a lot of times they want tomove on to something else.
They want to go build their own company,they want to go do their own thing,
something like that. And so if youare constantly attracting talent,
(27:05):
they will move on. And Iheard my pastor said long ago,
and I shared this fromthe early days of O mg,
we're going to bless people when theycome and bless people when they go and
maybe we'll give people a hardtime. And that's what we did.
We did a cake you dead test type thingjust as a joke. But it's always like,
we're going to bless 'em when they come.We're going to bless 'em when they go.
We're going to talk goodabout them even when they go.
(27:27):
I think that's one ofthose things that's common.
Like this person left and we'regoing to bash 'em internally. No,
not going to put up with that. And so.
We had had a team member, andwe've done this many times.
We have a team member that was herefor two years and he was like, man,
I just don't. And we were honest with him,
I don't know that you wouldget a promotion if we had it.
You're good and I love you to death.
(27:47):
And we had a real conversation and thenwe hired a recruiting firm to help him
find a new job. And he stayedwith Hyatt another three months,
90 days or so until the recruitingfirm got him something. That's amazing.
But it also I think loosensthe conversation and ideally,
and we're not perfect at this,
(28:07):
but how do we create a culturewhere people are just really honest?
And I would much rather a team membertell me, dude, I don't see my future.
Cool. Let's plan it. I willhelp you find a job. If I know.
Let's help you find a place whereyou are fulfilled. Yeah, weeks.
It's going to be better for you, betterfor us weeks notice in our world,
especially account managersand leaders. Man, that's tough.
And it's tough when you're a smallerbusiness with a smaller team,
it's even worse. And so open,
(28:31):
honest communication canbe really, really great.
That's great, man. I love it. Well,let's transition to our final topic here.
Let's talk mentorship. Andyou've had the privilege.
I know it's been by design and by effortand by just getting out there and doing
stuff. But you are friends andhave mentors that are really
(28:52):
world-class leaders like John Maxwell,
like the Robertsons from DuckDynasty, like Damon John,
and we'll throw our mutual friend,Vinny Fisher in there as well.
First of all, how do you viewmentorship and why is that so important?
And then I want to talk about howyou meet these world-class mentors.
(29:15):
I am scared to death of business.
I have seen so many ofmy friends sacrifice it
all to get to the top.And I mean great people,
good people that justsomewhere one mistake,
one bad night, one whatever,successful business.
And then overnight somethinghappened and it wasn't, and
(29:40):
my mentorship is juststraight out of fear.
I look at some of these men and womenthat John's been married to Margaret
forever, and Dr. Chapman,we were texting just a few.
Dude, how old is JohnMaxwell? Do you know?
Or are you allowed to say he'sgot to be 70 or something?
Eight.
Yeah, if.
I remember right.
Hearing about the global leadershipsummit's still articulate sharp as attack,
(30:03):
just killing the game.
We were just talking yesterday abouthim coming to scale with stability next
year. And this guy, Dr.Chapman impresses me more.
Dr. Chapman's 87, he.
No way, he's sharp. I didn't know that.
He's sharp. I mean,
we had him just as event theother day and we did a q and a.
(30:24):
So the audience is asking randomquestions, it not, and he's joking,
spitting back, no time. Heknows this stuff. And so for me,
I am,
I'm a big believer that wisdom just
transcends generations.Obviously as Christians,
we believe in this thing called theBible, and it's absolute truth. It's.
(30:46):
An ancient book.
They struggled with their marriage.
And so I love this andit's been such a blessing.
I remember I had a season where
I had to get rid of a coupleof partnerships and that caused a couple of other
partnerships. It was just a bigdrama. And I called up John,
actually his right hand, Mark Cole,
(31:06):
and we were chatting and he'sthe CEO of all of Maxwell now.
And I was like, dude, Ijust feel like a failure.
I let these partners down. I brokeup and that's creating drama.
And then I feel stressed and justeverything I feel like has been affected.
And I was like, how does Johnprevent this stuff from happening?
And he just chuckled. He is like, John'sgoing through a huge breakup right now,
(31:29):
right now.
And the leader on leadershipin the world had a bad,
it didn't work and it was adrama and it was a problem,
and there was legal involved andall this. He's welcome to it.
And so I have spent a lot of money,
time and energy connecting andbeing with around some of what
(31:50):
I have seen be some of themost successful folks out
there. And some have failed with itand overcome, some haven't. Right?
So John will Roberton, Dr. Chapman,
Kevin Harrington from Shark Tank,and the list goes on. Jesse Itzler,
got a couple of.
Dude, love that guy. Yeah, metJesse, he's the don't know,
(32:12):
he's the author of Living With aSeal, which is a phenomenal book.
And Jesse just wants tolive a legendary life.
And I love his big calendar that he planson and stuff. And so it's really cool.
And yeah, I love the way youframed it. So first of all,
mentorship and getting wisdom frompeople that have gone where you
want to go, been where you are right now.
(32:35):
It's really hard to put a value onthat. It's so incredibly valuable.
But you mentioned a couple of things.You said one, you paid for it, two,
you worked for it, and youbuilt those relationships.
You're not just going to wake up onemorning and John Maxwell call you unless
you're doing something earthshattering or whatever.
Sometimes you got to pay to be in theright room. Sometimes you got to pay to be
(32:57):
around people and youform these friendships.
I can think about relationships that I'vebuilt over the years that started with
a paid relationship like my buddy nowwe're really good friends. Ezra Firestone,
we've done lots of business togetherand I call him up when there are things
going on in business or whatever,
but that began with a paidbusiness type relationship.
(33:18):
I met my wife and I go to Life church.So Craig Rochelle is the senior pastor,
one of the best leaders I think right now,
the Craig Rochelle Leadership podcast.
So he flew into Springfieldand my local pastor said, Hey,
will you and Brittany go pickCraig up from the airport?
So we did got to meet him and Amy, hiswife, and then also Bobby Grunwald,
(33:38):
who's the founder of YouVersion Bible app.
Yeah.
The Bible app.
For those that don't know it isthe most downloaded Bible resource,
almost a billion downloads. It's afree app, a church put this together.
But Bobby's a business savantand he's built businesses.
He's been in life church forlike, I dunno, 26, 27 years. But
we took Craig to church. Hegot mobbed like a rockstar.
(34:01):
And so Bobby's just hanging out.
So I started talking to Bobby and I starttelling him about some m and a deals
that I'm working on. And so then a weeklater, Bobby calls me, he's like, Hey,
how's the m and a stuff going?
So he's like mentoring meand coaching me a little bit,
which is just super cool.
So I think you've got to beable to do all those things.
How can I get out there? How can Ibe the one to form a relationship?
I did a partnership withRussell Brunson back in 2009.
(34:23):
I saw him in the lobby of an event andcame up and just start talking to him.
You got to be willing to talk.You got to be willing to pay,
got to be willing to put yourselfout there. But man, I'm telling you,
those relationships are morevaluable than almost anything else in
business. It's huge.
I mean,
I feel confident I can call any one ofthose folks and they would make sure my
wife and I were not homeless. And so
(34:47):
big secret, that's why I do events.Events are not really profitable,
but events fund some of thoserelationships in a big way.
Most of those guys are less. Ifyou've got a really good mentor,
I find they never tell you what to do.First off, I rarely get told what to do,
but there's, they.
Help you process things.Yeah, that's right. Stories.
But I think so many of us ofentrepreneurs think we're special.
(35:11):
And what I mean by that is thatwe've got special problems or man,
no one else has these relationshipissues and no one else is running a $4
million company and can'tfigure out how to do payroll.
And no one else has struggledwith turnover and no one,
we feel we're special in a negative way.
And the reality is onceyou talk to these folks,
everyone's got the same stink issues.Everyone's struggling with fire,
(35:36):
everyone is,
and the encouragement there is to giveyou a little bit of peace in the ability
to go, okay, it's a normal problem,
so how do we fix it versus wallowingit in it compounding in a negative way.
Yeah, it's so good. Yeah,we noticed that in early 24.
We had just grown headcount massively.
(35:57):
E-comm was scaling and we were scalingwe through two rounds of layoffs.
And so it's been remarkable though, asI've shared that with other leaders.
They're like, me too, man. Andthis is what happened. We did it.
This is what happened afterwards.
This is what the mistakes welearned while we were doing it.
And so one of the worst times inmy life as far as business goes,
but every business goesthrough something like that.
(36:17):
And the cool thing is those that aremature and who've done it before generally
want to help you not crushin and give you some tips.
We'll just help you walk through it.So dude, this has been fantastic.
We're kind of coming up against timehere. What do I want to do though?
Let's talk about your events. You'regoing to do scale with stability part two,
I believe, next year. So any plug youwant to give for that would be awesome.
(36:39):
And then you also havean event for agencies.
And so would love to hear kind of whothat's for, what type of agencies,
what that looks like. And soit's, tell us more about that.
Yeah, the Commitment Summit isin Cancun. That is kind mean.
It's a VIP type event allinclusive. We got Mike Mitz coming,
several others. We have hadJohn Maxwell there, Damon, John,
(37:01):
Jesse came, all those guys.Nowadays it's turned into,
it's anywhere from two to 10million agencies coming together.
We got speakers in the morning andthen everything else is like hot seats
working together in thepool, collaborating.
And a lot of people ring their families.It's fun. Four nights, three days.
The commitment summit.com scale ofstability summit is just more holistic.
(37:26):
It's all about helpingbusinesses scale with stability.
And it's a faith-based conference as well.
And we are scaling it. So right nowwe'll have our location in April,
which is in Arkansas.It's kind of in the south,
but we are actually debating Bretthaving another one, either Missouri,
(37:46):
Nashville or potentially up. Let's go.
And so as you're talkingabout your church,
I'm like literally someonejust the other day was like,
have you considered having scale stabilitySummit at one of Greg's churches?
Love church location. I think it's prettysmart. They'd probably up for that.
So that's amazing, man. Love whatyou're doing, keep up the good work.
(38:06):
You guys are building an amazingbusiness, profitable, scaling,
growing and all that, but you'realso doing it the right way,
sticking with your mission,taking care of your family,
good relationship with your wife.So love what you're doing, man.
Thanks for delivering value here andlooking forward to connecting with you in
person soon.
Yeah brother.
Alright, man. Thank you so much. Andthank you for tuning in as always.
(38:27):
We'd love to hear from you. What wouldyou like to hear more of on the podcast,
have you not done? So we'd alsolove that review on iTunes,
helps other people find the show.And with that, until next time,
thank you for listening.
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ads.
Well, hello and welcome to another editionof the E-Commerce Evolution podcast.
I'm your host, BrettCurry, CEO of OMG Commerce,
(01:28):
and today I am delighted towelcome to the show Mr. JC Hite.
He's the co-founder andCEO of Hite International.
You'll hear more about that in a moment.
He's all about scaling with stability.
You'll also hear what that meansand why that's so exciting.
And I first heard JC andhis lovely wife, Karen,
(01:48):
speak at my partner and friends event,
Tom Shipley deal Con,and so just hit it off.
Similar values, similar faith,
similar approach to businessI think in a lot of ways.
And so we're like dude andalso Midwest guys. And so hey,
let's hit you on the pod. Sowith that JC Hite, welcome man,
(02:09):
and how's it going?
Oh man, it's going great.I'm excited to be here.
Hopefully we can add some good valueover the next 30 minutes, so I'm.
Excited. Let's deliver some value. Yeah,
so want to get into a variety of topics.
I know one of your specialtiesis recruiting and hiring talent,
retaining that talent. And one thing wesee, whether it's in the agency space,
which I'm in on a day-to-day basis,or we help e-commerce brands,
(02:33):
if you don't have top talent, and yes,
we know that AI is disrupting andgetting the right tools and the right
approaches, that's all good,
but without the right people and withoutthe ability to attract and retain
top talent, you're goingto be a step behind.
And so I'm excited to talk about that.
I'm excited to talk about mentorship andyou've actually formed friendships with
(02:53):
some real leaders in the leadership space.
I'm excited to unpack that storyhere about your event. Also,
you and your wife work togetherand you genuinely appear to
each other and you appear toworking together most of the time.
And so I think we'll throw a few nuggetsin there too for those that may end up
working with their spouse as well.So we're going to be fun times,
(03:16):
but first of all,
what is Hite International and whatdo you guys do to get a little context
here?
Yeah,
I mean our big focus as you said therein the beginning is how do we help people
scale with stability?And what we mean by that,
obviously we want to scalethe business, we want to grow,
but what I have found isbusiness could be one of the most
(03:38):
destroying things in the world.It can be the most stressful.
You throw your finances off, youtake big risks, you can fail hard,
but it can also be one of themost freeing things in the world.
I never miss a ball game. I got tocoach my kid. I can give to the church,
I can help, I can serve, I caninvest time in my marriage,
and it can also be the greatest thing.
(04:00):
And so when we talk aboutscaling with stability,
it's really about having a business thatcan allow you to have a really great
deep marriage,
to be very involved in the church andyour relationship with Jesus and as well
as serve and help andraise amazing children.
And so these three principles,
and so we do that really focused onthree areas, Hyatt International,
(04:22):
we have an advertising firm,
and we got about 80 employeesin our advertising firm.
And then we have our education side,which we have events and a mastermind,
and then we have our investmentwing, which I'm really excited about.
We started investing in companies thatare on that same mission of growth and
how do we get more involved inthe details of helping them scale?
(04:44):
I love that man.
And you and I are a hundred percentaligned on that scale with stability
framework.
It's one of those things where whywould you do this if the most important
things in your life fall by the wayside?
And so I think the idea for everybodyis how do you get your business to align
with your personal mission and tohelp fuel healthy families in a
(05:07):
healthy relationships and things likethat rather than destroying those.
And so love that approach.That's awesome. And Yemen,
just excited to dive in.
Now you are just coming off theheels of a really big event.
Can you tell people about.
Scale.
With stability, what that was, wherethat was, and kind of how that went down?
(05:28):
Stupidest thing we've ever done,but it worked out really well.
So I'm always really honest with ideas.
Sometimes it's just you take jobs.And so we wanted, on this framework,
we wanted to do an event, and sowe did Skill with Stability Summit,
and then we had the crazyidea, we have a university,
Harding University in Arkansasthat we're very passionate about.
So one day I told my wife, what if wehad the event here? And she was like,
(05:52):
why in Arkansas? It's inArkansas. It's 45 minutes from,
there's not a Marriott here.There's not wide. I was like, well,
let's think about it. They alreadyhave av, they have all the rooms,
they have space, theyhave food, they have all,
and then we're bringingpeople to our alma mater.
We're bringing in celebritieshere. Could this be something that,
(06:14):
and it worked really well. We had750 people. It was a brand new event.
That's crazy, man, from logo toyou name it, and seven 50 people.
We had Daymond John came down.
We ended up inviting three collegestudents and pitched Damon and I.
That was super cool.
Many shark Tank. By the way, dideither of you invest in these pitches?
(06:34):
Well, we did not investin anything on that one.
They got an award for the best pitch,and so we actually got all three of,
makes a lot sense, the money sense.
So it took the pressure off ofthe table there. We actually were,
the premise of the pitchwas that as entrepreneurs,
we all have millions of ideas.
So which ideas do we jump on and whichideas do we shelf? That's brilliant.
(06:56):
Brilliant. And that's based on timing.It's based on who you've got around you.
It's based on money, it'sbased on a lot of factors.
And so the calling was for thesestudents to pitch the idea that
should be the thing that theytake off the shelf and jump into.
And then which one had thebest. Anyway, it was fun.
We had Willie and Corey Robertson there.
(07:17):
They talked a lot aboutmarriage and faith and raising
children and how you're in themiddle of this huge jump and just
everyone's pulling you and everyone'swanting you and wants access,
and how do you raise really healthy,
God-fearing amazingchildren in that cycle?
(07:38):
And so I feel like they'vedone really well, which.
Is really the hardest thing. And youand I have talked about this a lot.
I mentioned it on the show as well.I've got wife and I have eight kids.
There's really nothingharder than raising a family.
There's nothing more rewarding andthere's nothing more important.
And so getting that right in themidst of businesses is awesome.
And you have a limitedbusiness, we can fail and start.
Over again. Totally,totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
(08:00):
I guess technically you could justhave another child and do it over,
but probably not the best approach.
And Karen and I, anyway, we got two,
you've got eight, so
it's fun. So yeah, we had Dr. GaryChapman came to the event as well,
and Dr. White and who wrotethe book Appreciation at Work,
(08:23):
which we can talk about here in a minuteas we talk about team. But it was good.
It was fun. Super fun.
That's amazing. And yeah, Iknow you mentioned John Maxwell,
one of the all time greats as faras leadership goes. And so yeah,
Harding University in Arkansasattracting some big, big names,
attracting 750 people,
which if anybody has done anevent or tried to do an event,
(08:44):
they know that is a monumental lift.
And we do events a couple of times a year,
but they're for just businessowners and smaller events. But dude,
it's still a lot of work.It's a massive, massive lift.
And so kudos to you guys for doing that.
I want to talk about attractingand retaining talent.
And I want to kind of frame it this way.
(09:05):
I was listening to one of my favoritepodcasts on the drive in today called
Founders Podcast, and thehost was reading the original
Jeff Bezos shareholder letter.
And one thing that JeffBezos talked about then,
but he is talked about ever since,
is our success hinges
(09:26):
on our ability to continuously raisethe bar in terms of who we hire.
And so they've got this ideacalled the Bar Raiser program.
And I'm not going to get this exactlyright, but it's something like, Hey,
with each new hire,
we're going to ask how willthis person inspire us or
how will we admire this person?If we bring them on board,
how will they raise thebar in their department and
(09:50):
collectively? And thenthere's a third component,
there's always a third component,but it's kind of along those lines.
It's not how do we just hire the nextperson who fills a role but makes me
look good, not quite assmart as me type of thing.
How do we raise the bar with those hires?
Now that's difficult to do and it'sdifficult to do if you're a small business
because sometimes the best talentcomes with a really high price tag,
(10:13):
but not always. That'snot always the case.
And so I'll kind of make this a broadquestion first and we'll dig into some
details,
but how do you approachhiring and hiring the right
talent? And I don't know if you wantto start with any kind of frameworks or
philosophies around thatbefore we get into the tactics.
So a few things that we do. So number one,
(10:35):
I'll mention something on the interviewprocess that I have found works stupid
good for us,
and I stole it fromMindvalley forever ago.
I don't know if they still do this.And then two, let's chat about
where and how I recruit from a standpoint.
Then we can talk about the teamitself and how do we retain them.
(10:58):
So we require every single person thatapplies for high, they do one interview,
15 minutes,
and by the end of that interview weasked for what's called a video of
awesomeness. And on thatvideo, it's very simple.
I say, Hey Brett, you goingto do a video of awesomeness?
I want three things that make us awesomeand three things that make you awesome.
(11:20):
And that's it. And they're going toask questions. They're like, okay,
how long should it be? I don'tknow, when is it due? I dunno, well,
can I use friends? I don't know. Justthe video, three things. That's it.
And I have learned, Brett, youcan learn so much by this video.
So some examples I have some peoplethey'll take two, three weeks,
but I mean it's like perfect.Well,
(11:42):
there's certain positionsthat that's really,
and then they have people that justtake out their phone and film it.
They give me exactly what they, butno more, no less. But it's done.
Immediately.
I.
See people with their personality andsome roles, you want that some roles,
you want that person. Yeah, that'sright. And you see their personality.
You see, most people aren'tcomfortable filming videos. Well,
(12:03):
welcome to the life of working atHite. We never know what we're doing.
JC is always tellingus to go do crazy junk,
like start a event in the middleof Arkansas. There's no roadmap.
So there's no rules, there's noboundaries, there's no anything. Hey,
can I get friends to help?Sure, any job you have at Hite,
you can go have as manypeople help you. So I.
(12:25):
Learn, this is kind of like if youlook at personality tests, right?
So we used to do it calledCulture index. We love it.
We also use Patrick Lencioni'swidget, the Working Genius.
There's some tools like that.
They do it in some ways this cuts throughall of that and just allows you to
see it. Their workinggenius shows up their disc,
(12:47):
whatever. You're going to see it ondisplay on this project. That's really.
Really, and I can show you some videos,
but we have so many ofthese crazy creative videos.
And what's interesting thoughis you start making it where
first off, people wanting a job arenot going to take the time to do it.
It's just it's too much, right?They'll show up for another interview.
(13:09):
But those that really want,
then I'm actually hearing whatdo they actually know about us?
What made them want to applyare the things that they think.
Are your website's awesome?You were really friendly on.
The.
Surface level stuff.
All that type of stuff.And so that's my one tip.
I think it's the easiest from atime standpoint for me as the CEO,
because I like to be involvedin a lot of our hires.
(13:32):
It is the easiest way for me to getto know without a 30 minute meeting.
I can watch a video intwo minutes and learn.
I could see probably did they use Brent?
I have probably six people thathave written songs about hype.
I'm talking about full on banjo songs
edited, and I'm like, dude, this is thecoolest thing ever. Amazing. Anyway,
(13:54):
that's a big one. Big one for me.The second thing, I'll say this,
obviously a lot of people aregoing overseas for talent,
but I think one thing wedo way wrong there is that
when for some reason in the us,
our mindset is here's my budget.What's the best person I can do?
I can afford 6,000. Who'sthe best I can find?
(14:18):
But yet when we go to latam, it's like,
did you know you can hire someonein the Philippines for seven 50?
Did you know that you can hire someonein Nicaragua for 2000? Like, dude,
I'd have to pay six grand in the US inNicaragua, I would only have to pay two.
That's the wrong mindset. So oneof our big secrets is going, okay,
(14:38):
I would've to pay someone 5,000 inus. Who could I find for 5,000 in you?
Get out.
Yeah, yeah. It would just bethe best of the best there.
I mean, holy cow. So if you're willingto pay this Now, this has gotten
more competitive in thelast couple of years,
but I really encourage companiesto go find the top layer.
(15:02):
So for example, yes, you can findsomeone in the Philippines for 600 bucks,
but you can also find someone with an MBAthat's worked for Verizon for 10 years
and then a bank for fiveyears and pay 'em 2000.
And that lift is undeniably better.
Clearly going to be a barraiser in your department,
(15:24):
whereas the 600 a month person is goingto save you some money on your p and l
potentially, but you mayget what you pay for there.
But for some reason, our mindset whenwe recruit overseas is always different.
It's alwaysHow do I save money?
The lowest is the reason whyI'm going is to save money.
And if you go with that intention,
then just naturally you're going tobe thinking, how cheap can I pay? And
(15:48):
we don't pay perfect. We went throughsome really bad seasons there.
We made a couple of bad acquisitionsand it was really, really tough for us.
And so that's where it comesto my next point of view.
Ron Kaufman wrote the bookLevels of Service and it's
all about how do we uplift our serviceand serve our team as the best way
possible.
(16:09):
I built Hite with the intention thatevery single one of those team members are
going to pay for my kid's college.
This company will bring everydream I have and my job as CEOs to
serve them. We had atour event, Dr. Chapman,
along with Dr. White as I mentioned,
and they together wrote thebook Appreciation at Work,
which is the five level languages forthe workplace. So it's the same once.
(16:33):
Right? Interesting.
Works of affirmation, quality, time,access, service, tangible gifts,
physical touch, but we don't thinkabout that. So often the workplace,
this next generation ismuch more into appreciation
versus rewards.
So they want quality time with people.
They're really interestedin words of affirmation.
(16:54):
And so just like I do withmy wife, how do I figure out,
especially my team around me,what is their love language?
How do I connect with them?And it's incredibly different.
Some of my people, man,they just want money.
I mean tangible gifts is whatit's about if you pay 'em.
And nothing wrong with that at all.
I used to have a personalassistant, I love her to death,
(17:15):
I love her to death,
but her appreciation at work,
her love language was words ofaffirmation. And that is not, I mean,
I do really well with my wife and mykids, but outside of that, I'm the most,
I'm just not very lovey word wise.
(17:35):
With your words.
And it was a problem because I wouldgo a week without talking to her just
because I was busy and she got the workdone. She was so efficiently, so gc,
are you mad at me? No. Whathappened? Did I miss something?
Did I say something? Did Isay that I was mad at you?
No, but you haven't like no,
because you're crushing it and you don'tneed me to tell you what to do right
(17:55):
now. Words of affirmation,she wanted to just be told.
And so I think, okay,
how do I find the right talent where andwhat if my strategy around finding the
right talent, and then once I get them,
how am I loving on them asmuch as humanly possible world,
this next generation, they'll quitand they don't need another job.
(18:18):
They'll quit and they'll gomove back with their family.
They'll quit because they got30,000 in the bank and shoot,
I can go live in the Philippinesfor six months without much money.
And so they think differently.And so we got to be prepared.
How do we build therelationship with them?
Yeah, it's so good, man. And it'sone of those things where yes,
you got to pay people competitively andyou have to have a job and a role that's
(18:40):
structured well that givessomeone a chance to succeed.
But people really need that appreciationand those extra things and they need to
be seen and loved. We'lluse the word loved,
even though it's maybe not a wordyou use in business a whole lot,
but I love that. And we're big fans, bigbelievers in the Five Love languages.
It's true at work as well.
It's going to be the work versionof those things that work.
(19:02):
And so how do you see that andrecognize that in your team,
and then how do youshow them appreciation?
How do you lead them in the way theywant to be led or to see appreciation?
That's.
Right. That's great, man. And I alwaysthink about it, a good coach, man.
I think about coaches I had becauseI love playing sports growing up.
And who were the coaches that they werefine. I learned and they pushed me.
(19:23):
And some were justhardcore and that was fine,
but who are the coaches that I love?
The coaches that I would runthrough a brick wall for?
And I think we have thesame thing with bosses.
Who are the bosses that I'llshow up for? I like the job,
I'm going to do the right thing,
but who are the bosses that Iwould run through a brick wall for?
It's not just about pay.
It's about those intangibles of how am Igetting appreciation and receiving love
(19:46):
from this boss?
That's right.
Really, really great. Hey,what are some of the other,
but before we talk aboutretention, some of those things,
I want to talk aboutthis overseas recruiting.
I think that that's just becoming moreand more common in every business that I
know from the agency spaceto the e-commerce space and everything in between.
What are some of the othermistakes that people make there?
So I love that you pointed out ourdefault is how do we go to the cheapest
(20:09):
rather than how can we pay more thananybody else and just get an unbelievable
team member.
What are the mistakes do people makewhen they're hiring internationally?
Well, I think a couple of things here.
I think the mindset aroundit is very different.
Most in our culture and eventhe digital marketing world,
we call almost anyone that'soutsourced a VA in some way shape.
(20:30):
We have our team in the US andwe got 10 or 15 VAs in Nawa,
and it's like we just have amindset problem around what team
looks like. This is the team.
And so I have an issue with that.
I think one of the things that we justhave a huge opportunity for is that
(20:51):
Nick and i's three and a halfhour flight from Dallas, Honduras,
all these things beforehand.
So a lot of things are shifting tolatam from the Philippines and Asia,
things like this, which createsan opportunity to visit the team,
be a part of them. So again,
just like these love languages,physical touch trainer for gifts,
acts of service, quality time, four ofthose can be done in person quality time,
(21:15):
being present, being able to touchsomeone. Hey, here's what it is.
The affirmation of course can be online,
but there's very different when theyfeel the body language around it, So much
can be done in person.
So I think that's a hugeopportunity. And again,
us we're really like,what does comp look like?
(21:39):
The world is getting flatter and flatter.
I feel like there was 10 years ago wewere talking about the world is flat,
it was opening up the doors, but it wasn'tlike it was still very unlevel wise.
That is starting to graduallyequate more and more over time.
Yep. Yep. Love that. Well, let's talk,let's shift gears. Talk about retention.
(21:59):
And this is one of those things that ifyou've been in business for any length
of time, you've had a key teammember leave and it's painful.
And we've all had experienceswhere someone turns in their resignation and we're
like, oh, I've got a fake. I'msad here. This is so terrible.
But then there's some people that theyleave and you're just gutted, right?
Oh my goodness.
(22:20):
We had someone on our team whoI mentored him and trained him,
and I invested so much timein him. And then when he left,
it was almost like a gutpunch. I was also proud of him.
He was going to pursue somethingbigger, which was just tough.
Some people are really tough whenit's really tough when they leave.
So how do you think about retentionstrategically and also tactically.
(22:43):
Have you ever read of thebook, the Dream Manager, Brett.
The Dream Manager? I have not.
I love it. It's a little fable abouta company that scaled and grew and
they were a cleaning company, cleantoilets for a living. In that book,
it talks about how theyfinally realized that
(23:03):
they were a stepping stone elsewhere.There's certain roles in their company.
I think I struggledespecially earlier where
it was like an ego Hite was the saviorfor everyone. You couldn't leave.
Why would you leave? You aregoing to be served your best,
we're going to be able to pay you,we're going to be all these things.
And I think finally I got wherethat's not the case for most people.
(23:27):
And so I try to segment and go, okay,what is my retention rate on leaders,
managers, these types of individualsand then everyone else at Hite?
We don't get a lot ofleadership roles that open up.
We just don't turn over,
which means I actually need to expectthere's a big group of people that
will move because there's no spots forleadership unless I'm trying to scale
(23:50):
Hite. I am in growth mode, whichquite frankly right now, high digital,
we're not because I don't know wherethe world of digital marketing is going.
And so how do we treat our companymore as a, I like sports teams.
I think they do two things really well.Number one, they don't get affected.
Well, I mean they do, but peoplemove. That's just part of.
It. People move, people gettraded, people contracts.
(24:12):
Don negotiate that. But another movereally well is they're always recruiting.
They always have this bench.
And so one of the things that we'vereally tried to do from an HR standpoint,
even if I don't have a, let'ssay a Google Ads person,
I have a bench waiting now. It evenchanges the framework to my leaders.
(24:32):
I mean, you've done thisand I got a B player,
and it's like they're not super good,but do I want to go recruit and find No.
My leaders are going, I have a B player,
and we got Sarah on the bench.Sarah's got right?
So what our HR team isfor all of our core roles,
we try to have someone on the benchsomewhere and we'll literally just like
(24:55):
sales. We'll call 'em up everymonth and go, Hey, Brett, hey,
we don't have the role just quite yet.
My thinking is maybe thenext two to three months.
But you still wanted to join Hite if anopportunity came up, right? Yeah. Okay,
cool. And so that's the conversation.
We have two or three of them that arealready approved, already have the videos.
We're just waiting.
And that brings so much securityto our company. And so again,
(25:19):
I think we have as owners justa huge God complex that we are
the lifeblood of our team. And once weget over that, we just realized like,
dude,
I have had so many people that Ihated to leave and one of two things
are not true either. One,
I didn't truly care about them becausethey ended up with a way better job or a
(25:39):
way better opportunity or whatever.
So either one or two thingsare not true either. One,
I didn't care about themquite as much as I thought,
or two as you thought you did. Exactly.
And so I think we got toloosen up there a little bit.
If your deal is retention, I thinkthat goes back to appreciation at work.
I think at the end of the day,
(26:00):
nonprofits are your greatest example ofpeople that have a lot higher retention
than most for-profit companies yetthey normally don't pay that much.
They focus on what they're good at.
And so there's been seasonswhere we're like, guys,
we're really struggling with,we are going to love on you.
We're going to be ableto serve you. I mean,
I've got two people right now at Hite.
(26:21):
One just had cancer treatment,
another one's got a daughter withcancer. Both of them are fully out.
We're paying them. We have no rush back.
We're taking care. We want to be anorganization that serves our people in the
greatest way possible.
Same here for sure.
And that's where we can win. It doesn'tmatter where you're at or who you are,
that's possible.
That's so great, man. Andit's a really important thing.
(26:43):
And one of the things I reminded myselfvery early on in business is if you look
at the best companies,
the Googles and Facebooks andother Mag seven companies,
they attract really great people.But with attracting great people,
a lot of times they want tomove on to something else.
They want to go build their own company,they want to go do their own thing,
something like that. And so if youare constantly attracting talent,
(27:05):
they will move on. And Iheard my pastor said long ago,
and I shared this fromthe early days of O mg,
we're going to bless people when theycome and bless people when they go and
maybe we'll give people a hardtime. And that's what we did.
We did a cake you dead test type thingjust as a joke. But it's always like,
we're going to bless 'em when they come.We're going to bless 'em when they go.
We're going to talk goodabout them even when they go.
(27:27):
I think that's one ofthose things that's common.
Like this person left and we'regoing to bash 'em internally. No,
not going to put up with that. And so.
We had had a team member, andwe've done this many times.
We have a team member that was herefor two years and he was like, man,
I just don't. And we were honest with him,
I don't know that you wouldget a promotion if we had it.
You're good and I love you to death.
(27:47):
And we had a real conversation and thenwe hired a recruiting firm to help him
find a new job. And he stayedwith Hyatt another three months,
90 days or so until the recruitingfirm got him something. That's amazing.
But it also I think loosensthe conversation and ideally,
and we're not perfect at this,
(28:07):
but how do we create a culturewhere people are just really honest?
And I would much rather a team membertell me, dude, I don't see my future.
Cool. Let's plan it. I willhelp you find a job. If I know.
Let's help you find a place whereyou are fulfilled. Yeah, weeks.
It's going to be better for you, betterfor us weeks notice in our world,
especially account managersand leaders. Man, that's tough.
And it's tough when you're a smallerbusiness with a smaller team,
it's even worse. And so open,
(28:31):
honest communication canbe really, really great.
That's great, man. I love it. Well,let's transition to our final topic here.
Let's talk mentorship. Andyou've had the privilege.
I know it's been by design and by effortand by just getting out there and doing
stuff. But you are friends andhave mentors that are really
(28:52):
world-class leaders like John Maxwell,
like the Robertsons from DuckDynasty, like Damon John,
and we'll throw our mutual friend,Vinny Fisher in there as well.
First of all, how do you viewmentorship and why is that so important?
And then I want to talk about howyou meet these world-class mentors.
(29:15):
I am scared to death of business.
I have seen so many ofmy friends sacrifice it
all to get to the top.And I mean great people,
good people that justsomewhere one mistake,
one bad night, one whatever,successful business.
And then overnight somethinghappened and it wasn't, and
(29:40):
my mentorship is juststraight out of fear.
I look at some of these men and womenthat John's been married to Margaret
forever, and Dr. Chapman,we were texting just a few.
Dude, how old is JohnMaxwell? Do you know?
Or are you allowed to say he'sgot to be 70 or something?
Eight.
Yeah, if.
I remember right.
Hearing about the global leadershipsummit's still articulate sharp as attack,
(30:03):
just killing the game.
We were just talking yesterday abouthim coming to scale with stability next
year. And this guy, Dr.Chapman impresses me more.
Dr. Chapman's 87, he.
No way, he's sharp. I didn't know that.
He's sharp. I mean,
we had him just as event theother day and we did a q and a.
(30:24):
So the audience is asking randomquestions, it not, and he's joking,
spitting back, no time. Heknows this stuff. And so for me,
I am,
I'm a big believer that wisdom just
transcends generations.Obviously as Christians,
we believe in this thing called theBible, and it's absolute truth. It's.
(30:46):
An ancient book.
They struggled with their marriage.
And so I love this andit's been such a blessing.
I remember I had a season where
I had to get rid of a coupleof partnerships and that caused a couple of other
partnerships. It was just a bigdrama. And I called up John,
actually his right hand, Mark Cole,
(31:06):
and we were chatting and he'sthe CEO of all of Maxwell now.
And I was like, dude, Ijust feel like a failure.
I let these partners down. I brokeup and that's creating drama.
And then I feel stressed and justeverything I feel like has been affected.
And I was like, how does Johnprevent this stuff from happening?
And he just chuckled. He is like, John'sgoing through a huge breakup right now,
(31:29):
right now.
And the leader on leadershipin the world had a bad,
it didn't work and it was adrama and it was a problem,
and there was legal involved andall this. He's welcome to it.
And so I have spent a lot of money,
time and energy connecting andbeing with around some of what
(31:50):
I have seen be some of themost successful folks out
there. And some have failed with itand overcome, some haven't. Right?
So John will Roberton, Dr. Chapman,
Kevin Harrington from Shark Tank,and the list goes on. Jesse Itzler,
got a couple of.
Dude, love that guy. Yeah, metJesse, he's the don't know,
(32:12):
he's the author of Living With aSeal, which is a phenomenal book.
And Jesse just wants tolive a legendary life.
And I love his big calendar that he planson and stuff. And so it's really cool.
And yeah, I love the way youframed it. So first of all,
mentorship and getting wisdom frompeople that have gone where you
want to go, been where you are right now.
(32:35):
It's really hard to put a value onthat. It's so incredibly valuable.
But you mentioned a couple of things.You said one, you paid for it, two,
you worked for it, and youbuilt those relationships.
You're not just going to wake up onemorning and John Maxwell call you unless
you're doing something earthshattering or whatever.
Sometimes you got to pay to be in theright room. Sometimes you got to pay to be
(32:57):
around people and youform these friendships.
I can think about relationships that I'vebuilt over the years that started with
a paid relationship like my buddy nowwe're really good friends. Ezra Firestone,
we've done lots of business togetherand I call him up when there are things
going on in business or whatever,
but that began with a paidbusiness type relationship.
(33:18):
I met my wife and I go to Life church.So Craig Rochelle is the senior pastor,
one of the best leaders I think right now,
the Craig Rochelle Leadership podcast.
So he flew into Springfieldand my local pastor said, Hey,
will you and Brittany go pickCraig up from the airport?
So we did got to meet him and Amy, hiswife, and then also Bobby Grunwald,
(33:38):
who's the founder of YouVersion Bible app.
Yeah.
The Bible app.
For those that don't know it isthe most downloaded Bible resource,
almost a billion downloads. It's afree app, a church put this together.
But Bobby's a business savantand he's built businesses.
He's been in life church forlike, I dunno, 26, 27 years. But
we took Craig to church. Hegot mobbed like a rockstar.
(34:01):
And so Bobby's just hanging out.
So I started talking to Bobby and I starttelling him about some m and a deals
that I'm working on. And so then a weeklater, Bobby calls me, he's like, Hey,
how's the m and a stuff going?
So he's like mentoring meand coaching me a little bit,
which is just super cool.
So I think you've got to beable to do all those things.
How can I get out there? How can Ibe the one to form a relationship?
I did a partnership withRussell Brunson back in 2009.
(34:23):
I saw him in the lobby of an event andcame up and just start talking to him.
You got to be willing to talk.You got to be willing to pay,
got to be willing to put yourselfout there. But man, I'm telling you,
those relationships are morevaluable than almost anything else in
business. It's huge.
I mean,
I feel confident I can call any one ofthose folks and they would make sure my
wife and I were not homeless. And so
(34:47):
big secret, that's why I do events.Events are not really profitable,
but events fund some of thoserelationships in a big way.
Most of those guys are less. Ifyou've got a really good mentor,
I find they never tell you what to do.First off, I rarely get told what to do,
but there's, they.
Help you process things.Yeah, that's right. Stories.
But I think so many of us ofentrepreneurs think we're special.
(35:11):
And what I mean by that is thatwe've got special problems or man,
no one else has these relationshipissues and no one else is running a $4
million company and can'tfigure out how to do payroll.
And no one else has struggledwith turnover and no one,
we feel we're special in a negative way.
And the reality is onceyou talk to these folks,
everyone's got the same stink issues.Everyone's struggling with fire,
(35:36):
everyone is,
and the encouragement there is to giveyou a little bit of peace in the ability
to go, okay, it's a normal problem,
so how do we fix it versus wallowingit in it compounding in a negative way.
Yeah, it's so good. Yeah,we noticed that in early 24.
We had just grown headcount massively.
(35:57):
E-comm was scaling and we were scalingwe through two rounds of layoffs.
And so it's been remarkable though, asI've shared that with other leaders.
They're like, me too, man. Andthis is what happened. We did it.
This is what happened afterwards.
This is what the mistakes welearned while we were doing it.
And so one of the worst times inmy life as far as business goes,
but every business goesthrough something like that.
(36:17):
And the cool thing is those that aremature and who've done it before generally
want to help you not crushin and give you some tips.
We'll just help you walk through it.So dude, this has been fantastic.
We're kind of coming up against timehere. What do I want to do though?
Let's talk about your events. You'regoing to do scale with stability part two,
I believe, next year. So any plug youwant to give for that would be awesome.
(36:39):
And then you also havean event for agencies.
And so would love to hear kind of whothat's for, what type of agencies,
what that looks like. And soit's, tell us more about that.
Yeah, the Commitment Summit isin Cancun. That is kind mean.
It's a VIP type event allinclusive. We got Mike Mitz coming,
several others. We have hadJohn Maxwell there, Damon, John,
(37:01):
Jesse came, all those guys.Nowadays it's turned into,
it's anywhere from two to 10million agencies coming together.
We got speakers in the morning andthen everything else is like hot seats
working together in thepool, collaborating.
And a lot of people ring their families.It's fun. Four nights, three days.
The commitment summit.com scale ofstability summit is just more holistic.
(37:26):
It's all about helpingbusinesses scale with stability.
And it's a faith-based conference as well.
And we are scaling it. So right nowwe'll have our location in April,
which is in Arkansas.It's kind of in the south,
but we are actually debating Bretthaving another one, either Missouri,
(37:46):
Nashville or potentially up. Let's go.
And so as you're talkingabout your church,
I'm like literally someonejust the other day was like,
have you considered having scale stabilitySummit at one of Greg's churches?
Love church location. I think it's prettysmart. They'd probably up for that.
So that's amazing, man. Love whatyou're doing, keep up the good work.
(38:06):
You guys are building an amazingbusiness, profitable, scaling,
growing and all that, but you'realso doing it the right way,
sticking with your mission,taking care of your family,
good relationship with your wife.So love what you're doing, man.
Thanks for delivering value here andlooking forward to connecting with you in
person soon.
Yeah brother.
Alright, man. Thank you so much. Andthank you for tuning in as always.
(38:27):
We'd love to hear from you. What wouldyou like to hear more of on the podcast,
have you not done? So we'd alsolove that review on iTunes,
helps other people find the show.And with that, until next time,
thank you for listening.
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