From Interviews to Integration: Fletcher Wimbush on Perfecting Your Hiring Process

Ever wondered how to fine-tune your hiring process to find the perfect fit for your team? Join us for an enlightening conversation with Fletcher Wimbush, a veteran hiring consultant from California with a quarter-century of experience. Fletcher traces his journey from learning the ropes of business coaching with his father to taking over the family business and creating proprietary assessment tools. Gain exclusive insights from a professional who has interviewed over 10,000 candidates, and discover how the DISC personality assessment can transform your hiring practices and team dynamics.

Unlock the secrets to attracting and assessing top talent through a variety of methods, including job boards, employee referrals, and headhunting. Fletcher emphasizes the critical importance of meticulous hiring practices to conserve valuable time and resources. Learn about the power of structured interviews and assessments, and why a 90-day trial period can be a game-changer for new employees. We'll discuss how focusing on behavioral skills, attitude, and integrity can foster loyalty and growth within your organization, particularly small businesses that might be nurturing raw talent.

Discover practical strategies for navigating the hiring process, from understanding the typical 60-90 day timeframe to the tailored approaches required for various organizational roles. Fletcher shares a compelling case study from the freight brokerage industry, illustrating the importance of ongoing coaching and consulting to make successful hires and effectively onboard new employees. Plus, learn about the value of offering free advice and support via platforms like YouTube and LinkedIn, and how a straightforward, results-driven approach can accelerate your business's success. Don’t miss out on this expert guidance to enhance your hiring and training processes.

Connect with Fletcher
fletcher@thehiretalent.com

Tony Johnson is a Commercial General Contractor.  Timeless Properties Construction Co. has been in business since 2007.  He does all things commercial.  Developing, Building, Upfits, and Renovations for Retail, Office, Industrial, and Multi-family.  Timeless Properties is licensed in North and South Carolina.  Contact them today for your construction needs.  www.timelesspropertiescc.com
info@timelesspropertiescc.com

Discovering his passion for construction when entering the industry over 20 years ago, Tony obtained his general contractor license and created Timeless Properties Construction Co in 2007. The company has performed an Proving that grit and passion can overcome any challenge, Timeless Properties Construction Co navigated the worst real estate collapse in our lifetimes under his leadership. Coming out of the recession Tony made sure he kept a strong focus on building relationships, quality work, honesty, and integrity.  With over 160 million on construction volume to date Timeless Properties Construction Co has grown to an area leader of Commercial Construction in eastern North Carolina.

Tony launched Timeless Capital Investments LLC in 2022.  This company was formed to create an avenue for partners to invest alongside Tony Johnson on commercial development and value add of existing commercial buildings.  Tony aims to help fellow investors take part in profitable projects that they otherwise would not feel comfortable undertaking.  By leveraging his construction and development knowledge Tony offers his partners a leg up against less experienced investors.  

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Transcript

Tony: 0:00

Welcome to another episode of Carolina Commercial Real Estate Connection. Today we have Fletcher Wimbush with us. Fletcher is a hiring consultant and helps companies grow and do proper hiring practices in order to build up the proper team and growth. Fletcher, thank you so much for joining us today.

Fletcher: 0:19

Awesome.

Tony: 0:20

Thanks for having me, tony. Yes, sir, and Fletcher, you are located out in California, so I just want to give Fletcher a shout out here. He's up. He's been up since the crack of 3 am probably, but he's in today. It's about 6.30 his time, so we appreciate him getting up early and look forward to the discussion. So thank you again, fletcher, for joining us.

Fletcher: 0:41

No problem.

Tony: 0:46

So, fletcher for joining us, yeah, no problem.

Fletcher: 0:47

So, fletcher, tell us a bit about how long you've been involved in this and what got you into it. Yeah Well, I was actually on the phone with a client the other day and they asked and I mentioned, I was like oh, I've been doing this for like 25 years and they're like oh, I'm only 41.

Fletcher: 0:59

Well, I don't know only, or what that is, I'm getting old and somewhere in between, right. And they're like what? Like, what are you talking about? And I was like well, you know. So my dad was a business coach and he developed these assessment tools that he used to help coach his clients. And pretty early on, clients were like hey, let's use these tools to help us make better hiring decisions. And you know, being the son of a business coach, you can only imagine the conversations we had at dinner and in the car. And you know he liked to talk shop a lot and that's pretty much all we ever talked about is personal growth, how to be a better person. You know how to be a better leader.

Fletcher: 1:34

And by the time I was 16, you know I'd fallen into a number of different leadership roles captain of my football team, student body president, you know all these. Supervisor at my, you know, concession stand. You know first job right. You know they always put you in these. You know I guess I was an extrovert and somehow they elected me to do all these things.

Fletcher: 1:57

And also being a high D and a high I. You know, attention to detail or like the details are not my thing, so I never really wanted to be a coach, right? But I always loved the idea of as a leader. If you could put the right people on the bus, the right people on the team, great things are going to happen. So I ended up writing paper to finish my high school and we had these like mini term papers we had to do and subsequently spent really my first two leadership careers. I was opening delis throughout the country and then subsequently went and worked for a large privately held company who serviced and built and helped restaurants with commercial dish machines and chemicals focused on hiring and that was really it.

Fletcher: 2:45

And 11 years ago I took over this business and it began to continue to expand and went from beyond just assessment tools but to a full suite of coaching, education and done for you, recruiting, hiring services. And in that journey, when I took over, I was probably only what, about 30 years old and I was like who's going to listen to me about these things? Despite I had some really nice success in my previous careers in building teams and that growing business units. I was always a fan of Malcolm Gladwell Anybody you know some fans of that. I imagine listening to this 10,000 hours of excellence, right, yes, sir.

Fletcher: 3:28

So in that journey I made it a point to interview over 10,000 candidates and I did that through helping our clients find select great people in the kind of done-for-you service in the early days. So you know, I wanted to be able to practice what I preach, and so we still do right, so we educate, but we're still doing the work that we teach our clients to do so that we stay sharp and on top of the trends and best practices and feel their pain. As you know, the economy changes and the labor market changes and we know exactly where our clients how they feel about the problem right.

Tony: 4:06

That's a ton of tidbits there to dive into. So thank you so much for that, fletcher. So I think, starting out in the very beginning, for those who don't know, I'd like to kind of touch back on a couple of things. One you mentioned, you know I'm a high D, I'm a high I. For those that don't understand what that even means, could you kind of break that down, what that means and how what all you assess on people?

Fletcher: 4:35

Yeah, well, we have like 20 different proprietary assessments, relaunch of a short DISC assessment, just great kind of self-awareness, team-building, collaboration, communication improvement type of tool. So DISC is a kind of a long-standing human science way of thinking about personality, right. And so D is for dominant, I is for influencer, s is for steadinessiness and c is for conscientiousness. And as human beings we sort of have all of these components in us, you know some degree or another. But typically what happens is most of us gravitate to one or two of these different personality types and there's sort of a yin and yang effect.

Fletcher: 5:23

So high Ds are opposite of high Ss and Is are opposites of Cs and if you think about it, you know your influencer, your sales personality, life of the party, gregarious, make friends with light posts. That kind of person is the opposite of your C. You're highly conscientious, detail-oriented, process-oriented, more introverted, right, you know, probably terrified of making friends with light posts, right. And Ds are like let's get it done, let's drive, let's take action, assertive go-getters. And Ss are your caring, empathetic types, right. And so you know, again, there's a natural juxtaposition of those personality types. And so you know it's helpful to understand your style, right, what you like, what you don't like, where you naturally kind of gravitate towards and away from as a business leader. To fill in the blanks, right, so if I'm, you know, I'm a high D, I'm an I, you know, I have a really high C and S on my team as sort of my right hand person and he's been with me for geez, I don't know, seven, eight years now and he's you know a lifesaver Right.

Fletcher: 6:34

And he keeps me in check when I get out of control. Right.

Tony: 6:38

That's exactly right. Yeah, with any business I mean you're going to, you don't want someone exactly like you. You want someone that fills in where you lack Right, in order to balance you out and kind of help push the ball forward, because those things that you don't have strength in you'll struggle with, take away your energy for the day and you're a lot less productive. So that's very important that you bring that up right off the bat. And so, yeah, the disc assessment has been around for quite a long time. There's a bunch of cognitive tests and different tests right now that are all in the market, and that's one that's been around for quite some time, so it has a great track record.

Fletcher: 7:14

Yeah, yeah, well, I like it, because that's why I throw out the D, right? You know, I don't know, if you go into any sort of business setting and you start talking about D's, i's S's and I's S's and C's, I don't know I'd say probably, you know 50, 75% of the people might already understand what you're talking about, right, yep absolutely yeah.

Tony: 7:31

So I think anybody that's in a business if you're starting out, you know new. If you have two or three employees, you know it's a great time. Even if you just have that small of a team, it's a great time to kind of assess and understand what those people that are on your team really bring and what are their strengths, as opposed to just kind of guessing with intuition, using something to get a better understanding of your team's strengths. And that's where we're also figuring out your weaknesses.

Fletcher: 8:01

It's about building language around it too, right? So one of the things my father taught me early on is he said you know, as you know, I really at the age of seven, I was the first guinea pig I was taking these assessments, right. And he was like, well, every time you meet somebody, size them up. I don't mean this like in a negative way, right, you know, but like you meet somebody and you start having a conversation with them, and and they and you start having a conversation with them and you'll begin to see their mannerisms, the way they communicate, their style. Are they thoughtful and careful in how they respond to questions or what they say? Are they reckless and crazy?

Fletcher: 8:37

Like me, I've always put my foot in my mouth because I speak before I think. Right, but anyways, you can begin to put them in a box, right, like where are they? Right? And that begins to help you become more self-aware of your own behaviors, but also more aware of others. And this is a tool about building emotional intelligence. Ultimately, right, that awareness of others, how they think and feel and operate, and how you think and feel and operate, and then using that to create action and results together, right, is, I think, the crux of EQ, right?

Tony: 9:12

Absolutely yeah, and understanding a little bit about them and how they speak and how they think and what motivates them. If you're talking in your language and they don't understand your language and your motivations, then you're probably not going to create action and incentive for them. But if you speak in their language, then they are going to understand and you can get them on board and, you know, help create action. So that's awesome, so that's one thing. So you're doing. You know that you, in essence, then, also help people, you know, recruit the right talent to grow their company. And so could you walk us through somebody that has a small team that's interested in growing and doesn't know, you know, maybe doesn't know exactly what position is best for them to get next. Or you know, maybe they, you know, are having trouble finding talent in a talent pool. Maybe they are having trouble finding talent in a talent pool. No-transcript.

Fletcher: 10:12

Yeah, well, obviously I want to understand the business. Business functions, but usually people have an idea they're like oh, I want to hire a salesperson, I need to hire an admin or project manager or you know whatever. It is right, you know there's usually they usually have some preconceived notions, but obviously large organizations struggling with this is creating a really strong job description that's based on measurable outcomes. So first I want to look at what are the goals of the organization and what are you driving towards? Where are the gaps? Right? So DISC is a good way of sort of beginning to understand the talent or the skill or the talent gaps you might have, right, and then beginning to understand the role that needs to be filled, based on the measurable outcomes that need to be achieved.

Fletcher: 11:07

So too often we write job descriptions that are a list of responsibilities, duties and requirements and oftentimes those miss the boat in terms of being focused on outcomes and results that are, you know, time bound and realistic, right. So thinking about SMART goals, if anybody's familiar with that, right. And so, yeah, you, first you got to get laser focused on who it is. You need, what problem they're going to solve in the business and what outcomes, and then from there that defines well how are we going to go find this person, who's going to be a fit and what strategies are we going to execute to do that Right.

Tony: 11:46

Yeah, so on as we look at your screen here for those. Some people are just listening on a podcast, so can you walk us through? You've got a nice little chart going through your process up there. Could you kind of go through that for people that aren't able to see it?

Fletcher: 12:02

Yeah. So once you've figured out exactly what you're looking for, what problem you're going to solve, make outcomes. Then we move into that attraction phase. So you know, our recruitment automation software or job works with lots of different ways, but we want to create a system for attracting the right kinds of people and then we need the right tools to assess those individuals. And so talent attraction is.

Fletcher: 12:29

You know, people think of job boards like Indeed, and that's obviously one of those strategies. Another big one is employee referrals. So I'm a big, huge, huge fan of employee referrals. And sometimes a little harder for smaller companies. You only have four or five people, but it definitely is doable. Actually, in many small companies that's where they make all their first hires is through friends of friends and family members and whatnot. Those are trusted people. And then headhunting, frankly right. So now you can be your own headhunter or you can go out and pay somebody to do that, right. And sometimes it's appropriate to do either one of those or both of those things, right. So those are really your three big mechanisms for attracting people, and there are plenty others that we can talk about, but those are the three big ones. And then, once you've got the right person into the system, then you need to have a mechanism, a system, a repeatable process for assessing individuals, and I always like to draw this analogy. In college or anywhere in your educational journey, did they ever teach you how to hire anybody?

Tony: 13:42

You know anybody? Yeah, I think so. When you're, when you're starting out, and I mean, obviously, the more people that you get on your team and as you go through this, the biggest thing I've found is you know, when you're hiring people and being in business for as long as I've been in business you're putting so much time and effort into acquiring this person that you get. Then you're onboarding this person and you're getting them up to speed with your company and all of the goals of what you want out of them, and then your systems and your processes and your procedures for getting everything done. If that employee comes in, spends four months and then leaves, I mean you have wasted the four months. You've wasted the time it took you to find that person. Then you have to now acquire a new person, start all over. I mean you lose almost a year.

Tony: 14:29

So it is so important to go back to what you're saying and attract the right person right and then be able to assess that person and make sure that they fit the parameters of what you're saying and attract. Attract the right person Right and then be able to assess that person and make sure that they fit the parameters of what you want. This is, you know. This saves you time and when you start to compound this, this saves you years of your growth curve. So I mean the amount of time, energy and money this saves. When you do this and do this right, you know it it can exponentially scale your company twice as fast as it would normally grow.

Fletcher: 15:01

Yeah, too often people shortcut both sides of it, the attraction and the assessment process, right. So you know they run an ad. It's maybe you know not the highest quality they bring in. Whoever they bring in, you know they narrow it down to three people and they, you know, don't have great systems or abilities to evaluate these individuals and they make the best hiring decision they can amongst these three people and they might be choosing the best of the worst in that case. And that's not. You know, that's not how hiring is done. Hiring is about you know, really understanding who you need and sticking out the traction and the assessment process as long as it's required in order to identify that right person and continue to pass on people who are just not right for the job or for your organization, right you?

Tony: 15:51

have to be slow to hire, quick to fire that's what I would say. You always want to be slow to hire.

Fletcher: 15:57

I love that saying but I really believe you can move a lot faster in the process. But it takes practice right. When you build the muscle of like hey, we have a system for consistently attracting and evaluating people, it does actually allow you to move way faster in this process.

Tony: 16:15

Allow you to move way faster in this process, and it probably I mean, tell me if I'm wrong it also allows you to dwindle through so many more candidates. So that's what's speeding up your process, right? You're going through candidates and you can eliminate them a lot quicker than you might normally would if you didn't have some of these tools.

Fletcher: 16:34

Exactly, and you know people always, you know I kind of especially small businesses, and you know, and I get it. You know, you run an ad or you start marketing your jobs and you and you start getting hundreds and hundreds of applicants and people go, oh, I'm overwhelmed, and there's so much garbage, right, and they are. I mean, yeah, 300 applicants for a job, for I mean, yeah, the vast majority of them, actually 299 of them are going to be not good to be exact, right.

Fletcher: 17:03

So, yeah, it kind of feels like a daunting task, but with the right tools and practice and systems for like, okay, just how do I evaluate a resume? And then, second, you know how do I? I mean first steps typically some sort of introductory meeting, right? How do I? I mean first steps typically some sort of introductory meeting, right? So that might be a phone call or a Zoom, or maybe you bring them into the office, depending on the role. Whatever it is right.

Fletcher: 17:23

How do I evaluate people quickly in that first interaction and having some interview strategies that can very quickly figure out if that person is worthy of moving on to the next steps? And that's also where I like assessments. Assessments are basically a structured interview. It's essentially a science-based structured interview that has no feelings and no emotions and no bias and the candidate completes that survey or that assessment and it spits back hey, this is where this person is at. And then you compare that to your scorecard and say, hey, this is this or the job description. Say, yeah, this person's aligned or they're not aligned, or they're aligned out of five out of six items, but not the sixth. And can I live with that? At least I now know if I hire this person. I get five of the six things I'm looking for and I can compensate if I choose to, if it's appropriate to you know I'm not a deal breaker right.

Tony: 18:28

But yeah, go ahead. I was going to say so, that's perfect. So then you know we're allowing to get the better candidates through the door, so you know you're building on that. I want to touch on a couple other pieces of your business. So then you also do fractional employment, so could you explain, for those who don't understand, what that means and how that works?

Fletcher: 18:50

Yeah, it's kind of my, you know we're kind of trying to recoin. You know a different version of recruiting, so I'm not a big fan of traditional recruiters, staffing agencies staffing agencies the quality of talent typically is terrible, especially in this climate and this market which has really persisted for the last 15 years. Forget about COVID. You know that was a blip, if anything. Post COVID the talent market's gotten only tighter. It has more leverage in the process, right. So staffing agencies underpay people, overcharge their clients and they offer people temporary work with maybe a promise of full-time employment, and I don't see how that's a winning recipe for finding an A player, if you're an A player why would you engage in that relationship right?

Tony: 19:43

So why would I?

Fletcher: 19:46

as a business owner, hire a staffing agency that's basically handcuffing my hands behind my back in order to find and attract the best person. Yes, they will bring you people, but not the quality that you're looking for and you're going to pay through the nose on top of that. So staffing agencies typically are making a premium of 40% to 60% on the dollar For every dollar you pay that person. Sure, you can let them go anytime you want, blah, blah, blah but it's a premium that you're paying for probably the lower quality talent on the pool In traditional recruiting, where you're paying 20% to 30% as a success fee. It's also painful. I get it. I mean, we engage in those types of arrangements with folks from time to time and I feel bad, right, it's a huge investment. From time to time, and I feel bad, right, it's a huge investment. And to drop the ball on knowing who you want and doing a good job of assessing somebody and paying $20,000, $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 for that person is a painful, painful process, so Fractional I think the goal has always been for me because we've been more of a talent assessment company than anything has been hey, why don't we bring in expert recruiters who are going to come in and execute the process for you and start tomorrow. Boom, get out the gate, start doing the best practices that you need to do, but at the same time, teaching and educating you and your leadership team how to do this yourself.

Fletcher: 21:18

And so these are always temporary engagements. They're typically 90 days to a year it depends on the company size and the volume and how much hiring needs to be done, basically. But they're always meant to be sort of a short to midterm type of investment. And again, it's there to solve the problem find the person but to help you execute those best practices and get you integrated into the right using the right tools, the right process, the right systems, educating you how to be kind of best interviewing practices. On training and onboarding, you mentioned earlier a huge piece of success in hiring you do everything else right and you fail to train and onboard effectively. So it's both. This, it's a hybrid of this kind of leveling up your skill set internally, tool set internally and done for you, because when you need to hire, you need to hire right, so you can't wait three months to be educated or figure it out or install the systems right.

Tony: 22:22

You got to do it today, yeah, and as you're getting those people and as you're going through it, you know, when you mentioned training and onboarding, so the biggest way to you know grow your company and scale is to understand that the ability to train people and so that cannot be understated whenever you're trying to grow a company and you're starting to document processes and procedures and having that ability to train new employees, when you have a clear path for them to come on and set clear parameters of what you expect of them. Have it all there, so everything is very clear. When you bring on a new employee, we do what's called a 90-day trial basis, right? So we give them 90 days to show. We give them clear guidance on what we expect of them in that first 90 days. So, hey, it's like here. Here are the things that you have to achieve within 90 days to show that you can be successful here, right?

Tony: 23:21

so all those things clear parameters. You have to clear deliverables for success, or if you want to be successful in this company, I mean you have to take the time, and the more time you invest in that, the more opportunity your company will have to grow and produce great talent, which being able to produce great talent is a differentiator as opposed to trying to take great talent from someone else. Being able to produce great talent really allows you to go into a whole other direction as a company.

Fletcher: 23:52

Especially as a small business. Right, you may not be able to afford the best talent on the market, right? So you may be looking more for the behavioral core skills, attitude and integrity and find individuals that contain those things and then teach them your business. Right, and that's always, you know, that was my claim to fame when I did the commercial dish machine business. You know, we did not. We were not the most competitive in pay and we always had to find raw talent and teach them our business. That and nobody else knows our business Like you know. It's not that many commercial dish machine people out there in the world, right, you know. Yeah, so you know so. But look, there's time and place for both. I mean, look, if you can afford the best talent and steal from your competitor, there's, there's huge merit in that as well. But in many cases smaller businesses just can't and they're just not equipped for that.

Tony: 24:47

So you know, find the right. And the good thing about when you're, when you're building that talent, in my opinion, is you're not only building the talent, but a lot of times you're hopefully building loyalty with that person. And as long as you don't get someone in and give them false promises I mean, if you're a company that is primed for growth and has upward mobility opportunity for people and you're identifying those right people and training them and you see the future in them and give them that opportunity for growth, that's really how you can retain the best talent in my opinion.

Fletcher: 25:22

Yeah, they should be able to evaluate themselves right in those 90 days or every year, right, and because the goals are so clear and they should be able to say, you know, you should look at each other and both be able to say, yes, I've accomplished what, I, you know what was set out for me and I, you know, demonstrated the aptitude and the behaviors that are warranted of me taking that next step or getting that raise, or getting that bonus or keeping my job right, whatever it is right, you know. It should be so clear that they can self-correct.

Tony: 25:56

So when we talk about you saying you know you're typically coming in and educating a group for 90 days to a year, could you kind of give me a little more in depth? What is your average company size that you're dealing with and what do you guys see as success that you can say, ok, we're good in 90 days or it's a year? What are the parameters that you're setting?

Fletcher: 26:22

Yeah, so you know, typically zero to 250 employees. So you know, obviously the smaller the company, the shorter the engagement. Obviously that's a cost thing. Usually it's a volume thing too. It's like, ok, I need to hire, like two people, right, well, in 90 days we can get those roles filled, typically right. There's no hard and fast rules in hiring here, but 90 days is about the time it takes to find somebody, and find somebody who's good too.

Fletcher: 26:48

So think about that whether you do this yourself or you hire an external recruiter or whatever. That's about how long? 60, 90 days, right? Because even if you find that amazing person tomorrow and you go through three interviews, some assessments, reference checks, that's like maybe two to four weeks of interviewing and then they put in their two-week notice, so you're talking four to six weeks there as it alone. Well, that's assuming the ideal candidate showed up today, six weeks from now, I'm actually that butt is in a seat, right. So yeah, it's realistically. You know you want to set a timeframe.

Fletcher: 27:33

So that's, something else that's really important to think about what is the timeframe to make a successful hire and give yourself enough time to do that? So that's part of it. The other part of it is just the size of the organization. So the bigger the organization, the more leaders that are involved. Usually there are different hires that are happening in different departments and we're going through this fact-driven hiring system to create those fundamental tools and get the job description, create those measurables, making sure that the attraction system for that role. So every role might require a slightly different strategy, right, and we're going to leverage some of these strategies we talked about, but they're going to take different language, different marketing messages, different approaches, different people involved. And then the candidate evaluation again is, you know, can be a little bit different depending on each role. So, again, the larger the organization, the more different variety of roles. You know, the more people we're having to touch, the more groups within the organization we have to touch. Typically those take longer. They also typically have a lot more hires that need to be made.

Fletcher: 28:36

I need to make 20 hires in the next quarter, right? Well, okay, you know we might be able to get many of those done in a quarter or it might take a little longer to fill all those roles, and so or they have an ongoing need or they're growing. Hey, I need 10 this quarter, 10 next quarter and 10 the quarter after that. And you know their business leaders are, you know they're learning and they're getting better at evaluating candidate and some of these strategies. But it just makes a lot of sense to outsource and have that internal partner.

Fletcher: 29:07

Usually what happens with the large organizations our goal is to help them hire a recruiter in-house and get them trained up, and then that takes time as well, right? Smaller organizations may be working with the business leader, teaching them these processes, helping them install the tools and the systems. Again, we're making one, two, three hires over the course of a quarter. They're learning as they go and by the time we get to the end of that A, their hiring needs are fulfilled. But B, they're also set up for the future hires and they can do this themselves, right?

Tony: 29:37

So do you also help them? I know you're talking about define the world. Do you help them define? How far in depth do you get into that? I mean you're also doing some coaching and consulting with the company, I'm assuming, right, yeah?

Fletcher: 29:54

Yeah, I mean there's a lot of discovery, right. So we spend. You know, typically path is we meet once a week for 15 to 30 minutes to talk about just the recruiting activity, like okay, how many candidates do we have, who's in the pipeline, what do we got, where are they at Process, how are we feeling about them, what's the next step in the evaluation process? So that's very like block and tackle stuff, right. And then typically we're doing a one hour strategy consulting call each week and that's starting with just getting really close. So we're working with a freight company, small freight brokerage company, right, they want to hire their first outside salesperson.

Fletcher: 30:32

We've spent three hours so far better understanding how we're going to measure success in that role and what the activities of that role are going to be, and beginning to think about how we're going to compensate that person. So they want this person to be a hunter where they have farmers in. So there's all these different dynamics and how do we get this comp right so that it's a competitive job offer? And the last piece is training an onboard. Okay, fine, we found the right person. Now how are we going to make sure that they're successful? And that is a whole conversation again that these guys, they've actually been working with me like seven years ago. They've come back, so they know the program, they know what they're getting into here and I keep asking them.

Fletcher: 31:25

Like you know, I give them homework assignments and you know, say, hey, you can do this yourself next week. And you know, each week they come and they just want to talk through it with somebody, have that kind of third party sort of, to bounce those ideas and facilitate that conversation. So they'd rather do it that way than do the work themselves. Right, well, that's fine and it's perfectly okay to have a coach or consultant to do it that way or to to. We can accelerate that process and you know they do their homework. Come back, we review the work. We, you know, poke holes or ask questions, we refine, we get it to where we want and then we move on to the next subject. Right?

Tony: 31:59

Yeah, the big critical thing in having someone like you is, you know, asking thing in having someone like you is, you know, asking the questions to make someone that's in our position think right. You can only think outside of the box so many ways. So the great professionals are asking you those questions to make you really think. They're not here to tell you all the answers, right, they want to make us think. So it's like you know you get caught in your own little thought processes and you miss too many things. So it's like you know you get, you get caught in your own little thought processes and you, you miss too many things.

Tony: 32:28

So you have to find the professional like you that can ask the right questions to make you properly think, to kind of open up your thought process to find that right person. You know, cause you have it in your own head. I mean, typically us business owners are going to, we kind of know, but we just don't even really know what questions to ask ourselves to pull out. So you just got to constantly, you know, and when you interact with someone like you that's doing this, that's who the best people are. In my opinion. They're the ones that drive the questions to make you really think. And then you're just like oh, why didn't?

Fletcher: 32:59

I do it, it's so simple. Steer you in the right direction, right? Yeah, steer you.

Tony: 33:03

It's just like and then you're like, oh, I mean. Well, of course I should have known that. Why didn't I already?

Fletcher: 33:07

know that we all need it. I am a coach and I'm part of two forums of other business leaders, so I have like three or four different educational outlets for myself, you know, and I learn things about hiring from them.

Tony: 33:27

I'm like, oh, that's a really good idea. I never thought about it. Yeah, absolutely. Well, that's the thing I mean. We all have to continually be educating ourselves, continue to drive ourselves to be better. I mean, if you want to be better than the competition, in whatever industry you're in, right, you have to continually be pushing yourself, pushing the envelope, driving to be better. How can I get this edge? What edge do I have in have and you know, in order to get the clarity on what makes you better, what makes you different, why, why are you going to be the leader in the industry? How? What can you do to attract again, go back to that, attract the right talent. I mean, you have to be the person that the talent wants to come work for and you have to show that talent. If they are talent and they want to go to the best company, you have to show them why you're the best company, what you're doing, working how you're working, better, harder to become better than anybody else in the market and in the industry, right?

Fletcher: 34:13

Yeah, well, quality of life is a big one. I mean, we're all here as entrepreneurs because we want a better quality of life for ourselves. Well, everybody else wants the same thing, right? It's a human thing to want improved quality of life, right? So you know, a, we want to just maintain the quality of life we have at minimum, right, nobody wants to go backwards in that. And B, you know we want to advance that.

Fletcher: 34:37

And there's really, you know, a few levers there your ability to care for your family and to spend time and be a great mother, father, husband, daughter, son, whatever it is right.

Fletcher: 34:57

And then the other piece is personal growth, and so there's personal and professional development, and I think that's another thing that, as humans, we all share.

Fletcher: 35:02

I think we I don't know too many humans that just love being stagnant, right, who don't want to grow in some way or another or be challenged, right. And then purpose ultimately so that's kind of you know can we fulfill our purpose? And you know, work is just a vehicle in many ways for us to do that, and sometimes we do jobs. That is just a vehicle in many ways for us to do that, and sometimes we do jobs that you know are not sexy or do not have any obvious purpose to them, and it's a means to be able to fulfill your purpose outside of work. And that's fine, right, and that's perfectly acceptable. But if the work can help you grow personally and professionally and help you achieve your purpose, then you know that's a much more rewarding situation. And so, as employers, we need to be able to help people connect those dots and help enable that in them and show them, hey, how this career is going to help them in those areas.

Tony: 35:58

Yeah, and I think that's extremely important. You know, I've taken a lot of time trying to focus on my purpose. What's my purpose? How am you know? Where is my fulfillment? Yeah, so I think those are great questions to ask. And, yeah, I mean that's not something I really do. A lot is ask my staff. I mean I'm always asking what are their goals? How can I help them achieve their goals, which I guess kind of aligns, but I do love that that you just brought up I think that's a great nugget is understanding each one of your people's purpose and what offers them fulfillment. Kind of getting you know a group buy-in and helps on that. That's awesome. So that's a great little tidbit. Thanks for kicking me in on that. I like it.

Fletcher: 36:40

That was great.

Tony: 36:43

So, besides with the consulting, is that a different structure or is that still this 90 days to one year? Do you do longer term consulting?

Fletcher: 36:54

Yeah. So it's all built into whether you are using our software platform. So we sell two things our software platform, the recruitment automation tools and assessment tools. And then the second part is the done for you, the fractional talent acquisition. The consulting is the foundation of those things. So, whether you're using the tools or you're using us to do it for you type service right, the consulting is really wrapped in and it's here, it's me on these podcasts, it's on the stage, it's people. You're more than welcome to call and take an hour of my time. I'm happy to share with anybody, or somebody on my team will be happy to share with you.

Fletcher: 37:33

One of our core values is educate first, and what that means is that we educate ourselves first. Like you mentioned earlier, we're constantly like how do we learn more, get better at what we're doing? We might call ourselves experts, but we still have a lot to learn. I mean, I'm just a human being, right? I can always learn more. I can always be better at what I do, right. And then we want to be able to share best ideas and practices with our clients, whichever bucket they fall in, right. So it's typically a free thing. I don't do paid consulting gigs. They're just a part of one of the two other services that we do.

Tony: 38:13

That's awesome and I know we have a lot of contractors that listen in here and so Fletcher and me were discussing. So Fletcher has dealt with over 400 construction companies. You know general contractors and specialty contractors, so he has plenty of experience in the construction space. So fantastic resource here for anybody that's in this construction space to reach out to him. If you're looking to grow and expand all the tools that you have, if you're trying to continue with EOS or whatever all the different things that we've talked about for growing your business, organizing your business, you know, documenting through everything so great resource to have. Fletcher, I'm so happy I was able to get you on today. If people want to reach out to you, what's the best way to get in touch with you?

Fletcher: 38:58

Yeah, so Fletcher Wimbush my name. I was blessed with a very unique name. You can find me on LinkedIn or just FletcherWinbushcom you can check me out there. Or DiscoveredATScom. You can check out our hiring platform there. Feel free to reach out and I'm always happy to chat with you and really no pressure man. Anybody who wants to chat and just says, hey, I got a problem or I got a challenge or I got a question and I freely share. You check me out on YouTube or or LinkedIn and I'm out on there all the time sharing best ideas and practices. Like there's no secrets. The recipe book is yours to have. If you know some of our tools or services could be helpful, then I'm happy to. We're happy to help you out there and go further.

Tony: 39:49

That's awesome, yeah, and I think it's. You know someone like you can bring it all together to someone you know you can. You'll go in a bunch of circles and go down a bunch of rabbit holes. Somebody like you keeps them on track. It's right to the nuts and bolts.

Fletcher: 40:01

Remember, I'm a high D, I like to get stuff done, man.

Tony: 40:06

Shorten the success timeline and I love it that you're doing these shorter engagements. So it's really about finding companies, helping them and moving on, not leeching on and slow rolling these, making long, long things. He is basically saying he's going to come in, educate you, get your team up and running onto the next one. Obviously, you'll be back there for support if you need it. He offers the software so it can help you keep yourself going. So fantastic, fletcher. Thanks again so much for joining us. I think it's going to be beneficial to everyone listening today. Awesome Thanks, tony. Yes, sir, have a great day you too.