July 26, 2025 • 42 mins
Segment 1 with Johnathan Walton starts at 0:00.
Con artists are everywhere—your new boyfriend or girlfriend, your new neighbor or coworker, your new friend—and they don’t outsmart you; they out-feel you to get their hands on your money. Johnathan Walton is an Emmy-winning former TV reporter and current reality TV producer who has written and produced shows like Shark Tank. He is also the host, writer, and executive producer of the hit podcast Queen of the Con.
After he was scammed out of $100K, he wrote" Anatomy of a Con Artist: The 14 Red Flags to Spot Scammers, Grifters, and Thieves".
Segment 2 with Jamie Van Cuyk starts at 23:49.
Lets face it, Most small biz owners just suck at hiring. Typically we pick people that give good interview and we are in such a rush that we are quick to hire and slow to fire, this a big problem since turn over is so costly to every small business owner.
Jamie Van Cuyk is the owner and lead consultant of Growing Your Team®. She is expert in hiring and onboarding teams within small businesses.
Drawing from over 15 years of leadership experience, Jamie empowers women business owners and leaders to expand their unique businesses by teaching them to master the hiring process.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-small-business-radio-show--3306444/support.
Con artists are everywhere—your new boyfriend or girlfriend, your new neighbor or coworker, your new friend—and they don’t outsmart you; they out-feel you to get their hands on your money. Johnathan Walton is an Emmy-winning former TV reporter and current reality TV producer who has written and produced shows like Shark Tank. He is also the host, writer, and executive producer of the hit podcast Queen of the Con.
After he was scammed out of $100K, he wrote" Anatomy of a Con Artist: The 14 Red Flags to Spot Scammers, Grifters, and Thieves".
Segment 2 with Jamie Van Cuyk starts at 23:49.
Lets face it, Most small biz owners just suck at hiring. Typically we pick people that give good interview and we are in such a rush that we are quick to hire and slow to fire, this a big problem since turn over is so costly to every small business owner.
Jamie Van Cuyk is the owner and lead consultant of Growing Your Team®. She is expert in hiring and onboarding teams within small businesses.
Drawing from over 15 years of leadership experience, Jamie empowers women business owners and leaders to expand their unique businesses by teaching them to master the hiring process.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-small-business-radio-show--3306444/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Get ready for all the craziness of small business. It's
exactly that craziness that makes it exciting and totally unbelievable.
Small Business Radio is now on the air with your host,
Barry Moltz.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Well, thanks for joining this week's radio show. Remember this
is the final word in small business. For those keeping track,
this is show number eight hundred and forty one. Well,
if you've been listening to the show for any period
of time, you know I love a good grift because
it depends on getting the confidence of the other person,
which increasingly seems easier and easier if you promise them
(00:40):
something they want to believe. My next guest says that
con artists are everywhere your new boyfriend or girlfriend, your
new neighbor, coworker, your friend, and they don't outsmart you,
they outfeel you to get their hands on your money.
Jonathan Walton is an Emmy winning former TV reporter and
current reality has written and produced shows for NBC, ABC, HBO, Disney, Discovery,
(01:05):
and many others. He's also the host, writer, zecht producer
of the hit podcast Queen of the Con and It's
Free Time. He helps follow fellow scammers, sorry, helps helps
fellow victims of scammers get justice. Got new book outs
called Anatomy of a Con The fourteen red Flags to
spot scammers, grifters and thieves. Jonathan, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Thanks for having me. Yes, Anatomy of a con Artist.
That is the title of my book.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Sorry, I say Anatomy of a khn not con artists, right,
of course, which could be a different book entirely exactly. So,
how'd you get interested in this area?
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Oh, my gosh, that is a loaded question. It kind
of found me right. I never had any interest in
this area, and that was my problem. I was going
along with my business. I was producing a show maybe
you've heard of, Shark Tank for ABC. It was twenty
thirteen and I met this delightful new neighbor who entered
my life. Said she was from Ireland, had a weird accent.
(02:05):
She offered to help me, which is number one in
the book You Meet someone New. They offered a help,
and over the ensuing four years we got really close.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
She became lesser.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
I never had I'm a happily married gay man, so
there was nothing sexual. And she tricked me out of
close to one hundred thousand dollars with the craziest stories,
but they weren't crazy to me because you know, she
figured out who I was at my core. She got
me to love her like a sister. And Leah, you
said that earlier. Con Orderstone, I would smart you. They
(02:37):
outfeel you. They get you to care about them, because
once you're making decisions with your heart and not your head.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
You're screwed. And I was screwed. And she scanned.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
While she was scanning me, she was scamming dozens of
others around Los Angeles and around the world. I'd go
on to find nearly fifty victims in California and Florida
and Michigan and Maine and Tennessee, Lo and Behold across
the pond in the UK, in Northern Ireland.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
She is a professional con woman.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Police turned me away when I went to them, They said, there,
it's not a crime because I gave her the money.
There was nothing they could do. I launched my own investigation.
I uncovered all these other victims and scams. Eventually I
built a criminal case police could not ignore. I got her,
you know, arrested, charged, convicted here in Los Angeles. She
got out early. I'd made contact with a detective in
(03:28):
Northern Ireland who'd been looking for her found her because
I started the blog. She was hiding out in la
under a different name and loan behold. Over the past
seven years, I worked hard and it finally happened last
year she got extradited to Northern Ireland.
Speaker 4 (03:44):
So right now the.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Woman who scammed me and so many others is sitting
in a jail cell in Northern Ireland awaiting trial on
September first. And you know, my story got a lot
of publicity. I was in a lot of newspapers, a
lot of news magazines and news shows andres and hundreds
and hundreds of other victims started contacting me for help,
asking me they're inspired by what I did.
Speaker 4 (04:07):
They want to go after their con artists. What can
they do?
Speaker 3 (04:09):
So, you know, some people play golf on the weekends, artists.
So I started investigating all these cases, and almost immediately
I got the first dozen or twenty cases, and this
image emerged of these these red flags, these techniques that
every con artist uses.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
They're identical.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Yes, the name's changed, yes the nouns change, but the
techniques are identical. So I've identified fourteen red flags, and
that's in the book my book, Anatomy of a con Artist,
the fourteen red Flags to spot scammers, grifters, and thieves.
And I'm hoping to use what I've been through to
help people, Yes, help people who've been calmed, but more importantly,
(04:51):
help people never get calmed because they're so obvious once
I point them out, they're so obvious.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Yes, So before and before we get to the red flags.
You know, one of my friends was involved in a
con and I said, well, what was the first clue?
When he promised you fifty percent interest per year for
the next five years, that should have been your first clue.
If it's too good to be true, it probably is.
But the next question I want to ask you, Jonathan,
is that I watched this documentary I think was a
Netflix called con Mom. I don't know if you've heard
(05:19):
of it, But at what point did you realize I
mean again, they weed your way, they weed your way
into your heart. You know you're thinking with that, not
your head. At what point did you realize this was
a scam where the people outside your circle saying, listen, Jonathan,
this is a scam. You're thinking with your heart, not
with your head. Or what happened listen.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
I wish people were warning me. I wish, I wish.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
No. I didn't know what made me realize I had
gotten scammed. I found her in one lie. I caught
the first lie, and that scared me, and I started
looking into everything, and then I found another lie. And
I mean, hence the expression lies are like raps. You
find one, it means there are a thousand others hiding.
(06:06):
So I started just unpacking all of these lies, and
I confronted her about it, and she denied it. I
recorded the confrontation, and then I went on to start.
I started doing what I should have done from the beginning,
but I would never do, and most people never view
because it's impolite or rude. I started asking other people.
She was telling stories to other people. For instance, I
(06:26):
was a producer on Shark Tank. She was scamming people, saying, hey,
I can get you on shark Tank, and she trick
money out of them. Of course, and what business owner
doesn't want to be on a shark tank, right? But
I had no idea, and she would have these you know,
hottail parties, Invite me, invite these victims.
Speaker 4 (06:42):
She's scamming.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
She's using me to scam other people, and never once
did I ever question, well, what is she telling you?
This is what she's telling me. No one does that
because that's impolite, that would be rude.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
So Dovin, why is scamming so easy for people that
are professionals at this?
Speaker 3 (06:59):
I think there's a misconception that all of a sudden,
there's so many scams.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
That's not true at all.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
It's similar to what happened in the church with these
child sex allegations that came out and continue to come out.
You start to feel like, wow, this is a recent thing. No, no, no,
people are only talking about it now. This has been
happening in the church for hundreds and hundreds of years.
Now people are talking about it. Well, scams and con
(07:25):
artists are the same. Suddenly more people are talking about it.
They haven't been talking about it. It's the least reported
crime in America right now. My own mother got scammed,
never admitted it to anyone. After I went public with
my story, she kind of confessed to me what happened.
This was a family friend in our lives. I remember
the woman who scammed my mom. She'd come around a
(07:48):
Christmas and Thanksgiving and she not only scammed my mom,
she scammed everyone in my mom's social circle. But no
one's talking about it. And the reason that is I
read about this in the book. It has to do
with red Flag number thirteen PMI. It's the TMI technique.
You meet someone new, they all of a sudden start
trusting you, divulging.
Speaker 4 (08:07):
All their deep dark secrets. And that does two things.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Number One, you think, oh wow, this person must really think.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
Highly of me to trust me.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
And number two, I can trust them, So you start
divulging your deep dark secrets and you get really close.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
So here's the thing.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Their deep dark secrets are completely fabricated, so you're telling
your real secrets. So by the time the money exchanges
hands and you realize you were conned, you don't want
to go to police. You're gonna have to admit all
of this. What if they interview the con artists. Of course,
she's gonna divulge your deep dark secrets. You don't want
that in a court transcript or police report, god forbid,
(08:44):
in a news article. So you don't want to go.
You know, you don't say anything to anyone because they
got your number.
Speaker 4 (08:50):
And that's all social engineering. That was their plan. That's
how they keep you quiet.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
And your silence enables them to scam again and again
and again. I'm telling you there are millions of these
soulless people walking around scamming people. No one's talking about it.
They just move to another location, move to another location.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Is it also because of their shame around that you
actually got scammed and people you were tricked?
Speaker 4 (09:14):
That absolutely is part of it.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
That is you feel like, how could I fall in
with this stupid story when it wasn't stupid to you
at the time. Because again, con artists don't outsmart you,
they outfeel you. Mission number one of a con artists
when they meet you is to figure out what are
you lacking? What do you want? What do you need?
What is your dream? And they're gonna figure out how
to help you. Red Flag number one they offer to help.
(09:37):
Red Flag number two they are too kind, too quick, right,
They're gonna wine and dine you. They're gonna buy me gifts,
they're gonna they're gonna they're gonna seem like the nicest,
sweetest person in the world. And then Red Flag number
three starts drama, drama, drama. They start creating drama in
your life in their lives, and it's so easy to do.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
You can just.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Say, hey, do you know what Mike set about you?
He said you're a whore? All of a sudden, you
hate Mike. Mike never said that. But are you gonna
ask Mike you to confront like, no, Kansas, are You're
just gonna avoid Mike. And that leads to another red
flag isolation. They talk you out of being around people
who could talk to you, out of going along with
the scam minded.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
That to me, this is something they all do. They
isolate you, and it's so easy to do.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
And that's what cults do too. They isolate you. So
to tell you things absolute, let's focus on number two.
That you know they're giving you gifts, so they're really
nice to you. When everybody, when any anybody knew and
they're so nice to me, I always wonder you don't
know me well enough to be nice to me. Why
So I'm always suspicious when people are usually really nice.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Let's absolutely but remember we're dealing with we're dealing with professionals, right,
so by the time you need a con artist. Mike
con Artist was in her late forties when I met her.
She'd gotten busted dozens of times since she was a kid.
And each time they get busted, they get better. They
get busted, they get better, They're not going to make
that mistake again. By the time you meet a con artist,
(11:01):
they are fully formed and they're at the pinnacle of
their career.
Speaker 4 (11:05):
And you know, they fool you.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
They make you think they care about you, and they
seem like great, charismatic, loving fun people.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
And you know, you talk about red flag number three,
constant dramatic emergencies. It always seems like in a con hey,
I want to take care of the help of this person,
and there's always an emergency where they need money right
away and they're going to repay you.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
They promise, yeah, and sometimes they even do. And this
this leads to another.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Red flagg I talked about beat wedding. It's present in
a lot of investment scams, but it's also present in
romance scams. You'll see a little money at first. You know,
they'll give you a little money upfront, and that money
enables them to get your confidence. You think, oh, this
is a person of their worthy. I got some money,
so you feel free to give them more money. And
that's the plan. So they're very they come across ironically,
(11:51):
it's very trustworthy people when the opposite is true.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
You know, it's interesting. In this show con Mom, they
were talking about that. You know, supposedly she had hundreds
of millions of dollars and she had signed something to
invest in a company in Asia and the agent tradition
is to give back. But before that she actually invested
the money. They actually gave some of the money back
to her, right, actually gave her some money, right, because
it was traditional to give back to your benefactors even
(12:17):
before they gave anything to you. So that's you know,
that's the kind.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
Of that's three red flags right there. Right, that is
peak wedding, absolutely, but that is also a red flagger,
right about that?
Speaker 4 (12:27):
They all have red flog number twelve.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Stories from far away places, you know, stories from far
away places, they're hard to confirm, They're hard to prove
that they're true or not. So it's so much easier
to just accept them as fact.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
That's so true because actually in the show I'm talking about,
she claimed that she was the illegitimate daughter of the
Sultan of BERNEI.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
There you go, how do you disprove that exactly?
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Exactly, how do you disprove that? What to tell us
some of the other ones you think would be relevant.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Well, the other red flag that's huge these days and
is in that story you just told, the red flag
of technology. If somebody is using technology aka digital screens,
their iPhone screen, their computer screen, if they're texting you
screen grabs that they're showing you conversations of lawyers or
people who just emailed them or texted them, or they
(13:19):
have a screen grab of their bank balance to prove
they have the money.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
Those are all easily faked. My con artists, listen to this.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
He created an entire family from Ireland that did not exist.
She brought them to life over text. She created Google
accounts and would text herself as all these characters Tristan
and Patridge, Clark and all these these dear me, all
these Irish names, and she'd show me look what my
cousin Tristan texted me. I mean, how many times has
(13:48):
someone held up their phone say look what this? Do
you ever think it's They're not real, They're just a
character they invented and text themselves.
Speaker 4 (13:55):
No, but an artists do this. They use technology, digital.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
Screens, and my god, with AI, they can duplicate anyone's voice.
All you need is twenty seconds of someone talking and
you can create a voice that sounds exactly like it
and get it to say whatever you want. Same thing
with this, Yeah, I write about this in the book.
We all need a verbal password. In our family and
friend group. You need to have a verbal password. Don't
(14:21):
write this down anywhere I have a meeting and say listen,
my verbal password is elephants. So if you ever get
a call from me in an emergency and I need money,
I've been arrested, or I'm in the hospital or whatever,
just say what's the verbal password? And if I don't
know it, it's not me.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
We actually have a thing in our family. It's a
question and a response, right, So we have a verbal
that's a good one, and what's the question and then
what's the response? So it's almost two ways, right, So
you can't really guess what the answer is because you
have to ask the right question. So the book is
called a Nanomy of a con o is the fourteen
red flags spot scammers, grifters and thieves? What's the difference
between a scammer or grifter and a thief? Are they
(14:56):
the same well.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
I mean, they're all varying degrees of the same thing.
But I think the mistake that got me conned. You know,
one of my favorite movies of all time, Jurney Rotten
Scoundrel is Michael Kaine, Steve Martin. They play these con
artists on the French riviera. They're pretending to be royalty,
they're pretending to be doctors or US veterans or whatever,
and they scam all these women out untold fortunes. Watching
(15:18):
that movie as a kid, I've seen it a hundred times.
It's so funny and so well done. But never for
a second did I think that was based on true stories.
I just thought this is just Hollywood bs, you know,
And that hurt me. That's why I got conned, because
there was a misconception we all have, and certainly I.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
Had, that con artists are out there. They're out there.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
They approach you at the gas station with a story
of woe to get money. They approach you at the
convenience store. They're emailing you and calling you. You don't
know them, but that's not true.
Speaker 4 (15:50):
Con artists. You know, a con artist.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
Anyone listening to my voice right now, there is a
con artist in your life. They just haven't conned you
yet because the people you know, they are Connie, they're
not talking. I see this again and again and again.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
What about the investment cons right, Because you know, a
lot of people get involved in these, and I think
in many ways it's the person that invests who's really
partly to blame because they think they're special. They think
they have access to someone that's going to get them
twenty five or fifty percent return, and they don't question
it because they think that, well, you know, I found
this person, this is going to be great.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
And I go back to the saying in the book
again and again. Con artists don't outsmart you, they outfeel you.
Speaker 4 (16:33):
And greed.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
Greed is a powerful feeling. It's right up there with
love and hate and regret. It's a powerful feeling, and
that greed can blind you. So again, by the time
you need a professional con artist in an investment scam,
he or she has sailed a thousand times, got busted
a thousand times. Now you're talking to them in their
thirties or forties as an adults. They're so good. They
(16:55):
know how to do the smoke and mirrors. They know
how to use technology to show you that what they're
doing is legit. They're introducing you to important people who
can verify who they are and what they're saying.
Speaker 4 (17:05):
They figured it all out.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
So that expression you said at the beginning of this interview,
if it's too good to be true, it probably is. Absolutely,
But in order to see that, you cannot be blinded
by greed, you know, greed and desperation. We all want
to make money, rent and mortgages. They're off the cars.
It's hard to make a living now. So I get it.
We want to make money, I get it. But step
back and if three or four of these red flags
(17:29):
are there, don't do it.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Yeah, it's like all the people that invest in a
whole Bernie made off thing, I mean partly it was
really greed, right, it was, well, I'm going to get.
Speaker 4 (17:37):
Absolutely it's greed.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
And you know, I do feel sorry for those people
because they saw verification. Their friends were making money. It's
easy not to believe Bernie made off. You don't know
Bernie made off from Adam, you know. But you can
believe your aunt, your mother, your uncle, your brother, your friend,
who are telling you, hey, I'm making a killing investing
with he made off you should too, and that's what
(18:02):
Bernie made off, relight on this word of mouth, and
then he waved a lot of the scarcity. You know
that I write about Red Flag number seven, like he's
not letting anybody in. This is a special thing, you know,
no more new people. And the more you restrict that,
the more people want it.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
As my friend Michael Port says, you have the whole
velvet rope thing where people have to line up outside
if they want to.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
Get in, exactly.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
So it's all social engineering. Yeah, human nature. They can
artists use human nature against us.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
I assume that there are more and more scams now
also because of the Internet, where you know, it used
to be the Nigerian Princess or things like that, but
now there's parking tickets, they're tolling tickets. I mean, there's
all sorts of different kinds of scams going on where
people just you know, make sense because it's like part
of their life.
Speaker 4 (18:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
I agree, there is an upstick because of technology, but
in a lot of respects, those scams are way easier
to spot than the loving person in your life who
you care about. You never would just and that's when
they get you, what.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Do you think I want to go back? John, You've
I don't know. I guess You've met a lot of
these people. What motivates them? Do they just think, Hey,
this is a career and I'm just living off the land.
I'm just making money off for other people, or these
other people have a lot of money it's for me
to take. What do they think?
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Well, you know, I spent some time with an FBI
criminal profiler and we both arrived at the same conclusion.
A lot of these people are psychopaths. They are psychopaths.
They're not going to kill anybody, but in the same
way that you and I would enjoy a roller coaster ride,
because that's the common thing, right. They say, Boy, these
(19:40):
people are so skilled and talented and they just use
their talents for good. They could do such great things.
But no, no, no, that doesn't thrill that. They get
a godlike thrill from creating characters and worlds that do
not exist and watching with lee and delight as we
all fall victim to it. They are directing a movie
(20:00):
and casting victims like us as actors, and we don't know,
and that's the thrill for them.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
We don't know, we're doing what they want us to do.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
We're saying and reacting how they want us to react,
and they sit back and enjoy it all.
Speaker 4 (20:12):
So a lot of cons don't even involve money.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
My con understand a lot of people without getting any
money from them.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
It's just it's like a pat with a ball of yarn.
They just enjoy it.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
And so's so in the end, there's no guilt, not victim.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
None, for the for the scamrac there's no there's no guilt, feel,
no guilt none.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
They're csychopaths. Psychopaths don't feel guilt.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Is there is there anything the way they were brought up?
Is there any common thread of how why they turned
out this way?
Speaker 3 (20:44):
You know, there are some theories about childhood trauma, YadA, YadA, YadA,
But based on my experience and my study of this,
and I've investigated hundreds of cases over the past eight years, no,
You know, psychopaths are born and and very early on
a psycho path, especially a con artist's psychopath, and realizes
something's wrong with them as children because they don't have remorse,
(21:05):
they don't feel guilty, and they know they're getting ostracized,
so they quickly learn how to cover and overcompensate. So again,
by the time you meet a professional con artist's cycle path,
they perfected the craft of covering and appearing to be
good people. They know how to look like they have feelings,
but they have none. They have no empathy. They will
destroy you and move on and destroy one hundred other
(21:27):
people and move on until you stop them, until you
stand up and say no more and go after them.
And the sad thing is, and this is infuriating in
a lot of these cases when the victim goes to police.
Initially the police and the legal system are on the
side of the con artists because they know how to
manipulate things. Case in point, my con artists it took
(21:50):
two years to go to trial, right, and in that
two years leading up the trial, a month before the
criminal trial, he files a restraining order against me. See
a woman, I'm a man, and the DA tells me
there's nothing I can do. If a judge approves this
restraining order, you will not be allowed in court to testify.
Speaker 4 (22:07):
You can testify over video.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
Wow, And I'm like, that will destroy my cap That
was her plan. But listen, she wasn't dealing with a
chump because by that I was wise to the ways
of the world, and I never got you know, the
only way I found out about that restraining order, I
got a lawyer's advertisement in the mail before she served it.
So I just avoided service, which is illegal. I just
(22:30):
went out the back lay. You know, I'm a gay man.
I went out the back lay stocker. And she never
served it, and the trials started without that restraining order
ever coming to life.
Speaker 4 (22:39):
But it almost said, man, she almost got away.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
But they're brilliant, brilliant people at using lawyers and the
law and loopholes to get away and make you look
like you're the aggressor. I'm the victim.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Well, it's a great book everyone should read. Anatomy of
a con owners, The fourteen Red Flags spot scammers, grifters,
and thieves. Jonathan Walter, working people. We'll catch up with.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
You I Jonathan Walton dot com. Or I have a
new podcast out now called Cocaine Air, which you know,
this is what happens when you get scammed. The largest
cocaine flyer for Pablo Restivar only became a drug smuggler
because he was a victim of checong artists and it
changed his life in the same way it changed my life,
(23:20):
but we're just let in different directions. Cocaine Air available anywhere.
Podcasts are available.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Jathan, thanks for joining us. This small business radio show
will be read back.
Speaker 5 (23:30):
Do you still have great expectations for the great recession?
Speaker 6 (23:33):
Barry can show you how to let go of failure
and bounce to get ready.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
For that next great success. Go to www dot Barrymolts
dot com.
Speaker 5 (23:41):
Barry will show you how to get crazy and achieve
your business success.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
Stick around to get your small business unstuck. More of
Small Business Radio with Barry Moles.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
All right, so let's face it, most small business owners
just suck at hiring. Typically, we pick people that give
good interview and we are in such a rush that
we are so quick to hire and so slow to fire.
This is a big problem since turnover in a small
business is really expensive. My guest is Jamie Van Kik,
(24:20):
who's the owner and lead consultant of Growing Your Team.
She is an expert in hiring and onboarding teams within
small businesses. Drawing from over fifteen years of leadership experience.
Jamie empowers women business owners and leaders to expand their
unique businesses by teaching them the master how to master
the hiring process. On a personal side, Jamie lives in
(24:41):
Florida and is a hobby wine maker. Well, Jamie, that's
the first thing I want to talk about. Okay, So
what kind of wine do you like to make?
Speaker 3 (24:51):
So?
Speaker 5 (24:51):
Typically, dry red wines are my favorite to make. You know,
it's great to always have a supply of.
Speaker 6 (24:58):
Wine on hand.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Agree, So what kind of grape?
Speaker 5 (25:03):
So we we typically make pina noir or a cabinet
nice nice?
Speaker 2 (25:08):
All right? Well, well now back to business. Why do
you think small business owners are so bad at hiring?
Speaker 5 (25:15):
Ooh, that's a great question, Barry, And that's actually part
of the thing that led me into starting growing your team.
One of the things I learned was most small business
owners never hired before they were doing it within their
own business, or if they did hire, they were doing
it while they were in large corporate companies where they
had HR departments, senior leaders, peer managers and all the
(25:39):
stuff that was guiding them through the process. So while
they were conducting interviews and making decisions.
Speaker 6 (25:44):
They weren't doing it alone.
Speaker 5 (25:46):
Where now they're in their own business and they had
to do everything from define the job figure out what
to ask, understand the whole hr process of hiring, and
they're just realizing there's a lot of pieces to the
puzzle that they didn't know that they didn't know. Most
people even yeah, no, keep going. I say, most people,
even in corporate learn to become good at hiring through
(26:08):
trial and error. But they're doing it on someone else's dimes.
Then when you're in your own business, you're doing it
on your own dime. So it's very painful those mistakes.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
So what does the hiring process usually look like in
a small business where they have no experience? Who do
they hire?
Speaker 6 (26:22):
Yeah? So who do they hire? So?
Speaker 5 (26:24):
Typically they're well, they're hiring someone to support them in
their business. A lot of small businesses are going to
hire those either junior them or those assistants that are
going to help them be able to do their jobs.
The problem is they're hiring the person that they connect
with on a personal level first, or sometimes they're just
hiring the first person that comes along because they say,
I don't have time for this. This person seems great.
(26:46):
Let me get them in the door because I just
need a button that seat to help me.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
They seem nice, Yes, yeah, how does that interview on
they seem nice?
Speaker 6 (26:55):
Yes.
Speaker 5 (26:56):
I remember one of my first interviews in corporate I
love the gentlemen, and I interviewed and my peer manager
asked me in the elevator on our way back up
to our desks, what do you think?
Speaker 6 (27:07):
And I said, I love him. I want to hire him.
And then she asked the most important question, can he
do the job?
Speaker 3 (27:12):
Right?
Speaker 5 (27:13):
And I actually sat there and I said, I thought
for a second, and I was just like, I don't know.
And that was my lesson learned of just because you
like someone doesn't mean they can actually do the job
you're hiring for.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
You know, you said something really important, which I wholeheartedly
believe after being in a small business for so many years,
that we're in such a rush to hire and we
just want to butt in that seat, yes, and we
don't think about listen, there's really a cost to training
this person and for this person not to work out.
Speaker 6 (27:43):
Yes, there's a huge cost to that.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
So do you believe that people are slow to hire
and quick to fire. I'm sorry that we should really
be slow to hire and quick the fire.
Speaker 5 (27:54):
So I think we definitely should, but I think most
people interpret that wrong. So I think a lot of
people here slow to hire the here hold off on
making that hiring decision as long as possible, so they
let fear get in the way, They let financial things
get in their way where they're like, ooh, maybe next
month they'll have a downturn and I won't be able
to afford this hire, So let me see how I
(28:15):
do next month, So they put off making the hiring
decisions that they actually need for their business. What slow
to hire really means is make sure you're doing your
due diligence that so the person you're bringing on is
the right person, and.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Then yeah, no, no, no, no, keep going.
Speaker 5 (28:33):
And then when like quick to fire, they're like, as
soon as the first thing goes wrong, they're like, that
person needs to be out the door. Which we do
need to let go of people who aren't doing their job.
The problem is many small business owners we overlook this
whole thing that you actually need to onboard and train
a team member. That we can't expect team members to
know their job if we don't actually tell them how
to do their job inside our organization. So a lot
(28:55):
of times people are quick to fire people who are
still in that learning process.
Speaker 4 (29:00):
Right.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
I mean, people really cannot figure it out themselves. They've
got to be trained. But I also find people everyone
knows who should be fired and they just ignore it,
right because they don't want to go out and hire
someone else. And they say, well, you know, the devil
we know is they're better than the devil we don't know.
And so they just put it off, put it off,
and then they have to men to themselves Jamie that
they screwed up, they hire the wrong person.
Speaker 5 (29:22):
Yeah, yep. And that's one of those things of everything
we do in business. We can check every box, cross,
every ted, dot, every eye, and sometimes when we get
into that, we're like, ooh, maybe this was a mistake
or things didn't work out exactly as I thought.
Speaker 6 (29:37):
So we can only do our best.
Speaker 5 (29:39):
But they're even when we say we can look back
and say this person was right with everything we've been
through in the interview process. They answered all the questions right,
they showed that they had the right experience. But now
there's just something not working out that we're here, or
we're learning something new.
Speaker 6 (29:52):
That happens.
Speaker 5 (29:53):
But we need to be willing to accept that we
made mistakes and remove people from our team. When they're
not worth their paycheck. Because yes, I hear all the time.
I don't want to repeat the hiring process, so I'm
just going to struggle through. But when we have people
on our team that are not right, not only are
they impacting things like possibly our customers because they're have
(30:16):
poor customer service, they're making mistakes or things like that,
they're impacting us because bad employees are on our minds
all the time. And then if you have more than
one team member, your other team members are picking up
the slack of that bad employee and so they're feeling
the drain. So you're you are more likely to lose
your good team members if you keep bad people on
(30:38):
your team.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
Yeah, I think that's true. It's interesting are people worth
their paycheck? And when people aren't? I call that the
cringe factor that every single time you sign their paycheck,
course not physically, but every single payer, you go, God,
I can't believe I'm paying that person that amount of
money to basically do nothing. How long, Jamie, do you
give someone to actually learn their job and to see
(31:00):
if it's going to work out.
Speaker 6 (31:03):
Oh, that's a great question.
Speaker 5 (31:04):
So first you should have an onboarding plan created before
that team member ever starts, so you should know roughly
what that onboarding schedule is going to look like. And
one of the things I remind small business owners all
the time is typically you're hiring because you lack time
in your business and you need extra hands.
Speaker 6 (31:21):
So we need to recognize that you don't have time.
Speaker 5 (31:24):
To train someone on everything right away because you still
have other things that need to get done in your business.
So a lot of times the onboarding plans that we
create can last anywhere from three to eight weeks, depending
on what needs.
Speaker 6 (31:38):
To be trained.
Speaker 5 (31:39):
And the way we structure those plans is you train
them on something or then they can start doing that
part of their job, and then you keep building on
it until they are fully trained on everything that they
need to do. So depending on what skills they're coming
in with, how complex your systems are, what they need
to know that is company specific knowledge versus no knowledge
(32:00):
they can gain elsewhere, it's all going to impact that
training schedule. How much time you have to give to
that team member is going to impact that training schedule.
And by knowing that ahead of time and creating goals
around that to say, Okay, by this date, they should
know this part of their job. By this date, they
should know this part of their job. It really sets
that expectation of Okay, they're not going to come in
(32:21):
learn everything day one and day two be perfect at things. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
So yeah, yeah, I agree. I think that we also
have expectations that the next person we're going to hire
is going to be the savior. This is the person
coming in a white horse that oh, when so and
so is here, everything's going to be great, And we
don't train them and as you say, we don't set
clear expectations and it ends up being a problem.
Speaker 6 (32:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (32:44):
One of the things I would say is the biggest
problem with that is we hire experts and then we
think we don't have to train them because they're experts.
And we say, well, this person has been doing this
type of job for ten years and I say great,
But they've never done it in your company. They don't
know your systems, they don't know your processes, they don't
know your expectations. So they know how to do the job,
(33:06):
they just don't know how to do it that in
a way that's going to make you happy yet. So
that's really what we have to train on, is what's
going to make you as the business owner happy, and
sometimes it's minor things that they're doing something slightly different
and it annoys you, but we refuse to correct that behavior.
So we train our team members that what they're doing
is right, while it's annoying us every time they do
(33:29):
it that way. So we need to take that responsibility
to say, I need to teach them how to do
things in the way that's going to make me happy.
I need to teach them what makes our customers happy,
because this is why our customers hire us or buy
our products or whatever it is. So we need to
teach them our expectations.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
You know, that's really interesting because I find again when
I was a small business owner, I said, well, I'm
paying all this money for this person. They should know
how to do the job already. That's what I'm paying for.
And what you're saying is no, every situation they come into,
someone's got to get trained in how your company does it.
Speaker 6 (34:05):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 5 (34:06):
If you think accounting is accounting, bookkeeping is bookkeeping unless
someone is cooking the books. Like it's the same everywhere.
But how do you like your reports? Do they need
to sit down and go over the reports? With you
because you're not a numbers person or are you a
numbers person that they can just send you the reports
and you're like, oh, I got it, Okay, I see
what's going on.
Speaker 6 (34:25):
I can see our projections.
Speaker 5 (34:26):
So it's like some of those things where it's like
they're doing the same work, but how do you need
to receive it in order to understand the work that
they're doing?
Speaker 2 (34:35):
And what should owner's expectations be they go to hire someone?
How often do you think there should be expect to
be successful? I mean successful to me is someone that
stays a couple of years, Like let's be realistic, and
so is that a fifty to fifty kind of thing?
And that says, hey, I'm doing the hiring processing right,
or if I'm doing the hiring pressing right, eighty percent
(34:55):
of the people need to stay at least two years.
Speaker 5 (34:58):
I would say, if you're doing it right, we're probably
looking at least eighty percent staying at least two years.
We are in a time period where three years with
a company is actually a pretty long tenure. So you know,
so when we hire people and we expect them to
be there five ten years until retirements, that's having really
really high expectations. And yes, there are employees out there
(35:19):
that do stay really long time, but three years is
long retention in this time period. But I would say,
if you're hiring rights, you're having your employees stay at
least two years.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
How do you get the message out to small business
owners that there really is you know, an ROI to
retraining people versus rehiring them.
Speaker 5 (35:42):
Yes, so I think it was just this is actually
this is one of my favorite analogies that I like
to give to help people see the reason why retraining works.
So I want you to think of your favorite movie,
a movie that you've seen multiple times.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
Jerem maguire.
Speaker 5 (35:58):
All right, soondecond time you watched that movie, I can
almost guarantee that you picked up on stuff that you
did not pick up on the first time.
Speaker 6 (36:06):
Sure, that movie didn't change.
Speaker 5 (36:09):
That movie's exactly the same as when you watched it
the first time, but your base knowledge changed.
Speaker 6 (36:15):
So you win.
Speaker 5 (36:16):
In at first, you didn't know anything besides what you
saw on the coming attractions, so you can think that's
like your job post. Now you win, and you learned
as much as you could absorb the first time.
Speaker 6 (36:25):
Even yourself, you didn't know.
Speaker 5 (36:28):
You weren't catching everything the first time because your your
eyes think you're seeing everything. Your brain thinks that's processing everything,
but you miss things that you didn't know you were missing.
Then the second time, because you didn't have to learn
in everything, you were able to catch things. You were
able to understand deeper meanings of certain parts of that movie.
You were able to see, Oh, this thing that happened
(36:48):
in this scene, predict something that's going to happen later.
But I didn't know that. Yeah the first time I
watched it, But now I'm able to see that. I'm
able to see that chain of events. So nothing changed,
but you come out with so much more information that
second time.
Speaker 6 (37:03):
And that's what it's like. When you retrain your employees.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
They're not they'll go ahead and keep going.
Speaker 5 (37:08):
I say, yeah, they're not purposely not doing things. Sometimes
they just need that extra training to fully absorb everything
that they're supposed to know.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
How do you make the decision? And I find this
hard for a lot of small business owners. When it
makes sense to invest in retraining them versus that this
isn't working out, I just got to let them go
and move on.
Speaker 5 (37:29):
Yeah, So I say look at the pattern of behavior.
So if a team member did something wrong the first
time and you go and correct it, do they improve?
Are they showing that they are absorbing the feedback and
trying to get better. Sometimes we have to retrain multiple times.
(37:51):
So are they getting better than next time? Okay, they
made ten mistakes the first time they were doing this,
but the second time I can see that they listen
to the feedback and they only need five. Okay, now
we need to make sure we focus on those five things,
because maybe there's only so much they can absorb at
a time of what those changes need to be and
why those changes are important. But if we're not seeing
the change, if we are telling them, that's strung. If
(38:13):
we're telling them what needs to change and why it
needs to change and they're still making the same mistakes
over and over again, and every time you go to
talk to them you're having to you feel like you're
talking to them for the first time about these issues.
Speaker 6 (38:27):
That's a sign that they're never going to get it.
Speaker 5 (38:30):
Or it could be that they started making improvements and
then they reach a point where it's kind of they
plateau and.
Speaker 6 (38:34):
You need that.
Speaker 5 (38:36):
Next level of growth and improvement in that area, but
they're showing you that they can't do it, that they've
reached their plateau area and nothing's getting better from there.
So you really have to invest in training. You have
to retrain them and see how they're improving. Are they
making the needed changes because they understand the additional information
(38:58):
that you're giving them. They understand and that what they
did was wrong and they want to fix it.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
You know, I find this particularly difficult in an area
where someone has a great attitude, where their attitude fits
into the culture of a company, but they just don't
have they're just not learning, and it's very, very difficult
to make those kind of cuts. What do you think
it is?
Speaker 6 (39:18):
Those are difficult.
Speaker 5 (39:19):
But if you have a team member that has a
great attitude, but you're constantly being giving them that honest feedback, Okay,
this is not up to par, this is not up
to power, This is what needs doing it in that
nice way of this is not up to par, this
is what needs to change. Let's help you, Let's help
you get there, versus just yelling.
Speaker 6 (39:35):
At them that things are wrong.
Speaker 5 (39:37):
Even if they have that great attitude and you're doing
everything from really constructive feedback place to help them grow.
They're going to reach a point where they're going to
start feeling like they're a failure, and even if on
the outside they have that really positive attitude, they're going
to start feeling kind of overwhelmed and that they don't
(39:58):
belong and maybe this isn't the right PA place for them.
I remember having a conversation with a team member years
ago and we were going through things and there just
wasn't a connection, like we weren't able to get to
that next level of things and we were I was
just really I was a new manager and I was
just kind of really frustrated because I was like, I'm trying.
I'm trying so hard because this team member was, you know,
(40:20):
a great team member personality wise and everything, and I
really wanted her to continue on my team. But one
day I just blurted out, maybe this isn't the right
job for you. And at first I was like, oh
my gosh, like how did I just say that?
Speaker 6 (40:33):
And that employee came.
Speaker 5 (40:34):
Back to me like a day or two later and said,
I want to thank you so much for saying that,
because I thought about it, and you're right, this isn't
the job for me. So you know, I'm going to
give you about two months notice because I want to
go and I need to find something else that I'm
actually enjoying and doing. And she goes, if you find someone,
I'll leave earlier. But that way you have someone covering
(40:55):
these accounts. It's the best that I can do until
you find someone to replace me. Because they realized that
it wasn't the right place for them. But sometimes people
need to hear that, and I feel like when we
have honest conversations with our team members, we can help
them see that if they're constantly failing, this isn't the
right place for them. It's going to drain on them
(41:16):
just as much as it's going to drain on us.
Speaker 2 (41:19):
I mean, I personally experienced that I've been fired twice
in my career, and each time I was relieved. Yeah,
quite honestly, because it wasn't the right place. So Jamie,
I appreciate you being on the show. Where can people
catch up with you and the work that you're doing.
Speaker 5 (41:33):
Yeah, you can find me at growingyour Team dot com.
There you'll find opportunities to schedule a calls, learn about
our services, get access to our podcast, or follow us
on our social media channels.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
Jamie, thanks so much, and I want to thank everyone
for joining this week's radio show. And I want to
thank our staff, our book can producer, Sarah schaffern Our
soundead or Ethan Moltz. If you're serious about me more
successful in twenty twenty five, give me a call. I've
said a private line seven seven three eighty three, have
an eight two five zero. Email me at Barry at
Molts dot com. Remember, love everyone, trust the few, and
(42:06):
pal your own canoe. Have a profitable and passionate week.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
If you can find Barrymoltz on the web at Barymolts
dot com or more episodes of Small Business Radio at
small Business radioshow dot com
Get ready for all the craziness of small business. It's
exactly that craziness that makes it exciting and totally unbelievable.
Small Business Radio is now on the air with your host,
Barry Moltz.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Well, thanks for joining this week's radio show. Remember this
is the final word in small business. For those keeping track,
this is show number eight hundred and forty one. Well,
if you've been listening to the show for any period
of time, you know I love a good grift because
it depends on getting the confidence of the other person,
which increasingly seems easier and easier if you promise them
(00:40):
something they want to believe. My next guest says that
con artists are everywhere your new boyfriend or girlfriend, your
new neighbor, coworker, your friend, and they don't outsmart you,
they outfeel you to get their hands on your money.
Jonathan Walton is an Emmy winning former TV reporter and
current reality has written and produced shows for NBC, ABC, HBO, Disney, Discovery,
(01:05):
and many others. He's also the host, writer, zecht producer
of the hit podcast Queen of the Con and It's
Free Time. He helps follow fellow scammers, sorry, helps helps
fellow victims of scammers get justice. Got new book outs
called Anatomy of a Con The fourteen red Flags to
spot scammers, grifters and thieves. Jonathan, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Thanks for having me. Yes, Anatomy of a con Artist.
That is the title of my book.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Sorry, I say Anatomy of a khn not con artists, right,
of course, which could be a different book entirely exactly. So,
how'd you get interested in this area?
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Oh, my gosh, that is a loaded question. It kind
of found me right. I never had any interest in
this area, and that was my problem. I was going
along with my business. I was producing a show maybe
you've heard of, Shark Tank for ABC. It was twenty
thirteen and I met this delightful new neighbor who entered
my life. Said she was from Ireland, had a weird accent.
(02:05):
She offered to help me, which is number one in
the book You Meet someone New. They offered a help,
and over the ensuing four years we got really close.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
She became lesser.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
I never had I'm a happily married gay man, so
there was nothing sexual. And she tricked me out of
close to one hundred thousand dollars with the craziest stories,
but they weren't crazy to me because you know, she
figured out who I was at my core. She got
me to love her like a sister. And Leah, you
said that earlier. Con Orderstone, I would smart you. They
(02:37):
outfeel you. They get you to care about them, because
once you're making decisions with your heart and not your head.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
You're screwed. And I was screwed. And she scanned.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
While she was scanning me, she was scamming dozens of
others around Los Angeles and around the world. I'd go
on to find nearly fifty victims in California and Florida
and Michigan and Maine and Tennessee, Lo and Behold across
the pond in the UK, in Northern Ireland.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
She is a professional con woman.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Police turned me away when I went to them, They said, there,
it's not a crime because I gave her the money.
There was nothing they could do. I launched my own investigation.
I uncovered all these other victims and scams. Eventually I
built a criminal case police could not ignore. I got her,
you know, arrested, charged, convicted here in Los Angeles. She
got out early. I'd made contact with a detective in
(03:28):
Northern Ireland who'd been looking for her found her because
I started the blog. She was hiding out in la
under a different name and loan behold. Over the past
seven years, I worked hard and it finally happened last
year she got extradited to Northern Ireland.
Speaker 4 (03:44):
So right now the.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Woman who scammed me and so many others is sitting
in a jail cell in Northern Ireland awaiting trial on
September first. And you know, my story got a lot
of publicity. I was in a lot of newspapers, a
lot of news magazines and news shows andres and hundreds
and hundreds of other victims started contacting me for help,
asking me they're inspired by what I did.
Speaker 4 (04:07):
They want to go after their con artists. What can
they do?
Speaker 3 (04:09):
So, you know, some people play golf on the weekends, artists.
So I started investigating all these cases, and almost immediately
I got the first dozen or twenty cases, and this
image emerged of these these red flags, these techniques that
every con artist uses.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
They're identical.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Yes, the name's changed, yes the nouns change, but the
techniques are identical. So I've identified fourteen red flags, and
that's in the book my book, Anatomy of a con Artist,
the fourteen red Flags to spot scammers, grifters, and thieves.
And I'm hoping to use what I've been through to
help people, Yes, help people who've been calmed, but more importantly,
(04:51):
help people never get calmed because they're so obvious once
I point them out, they're so obvious.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Yes, So before and before we get to the red flags.
You know, one of my friends was involved in a
con and I said, well, what was the first clue?
When he promised you fifty percent interest per year for
the next five years, that should have been your first clue.
If it's too good to be true, it probably is.
But the next question I want to ask you, Jonathan,
is that I watched this documentary I think was a
Netflix called con Mom. I don't know if you've heard
(05:19):
of it, But at what point did you realize I
mean again, they weed your way, they weed your way
into your heart. You know you're thinking with that, not
your head. At what point did you realize this was
a scam where the people outside your circle saying, listen, Jonathan,
this is a scam. You're thinking with your heart, not
with your head. Or what happened listen.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
I wish people were warning me. I wish, I wish.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
No. I didn't know what made me realize I had
gotten scammed. I found her in one lie. I caught
the first lie, and that scared me, and I started
looking into everything, and then I found another lie. And
I mean, hence the expression lies are like raps. You
find one, it means there are a thousand others hiding.
(06:06):
So I started just unpacking all of these lies, and
I confronted her about it, and she denied it. I
recorded the confrontation, and then I went on to start.
I started doing what I should have done from the beginning,
but I would never do, and most people never view
because it's impolite or rude. I started asking other people.
She was telling stories to other people. For instance, I
(06:26):
was a producer on Shark Tank. She was scamming people, saying, hey,
I can get you on shark Tank, and she trick
money out of them. Of course, and what business owner
doesn't want to be on a shark tank, right? But
I had no idea, and she would have these you know,
hottail parties, Invite me, invite these victims.
Speaker 4 (06:42):
She's scamming.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
She's using me to scam other people, and never once
did I ever question, well, what is she telling you?
This is what she's telling me. No one does that
because that's impolite, that would be rude.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
So Dovin, why is scamming so easy for people that
are professionals at this?
Speaker 3 (06:59):
I think there's a misconception that all of a sudden,
there's so many scams.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
That's not true at all.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
It's similar to what happened in the church with these
child sex allegations that came out and continue to come out.
You start to feel like, wow, this is a recent thing. No, no, no,
people are only talking about it now. This has been
happening in the church for hundreds and hundreds of years.
Now people are talking about it. Well, scams and con
(07:25):
artists are the same. Suddenly more people are talking about it.
They haven't been talking about it. It's the least reported
crime in America right now. My own mother got scammed,
never admitted it to anyone. After I went public with
my story, she kind of confessed to me what happened.
This was a family friend in our lives. I remember
the woman who scammed my mom. She'd come around a
(07:48):
Christmas and Thanksgiving and she not only scammed my mom,
she scammed everyone in my mom's social circle. But no
one's talking about it. And the reason that is I
read about this in the book. It has to do
with red Flag number thirteen PMI. It's the TMI technique.
You meet someone new, they all of a sudden start
trusting you, divulging.
Speaker 4 (08:07):
All their deep dark secrets. And that does two things.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Number One, you think, oh wow, this person must really think.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
Highly of me to trust me.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
And number two, I can trust them, So you start
divulging your deep dark secrets and you get really close.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
So here's the thing.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Their deep dark secrets are completely fabricated, so you're telling
your real secrets. So by the time the money exchanges
hands and you realize you were conned, you don't want
to go to police. You're gonna have to admit all
of this. What if they interview the con artists. Of course,
she's gonna divulge your deep dark secrets. You don't want
that in a court transcript or police report, god forbid,
(08:44):
in a news article. So you don't want to go.
You know, you don't say anything to anyone because they
got your number.
Speaker 4 (08:50):
And that's all social engineering. That was their plan. That's
how they keep you quiet.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
And your silence enables them to scam again and again
and again. I'm telling you there are millions of these
soulless people walking around scamming people. No one's talking about it.
They just move to another location, move to another location.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Is it also because of their shame around that you
actually got scammed and people you were tricked?
Speaker 4 (09:14):
That absolutely is part of it.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
That is you feel like, how could I fall in
with this stupid story when it wasn't stupid to you
at the time. Because again, con artists don't outsmart you,
they outfeel you. Mission number one of a con artists
when they meet you is to figure out what are
you lacking? What do you want? What do you need?
What is your dream? And they're gonna figure out how
to help you. Red Flag number one they offer to help.
(09:37):
Red Flag number two they are too kind, too quick, right,
They're gonna wine and dine you. They're gonna buy me gifts,
they're gonna they're gonna they're gonna seem like the nicest,
sweetest person in the world. And then Red Flag number
three starts drama, drama, drama. They start creating drama in
your life in their lives, and it's so easy to do.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
You can just.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Say, hey, do you know what Mike set about you?
He said you're a whore? All of a sudden, you
hate Mike. Mike never said that. But are you gonna
ask Mike you to confront like, no, Kansas, are You're
just gonna avoid Mike. And that leads to another red
flag isolation. They talk you out of being around people
who could talk to you, out of going along with
the scam minded.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
That to me, this is something they all do. They
isolate you, and it's so easy to do.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
And that's what cults do too. They isolate you. So
to tell you things absolute, let's focus on number two.
That you know they're giving you gifts, so they're really
nice to you. When everybody, when any anybody knew and
they're so nice to me, I always wonder you don't
know me well enough to be nice to me. Why
So I'm always suspicious when people are usually really nice.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Let's absolutely but remember we're dealing with we're dealing with professionals, right,
so by the time you need a con artist. Mike
con Artist was in her late forties when I met her.
She'd gotten busted dozens of times since she was a kid.
And each time they get busted, they get better. They
get busted, they get better, They're not going to make
that mistake again. By the time you meet a con artist,
(11:01):
they are fully formed and they're at the pinnacle of
their career.
Speaker 4 (11:05):
And you know, they fool you.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
They make you think they care about you, and they
seem like great, charismatic, loving fun people.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
And you know, you talk about red flag number three,
constant dramatic emergencies. It always seems like in a con hey,
I want to take care of the help of this person,
and there's always an emergency where they need money right
away and they're going to repay you.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
They promise, yeah, and sometimes they even do. And this
this leads to another.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Red flagg I talked about beat wedding. It's present in
a lot of investment scams, but it's also present in
romance scams. You'll see a little money at first. You know,
they'll give you a little money upfront, and that money
enables them to get your confidence. You think, oh, this
is a person of their worthy. I got some money,
so you feel free to give them more money. And
that's the plan. So they're very they come across ironically,
(11:51):
it's very trustworthy people when the opposite is true.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
You know, it's interesting. In this show con Mom, they
were talking about that. You know, supposedly she had hundreds
of millions of dollars and she had signed something to
invest in a company in Asia and the agent tradition
is to give back. But before that she actually invested
the money. They actually gave some of the money back
to her, right, actually gave her some money, right, because
it was traditional to give back to your benefactors even
(12:17):
before they gave anything to you. So that's you know,
that's the kind.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
Of that's three red flags right there. Right, that is
peak wedding, absolutely, but that is also a red flagger,
right about that?
Speaker 4 (12:27):
They all have red flog number twelve.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Stories from far away places, you know, stories from far
away places, they're hard to confirm, They're hard to prove
that they're true or not. So it's so much easier
to just accept them as fact.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
That's so true because actually in the show I'm talking about,
she claimed that she was the illegitimate daughter of the
Sultan of BERNEI.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
There you go, how do you disprove that exactly?
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Exactly, how do you disprove that? What to tell us
some of the other ones you think would be relevant.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Well, the other red flag that's huge these days and
is in that story you just told, the red flag
of technology. If somebody is using technology aka digital screens,
their iPhone screen, their computer screen, if they're texting you
screen grabs that they're showing you conversations of lawyers or
people who just emailed them or texted them, or they
(13:19):
have a screen grab of their bank balance to prove
they have the money.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
Those are all easily faked. My con artists, listen to this.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
He created an entire family from Ireland that did not exist.
She brought them to life over text. She created Google
accounts and would text herself as all these characters Tristan
and Patridge, Clark and all these these dear me, all
these Irish names, and she'd show me look what my
cousin Tristan texted me. I mean, how many times has
(13:48):
someone held up their phone say look what this? Do
you ever think it's They're not real, They're just a
character they invented and text themselves.
Speaker 4 (13:55):
No, but an artists do this. They use technology, digital.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
Screens, and my god, with AI, they can duplicate anyone's voice.
All you need is twenty seconds of someone talking and
you can create a voice that sounds exactly like it
and get it to say whatever you want. Same thing
with this, Yeah, I write about this in the book.
We all need a verbal password. In our family and
friend group. You need to have a verbal password. Don't
(14:21):
write this down anywhere I have a meeting and say listen,
my verbal password is elephants. So if you ever get
a call from me in an emergency and I need money,
I've been arrested, or I'm in the hospital or whatever,
just say what's the verbal password? And if I don't
know it, it's not me.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
We actually have a thing in our family. It's a
question and a response, right, So we have a verbal
that's a good one, and what's the question and then
what's the response? So it's almost two ways, right, So
you can't really guess what the answer is because you
have to ask the right question. So the book is
called a Nanomy of a con o is the fourteen
red flags spot scammers, grifters and thieves? What's the difference
between a scammer or grifter and a thief? Are they
(14:56):
the same well.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
I mean, they're all varying degrees of the same thing.
But I think the mistake that got me conned. You know,
one of my favorite movies of all time, Jurney Rotten
Scoundrel is Michael Kaine, Steve Martin. They play these con
artists on the French riviera. They're pretending to be royalty,
they're pretending to be doctors or US veterans or whatever,
and they scam all these women out untold fortunes. Watching
(15:18):
that movie as a kid, I've seen it a hundred times.
It's so funny and so well done. But never for
a second did I think that was based on true stories.
I just thought this is just Hollywood bs, you know,
And that hurt me. That's why I got conned, because
there was a misconception we all have, and certainly I.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
Had, that con artists are out there. They're out there.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
They approach you at the gas station with a story
of woe to get money. They approach you at the
convenience store. They're emailing you and calling you. You don't
know them, but that's not true.
Speaker 4 (15:50):
Con artists. You know, a con artist.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
Anyone listening to my voice right now, there is a
con artist in your life. They just haven't conned you
yet because the people you know, they are Connie, they're
not talking. I see this again and again and again.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
What about the investment cons right, Because you know, a
lot of people get involved in these, and I think
in many ways it's the person that invests who's really
partly to blame because they think they're special. They think
they have access to someone that's going to get them
twenty five or fifty percent return, and they don't question
it because they think that, well, you know, I found
this person, this is going to be great.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
And I go back to the saying in the book
again and again. Con artists don't outsmart you, they outfeel you.
Speaker 4 (16:33):
And greed.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
Greed is a powerful feeling. It's right up there with
love and hate and regret. It's a powerful feeling, and
that greed can blind you. So again, by the time
you need a professional con artist in an investment scam,
he or she has sailed a thousand times, got busted
a thousand times. Now you're talking to them in their
thirties or forties as an adults. They're so good. They
(16:55):
know how to do the smoke and mirrors. They know
how to use technology to show you that what they're
doing is legit. They're introducing you to important people who
can verify who they are and what they're saying.
Speaker 4 (17:05):
They figured it all out.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
So that expression you said at the beginning of this interview,
if it's too good to be true, it probably is. Absolutely,
But in order to see that, you cannot be blinded
by greed, you know, greed and desperation. We all want
to make money, rent and mortgages. They're off the cars.
It's hard to make a living now. So I get it.
We want to make money, I get it. But step
back and if three or four of these red flags
(17:29):
are there, don't do it.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Yeah, it's like all the people that invest in a
whole Bernie made off thing, I mean partly it was
really greed, right, it was, well, I'm going to get.
Speaker 4 (17:37):
Absolutely it's greed.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
And you know, I do feel sorry for those people
because they saw verification. Their friends were making money. It's
easy not to believe Bernie made off. You don't know
Bernie made off from Adam, you know. But you can
believe your aunt, your mother, your uncle, your brother, your friend,
who are telling you, hey, I'm making a killing investing
with he made off you should too, and that's what
(18:02):
Bernie made off, relight on this word of mouth, and
then he waved a lot of the scarcity. You know
that I write about Red Flag number seven, like he's
not letting anybody in. This is a special thing, you know,
no more new people. And the more you restrict that,
the more people want it.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
As my friend Michael Port says, you have the whole
velvet rope thing where people have to line up outside
if they want to.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
Get in, exactly.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
So it's all social engineering. Yeah, human nature. They can
artists use human nature against us.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
I assume that there are more and more scams now
also because of the Internet, where you know, it used
to be the Nigerian Princess or things like that, but
now there's parking tickets, they're tolling tickets. I mean, there's
all sorts of different kinds of scams going on where
people just you know, make sense because it's like part
of their life.
Speaker 4 (18:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
I agree, there is an upstick because of technology, but
in a lot of respects, those scams are way easier
to spot than the loving person in your life who
you care about. You never would just and that's when
they get you, what.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Do you think I want to go back? John, You've
I don't know. I guess You've met a lot of
these people. What motivates them? Do they just think, Hey,
this is a career and I'm just living off the land.
I'm just making money off for other people, or these
other people have a lot of money it's for me
to take. What do they think?
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Well, you know, I spent some time with an FBI
criminal profiler and we both arrived at the same conclusion.
A lot of these people are psychopaths. They are psychopaths.
They're not going to kill anybody, but in the same
way that you and I would enjoy a roller coaster ride,
because that's the common thing, right. They say, Boy, these
(19:40):
people are so skilled and talented and they just use
their talents for good. They could do such great things.
But no, no, no, that doesn't thrill that. They get
a godlike thrill from creating characters and worlds that do
not exist and watching with lee and delight as we
all fall victim to it. They are directing a movie
(20:00):
and casting victims like us as actors, and we don't know,
and that's the thrill for them.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
We don't know, we're doing what they want us to do.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
We're saying and reacting how they want us to react,
and they sit back and enjoy it all.
Speaker 4 (20:12):
So a lot of cons don't even involve money.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
My con understand a lot of people without getting any
money from them.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
It's just it's like a pat with a ball of yarn.
They just enjoy it.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
And so's so in the end, there's no guilt, not victim.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
None, for the for the scamrac there's no there's no guilt, feel,
no guilt none.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
They're csychopaths. Psychopaths don't feel guilt.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Is there is there anything the way they were brought up?
Is there any common thread of how why they turned
out this way?
Speaker 3 (20:44):
You know, there are some theories about childhood trauma, YadA, YadA, YadA,
But based on my experience and my study of this,
and I've investigated hundreds of cases over the past eight years, no,
You know, psychopaths are born and and very early on
a psycho path, especially a con artist's psychopath, and realizes
something's wrong with them as children because they don't have remorse,
(21:05):
they don't feel guilty, and they know they're getting ostracized,
so they quickly learn how to cover and overcompensate. So again,
by the time you meet a professional con artist's cycle path,
they perfected the craft of covering and appearing to be
good people. They know how to look like they have feelings,
but they have none. They have no empathy. They will
destroy you and move on and destroy one hundred other
(21:27):
people and move on until you stop them, until you
stand up and say no more and go after them.
And the sad thing is, and this is infuriating in
a lot of these cases when the victim goes to police.
Initially the police and the legal system are on the
side of the con artists because they know how to
manipulate things. Case in point, my con artists it took
(21:50):
two years to go to trial, right, and in that
two years leading up the trial, a month before the
criminal trial, he files a restraining order against me. See
a woman, I'm a man, and the DA tells me
there's nothing I can do. If a judge approves this
restraining order, you will not be allowed in court to testify.
Speaker 4 (22:07):
You can testify over video.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
Wow, And I'm like, that will destroy my cap That
was her plan. But listen, she wasn't dealing with a
chump because by that I was wise to the ways
of the world, and I never got you know, the
only way I found out about that restraining order, I
got a lawyer's advertisement in the mail before she served it.
So I just avoided service, which is illegal. I just
(22:30):
went out the back lay. You know, I'm a gay man.
I went out the back lay stocker. And she never
served it, and the trials started without that restraining order
ever coming to life.
Speaker 4 (22:39):
But it almost said, man, she almost got away.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
But they're brilliant, brilliant people at using lawyers and the
law and loopholes to get away and make you look
like you're the aggressor. I'm the victim.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Well, it's a great book everyone should read. Anatomy of
a con owners, The fourteen Red Flags spot scammers, grifters,
and thieves. Jonathan Walter, working people. We'll catch up with.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
You I Jonathan Walton dot com. Or I have a
new podcast out now called Cocaine Air, which you know,
this is what happens when you get scammed. The largest
cocaine flyer for Pablo Restivar only became a drug smuggler
because he was a victim of checong artists and it
changed his life in the same way it changed my life,
(23:20):
but we're just let in different directions. Cocaine Air available anywhere.
Podcasts are available.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Jathan, thanks for joining us. This small business radio show
will be read back.
Speaker 5 (23:30):
Do you still have great expectations for the great recession?
Speaker 6 (23:33):
Barry can show you how to let go of failure
and bounce to get ready.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
For that next great success. Go to www dot Barrymolts
dot com.
Speaker 5 (23:41):
Barry will show you how to get crazy and achieve
your business success.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
Stick around to get your small business unstuck. More of
Small Business Radio with Barry Moles.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
All right, so let's face it, most small business owners
just suck at hiring. Typically, we pick people that give
good interview and we are in such a rush that
we are so quick to hire and so slow to fire.
This is a big problem since turnover in a small
business is really expensive. My guest is Jamie Van Kik,
(24:20):
who's the owner and lead consultant of Growing Your Team.
She is an expert in hiring and onboarding teams within
small businesses. Drawing from over fifteen years of leadership experience.
Jamie empowers women business owners and leaders to expand their
unique businesses by teaching them the master how to master
the hiring process. On a personal side, Jamie lives in
(24:41):
Florida and is a hobby wine maker. Well, Jamie, that's
the first thing I want to talk about. Okay, So
what kind of wine do you like to make?
Speaker 3 (24:51):
So?
Speaker 5 (24:51):
Typically, dry red wines are my favorite to make. You know,
it's great to always have a supply of.
Speaker 6 (24:58):
Wine on hand.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Agree, So what kind of grape?
Speaker 5 (25:03):
So we we typically make pina noir or a cabinet
nice nice?
Speaker 2 (25:08):
All right? Well, well now back to business. Why do
you think small business owners are so bad at hiring?
Speaker 5 (25:15):
Ooh, that's a great question, Barry, And that's actually part
of the thing that led me into starting growing your team.
One of the things I learned was most small business
owners never hired before they were doing it within their
own business, or if they did hire, they were doing
it while they were in large corporate companies where they
had HR departments, senior leaders, peer managers and all the
(25:39):
stuff that was guiding them through the process. So while
they were conducting interviews and making decisions.
Speaker 6 (25:44):
They weren't doing it alone.
Speaker 5 (25:46):
Where now they're in their own business and they had
to do everything from define the job figure out what
to ask, understand the whole hr process of hiring, and
they're just realizing there's a lot of pieces to the
puzzle that they didn't know that they didn't know. Most
people even yeah, no, keep going. I say, most people,
even in corporate learn to become good at hiring through
(26:08):
trial and error. But they're doing it on someone else's dimes.
Then when you're in your own business, you're doing it
on your own dime. So it's very painful those mistakes.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
So what does the hiring process usually look like in
a small business where they have no experience? Who do
they hire?
Speaker 6 (26:22):
Yeah? So who do they hire? So?
Speaker 5 (26:24):
Typically they're well, they're hiring someone to support them in
their business. A lot of small businesses are going to
hire those either junior them or those assistants that are
going to help them be able to do their jobs.
The problem is they're hiring the person that they connect
with on a personal level first, or sometimes they're just
hiring the first person that comes along because they say,
I don't have time for this. This person seems great.
(26:46):
Let me get them in the door because I just
need a button that seat to help me.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
They seem nice, Yes, yeah, how does that interview on
they seem nice?
Speaker 6 (26:55):
Yes.
Speaker 5 (26:56):
I remember one of my first interviews in corporate I
love the gentlemen, and I interviewed and my peer manager
asked me in the elevator on our way back up
to our desks, what do you think?
Speaker 6 (27:07):
And I said, I love him. I want to hire him.
And then she asked the most important question, can he
do the job?
Speaker 3 (27:12):
Right?
Speaker 5 (27:13):
And I actually sat there and I said, I thought
for a second, and I was just like, I don't know.
And that was my lesson learned of just because you
like someone doesn't mean they can actually do the job
you're hiring for.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
You know, you said something really important, which I wholeheartedly
believe after being in a small business for so many years,
that we're in such a rush to hire and we
just want to butt in that seat, yes, and we
don't think about listen, there's really a cost to training
this person and for this person not to work out.
Speaker 6 (27:43):
Yes, there's a huge cost to that.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
So do you believe that people are slow to hire
and quick to fire. I'm sorry that we should really
be slow to hire and quick the fire.
Speaker 5 (27:54):
So I think we definitely should, but I think most
people interpret that wrong. So I think a lot of
people here slow to hire the here hold off on
making that hiring decision as long as possible, so they
let fear get in the way, They let financial things
get in their way where they're like, ooh, maybe next
month they'll have a downturn and I won't be able
to afford this hire, So let me see how I
(28:15):
do next month, So they put off making the hiring
decisions that they actually need for their business. What slow
to hire really means is make sure you're doing your
due diligence that so the person you're bringing on is
the right person, and.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Then yeah, no, no, no, no, keep going.
Speaker 5 (28:33):
And then when like quick to fire, they're like, as
soon as the first thing goes wrong, they're like, that
person needs to be out the door. Which we do
need to let go of people who aren't doing their job.
The problem is many small business owners we overlook this
whole thing that you actually need to onboard and train
a team member. That we can't expect team members to
know their job if we don't actually tell them how
to do their job inside our organization. So a lot
(28:55):
of times people are quick to fire people who are
still in that learning process.
Speaker 4 (29:00):
Right.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
I mean, people really cannot figure it out themselves. They've
got to be trained. But I also find people everyone
knows who should be fired and they just ignore it,
right because they don't want to go out and hire
someone else. And they say, well, you know, the devil
we know is they're better than the devil we don't know.
And so they just put it off, put it off,
and then they have to men to themselves Jamie that
they screwed up, they hire the wrong person.
Speaker 5 (29:22):
Yeah, yep. And that's one of those things of everything
we do in business. We can check every box, cross,
every ted, dot, every eye, and sometimes when we get
into that, we're like, ooh, maybe this was a mistake
or things didn't work out exactly as I thought.
Speaker 6 (29:37):
So we can only do our best.
Speaker 5 (29:39):
But they're even when we say we can look back
and say this person was right with everything we've been
through in the interview process. They answered all the questions right,
they showed that they had the right experience. But now
there's just something not working out that we're here, or
we're learning something new.
Speaker 6 (29:52):
That happens.
Speaker 5 (29:53):
But we need to be willing to accept that we
made mistakes and remove people from our team. When they're
not worth their paycheck. Because yes, I hear all the time.
I don't want to repeat the hiring process, so I'm
just going to struggle through. But when we have people
on our team that are not right, not only are
they impacting things like possibly our customers because they're have
(30:16):
poor customer service, they're making mistakes or things like that,
they're impacting us because bad employees are on our minds
all the time. And then if you have more than
one team member, your other team members are picking up
the slack of that bad employee and so they're feeling
the drain. So you're you are more likely to lose
your good team members if you keep bad people on
(30:38):
your team.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
Yeah, I think that's true. It's interesting are people worth
their paycheck? And when people aren't? I call that the
cringe factor that every single time you sign their paycheck,
course not physically, but every single payer, you go, God,
I can't believe I'm paying that person that amount of
money to basically do nothing. How long, Jamie, do you
give someone to actually learn their job and to see
(31:00):
if it's going to work out.
Speaker 6 (31:03):
Oh, that's a great question.
Speaker 5 (31:04):
So first you should have an onboarding plan created before
that team member ever starts, so you should know roughly
what that onboarding schedule is going to look like. And
one of the things I remind small business owners all
the time is typically you're hiring because you lack time
in your business and you need extra hands.
Speaker 6 (31:21):
So we need to recognize that you don't have time.
Speaker 5 (31:24):
To train someone on everything right away because you still
have other things that need to get done in your business.
So a lot of times the onboarding plans that we
create can last anywhere from three to eight weeks, depending
on what needs.
Speaker 6 (31:38):
To be trained.
Speaker 5 (31:39):
And the way we structure those plans is you train
them on something or then they can start doing that
part of their job, and then you keep building on
it until they are fully trained on everything that they
need to do. So depending on what skills they're coming
in with, how complex your systems are, what they need
to know that is company specific knowledge versus no knowledge
(32:00):
they can gain elsewhere, it's all going to impact that
training schedule. How much time you have to give to
that team member is going to impact that training schedule.
And by knowing that ahead of time and creating goals
around that to say, Okay, by this date, they should
know this part of their job. By this date, they
should know this part of their job. It really sets
that expectation of Okay, they're not going to come in
(32:21):
learn everything day one and day two be perfect at things. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
So yeah, yeah, I agree. I think that we also
have expectations that the next person we're going to hire
is going to be the savior. This is the person
coming in a white horse that oh, when so and
so is here, everything's going to be great, And we
don't train them and as you say, we don't set
clear expectations and it ends up being a problem.
Speaker 6 (32:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (32:44):
One of the things I would say is the biggest
problem with that is we hire experts and then we
think we don't have to train them because they're experts.
And we say, well, this person has been doing this
type of job for ten years and I say great,
But they've never done it in your company. They don't
know your systems, they don't know your processes, they don't
know your expectations. So they know how to do the job,
(33:06):
they just don't know how to do it that in
a way that's going to make you happy yet. So
that's really what we have to train on, is what's
going to make you as the business owner happy, and
sometimes it's minor things that they're doing something slightly different
and it annoys you, but we refuse to correct that behavior.
So we train our team members that what they're doing
is right, while it's annoying us every time they do
(33:29):
it that way. So we need to take that responsibility
to say, I need to teach them how to do
things in the way that's going to make me happy.
I need to teach them what makes our customers happy,
because this is why our customers hire us or buy
our products or whatever it is. So we need to
teach them our expectations.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
You know, that's really interesting because I find again when
I was a small business owner, I said, well, I'm
paying all this money for this person. They should know
how to do the job already. That's what I'm paying for.
And what you're saying is no, every situation they come into,
someone's got to get trained in how your company does it.
Speaker 6 (34:05):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 5 (34:06):
If you think accounting is accounting, bookkeeping is bookkeeping unless
someone is cooking the books. Like it's the same everywhere.
But how do you like your reports? Do they need
to sit down and go over the reports? With you
because you're not a numbers person or are you a
numbers person that they can just send you the reports
and you're like, oh, I got it, Okay, I see
what's going on.
Speaker 6 (34:25):
I can see our projections.
Speaker 5 (34:26):
So it's like some of those things where it's like
they're doing the same work, but how do you need
to receive it in order to understand the work that
they're doing?
Speaker 2 (34:35):
And what should owner's expectations be they go to hire someone?
How often do you think there should be expect to
be successful? I mean successful to me is someone that
stays a couple of years, Like let's be realistic, and
so is that a fifty to fifty kind of thing?
And that says, hey, I'm doing the hiring processing right,
or if I'm doing the hiring pressing right, eighty percent
(34:55):
of the people need to stay at least two years.
Speaker 5 (34:58):
I would say, if you're doing it right, we're probably
looking at least eighty percent staying at least two years.
We are in a time period where three years with
a company is actually a pretty long tenure. So you know,
so when we hire people and we expect them to
be there five ten years until retirements, that's having really
really high expectations. And yes, there are employees out there
(35:19):
that do stay really long time, but three years is
long retention in this time period. But I would say,
if you're hiring rights, you're having your employees stay at
least two years.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
How do you get the message out to small business
owners that there really is you know, an ROI to
retraining people versus rehiring them.
Speaker 5 (35:42):
Yes, so I think it was just this is actually
this is one of my favorite analogies that I like
to give to help people see the reason why retraining works.
So I want you to think of your favorite movie,
a movie that you've seen multiple times.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
Jerem maguire.
Speaker 5 (35:58):
All right, soondecond time you watched that movie, I can
almost guarantee that you picked up on stuff that you
did not pick up on the first time.
Speaker 6 (36:06):
Sure, that movie didn't change.
Speaker 5 (36:09):
That movie's exactly the same as when you watched it
the first time, but your base knowledge changed.
Speaker 6 (36:15):
So you win.
Speaker 5 (36:16):
In at first, you didn't know anything besides what you
saw on the coming attractions, so you can think that's
like your job post. Now you win, and you learned
as much as you could absorb the first time.
Speaker 6 (36:25):
Even yourself, you didn't know.
Speaker 5 (36:28):
You weren't catching everything the first time because your your
eyes think you're seeing everything. Your brain thinks that's processing everything,
but you miss things that you didn't know you were missing.
Then the second time, because you didn't have to learn
in everything, you were able to catch things. You were
able to understand deeper meanings of certain parts of that movie.
You were able to see, Oh, this thing that happened
(36:48):
in this scene, predict something that's going to happen later.
But I didn't know that. Yeah the first time I
watched it, But now I'm able to see that. I'm
able to see that chain of events. So nothing changed,
but you come out with so much more information that
second time.
Speaker 6 (37:03):
And that's what it's like. When you retrain your employees.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
They're not they'll go ahead and keep going.
Speaker 5 (37:08):
I say, yeah, they're not purposely not doing things. Sometimes
they just need that extra training to fully absorb everything
that they're supposed to know.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
How do you make the decision? And I find this
hard for a lot of small business owners. When it
makes sense to invest in retraining them versus that this
isn't working out, I just got to let them go
and move on.
Speaker 5 (37:29):
Yeah, So I say look at the pattern of behavior.
So if a team member did something wrong the first
time and you go and correct it, do they improve?
Are they showing that they are absorbing the feedback and
trying to get better. Sometimes we have to retrain multiple times.
(37:51):
So are they getting better than next time? Okay, they
made ten mistakes the first time they were doing this,
but the second time I can see that they listen
to the feedback and they only need five. Okay, now
we need to make sure we focus on those five things,
because maybe there's only so much they can absorb at
a time of what those changes need to be and
why those changes are important. But if we're not seeing
the change, if we are telling them, that's strung. If
(38:13):
we're telling them what needs to change and why it
needs to change and they're still making the same mistakes
over and over again, and every time you go to
talk to them you're having to you feel like you're
talking to them for the first time about these issues.
Speaker 6 (38:27):
That's a sign that they're never going to get it.
Speaker 5 (38:30):
Or it could be that they started making improvements and
then they reach a point where it's kind of they
plateau and.
Speaker 6 (38:34):
You need that.
Speaker 5 (38:36):
Next level of growth and improvement in that area, but
they're showing you that they can't do it, that they've
reached their plateau area and nothing's getting better from there.
So you really have to invest in training. You have
to retrain them and see how they're improving. Are they
making the needed changes because they understand the additional information
(38:58):
that you're giving them. They understand and that what they
did was wrong and they want to fix it.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
You know, I find this particularly difficult in an area
where someone has a great attitude, where their attitude fits
into the culture of a company, but they just don't
have they're just not learning, and it's very, very difficult
to make those kind of cuts. What do you think
it is?
Speaker 6 (39:18):
Those are difficult.
Speaker 5 (39:19):
But if you have a team member that has a
great attitude, but you're constantly being giving them that honest feedback, Okay,
this is not up to par, this is not up
to power, This is what needs doing it in that
nice way of this is not up to par, this
is what needs to change. Let's help you, Let's help
you get there, versus just yelling.
Speaker 6 (39:35):
At them that things are wrong.
Speaker 5 (39:37):
Even if they have that great attitude and you're doing
everything from really constructive feedback place to help them grow.
They're going to reach a point where they're going to
start feeling like they're a failure, and even if on
the outside they have that really positive attitude, they're going
to start feeling kind of overwhelmed and that they don't
(39:58):
belong and maybe this isn't the right PA place for them.
I remember having a conversation with a team member years
ago and we were going through things and there just
wasn't a connection, like we weren't able to get to
that next level of things and we were I was
just really I was a new manager and I was
just kind of really frustrated because I was like, I'm trying.
I'm trying so hard because this team member was, you know,
(40:20):
a great team member personality wise and everything, and I
really wanted her to continue on my team. But one
day I just blurted out, maybe this isn't the right
job for you. And at first I was like, oh
my gosh, like how did I just say that?
Speaker 6 (40:33):
And that employee came.
Speaker 5 (40:34):
Back to me like a day or two later and said,
I want to thank you so much for saying that,
because I thought about it, and you're right, this isn't
the job for me. So you know, I'm going to
give you about two months notice because I want to
go and I need to find something else that I'm
actually enjoying and doing. And she goes, if you find someone,
I'll leave earlier. But that way you have someone covering
(40:55):
these accounts. It's the best that I can do until
you find someone to replace me. Because they realized that
it wasn't the right place for them. But sometimes people
need to hear that, and I feel like when we
have honest conversations with our team members, we can help
them see that if they're constantly failing, this isn't the
right place for them. It's going to drain on them
(41:16):
just as much as it's going to drain on us.
Speaker 2 (41:19):
I mean, I personally experienced that I've been fired twice
in my career, and each time I was relieved. Yeah,
quite honestly, because it wasn't the right place. So Jamie,
I appreciate you being on the show. Where can people
catch up with you and the work that you're doing.
Speaker 5 (41:33):
Yeah, you can find me at growingyour Team dot com.
There you'll find opportunities to schedule a calls, learn about
our services, get access to our podcast, or follow us
on our social media channels.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
Jamie, thanks so much, and I want to thank everyone
for joining this week's radio show. And I want to
thank our staff, our book can producer, Sarah schaffern Our
soundead or Ethan Moltz. If you're serious about me more
successful in twenty twenty five, give me a call. I've
said a private line seven seven three eighty three, have
an eight two five zero. Email me at Barry at
Molts dot com. Remember, love everyone, trust the few, and
(42:06):
pal your own canoe. Have a profitable and passionate week.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
If you can find Barrymoltz on the web at Barymolts
dot com or more episodes of Small Business Radio at
small Business radioshow dot com
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