May 29, 2024 • 40 mins
Ever wondered how to fine-tune your hiring process to find the perfect fit for your team? Join us for an enlightening conversation with Fletcher Wimbush, a veteran hiring consultant from California with a quarter-century of experience. Fletcher traces his journey from learning the ropes of business coaching with his father to taking over the family business and creating proprietary assessment tools. Gain exclusive insights from a professional who has interviewed over 10,000 candidates, and discover how the DISC personality assessment can transform your hiring practices and team dynamics.
Unlock the secrets to attracting and assessing top talent through a variety of methods, including job boards, employee referrals, and headhunting. Fletcher emphasizes the critical importance of meticulous hiring practices to conserve valuable time and resources. Learn about the power of structured interviews and assessments, and why a 90-day trial period can be a game-changer for new employees. We'll discuss how focusing on behavioral skills, attitude, and integrity can foster loyalty and growth within your organization, particularly small businesses that might be nurturing raw talent.
Discover practical strategies for navigating the hiring process, from understanding the typical 60-90 day timeframe to the tailored approaches required for various organizational roles. Fletcher shares a compelling case study from the freight brokerage industry, illustrating the importance of ongoing coaching and consulting to make successful hires and effectively onboard new employees. Plus, learn about the value of offering free advice and support via platforms like YouTube and LinkedIn, and how a straightforward, results-driven approach can accelerate your business's success. Don’t miss out on this expert guidance to enhance your hiring and training processes.
Connect with Fletcher
fletcher@thehiretalent.com
Tony Johnson is a Commercial General Contractor. Timeless Properties Construction Co. has been in business since 2007. He does all things commercial. Developing, Building, Upfits, and Renovations for Retail, Office, Industrial, and Multi-family. Timeless Properties is licensed in North and South Carolina. Contact them today for your construction needs. www.timelesspropertiescc.com
info@timelesspropertiescc.com
Discovering his passion for construction when entering the industry over 20 years ago, Tony obtained his general contractor license and created Timeless Properties Construction Co in 2007. The company has performed an Proving that grit and passion can overcome any challenge, Timeless Properties Construction Co navigated the worst real estate collapse in our lifetimes under his leadership. Coming out of the recession Tony made sure he kept a strong focus on building relationships, quality work, honesty, and integrity. With over 160 million on construction volume to date Timeless Properties Construction Co has grown to an area leader of Commercial Construction in eastern North Carolina.
Tony launched Timeless Capital Investments LLC in 2022. This company was formed to create an avenue for partners to invest alongside Tony Johnson on commercial development and value add of existing commercial buildings. Tony aims to help fellow investors take part in profitable projects that they otherwise would not feel comfortable undertaking. By leveraging his construction and
To learn more about Tony Johnson and Timeless visit us at:
https://timelessci.com/
https://timelessco.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonytimeless/
If you would like to discuss investing in Commercial Properties create a profile and schedule a call:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Tony (00:00):
Welcome to another episode of Carolina Commercial Real
Estate Connection.
Today we have Fletcher Wimbushwith us.
Fletcher is a hiring consultantand helps companies grow and do
proper hiring practices inorder to build up the proper
team and growth.
Fletcher, thank you so much forjoining us today.
Fletcher (00:19):
Awesome.
Tony (00:20):
Thanks for having me, tony .
Yes, sir, and Fletcher, you arelocated out in California, so I
just want to give Fletcher ashout out here.
He's up.
He's been up since the crack of3 am probably, but he's in
today.
It's about 6.30 his time, so weappreciate him getting up early
and look forward to thediscussion.
So thank you again, fletcher,for joining us.
Fletcher (00:41):
No problem.
Tony (00:46):
So, fletcher for joining us, yeah, no problem.
Fletcher (00:47):
So, fletcher, tell us a bit about how long you've been
involved in this and what gotyou into it.
Yeah Well, I was actually onthe phone with a client the
other day and they asked and Imentioned, I was like oh, I've
been doing this for like 25years and they're like oh, I'm
only 41.
Well, I don't know only, or whatthat is, I'm getting old and
somewhere in between, right.
And they're like what?
Like, what are you talkingabout?
(01:07):
And I was like well, you know.
So my dad was a business coachand he developed these
assessment tools that he used tohelp coach his clients.
And pretty early on, clientswere like hey, let's use these
tools to help us make betterhiring decisions.
And you know, being the son ofa business coach, you can only
imagine the conversations we hadat dinner and in the car.
And you know he liked to talkshop a lot and that's pretty
(01:29):
much all we ever talked about ispersonal growth, how to be a
better person.
You know how to be a betterleader.
And by the time I was 16, youknow I'd fallen into a number of
different leadership rolescaptain of my football team,
student body president, you knowall these.
Supervisor at my, you know,concession stand.
You know first job right.
You know they always put you inthese.
(01:51):
You know I guess I was anextrovert and somehow they
elected me to do all thesethings.
And also being a high D and ahigh I.
You know, attention to detailor like the details are not my
thing, so I never really wantedto be a coach, right?
But I always loved the idea ofas a leader.
If you could put the rightpeople on the bus, the right
(02:12):
people on the team, great thingsare going to happen.
So I ended up writing paper tofinish my high school and we had
these like mini term papers wehad to do and subsequently spent
really my first two leadershipcareers.
I was opening delis throughoutthe country and then
subsequently went and worked fora large privately held company
(02:35):
who serviced and built andhelped restaurants with
commercial dish machines andchemicals focused on hiring and
that was really it.
And 11 years ago I took overthis business and it began to
continue to expand and went frombeyond just assessment tools
but to a full suite of coaching,education and done for you,
(03:00):
recruiting, hiring services.
And in that journey, when Itook over, I was probably only
what, about 30 years old and Iwas like who's going to listen
to me about these things?
Despite I had some really nicesuccess in my previous careers
in building teams and thatgrowing business units.
I was always a fan of MalcolmGladwell Anybody you know some
(03:21):
fans of that.
I imagine listening to this10,000 hours of excellence,
right, yes, sir.
So in that journey I made it apoint to interview over 10,000
candidates and I did thatthrough helping our clients find
select great people in the kindof done-for-you service in the
early days.
So you know, I wanted to beable to practice what I preach,
(03:44):
and so we still do right, so weeducate, but we're still doing
the work that we teach ourclients to do so that we stay
sharp and on top of the trendsand best practices and feel
their pain.
As you know, the economychanges and the labor market
changes and we know exactlywhere our clients how they feel
about the problem right.
Tony (04:06):
That's a ton of tidbits there to dive into.
So thank you so much for that,fletcher.
So I think, starting out in thevery beginning, for those who
don't know, I'd like to kind oftouch back on a couple of things
.
One you mentioned, you know I'ma high D, I'm a high I.
For those that don't understandwhat that even means, could you
(04:28):
kind of break that down, whatthat means and how what all you
assess on people?
Fletcher (04:35):
Yeah, well, we have like 20 different proprietary
assessments, relaunch of a shortDISC assessment, just great
kind of self-awareness,team-building, collaboration,
(04:55):
communication improvement typeof tool.
So DISC is a kind of along-standing human science way
of thinking about personality,right.
And so D is for dominant, I isfor influencer, s is for
steadinessiness and c is forconscientiousness.
And as human beings we sort ofhave all of these components in
us, you know some degree oranother.
But typically what happens ismost of us gravitate to one or
(05:17):
two of these differentpersonality types and there's
sort of a yin and yang effect.
So high Ds are opposite of highSs and Is are opposites of Cs
and if you think about it, youknow your influencer, your sales
personality, life of the party,gregarious, make friends with
light posts.
That kind of person is theopposite of your C.
(05:39):
You're highly conscientious,detail-oriented,
process-oriented, moreintroverted, right, you know,
probably terrified of makingfriends with light posts, right.
And Ds are like let's get itdone, let's drive, let's take
action, assertive go-getters.
And Ss are your caring,empathetic types, right.
And so you know, again, there'sa natural juxtaposition of
(06:06):
those personality types.
And so you know it's helpful tounderstand your style, right,
what you like, what you don'tlike, where you naturally kind
of gravitate towards and awayfrom as a business leader.
To fill in the blanks, right,so if I'm, you know, I'm a high
D, I'm an I, you know, I have areally high C and S on my team
(06:26):
as sort of my right hand personand he's been with me for geez,
I don't know, seven, eight yearsnow and he's you know a
lifesaver Right.
And he keeps me in check when Iget out of control.
Right.
Tony (06:38):
That's exactly right.
Yeah, with any business I meanyou're going to, you don't want
someone exactly like you.
You want someone that fills inwhere you lack Right, in order
to balance you out and kind ofhelp push the ball forward,
because those things that youdon't have strength in you'll
struggle with, take away yourenergy for the day and you're a
lot less productive.
So that's very important thatyou bring that up right off the
(07:00):
bat.
And so, yeah, the discassessment has been around for
quite a long time.
There's a bunch of cognitivetests and different tests right
now that are all in the market,and that's one that's been
around for quite some time, soit has a great track record.
Fletcher (07:14):
Yeah, yeah, well, I like it, because that's why I
throw out the D, right?
You know, I don't know, if yougo into any sort of business
setting and you start talkingabout D's, i's S's and I's S's
and C's, I don't know I'd sayprobably, you know 50, 75% of
the people might alreadyunderstand what you're talking
about, right, yep absolutelyyeah.
Tony (07:31):
So I think anybody that's in a business if you're starting
out, you know new.
If you have two or threeemployees, you know it's a great
(07:52):
time.
Even if you just have thatsmall of a team, it's a great
time to kind of assess andunderstand what those people
that are on your team reallybring and what are their
strengths, as opposed to justkind of guessing with intuition,
using something to get a betterunderstanding of your team's
strengths.
And that's where we're alsofiguring out your weaknesses.
Fletcher (08:01):
It's about building language around it too, right?
So one of the things my fathertaught me early on is he said
you know, as you know, I reallyat the age of seven, I was the
first guinea pig I was takingthese assessments, right.
And he was like, well, everytime you meet somebody, size
them up.
I don't mean this like in anegative way, right, you know,
but like you meet somebody andyou start having a conversation
(08:21):
with them, and and they and youstart having a conversation with
them and you'll begin to seetheir mannerisms, the way they
communicate, their style.
Are they thoughtful and carefulin how they respond to
questions or what they say?
Are they reckless and crazy?
Like me, I've always put my footin my mouth because I speak
before I think.
Right, but anyways, you canbegin to put them in a box,
(08:46):
right, like where are they?
Right?
And that begins to help youbecome more self-aware of your
own behaviors, but also moreaware of others.
And this is a tool aboutbuilding emotional intelligence.
Ultimately, right, thatawareness of others, how they
think and feel and operate, andhow you think and feel and
operate, and then using that tocreate action and results
(09:07):
together, right, is, I think,the crux of EQ, right?
Tony (09:12):
Absolutely yeah, and understanding a little bit about
them and how they speak and howthey think and what motivates
them.
If you're talking in yourlanguage and they don't
understand your language andyour motivations, then you're
probably not going to createaction and incentive for them.
But if you speak in theirlanguage, then they are going to
understand and you can get themon board and, you know, help
(09:33):
create action.
So that's awesome, so that'sone thing.
So you're doing.
You know that you, in essence,then, also help people, you know
, recruit the right talent togrow their company.
And so could you walk usthrough somebody that has a
small team that's interested ingrowing and doesn't know, you
(09:54):
know, maybe doesn't know exactlywhat position is best for them
to get next.
Or you know, maybe they, youknow, are having trouble finding
talent in a talent pool.
Maybe they are having troublefinding talent in a talent pool.
No-transcript.
Fletcher (10:12):
Yeah, well, obviously I want to understand the
business.
Business functions, but usuallypeople have an idea they're
like oh, I want to hire asalesperson, I need to hire an
admin or project manager or youknow whatever.
It is right, you know there'susually they usually have some
preconceived notions, butobviously large organizations
struggling with this is creatinga really strong job description
(10:41):
that's based on measurableoutcomes.
So first I want to look at whatare the goals of the
organization and what are youdriving towards?
Where are the gaps?
Right?
So DISC is a good way of sortof beginning to understand the
talent or the skill or thetalent gaps you might have,
right, and then beginning tounderstand the role that needs
(11:02):
to be filled, based on themeasurable outcomes that need to
be achieved.
So too often we write jobdescriptions that are a list of
responsibilities, duties andrequirements and oftentimes
those miss the boat in terms ofbeing focused on outcomes and
results that are, you know, timebound and realistic, right.
(11:22):
So thinking about SMART goals,if anybody's familiar with that,
right.
And so, yeah, you, first yougot to get laser focused on who
it is.
You need, what problem they'regoing to solve in the business
and what outcomes, and then fromthere that defines well how are
we going to go find this person, who's going to be a fit and
what strategies are we going toexecute to do that Right.
Tony (11:46):
Yeah, so on as we look at your screen here for those.
Some people are just listeningon a podcast, so can you walk us
through?
You've got a nice little chartgoing through your process up
there.
Could you kind of go throughthat for people that aren't able
to see it?
Fletcher (12:02):
Yeah.
So once you've figured outexactly what you're looking for,
what problem you're going tosolve, make outcomes.
Then we move into thatattraction phase.
So you know, our recruitmentautomation software or job works
with lots of different ways,but we want to create a system
for attracting the right kindsof people and then we need the
(12:23):
right tools to assess thoseindividuals.
And so talent attraction is.
You know, people think of jobboards like Indeed, and that's
obviously one of thosestrategies.
Another big one is employeereferrals.
So I'm a big, huge, huge fan ofemployee referrals.
And sometimes a little harderfor smaller companies.
You only have four or fivepeople, but it definitely is
(12:44):
doable.
Actually, in many smallcompanies that's where they make
all their first hires isthrough friends of friends and
family members and whatnot.
Those are trusted people.
And then headhunting, franklyright.
So now you can be your ownheadhunter or you can go out and
pay somebody to do that, right.
And sometimes it's appropriateto do either one of those or
(13:07):
both of those things, right.
So those are really your threebig mechanisms for attracting
people, and there are plentyothers that we can talk about,
but those are the three big ones.
And then, once you've got theright person into the system,
then you need to have amechanism, a system, a
repeatable process for assessingindividuals, and I always like
(13:28):
to draw this analogy.
In college or anywhere in youreducational journey, did they
ever teach you how to hireanybody?
Tony (13:42):
You know anybody?
Yeah, I think so.
When you're, when you'restarting out, and I mean,
obviously, the more people thatyou get on your team and as you
go through this, the biggestthing I've found is you know,
when you're hiring people andbeing in business for as long as
I've been in business you'reputting so much time and effort
into acquiring this person thatyou get.
Then you're onboarding thisperson and you're getting them
up to speed with your companyand all of the goals of what you
(14:08):
want out of them, and then yoursystems and your processes and
your procedures for gettingeverything done.
If that employee comes in,spends four months and then
leaves, I mean you have wastedthe four months.
You've wasted the time it tookyou to find that person.
Then you have to now acquire anew person, start all over.
I mean you lose almost a year.
(14:29):
So it is so important to go backto what you're saying and
attract the right person rightand then be able to assess that
person and make sure that theyfit the parameters of what
you're saying and attract.
Attract the right person Rightand then be able to assess that
person and make sure that theyfit the parameters of what you
want.
This is, you know.
This saves you time and whenyou start to compound this, this
saves you years of your growthcurve.
So I mean the amount of time,energy and money this saves.
(14:53):
When you do this and do thisright, you know it it can
exponentially scale your companytwice as fast as it would
normally grow.
Fletcher (15:01):
Yeah, too often people shortcut both sides of it, the
attraction and the assessmentprocess, right.
So you know they run an ad.
It's maybe you know not thehighest quality they bring in.
Whoever they bring in, you knowthey narrow it down to three
people and they, you know, don'thave great systems or abilities
to evaluate these individualsand they make the best hiring
(15:23):
decision they can amongst thesethree people and they might be
choosing the best of the worstin that case.
And that's not.
You know, that's not how hiringis done.
Hiring is about you know,really understanding who you
need and sticking out thetraction and the assessment
process as long as it's requiredin order to identify that right
(15:45):
person and continue to pass onpeople who are just not right
for the job or for yourorganization, right you?
Tony (15:51):
have to be slow to hire, quick to fire that's what I
would say.
You always want to be slow tohire.
Fletcher (15:57):
I love that saying but I really believe you can move a
lot faster in the process.
But it takes practice right.
When you build the muscle oflike hey, we have a system for
consistently attracting andevaluating people, it does
actually allow you to move wayfaster in this process.
Tony (16:15):
Allow you to move way faster in this process, and it
probably I mean, tell me if I'mwrong it also allows you to
dwindle through so many morecandidates.
So that's what's speeding upyour process, right?
You're going through candidatesand you can eliminate them a
lot quicker than you mightnormally would if you didn't
have some of these tools.
Fletcher (16:34):
Exactly, and you know people always, you know I kind
of especially small businesses,and you know, and I get it.
You know, you run an ad or youstart marketing your jobs and
you and you start gettinghundreds and hundreds of
applicants and people go, oh,I'm overwhelmed, and there's so
much garbage, right, and theyare.
I mean, yeah, 300 applicantsfor a job, for I mean, yeah, the
(16:55):
vast majority of them, actually299 of them are going to be not
good to be exact, right.
So, yeah, it kind of feels likea daunting task, but with the
right tools and practice andsystems for like, okay, just how
do I evaluate a resume?
And then, second, you know howdo I?
I mean first steps typicallysome sort of introductory
meeting, right?
How do I?
I mean first steps typicallysome sort of introductory
(17:16):
meeting, right?
So that might be a phone callor a Zoom, or maybe you bring
them into the office, dependingon the role.
Whatever it is right.
How do I evaluate people quicklyin that first interaction and
having some interview strategiesthat can very quickly figure
out if that person is worthy ofmoving on to the next steps?
And that's also where I likeassessments.
(17:39):
Assessments are basically astructured interview.
It's essentially ascience-based structured
interview that has no feelingsand no emotions and no bias and
the candidate completes thatsurvey or that assessment and it
spits back hey, this is wherethis person is at.
(18:01):
And then you compare that toyour scorecard and say, hey,
this is this or the jobdescription.
Say, yeah, this person'saligned or they're not aligned,
or they're aligned out of fiveout of six items, but not the
sixth.
And can I live with that?
At least I now know if I hirethis person.
I get five of the six thingsI'm looking for and I can
compensate if I choose to, ifit's appropriate to you know I'm
(18:25):
not a deal breaker right.
Tony (18:28):
But yeah, go ahead.
I was going to say so, that'sperfect.
So then you know we're allowingto get the better candidates
through the door, so you knowyou're building on that.
I want to touch on a coupleother pieces of your business.
So then you also do fractionalemployment, so could you explain
, for those who don't understand, what that means and how that
(18:49):
works?
Fletcher (18:50):
Yeah, it's kind of my, you know we're kind of trying
to recoin.
You know a different version ofrecruiting, so I'm not a big
fan of traditional recruiters,staffing agencies staffing
agencies the quality of talenttypically is terrible,
especially in this climate andthis market which has really
persisted for the last 15 years.
Forget about COVID.
You know that was a blip, ifanything.
(19:12):
Post COVID the talent market'sgotten only tighter.
It has more leverage in theprocess, right.
So staffing agencies underpaypeople, overcharge their clients
and they offer people temporarywork with maybe a promise of
(19:34):
full-time employment, and Idon't see how that's a winning
recipe for finding an A player,if you're an A player why would
you engage in that relationshipright?
Tony (19:43):
So why would I?
Fletcher (19:46):
as a business owner, hire a staffing agency that's
basically handcuffing my handsbehind my back in order to find
and attract the best person.
Yes, they will bring you people, but not the quality that
you're looking for and you'regoing to pay through the nose on
top of that.
So staffing agencies typicallyare making a premium of 40% to
(20:08):
60% on the dollar For everydollar you pay that person.
Sure, you can let them goanytime you want, blah, blah,
blah but it's a premium thatyou're paying for probably the
lower quality talent on the poolIn traditional recruiting,
where you're paying 20% to 30%as a success fee.
It's also painful.
I get it.
I mean, we engage in thosetypes of arrangements with folks
(20:32):
from time to time and I feelbad, right, it's a huge
investment.
From time to time, and I feelbad, right, it's a huge
investment.
And to drop the ball on knowingwho you want and doing a good
job of assessing somebody andpaying $20,000, $30,000, $40,000
, $50,000 for that person is apainful, painful process, so
Fractional I think the goal hasalways been for me because we've
(20:54):
been more of a talentassessment company than anything
has been hey, why don't webring in expert recruiters who
are going to come in and executethe process for you and start
tomorrow.
Boom, get out the gate, startdoing the best practices that
you need to do, but at the sametime, teaching and educating you
and your leadership team how todo this yourself.
(21:18):
And so these are alwaystemporary engagements.
They're typically 90 days to ayear it depends on the company
size and the volume and how muchhiring needs to be done,
basically.
But they're always meant to besort of a short to midterm type
of investment.
And again, it's there to solvethe problem find the person but
(21:40):
to help you execute those bestpractices and get you integrated
into the right using the righttools, the right process, the
right systems, educating you howto be kind of best interviewing
practices.
On training and onboarding, youmentioned earlier a huge piece
of success in hiring you doeverything else right and you
fail to train and onboardeffectively.
(22:01):
So it's both.
This, it's a hybrid of thiskind of leveling up your skill
set internally, tool setinternally and done for you,
because when you need to hire,you need to hire right, so you
can't wait three months to beeducated or figure it out or
install the systems right.
Tony (22:22):
You got to do it today, yeah, and as you're getting
those people and as you're goingthrough it, you know, when you
mentioned training andonboarding, so the biggest way
to you know grow your companyand scale is to understand that
the ability to train people andso that cannot be understated
whenever you're trying to grow acompany and you're starting to
(22:44):
document processes andprocedures and having that
ability to train new employees,when you have a clear path for
them to come on and set clearparameters of what you expect of
them.
Have it all there, soeverything is very clear.
When you bring on a newemployee, we do what's called a
90-day trial basis, right?
(23:06):
So we give them 90 days to show.
We give them clear guidance onwhat we expect of them in that
first 90 days.
So, hey, it's like here.
Here are the things that youhave to achieve within 90 days
to show that you can besuccessful here, right?
so all those things clearparameters.
You have to clear deliverablesfor success, or if you want to
(23:28):
be successful in this company, Imean you have to take the time,
and the more time you invest inthat, the more opportunity your
company will have to grow andproduce great talent, which
being able to produce greattalent is a differentiator as
opposed to trying to take greattalent from someone else.
Being able to produce greattalent really allows you to go
(23:50):
into a whole other direction asa company.
Fletcher (23:52):
Especially as a small business.
Right, you may not be able toafford the best talent on the
market, right?
So you may be looking more forthe behavioral core skills,
attitude and integrity and findindividuals that contain those
things and then teach them yourbusiness.
(24:12):
Right, and that's always, youknow, that was my claim to fame
when I did the commercial dishmachine business.
You know, we did not.
We were not the mostcompetitive in pay and we always
had to find raw talent andteach them our business.
That and nobody else knows ourbusiness Like you know.
It's not that many commercialdish machine people out there in
the world, right, you know.
Yeah, so you know so.
(24:34):
But look, there's time andplace for both.
I mean, look, if you can affordthe best talent and steal from
your competitor, there's,there's huge merit in that as
well.
But in many cases smallerbusinesses just can't and
they're just not equipped forthat.
Tony (24:47):
So you know, find the right.
And the good thing about whenyou're, when you're building
that talent, in my opinion, isyou're not only building the
talent, but a lot of timesyou're hopefully building
loyalty with that person.
And as long as you don't getsomeone in and give them false
promises I mean, if you're acompany that is primed for
(25:07):
growth and has upward mobilityopportunity for people and
you're identifying those rightpeople and training them and you
see the future in them and givethem that opportunity for
growth, that's really how youcan retain the best talent in my
opinion.
Fletcher (25:22):
Yeah, they should be able to evaluate themselves
right in those 90 days or everyyear, right, and because the
goals are so clear and theyshould be able to say, you know,
you should look at each otherand both be able to say, yes,
I've accomplished what, I, youknow what was set out for me and
I, you know, demonstrated theaptitude and the behaviors that
(25:43):
are warranted of me taking thatnext step or getting that raise,
or getting that bonus orkeeping my job right, whatever
it is right, you know.
It should be so clear that theycan self-correct.
Tony (25:56):
So when we talk about you saying you know you're typically
coming in and educating a groupfor 90 days to a year, could
you kind of give me a littlemore in depth?
What is your average companysize that you're dealing with
and what do you guys see assuccess that you can say, ok,
we're good in 90 days or it's ayear?
(26:18):
What are the parameters thatyou're setting?
Fletcher (26:22):
Yeah, so you know, typically zero to 250 employees.
So you know, obviously thesmaller the company, the shorter
the engagement.
Obviously that's a cost thing.
Usually it's a volume thing too.
It's like, ok, I need to hire,like two people, right, well, in
90 days we can get those rolesfilled, typically right.
There's no hard and fast rulesin hiring here, but 90 days is
(26:43):
about the time it takes to findsomebody, and find somebody
who's good too.
So think about that whether youdo this yourself or you hire an
external recruiter or whatever.
That's about how long?
60, 90 days, right?
Because even if you find thatamazing person tomorrow and you
go through three interviews,some assessments, reference
(27:04):
checks, that's like maybe two tofour weeks of interviewing and
then they put in their two-weeknotice, so you're talking four
to six weeks there as it alone.
Well, that's assuming the idealcandidate showed up today, six
weeks from now, I'm actuallythat butt is in a seat, right.
(27:29):
So yeah, it's realistically.
You know you want to set atimeframe.
So that's, something else that'sreally important to think about
what is the timeframe to make asuccessful hire and give
yourself enough time to do that?
So that's part of it.
The other part of it is justthe size of the organization.
So the bigger the organization,the more leaders that are
involved.
Usually there are differenthires that are happening in
(27:51):
different departments and we'regoing through this fact-driven
hiring system to create thosefundamental tools and get the
job description, create thosemeasurables, making sure that
the attraction system for thatrole.
So every role might require aslightly different strategy,
right, and we're going toleverage some of these
strategies we talked about, butthey're going to take different
(28:12):
language, different marketingmessages, different approaches,
different people involved.
And then the candidateevaluation again is, you know,
can be a little bit differentdepending on each role.
So, again, the larger theorganization, the more different
variety of roles.
You know, the more people we'rehaving to touch, the more
groups within the organizationwe have to touch.
(28:32):
Typically those take longer.
They also typically have a lotmore hires that need to be made.
I need to make 20 hires in thenext quarter, right?
Well, okay, you know we mightbe able to get many of those
done in a quarter or it mighttake a little longer to fill all
those roles, and so or theyhave an ongoing need or they're
growing.
Hey, I need 10 this quarter, 10next quarter and 10 the quarter
(28:53):
after that.
And you know their businessleaders are, you know they're
learning and they're gettingbetter at evaluating candidate
and some of these strategies.
But it just makes a lot ofsense to outsource and have that
internal partner.
Usually what happens with thelarge organizations our goal is
to help them hire a recruiterin-house and get them trained up
, and then that takes time aswell, right?
(29:15):
Smaller organizations may beworking with the business leader
, teaching them these processes,helping them install the tools
and the systems.
Again, we're making one, two,three hires over the course of a
quarter.
They're learning as they go andby the time we get to the end
of that A, their hiring needsare fulfilled.
But B, they're also set up forthe future hires and they can do
this themselves, right?
Tony (29:37):
So do you also help them?
I know you're talking aboutdefine the world.
Do you help them define?
How far in depth do you getinto that?
I mean you're also doing somecoaching and consulting with the
company, I'm assuming, right,yeah?
Fletcher (29:54):
Yeah, I mean there's a lot of discovery, right.
So we spend.
You know, typically path is wemeet once a week for 15 to 30
minutes to talk about just therecruiting activity, like okay,
how many candidates do we have,who's in the pipeline, what do
we got, where are they atProcess, how are we feeling
about them, what's the next stepin the evaluation process?
So that's very like block andtackle stuff, right.
And then typically we're doinga one hour strategy consulting
(30:20):
call each week and that'sstarting with just getting
really close.
So we're working with a freightcompany, small freight
brokerage company, right, theywant to hire their first outside
salesperson.
We've spent three hours so farbetter understanding how we're
going to measure success in thatrole and what the activities of
(30:44):
that role are going to be, andbeginning to think about how
we're going to compensate thatperson.
So they want this person to bea hunter where they have farmers
in.
So there's all these differentdynamics and how do we get this
comp right so that it's acompetitive job offer?
And the last piece is trainingan onboard.
(31:05):
Okay, fine, we found the rightperson.
Now how are we going to makesure that they're successful?
And that is a wholeconversation again that these
guys, they've actually beenworking with me like seven years
ago.
They've come back, so they knowthe program, they know what
they're getting into here and Ikeep asking them.
(31:25):
Like you know, I give themhomework assignments and you
know, say, hey, you can do thisyourself next week.
And you know, each week theycome and they just want to talk
through it with somebody, havethat kind of third party sort of
, to bounce those ideas andfacilitate that conversation.
So they'd rather do it that waythan do the work themselves.
Right, well, that's fine andit's perfectly okay to have a
(31:49):
coach or consultant to do itthat way or to to.
We can accelerate that processand you know they do their
homework.
Come back, we review the work.
We, you know, poke holes or askquestions, we refine, we get it
to where we want and then wemove on to the next subject.
Right?
Tony (31:59):
Yeah, the big critical thing in having someone like you
is, you know, asking thing inhaving someone like you is, you
know, asking the questions tomake someone that's in our
position think right.
You can only think outside ofthe box so many ways.
So the great professionals areasking you those questions to
make you really think.
They're not here to tell youall the answers, right, they
(32:20):
want to make us think.
So it's like you know you getcaught in your own little
thought processes and you misstoo many things.
So it's like you know you get,you get caught in your own
little thought processes and you, you miss too many things.
So you have to find theprofessional like you that can
ask the right questions to makeyou properly think, to kind of
open up your thought process tofind that right person.
You know, cause you have it inyour own head.
(32:40):
I mean, typically us businessowners are going to, we kind of
know, but we just don't evenreally know what questions to
ask ourselves to pull out.
So you just got to constantly,you know, and when you interact
with someone like you that'sdoing this, that's who the best
people are.
In my opinion.
They're the ones that drive thequestions to make you really
think.
And then you're just like oh,why didn't?
Fletcher (32:59):
I do it, it's so simple.
Steer you in the rightdirection, right?
Yeah, steer you.
Tony (33:03):
It's just like and then you're like, oh, I mean.
Well, of course I should haveknown that.
Why didn't I already?
Fletcher (33:07):
know that we all need it.
I am a coach and I'm part oftwo forums of other business
leaders, so I have like three orfour different educational
outlets for myself, you know,and I learn things about hiring
from them.
Tony (33:27):
I'm like, oh, that's a really good idea.
I never thought about it.
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, that's the thing I mean.
We all have to continually beeducating ourselves, continue to
drive ourselves to be better.
I mean, if you want to bebetter than the competition, in
whatever industry you're in,right, you have to continually
be pushing yourself, pushing theenvelope, driving to be better.
How can I get this edge?
What edge do I have in have andyou know, in order to get the
clarity on what makes you better, what makes you different, why,
(33:48):
why are you going to be theleader in the industry?
How?
What can you do to attractagain, go back to that, attract
the right talent.
I mean, you have to be theperson that the talent wants to
come work for and you have toshow that talent.
If they are talent and theywant to go to the best company,
you have to show them why you'rethe best company, what you're
doing, working how you'reworking, better, harder to
(34:09):
become better than anybody elsein the market and in the
industry, right?
Fletcher (34:13):
Yeah, well, quality of life is a big one.
I mean, we're all here asentrepreneurs because we want a
better quality of life forourselves.
Well, everybody else wants thesame thing, right?
It's a human thing to wantimproved quality of life, right?
So you know, a, we want to justmaintain the quality of life we
have at minimum, right, nobodywants to go backwards in that.
(34:34):
And B, you know we want toadvance that.
And there's really, you know, afew levers there your ability to
care for your family and tospend time and be a great mother
, father, husband, daughter, son, whatever it is right.
(34:57):
And then the other piece ispersonal growth, and so there's
personal and professionaldevelopment, and I think that's
another thing that, as humans,we all share.
I think we I don't know too manyhumans that just love being
stagnant, right, who don't wantto grow in some way or another
or be challenged, right.
And then purpose ultimately sothat's kind of you know can we
(35:17):
fulfill our purpose?
And you know, work is just avehicle in many ways for us to
do that, and sometimes we dojobs.
That is just a vehicle in manyways for us to do that, and
sometimes we do jobs that youknow are not sexy or do not have
any obvious purpose to them,and it's a means to be able to
fulfill your purpose outside ofwork.
And that's fine, right, andthat's perfectly acceptable.
But if the work can help yougrow personally and
(35:39):
professionally and help youachieve your purpose, then you
know that's a much morerewarding situation.
And so, as employers, we needto be able to help people
connect those dots and helpenable that in them and show
them, hey, how this career isgoing to help them in those
areas.
Tony (35:58):
Yeah, and I think that's extremely important.
You know, I've taken a lot oftime trying to focus on my
purpose.
What's my purpose?
How am you know?
Where is my fulfillment?
Yeah, so I think those aregreat questions to ask.
And, yeah, I mean that's notsomething I really do.
A lot is ask my staff.
I mean I'm always asking whatare their goals?
How can I help them achievetheir goals, which I guess kind
(36:20):
of aligns, but I do love thatthat you just brought up I think
that's a great nugget isunderstanding each one of your
people's purpose and what offersthem fulfillment.
Kind of getting you know agroup buy-in and helps on that.
That's awesome.
So that's a great little tidbit.
Thanks for kicking me in onthat.
I like it.
Fletcher (36:40):
That was great.
Tony (36:43):
So, besides with the consulting, is that a different
structure or is that still this90 days to one year?
Do you do longer termconsulting?
Fletcher (36:54):
Yeah.
So it's all built into whetheryou are using our software
platform.
So we sell two things oursoftware platform, the
recruitment automation tools andassessment tools.
And then the second part is thedone for you, the fractional
talent acquisition.
The consulting is thefoundation of those things.
So, whether you're using thetools or you're using us to do
(37:16):
it for you type service right,the consulting is really wrapped
in and it's here, it's me onthese podcasts, it's on the
stage, it's people.
You're more than welcome tocall and take an hour of my time
.
I'm happy to share with anybody, or somebody on my team will be
happy to share with you.
One of our core values iseducate first, and what that
(37:36):
means is that we educateourselves first.
Like you mentioned earlier,we're constantly like how do we
learn more, get better at whatwe're doing?
We might call ourselves experts, but we still have a lot to
learn.
I mean, I'm just a human being,right?
I can always learn more.
I can always be better at whatI do, right.
And then we want to be able toshare best ideas and practices
(37:59):
with our clients, whicheverbucket they fall in, right.
So it's typically a free thing.
I don't do paid consulting gigs.
They're just a part of one ofthe two other services that we
do.
Tony (38:13):
That's awesome and I know we have a lot of contractors
that listen in here and soFletcher and me were discussing.
So Fletcher has dealt with over400 construction companies.
You know general contractorsand specialty contractors, so he
has plenty of experience in theconstruction space.
So fantastic resource here foranybody that's in this
construction space to reach outto him.
(38:35):
If you're looking to grow andexpand all the tools that you
have, if you're trying tocontinue with EOS or whatever
all the different things thatwe've talked about for growing
your business, organizing yourbusiness, you know, documenting
through everything so greatresource to have.
Fletcher, I'm so happy I wasable to get you on today.
If people want to reach out toyou, what's the best way to get
(38:57):
in touch with you?
Fletcher (38:58):
Yeah, so Fletcher Wimbush my name.
I was blessed with a veryunique name.
You can find me on LinkedIn orjust FletcherWinbushcom you can
check me out there.
Or DiscoveredATScom.
You can check out our hiringplatform there.
Feel free to reach out and I'malways happy to chat with you
(39:21):
and really no pressure man.
Anybody who wants to chat andjust says, hey, I got a problem
or I got a challenge or I got aquestion and I freely share.
You check me out on YouTube oror LinkedIn and I'm out on there
all the time sharing best ideasand practices.
Like there's no secrets.
The recipe book is yours tohave.
(39:42):
If you know some of our toolsor services could be helpful,
then I'm happy to.
We're happy to help you outthere and go further.
Tony (39:49):
That's awesome, yeah, and I think it's.
You know someone like you canbring it all together to someone
you know you can.
You'll go in a bunch of circlesand go down a bunch of rabbit
holes.
Somebody like you keeps them ontrack.
It's right to the nuts andbolts.
Fletcher (40:01):
Remember, I'm a high D , I like to get stuff done, man.
Tony (40:06):
Shorten the success timeline and I love it that
you're doing these shorterengagements.
So it's really about findingcompanies, helping them and
moving on, not leeching on andslow rolling these, making long,
long things.
He is basically saying he'sgoing to come in, educate you,
get your team up and runningonto the next one.
Obviously, you'll be back therefor support if you need it.
He offers the software so itcan help you keep yourself going
(40:29):
.
So fantastic, fletcher.
Thanks again so much forjoining us.
I think it's going to bebeneficial to everyone listening
today.
Awesome Thanks, tony.
Yes, sir, have a great day youtoo.
Welcome to another episode of Carolina Commercial Real
Estate Connection.
Today we have Fletcher Wimbushwith us.
Fletcher is a hiring consultantand helps companies grow and do
proper hiring practices inorder to build up the proper
team and growth.
Fletcher, thank you so much forjoining us today.
Fletcher (00:19):
Awesome.
Tony (00:20):
Thanks for having me, tony .
Yes, sir, and Fletcher, you arelocated out in California, so I
just want to give Fletcher ashout out here.
He's up.
He's been up since the crack of3 am probably, but he's in
today.
It's about 6.30 his time, so weappreciate him getting up early
and look forward to thediscussion.
So thank you again, fletcher,for joining us.
Fletcher (00:41):
No problem.
Tony (00:46):
So, fletcher for joining us, yeah, no problem.
Fletcher (00:47):
So, fletcher, tell us a bit about how long you've been
involved in this and what gotyou into it.
Yeah Well, I was actually onthe phone with a client the
other day and they asked and Imentioned, I was like oh, I've
been doing this for like 25years and they're like oh, I'm
only 41.
Well, I don't know only, or whatthat is, I'm getting old and
somewhere in between, right.
And they're like what?
Like, what are you talkingabout?
(01:07):
And I was like well, you know.
So my dad was a business coachand he developed these
assessment tools that he used tohelp coach his clients.
And pretty early on, clientswere like hey, let's use these
tools to help us make betterhiring decisions.
And you know, being the son ofa business coach, you can only
imagine the conversations we hadat dinner and in the car.
And you know he liked to talkshop a lot and that's pretty
(01:29):
much all we ever talked about ispersonal growth, how to be a
better person.
You know how to be a betterleader.
And by the time I was 16, youknow I'd fallen into a number of
different leadership rolescaptain of my football team,
student body president, you knowall these.
Supervisor at my, you know,concession stand.
You know first job right.
You know they always put you inthese.
(01:51):
You know I guess I was anextrovert and somehow they
elected me to do all thesethings.
And also being a high D and ahigh I.
You know, attention to detailor like the details are not my
thing, so I never really wantedto be a coach, right?
But I always loved the idea ofas a leader.
If you could put the rightpeople on the bus, the right
(02:12):
people on the team, great thingsare going to happen.
So I ended up writing paper tofinish my high school and we had
these like mini term papers wehad to do and subsequently spent
really my first two leadershipcareers.
I was opening delis throughoutthe country and then
subsequently went and worked fora large privately held company
(02:35):
who serviced and built andhelped restaurants with
commercial dish machines andchemicals focused on hiring and
that was really it.
And 11 years ago I took overthis business and it began to
continue to expand and went frombeyond just assessment tools
but to a full suite of coaching,education and done for you,
(03:00):
recruiting, hiring services.
And in that journey, when Itook over, I was probably only
what, about 30 years old and Iwas like who's going to listen
to me about these things?
Despite I had some really nicesuccess in my previous careers
in building teams and thatgrowing business units.
I was always a fan of MalcolmGladwell Anybody you know some
(03:21):
fans of that.
I imagine listening to this10,000 hours of excellence,
right, yes, sir.
So in that journey I made it apoint to interview over 10,000
candidates and I did thatthrough helping our clients find
select great people in the kindof done-for-you service in the
early days.
So you know, I wanted to beable to practice what I preach,
(03:44):
and so we still do right, so weeducate, but we're still doing
the work that we teach ourclients to do so that we stay
sharp and on top of the trendsand best practices and feel
their pain.
As you know, the economychanges and the labor market
changes and we know exactlywhere our clients how they feel
about the problem right.
Tony (04:06):
That's a ton of tidbits there to dive into.
So thank you so much for that,fletcher.
So I think, starting out in thevery beginning, for those who
don't know, I'd like to kind oftouch back on a couple of things
.
One you mentioned, you know I'ma high D, I'm a high I.
For those that don't understandwhat that even means, could you
(04:28):
kind of break that down, whatthat means and how what all you
assess on people?
Fletcher (04:35):
Yeah, well, we have like 20 different proprietary
assessments, relaunch of a shortDISC assessment, just great
kind of self-awareness,team-building, collaboration,
(04:55):
communication improvement typeof tool.
So DISC is a kind of along-standing human science way
of thinking about personality,right.
And so D is for dominant, I isfor influencer, s is for
steadinessiness and c is forconscientiousness.
And as human beings we sort ofhave all of these components in
us, you know some degree oranother.
But typically what happens ismost of us gravitate to one or
(05:17):
two of these differentpersonality types and there's
sort of a yin and yang effect.
So high Ds are opposite of highSs and Is are opposites of Cs
and if you think about it, youknow your influencer, your sales
personality, life of the party,gregarious, make friends with
light posts.
That kind of person is theopposite of your C.
(05:39):
You're highly conscientious,detail-oriented,
process-oriented, moreintroverted, right, you know,
probably terrified of makingfriends with light posts, right.
And Ds are like let's get itdone, let's drive, let's take
action, assertive go-getters.
And Ss are your caring,empathetic types, right.
And so you know, again, there'sa natural juxtaposition of
(06:06):
those personality types.
And so you know it's helpful tounderstand your style, right,
what you like, what you don'tlike, where you naturally kind
of gravitate towards and awayfrom as a business leader.
To fill in the blanks, right,so if I'm, you know, I'm a high
D, I'm an I, you know, I have areally high C and S on my team
(06:26):
as sort of my right hand personand he's been with me for geez,
I don't know, seven, eight yearsnow and he's you know a
lifesaver Right.
And he keeps me in check when Iget out of control.
Right.
Tony (06:38):
That's exactly right.
Yeah, with any business I meanyou're going to, you don't want
someone exactly like you.
You want someone that fills inwhere you lack Right, in order
to balance you out and kind ofhelp push the ball forward,
because those things that youdon't have strength in you'll
struggle with, take away yourenergy for the day and you're a
lot less productive.
So that's very important thatyou bring that up right off the
(07:00):
bat.
And so, yeah, the discassessment has been around for
quite a long time.
There's a bunch of cognitivetests and different tests right
now that are all in the market,and that's one that's been
around for quite some time, soit has a great track record.
Fletcher (07:14):
Yeah, yeah, well, I like it, because that's why I
throw out the D, right?
You know, I don't know, if yougo into any sort of business
setting and you start talkingabout D's, i's S's and I's S's
and C's, I don't know I'd sayprobably, you know 50, 75% of
the people might alreadyunderstand what you're talking
about, right, yep absolutelyyeah.
Tony (07:31):
So I think anybody that's in a business if you're starting
out, you know new.
If you have two or threeemployees, you know it's a great
(07:52):
time.
Even if you just have thatsmall of a team, it's a great
time to kind of assess andunderstand what those people
that are on your team reallybring and what are their
strengths, as opposed to justkind of guessing with intuition,
using something to get a betterunderstanding of your team's
strengths.
And that's where we're alsofiguring out your weaknesses.
Fletcher (08:01):
It's about building language around it too, right?
So one of the things my fathertaught me early on is he said
you know, as you know, I reallyat the age of seven, I was the
first guinea pig I was takingthese assessments, right.
And he was like, well, everytime you meet somebody, size
them up.
I don't mean this like in anegative way, right, you know,
but like you meet somebody andyou start having a conversation
(08:21):
with them, and and they and youstart having a conversation with
them and you'll begin to seetheir mannerisms, the way they
communicate, their style.
Are they thoughtful and carefulin how they respond to
questions or what they say?
Are they reckless and crazy?
Like me, I've always put my footin my mouth because I speak
before I think.
Right, but anyways, you canbegin to put them in a box,
(08:46):
right, like where are they?
Right?
And that begins to help youbecome more self-aware of your
own behaviors, but also moreaware of others.
And this is a tool aboutbuilding emotional intelligence.
Ultimately, right, thatawareness of others, how they
think and feel and operate, andhow you think and feel and
operate, and then using that tocreate action and results
(09:07):
together, right, is, I think,the crux of EQ, right?
Tony (09:12):
Absolutely yeah, and understanding a little bit about
them and how they speak and howthey think and what motivates
them.
If you're talking in yourlanguage and they don't
understand your language andyour motivations, then you're
probably not going to createaction and incentive for them.
But if you speak in theirlanguage, then they are going to
understand and you can get themon board and, you know, help
(09:33):
create action.
So that's awesome, so that'sone thing.
So you're doing.
You know that you, in essence,then, also help people, you know
, recruit the right talent togrow their company.
And so could you walk usthrough somebody that has a
small team that's interested ingrowing and doesn't know, you
(09:54):
know, maybe doesn't know exactlywhat position is best for them
to get next.
Or you know, maybe they, youknow, are having trouble finding
talent in a talent pool.
Maybe they are having troublefinding talent in a talent pool.
No-transcript.
Fletcher (10:12):
Yeah, well, obviously I want to understand the
business.
Business functions, but usuallypeople have an idea they're
like oh, I want to hire asalesperson, I need to hire an
admin or project manager or youknow whatever.
It is right, you know there'susually they usually have some
preconceived notions, butobviously large organizations
struggling with this is creatinga really strong job description
(10:41):
that's based on measurableoutcomes.
So first I want to look at whatare the goals of the
organization and what are youdriving towards?
Where are the gaps?
Right?
So DISC is a good way of sortof beginning to understand the
talent or the skill or thetalent gaps you might have,
right, and then beginning tounderstand the role that needs
(11:02):
to be filled, based on themeasurable outcomes that need to
be achieved.
So too often we write jobdescriptions that are a list of
responsibilities, duties andrequirements and oftentimes
those miss the boat in terms ofbeing focused on outcomes and
results that are, you know, timebound and realistic, right.
(11:22):
So thinking about SMART goals,if anybody's familiar with that,
right.
And so, yeah, you, first yougot to get laser focused on who
it is.
You need, what problem they'regoing to solve in the business
and what outcomes, and then fromthere that defines well how are
we going to go find this person, who's going to be a fit and
what strategies are we going toexecute to do that Right.
Tony (11:46):
Yeah, so on as we look at your screen here for those.
Some people are just listeningon a podcast, so can you walk us
through?
You've got a nice little chartgoing through your process up
there.
Could you kind of go throughthat for people that aren't able
to see it?
Fletcher (12:02):
Yeah.
So once you've figured outexactly what you're looking for,
what problem you're going tosolve, make outcomes.
Then we move into thatattraction phase.
So you know, our recruitmentautomation software or job works
with lots of different ways,but we want to create a system
for attracting the right kindsof people and then we need the
(12:23):
right tools to assess thoseindividuals.
And so talent attraction is.
You know, people think of jobboards like Indeed, and that's
obviously one of thosestrategies.
Another big one is employeereferrals.
So I'm a big, huge, huge fan ofemployee referrals.
And sometimes a little harderfor smaller companies.
You only have four or fivepeople, but it definitely is
(12:44):
doable.
Actually, in many smallcompanies that's where they make
all their first hires isthrough friends of friends and
family members and whatnot.
Those are trusted people.
And then headhunting, franklyright.
So now you can be your ownheadhunter or you can go out and
pay somebody to do that, right.
And sometimes it's appropriateto do either one of those or
(13:07):
both of those things, right.
So those are really your threebig mechanisms for attracting
people, and there are plentyothers that we can talk about,
but those are the three big ones.
And then, once you've got theright person into the system,
then you need to have amechanism, a system, a
repeatable process for assessingindividuals, and I always like
(13:28):
to draw this analogy.
In college or anywhere in youreducational journey, did they
ever teach you how to hireanybody?
Tony (13:42):
You know anybody?
Yeah, I think so.
When you're, when you'restarting out, and I mean,
obviously, the more people thatyou get on your team and as you
go through this, the biggestthing I've found is you know,
when you're hiring people andbeing in business for as long as
I've been in business you'reputting so much time and effort
into acquiring this person thatyou get.
Then you're onboarding thisperson and you're getting them
up to speed with your companyand all of the goals of what you
(14:08):
want out of them, and then yoursystems and your processes and
your procedures for gettingeverything done.
If that employee comes in,spends four months and then
leaves, I mean you have wastedthe four months.
You've wasted the time it tookyou to find that person.
Then you have to now acquire anew person, start all over.
I mean you lose almost a year.
(14:29):
So it is so important to go backto what you're saying and
attract the right person rightand then be able to assess that
person and make sure that theyfit the parameters of what
you're saying and attract.
Attract the right person Rightand then be able to assess that
person and make sure that theyfit the parameters of what you
want.
This is, you know.
This saves you time and whenyou start to compound this, this
saves you years of your growthcurve.
So I mean the amount of time,energy and money this saves.
(14:53):
When you do this and do thisright, you know it it can
exponentially scale your companytwice as fast as it would
normally grow.
Fletcher (15:01):
Yeah, too often people shortcut both sides of it, the
attraction and the assessmentprocess, right.
So you know they run an ad.
It's maybe you know not thehighest quality they bring in.
Whoever they bring in, you knowthey narrow it down to three
people and they, you know, don'thave great systems or abilities
to evaluate these individualsand they make the best hiring
(15:23):
decision they can amongst thesethree people and they might be
choosing the best of the worstin that case.
And that's not.
You know, that's not how hiringis done.
Hiring is about you know,really understanding who you
need and sticking out thetraction and the assessment
process as long as it's requiredin order to identify that right
(15:45):
person and continue to pass onpeople who are just not right
for the job or for yourorganization, right you?
Tony (15:51):
have to be slow to hire, quick to fire that's what I
would say.
You always want to be slow tohire.
Fletcher (15:57):
I love that saying but I really believe you can move a
lot faster in the process.
But it takes practice right.
When you build the muscle oflike hey, we have a system for
consistently attracting andevaluating people, it does
actually allow you to move wayfaster in this process.
Tony (16:15):
Allow you to move way faster in this process, and it
probably I mean, tell me if I'mwrong it also allows you to
dwindle through so many morecandidates.
So that's what's speeding upyour process, right?
You're going through candidatesand you can eliminate them a
lot quicker than you mightnormally would if you didn't
have some of these tools.
Fletcher (16:34):
Exactly, and you know people always, you know I kind
of especially small businesses,and you know, and I get it.
You know, you run an ad or youstart marketing your jobs and
you and you start gettinghundreds and hundreds of
applicants and people go, oh,I'm overwhelmed, and there's so
much garbage, right, and theyare.
I mean, yeah, 300 applicantsfor a job, for I mean, yeah, the
(16:55):
vast majority of them, actually299 of them are going to be not
good to be exact, right.
So, yeah, it kind of feels likea daunting task, but with the
right tools and practice andsystems for like, okay, just how
do I evaluate a resume?
And then, second, you know howdo I?
I mean first steps typicallysome sort of introductory
meeting, right?
How do I?
I mean first steps typicallysome sort of introductory
(17:16):
meeting, right?
So that might be a phone callor a Zoom, or maybe you bring
them into the office, dependingon the role.
Whatever it is right.
How do I evaluate people quicklyin that first interaction and
having some interview strategiesthat can very quickly figure
out if that person is worthy ofmoving on to the next steps?
And that's also where I likeassessments.
(17:39):
Assessments are basically astructured interview.
It's essentially ascience-based structured
interview that has no feelingsand no emotions and no bias and
the candidate completes thatsurvey or that assessment and it
spits back hey, this is wherethis person is at.
(18:01):
And then you compare that toyour scorecard and say, hey,
this is this or the jobdescription.
Say, yeah, this person'saligned or they're not aligned,
or they're aligned out of fiveout of six items, but not the
sixth.
And can I live with that?
At least I now know if I hirethis person.
I get five of the six thingsI'm looking for and I can
compensate if I choose to, ifit's appropriate to you know I'm
(18:25):
not a deal breaker right.
Tony (18:28):
But yeah, go ahead.
I was going to say so, that'sperfect.
So then you know we're allowingto get the better candidates
through the door, so you knowyou're building on that.
I want to touch on a coupleother pieces of your business.
So then you also do fractionalemployment, so could you explain
, for those who don't understand, what that means and how that
(18:49):
works?
Fletcher (18:50):
Yeah, it's kind of my, you know we're kind of trying
to recoin.
You know a different version ofrecruiting, so I'm not a big
fan of traditional recruiters,staffing agencies staffing
agencies the quality of talenttypically is terrible,
especially in this climate andthis market which has really
persisted for the last 15 years.
Forget about COVID.
You know that was a blip, ifanything.
(19:12):
Post COVID the talent market'sgotten only tighter.
It has more leverage in theprocess, right.
So staffing agencies underpaypeople, overcharge their clients
and they offer people temporarywork with maybe a promise of
(19:34):
full-time employment, and Idon't see how that's a winning
recipe for finding an A player,if you're an A player why would
you engage in that relationshipright?
Tony (19:43):
So why would I?
Fletcher (19:46):
as a business owner, hire a staffing agency that's
basically handcuffing my handsbehind my back in order to find
and attract the best person.
Yes, they will bring you people, but not the quality that
you're looking for and you'regoing to pay through the nose on
top of that.
So staffing agencies typicallyare making a premium of 40% to
(20:08):
60% on the dollar For everydollar you pay that person.
Sure, you can let them goanytime you want, blah, blah,
blah but it's a premium thatyou're paying for probably the
lower quality talent on the poolIn traditional recruiting,
where you're paying 20% to 30%as a success fee.
It's also painful.
I get it.
I mean, we engage in thosetypes of arrangements with folks
(20:32):
from time to time and I feelbad, right, it's a huge
investment.
From time to time, and I feelbad, right, it's a huge
investment.
And to drop the ball on knowingwho you want and doing a good
job of assessing somebody andpaying $20,000, $30,000, $40,000
, $50,000 for that person is apainful, painful process, so
Fractional I think the goal hasalways been for me because we've
(20:54):
been more of a talentassessment company than anything
has been hey, why don't webring in expert recruiters who
are going to come in and executethe process for you and start
tomorrow.
Boom, get out the gate, startdoing the best practices that
you need to do, but at the sametime, teaching and educating you
and your leadership team how todo this yourself.
(21:18):
And so these are alwaystemporary engagements.
They're typically 90 days to ayear it depends on the company
size and the volume and how muchhiring needs to be done,
basically.
But they're always meant to besort of a short to midterm type
of investment.
And again, it's there to solvethe problem find the person but
(21:40):
to help you execute those bestpractices and get you integrated
into the right using the righttools, the right process, the
right systems, educating you howto be kind of best interviewing
practices.
On training and onboarding, youmentioned earlier a huge piece
of success in hiring you doeverything else right and you
fail to train and onboardeffectively.
(22:01):
So it's both.
This, it's a hybrid of thiskind of leveling up your skill
set internally, tool setinternally and done for you,
because when you need to hire,you need to hire right, so you
can't wait three months to beeducated or figure it out or
install the systems right.
Tony (22:22):
You got to do it today, yeah, and as you're getting
those people and as you're goingthrough it, you know, when you
mentioned training andonboarding, so the biggest way
to you know grow your companyand scale is to understand that
the ability to train people andso that cannot be understated
whenever you're trying to grow acompany and you're starting to
(22:44):
document processes andprocedures and having that
ability to train new employees,when you have a clear path for
them to come on and set clearparameters of what you expect of
them.
Have it all there, soeverything is very clear.
When you bring on a newemployee, we do what's called a
90-day trial basis, right?
(23:06):
So we give them 90 days to show.
We give them clear guidance onwhat we expect of them in that
first 90 days.
So, hey, it's like here.
Here are the things that youhave to achieve within 90 days
to show that you can besuccessful here, right?
so all those things clearparameters.
You have to clear deliverablesfor success, or if you want to
(23:28):
be successful in this company, Imean you have to take the time,
and the more time you invest inthat, the more opportunity your
company will have to grow andproduce great talent, which
being able to produce greattalent is a differentiator as
opposed to trying to take greattalent from someone else.
Being able to produce greattalent really allows you to go
(23:50):
into a whole other direction asa company.
Fletcher (23:52):
Especially as a small business.
Right, you may not be able toafford the best talent on the
market, right?
So you may be looking more forthe behavioral core skills,
attitude and integrity and findindividuals that contain those
things and then teach them yourbusiness.
(24:12):
Right, and that's always, youknow, that was my claim to fame
when I did the commercial dishmachine business.
You know, we did not.
We were not the mostcompetitive in pay and we always
had to find raw talent andteach them our business.
That and nobody else knows ourbusiness Like you know.
It's not that many commercialdish machine people out there in
the world, right, you know.
Yeah, so you know so.
(24:34):
But look, there's time andplace for both.
I mean, look, if you can affordthe best talent and steal from
your competitor, there's,there's huge merit in that as
well.
But in many cases smallerbusinesses just can't and
they're just not equipped forthat.
Tony (24:47):
So you know, find the right.
And the good thing about whenyou're, when you're building
that talent, in my opinion, isyou're not only building the
talent, but a lot of timesyou're hopefully building
loyalty with that person.
And as long as you don't getsomeone in and give them false
promises I mean, if you're acompany that is primed for
(25:07):
growth and has upward mobilityopportunity for people and
you're identifying those rightpeople and training them and you
see the future in them and givethem that opportunity for
growth, that's really how youcan retain the best talent in my
opinion.
Fletcher (25:22):
Yeah, they should be able to evaluate themselves
right in those 90 days or everyyear, right, and because the
goals are so clear and theyshould be able to say, you know,
you should look at each otherand both be able to say, yes,
I've accomplished what, I, youknow what was set out for me and
I, you know, demonstrated theaptitude and the behaviors that
(25:43):
are warranted of me taking thatnext step or getting that raise,
or getting that bonus orkeeping my job right, whatever
it is right, you know.
It should be so clear that theycan self-correct.
Tony (25:56):
So when we talk about you saying you know you're typically
coming in and educating a groupfor 90 days to a year, could
you kind of give me a littlemore in depth?
What is your average companysize that you're dealing with
and what do you guys see assuccess that you can say, ok,
we're good in 90 days or it's ayear?
(26:18):
What are the parameters thatyou're setting?
Fletcher (26:22):
Yeah, so you know, typically zero to 250 employees.
So you know, obviously thesmaller the company, the shorter
the engagement.
Obviously that's a cost thing.
Usually it's a volume thing too.
It's like, ok, I need to hire,like two people, right, well, in
90 days we can get those rolesfilled, typically right.
There's no hard and fast rulesin hiring here, but 90 days is
(26:43):
about the time it takes to findsomebody, and find somebody
who's good too.
So think about that whether youdo this yourself or you hire an
external recruiter or whatever.
That's about how long?
60, 90 days, right?
Because even if you find thatamazing person tomorrow and you
go through three interviews,some assessments, reference
(27:04):
checks, that's like maybe two tofour weeks of interviewing and
then they put in their two-weeknotice, so you're talking four
to six weeks there as it alone.
Well, that's assuming the idealcandidate showed up today, six
weeks from now, I'm actuallythat butt is in a seat, right.
(27:29):
So yeah, it's realistically.
You know you want to set atimeframe.
So that's, something else that'sreally important to think about
what is the timeframe to make asuccessful hire and give
yourself enough time to do that?
So that's part of it.
The other part of it is justthe size of the organization.
So the bigger the organization,the more leaders that are
involved.
Usually there are differenthires that are happening in
(27:51):
different departments and we'regoing through this fact-driven
hiring system to create thosefundamental tools and get the
job description, create thosemeasurables, making sure that
the attraction system for thatrole.
So every role might require aslightly different strategy,
right, and we're going toleverage some of these
strategies we talked about, butthey're going to take different
(28:12):
language, different marketingmessages, different approaches,
different people involved.
And then the candidateevaluation again is, you know,
can be a little bit differentdepending on each role.
So, again, the larger theorganization, the more different
variety of roles.
You know, the more people we'rehaving to touch, the more
groups within the organizationwe have to touch.
(28:32):
Typically those take longer.
They also typically have a lotmore hires that need to be made.
I need to make 20 hires in thenext quarter, right?
Well, okay, you know we mightbe able to get many of those
done in a quarter or it mighttake a little longer to fill all
those roles, and so or theyhave an ongoing need or they're
growing.
Hey, I need 10 this quarter, 10next quarter and 10 the quarter
(28:53):
after that.
And you know their businessleaders are, you know they're
learning and they're gettingbetter at evaluating candidate
and some of these strategies.
But it just makes a lot ofsense to outsource and have that
internal partner.
Usually what happens with thelarge organizations our goal is
to help them hire a recruiterin-house and get them trained up
, and then that takes time aswell, right?
(29:15):
Smaller organizations may beworking with the business leader
, teaching them these processes,helping them install the tools
and the systems.
Again, we're making one, two,three hires over the course of a
quarter.
They're learning as they go andby the time we get to the end
of that A, their hiring needsare fulfilled.
But B, they're also set up forthe future hires and they can do
this themselves, right?
Tony (29:37):
So do you also help them?
I know you're talking aboutdefine the world.
Do you help them define?
How far in depth do you getinto that?
I mean you're also doing somecoaching and consulting with the
company, I'm assuming, right,yeah?
Fletcher (29:54):
Yeah, I mean there's a lot of discovery, right.
So we spend.
You know, typically path is wemeet once a week for 15 to 30
minutes to talk about just therecruiting activity, like okay,
how many candidates do we have,who's in the pipeline, what do
we got, where are they atProcess, how are we feeling
about them, what's the next stepin the evaluation process?
So that's very like block andtackle stuff, right.
And then typically we're doinga one hour strategy consulting
(30:20):
call each week and that'sstarting with just getting
really close.
So we're working with a freightcompany, small freight
brokerage company, right, theywant to hire their first outside
salesperson.
We've spent three hours so farbetter understanding how we're
going to measure success in thatrole and what the activities of
(30:44):
that role are going to be, andbeginning to think about how
we're going to compensate thatperson.
So they want this person to bea hunter where they have farmers
in.
So there's all these differentdynamics and how do we get this
comp right so that it's acompetitive job offer?
And the last piece is trainingan onboard.
(31:05):
Okay, fine, we found the rightperson.
Now how are we going to makesure that they're successful?
And that is a wholeconversation again that these
guys, they've actually beenworking with me like seven years
ago.
They've come back, so they knowthe program, they know what
they're getting into here and Ikeep asking them.
(31:25):
Like you know, I give themhomework assignments and you
know, say, hey, you can do thisyourself next week.
And you know, each week theycome and they just want to talk
through it with somebody, havethat kind of third party sort of
, to bounce those ideas andfacilitate that conversation.
So they'd rather do it that waythan do the work themselves.
Right, well, that's fine andit's perfectly okay to have a
(31:49):
coach or consultant to do itthat way or to to.
We can accelerate that processand you know they do their
homework.
Come back, we review the work.
We, you know, poke holes or askquestions, we refine, we get it
to where we want and then wemove on to the next subject.
Right?
Tony (31:59):
Yeah, the big critical thing in having someone like you
is, you know, asking thing inhaving someone like you is, you
know, asking the questions tomake someone that's in our
position think right.
You can only think outside ofthe box so many ways.
So the great professionals areasking you those questions to
make you really think.
They're not here to tell youall the answers, right, they
(32:20):
want to make us think.
So it's like you know you getcaught in your own little
thought processes and you misstoo many things.
So it's like you know you get,you get caught in your own
little thought processes and you, you miss too many things.
So you have to find theprofessional like you that can
ask the right questions to makeyou properly think, to kind of
open up your thought process tofind that right person.
You know, cause you have it inyour own head.
(32:40):
I mean, typically us businessowners are going to, we kind of
know, but we just don't evenreally know what questions to
ask ourselves to pull out.
So you just got to constantly,you know, and when you interact
with someone like you that'sdoing this, that's who the best
people are.
In my opinion.
They're the ones that drive thequestions to make you really
think.
And then you're just like oh,why didn't?
Fletcher (32:59):
I do it, it's so simple.
Steer you in the rightdirection, right?
Yeah, steer you.
Tony (33:03):
It's just like and then you're like, oh, I mean.
Well, of course I should haveknown that.
Why didn't I already?
Fletcher (33:07):
know that we all need it.
I am a coach and I'm part oftwo forums of other business
leaders, so I have like three orfour different educational
outlets for myself, you know,and I learn things about hiring
from them.
Tony (33:27):
I'm like, oh, that's a really good idea.
I never thought about it.
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, that's the thing I mean.
We all have to continually beeducating ourselves, continue to
drive ourselves to be better.
I mean, if you want to bebetter than the competition, in
whatever industry you're in,right, you have to continually
be pushing yourself, pushing theenvelope, driving to be better.
How can I get this edge?
What edge do I have in have andyou know, in order to get the
clarity on what makes you better, what makes you different, why,
(33:48):
why are you going to be theleader in the industry?
How?
What can you do to attractagain, go back to that, attract
the right talent.
I mean, you have to be theperson that the talent wants to
come work for and you have toshow that talent.
If they are talent and theywant to go to the best company,
you have to show them why you'rethe best company, what you're
doing, working how you'reworking, better, harder to
(34:09):
become better than anybody elsein the market and in the
industry, right?
Fletcher (34:13):
Yeah, well, quality of life is a big one.
I mean, we're all here asentrepreneurs because we want a
better quality of life forourselves.
Well, everybody else wants thesame thing, right?
It's a human thing to wantimproved quality of life, right?
So you know, a, we want to justmaintain the quality of life we
have at minimum, right, nobodywants to go backwards in that.
(34:34):
And B, you know we want toadvance that.
And there's really, you know, afew levers there your ability to
care for your family and tospend time and be a great mother
, father, husband, daughter, son, whatever it is right.
(34:57):
And then the other piece ispersonal growth, and so there's
personal and professionaldevelopment, and I think that's
another thing that, as humans,we all share.
I think we I don't know too manyhumans that just love being
stagnant, right, who don't wantto grow in some way or another
or be challenged, right.
And then purpose ultimately sothat's kind of you know can we
(35:17):
fulfill our purpose?
And you know, work is just avehicle in many ways for us to
do that, and sometimes we dojobs.
That is just a vehicle in manyways for us to do that, and
sometimes we do jobs that youknow are not sexy or do not have
any obvious purpose to them,and it's a means to be able to
fulfill your purpose outside ofwork.
And that's fine, right, andthat's perfectly acceptable.
But if the work can help yougrow personally and
(35:39):
professionally and help youachieve your purpose, then you
know that's a much morerewarding situation.
And so, as employers, we needto be able to help people
connect those dots and helpenable that in them and show
them, hey, how this career isgoing to help them in those
areas.
Tony (35:58):
Yeah, and I think that's extremely important.
You know, I've taken a lot oftime trying to focus on my
purpose.
What's my purpose?
How am you know?
Where is my fulfillment?
Yeah, so I think those aregreat questions to ask.
And, yeah, I mean that's notsomething I really do.
A lot is ask my staff.
I mean I'm always asking whatare their goals?
How can I help them achievetheir goals, which I guess kind
(36:20):
of aligns, but I do love thatthat you just brought up I think
that's a great nugget isunderstanding each one of your
people's purpose and what offersthem fulfillment.
Kind of getting you know agroup buy-in and helps on that.
That's awesome.
So that's a great little tidbit.
Thanks for kicking me in onthat.
I like it.
Fletcher (36:40):
That was great.
Tony (36:43):
So, besides with the consulting, is that a different
structure or is that still this90 days to one year?
Do you do longer termconsulting?
Fletcher (36:54):
Yeah.
So it's all built into whetheryou are using our software
platform.
So we sell two things oursoftware platform, the
recruitment automation tools andassessment tools.
And then the second part is thedone for you, the fractional
talent acquisition.
The consulting is thefoundation of those things.
So, whether you're using thetools or you're using us to do
(37:16):
it for you type service right,the consulting is really wrapped
in and it's here, it's me onthese podcasts, it's on the
stage, it's people.
You're more than welcome tocall and take an hour of my time
.
I'm happy to share with anybody, or somebody on my team will be
happy to share with you.
One of our core values iseducate first, and what that
(37:36):
means is that we educateourselves first.
Like you mentioned earlier,we're constantly like how do we
learn more, get better at whatwe're doing?
We might call ourselves experts, but we still have a lot to
learn.
I mean, I'm just a human being,right?
I can always learn more.
I can always be better at whatI do, right.
And then we want to be able toshare best ideas and practices
(37:59):
with our clients, whicheverbucket they fall in, right.
So it's typically a free thing.
I don't do paid consulting gigs.
They're just a part of one ofthe two other services that we
do.
Tony (38:13):
That's awesome and I know we have a lot of contractors
that listen in here and soFletcher and me were discussing.
So Fletcher has dealt with over400 construction companies.
You know general contractorsand specialty contractors, so he
has plenty of experience in theconstruction space.
So fantastic resource here foranybody that's in this
construction space to reach outto him.
(38:35):
If you're looking to grow andexpand all the tools that you
have, if you're trying tocontinue with EOS or whatever
all the different things thatwe've talked about for growing
your business, organizing yourbusiness, you know, documenting
through everything so greatresource to have.
Fletcher, I'm so happy I wasable to get you on today.
If people want to reach out toyou, what's the best way to get
(38:57):
in touch with you?
Fletcher (38:58):
Yeah, so Fletcher Wimbush my name.
I was blessed with a veryunique name.
You can find me on LinkedIn orjust FletcherWinbushcom you can
check me out there.
Or DiscoveredATScom.
You can check out our hiringplatform there.
Feel free to reach out and I'malways happy to chat with you
(39:21):
and really no pressure man.
Anybody who wants to chat andjust says, hey, I got a problem
or I got a challenge or I got aquestion and I freely share.
You check me out on YouTube oror LinkedIn and I'm out on there
all the time sharing best ideasand practices.
Like there's no secrets.
The recipe book is yours tohave.
(39:42):
If you know some of our toolsor services could be helpful,
then I'm happy to.
We're happy to help you outthere and go further.
Tony (39:49):
That's awesome, yeah, and I think it's.
You know someone like you canbring it all together to someone
you know you can.
You'll go in a bunch of circlesand go down a bunch of rabbit
holes.
Somebody like you keeps them ontrack.
It's right to the nuts andbolts.
Fletcher (40:01):
Remember, I'm a high D , I like to get stuff done, man.
Tony (40:06):
Shorten the success timeline and I love it that
you're doing these shorterengagements.
So it's really about findingcompanies, helping them and
moving on, not leeching on andslow rolling these, making long,
long things.
He is basically saying he'sgoing to come in, educate you,
get your team up and runningonto the next one.
Obviously, you'll be back therefor support if you need it.
He offers the software so itcan help you keep yourself going
(40:29):
.
So fantastic, fletcher.
Thanks again so much forjoining us.
I think it's going to bebeneficial to everyone listening
today.
Awesome Thanks, tony.
Yes, sir, have a great day youtoo.
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