Transparency & Communication: Be Human and Give a Damn

Greg Reffner [00:00:02] Everybody, this is Greg Reffner on the Abstrakt Podkast, and today we have Matt Walsh executive vice president, CEO of Blue Signal Search. And for the first time, a customer and an investor and advisor at Abstrakt. So I’m really excited to chat with you Matt . Please say Hi, sir. 

Matt Walsh [00:00:22] Hi, Greg, thanks so much for having me. Really excited to be here. 

Greg Reffner [00:00:26] Yeah, we’re excited to have you. Not too often that we get to talk with companies that made fast 5000 list and things like that from the Phoenix area like Phoenix is hidden gem when it comes to any company making that list. So before we dove into some of our talking points, let’s build a little bit of a foundation so that our listeners understand what you’re talking about. We’ll start with why start Blue Signal? Why get into the recruiting industry? Give us a little bit of background on yourself and Blue Signal. 

Matt Walsh [00:00:59] Sure. Sure. Yeah. So I guess a little bit about me. I’m your traditional farmer grew up in the Midwest, on a farm, went to school, wanted to move to the big city. So I went to Chicago, didn’t really know what I was going to do, and the recruiting firm reached out to me for a job that matched and lined up well with my degrees. And I said, What the heck? Let’s let’s give it a go. So I go in there and they said, Hey, what would you think about recruiting? And at the time, I didn’t even know what a recruiter was. I just thought, Oh, no, the military is not for me. I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t stand it in a way. They said, No, no, no. We are career coaches. We’re agents. We’re like, Jerry Maguire is for professionals, and we think you’d be pretty decent at it. Maybe you should give it a shot. And selfishly, at the time, I’m thinking, Oh, this is great. I can see all the career paths I can look at. Folks resumes, I can see the career path I want to make and finance because that’s what my degree was in and then will help me to propel my career. So I started and then got very, very fortunate, made a start, a bunch of records in the first few weeks and I actually fell in love with it. And so I’ve been doing it ever since. That was for a company called Managed Recruiters at the time, they were one of the largest. They’re a franchise, though, so it’s like McDonald’s. And so I did that for four or five years, and then I met my now wife and we decided to. I had to move to be with her. And unfortunately, at that time, they didn’t want folks working remote. So went out on my own, did some other things. And then ultimately, all my clients just kept coming back to me, saying, Hey, can you help us with this? Can you help us with this? And I said, Well, once my non-compete is up, I’m happy to explore it and they all track that date. And when you know it, the week my non-compete was up, I had two or three of them calling me and saying, Hey, by our math, you’re non-compete. So can you help us with this? So I did it then, and I honestly had no intention of starting a business. I really just enjoyed the job. It was more of a lifestyle job. And so I kept doing it and it just started to snowball on itself, and I started to get more than I could handle and decided to just start hiring. And that was about 2000, and then we moved to Phenix. Then about 2015 or 2016 is really when I started hiring and growing, and I made some really good clutch hires early on. And, you know, they say about surrounding yourself with really good people. And since then, it’s just been growing and scaling. And I love it because, yes, I get to grow a company, but I still get to do the day in, day out job of recruiting, which I’m really passionate about. So it’s been fun. 

Greg Reffner [00:03:18] That’s awesome. So it sounds like you kind of fell into it in a lot of ways that be a fair statement to make. 

Matt Walsh [00:03:24] And everywhere I went, I fell into it. Recruiting was not very glamorous. I think it’s still kind of borderline, but back then it used to be right there next to a used car salesman like, Oh, recruiter, no thanks. Now it’s a little more glamorous and there’s a huge war on talent and everybody needs recruiters. But it’s it’s it’s been a fun ride. It’s been a fun journey. 

Greg Reffner [00:03:42] Yeah. So let’s let’s dove into that a little bit because when I left the fitness industry. I showed up to Robert Half and just kind of an open interview. And I felt like a used car salesman going in there to be a recruiter. And I was kind of my first like, my dad would always be like, Oh, you’re going to go for an interview as a recruiter. Like, you just like kind of like, go be a used car salesman. But that’s definitely not what recruiting is turned into today. Some of the most successful people I know are in recruiting. And if they’re good at it, like you can be very, very successful. So even still today, there’s a high turnover rate. I think I’ve seen some industry stats back 30 percent. 40 percent is realistic depending upon your geo blue signal was named the best place to work at twenty twenty one in the Phenix area. What’s your secret to keeping talent, engaging talent and then kind of beating that industry staff? 

Matt Walsh [00:04:43] Good question, and you’re right, recruiting. When I started, I think the state I first heard was one out of 10 make it, and I think that was accurate in my office because I’d start, there’d be all these people that start and they’d be gone in a week or two. Recruiting is is not for everybody. I mean, it is one of those things where you have to really enjoy people. You have to really enjoy making a difference and you have to you have to give a damn, but you have to be a hard worker. I mean, there’s no easy way to do it. And although we try our best to scare people and the beginning, in fact, what I tell folks is, listen, this is a great one of the most rewarding jobs you’ll ever do, but it’s probably one of the hardest jobs you’re ever going to do for the next six months. Your life is over. I mean, on nights weekends, you’re not going to be able to go out, you’re going to be doing research and you just have to do all that. My old boss used to say it’s like an airplane taking off. In the beginning it is full throttle. But once you get up to 30000 feet, cool now you’re just getting emails and doing referral calls. By the beginning, it’s a lot of hard work, and so we do our best to try to set these expectations early on that, you know, there’s a lot of good recruiting firms out there. They all have their own training process and tools and softwares. And here’s what we do. Here’s why. Here’s our expectations, and I actually and my my team doesn’t like it when I do this sometimes. But I say, Listen, you should interview other recruiting firms do. Don’t just interview with us. Go to the other one. See what are the pros and the cons, and I want you to come to us because you want us. The jobs can always be here, whether it’s now or three years from now. We’re always hiring. We’re always growing. And I think it’s just letting them know that there is no pressure letting them know once you come in, here’s the expectations for the first six months. Let’s agree to that. Let’s put this plan together, and then let’s follow up on it. And we’ve been fortunate enough to scale and have so many folks that are they’re hungry, they’re motivated. And then they, you know, there is that growth path where they can become managers, they can become leaders, then they hire recruiters underneath them. And it’s just that that ability to to really show that career path manage those expectations early on, have all the tools to be successful. But then for me personally, I think one thing that stands out is I’m still doing this job today. So I’m not any of the, you know, they say, the CEO in the ivory tower. I’m, you know, although I have a nice window here, I’m the farthest thing from what I am in the trenches every single day, making the exact same calls everybody else is. So if I suggest doing something, it’s time because I’m telling you to do it because that’s what I just did earlier today and it worked. And so I think that resonates a lot when I lead by example versus lead and telling folks what to do. 

Greg Reffner [00:07:07] Yeah, I love that. And then you get it allows you to have a finger on the pulse of what’s going on, what people are facing, like you kind of I think it’d be very easy to get removed from what’s going on if you’re not in the trenches every single day with your team, right? 

Matt Walsh [00:07:23] Yeah, absolutely. It helps. And selfishly, I actually just enjoy doing it. You know, there’s some days either, and there’s I like being the CEO. There’s other days, you know, just give me a phone and give me a chair. I just want to I just want to recruit today and pound out a bunch of calls. So it gives me that flexibility. 

Greg Reffner [00:07:38] Yeah, absolutely. That’s awesome. Well, let’s say let’s talk about your day to day and how you use technology to think about not only kind of growing your company, but optimizing your day. I had a quick peek at your calendar one day, and that was the scary thing looking at your calendar map. So efficiency optimizing your use of time are obviously important things to someone like yourself that’s in the trenches and, you know, being the CEO of a fast growing company. So how is this technology played a role in your success? 

Matt Walsh [00:08:15] Oh, great question. I’m a technology junkie. I love this stuff. When I first got into recruiting and can’t make this up, when I first sat down, there was an ashtray on the desk, by the way. So this was that there were actually literally ashtrays on the desk because back then recruiters would just be pounding cigarets as they’re making calls that actually the next year, though, they took us away. We had this old dos system. It was called Safari. I’m not sure if it’s still in existence anymore, but about his old dated system as possible. And and you had a phone. And I remember when I came to and my boss at the time, Anita, bless her heart. Still stay in touch with her. She came in, she said, OK, here’s the phonebook. Here’s the phone. Clients are in the Yellow Pages, candidates are in the white go and I’m thinking, OK, so I open the book and I just called the first number on their sales. OK. We’re not really that barbaric, but I just want to make sure you do it of like, Yeah, I’ve no problem call anybody. I don’t care. And so, you know, we had got some other tools then. But but one of the things I just couldn’t stand in business in general is, Hey, listen, we’re going to do it this way because that’s the way we always do it. And so that just makes no sense to me. And so one of my mottos here and one of the things we’ve really embraced is we are not going to do it that way purely because that’s the way we were doing it. We always have to be doing better, always have to get better tools, tax software, whatever it is. And so I it’s funny. My team gives me a hard time for this. Whenever there’s a cold call coming in for new software or new whatever they want to pitch, I always take it. When I want to hear the pitch, I want to hear how it is. If they’re good too, there might be a good recruiter that I can convert the recruit with us. Three. It could be some new game changing software that I don’t know about. So we have constantly looked at all the tools, all the tech, not only just in recruiting, but sales in general to make sure that we’re getting the right stuff. And like I said, for me, it’s it’s so important not only for me to be successful, but for me to know that I am giving the team the best tools possible to ensure their success. 

Greg Reffner [00:10:08] So let’s let’s piggyback off that a little bit. So when you are recruiting or doing business development, are you do you dove into? I mean, you obviously have a strong belief in leveraging technology math for your team. But do you find that when you’re talking with folks who are going out looking for salespeople, that that’s something that you dove into a little bit with them like, you know, how savvy are you with tech? How important do you think technology is to optimize your time? And how does that play a role in maybe your success in finding them the right candidates? And is there a disconnect between what candidates are looking for and what companies are offering? Can we dove into that a little bit? 

Matt Walsh [00:10:51] Yeah, I think generally speaking, there’s probably I mean, there’s always a disconnect with everything. I mean, transparency and communication is key across the board business personal. I mean, you name it. But the nice part is my recruiters, they’re in the trenches. You know, they’re talking to these sales, folks. And when you go to a recruiter, you don’t want a B or C player. You want an AA player you want. I want. Here’s my top seven competitors. I want the top players over there right now. That makes sense. I will get them, but you got to remember they’re having a banner year right now. There have all the sales in the funnel. They have all these commissions coming in. They probably have bonuses. When they go to resign, they’re going to get a huge counteroffer. So I really need to learn from you. What are the compelling selling points? Why should they leave that company and come to yours? What’s going to be so much better for them? More importantly, because then they say, Oh, we’ll offer better commission, offer better sales of it, and it’s all that stuff. It’s who will they become? You know, when you talk about culture, it’s not just free pizza and foosball tables. It’s about who they’re going to when they join, who they are today and then who do they become? So we need to map that story out. We need to look at what is your onboarding process, what is your training process? What tools do you use today? What’s your retention of customers today? Why do they leave? How do you compete against your competitors? I ask what your value pitch? If I’m going to these seven players, they’ve probably heard of you. Are they ones that you went against? Are they ones that you lose against? And why? Why do the customers choose you? Let me get into the daily life of the salesperson. You know how? How are they giving their leads? How are they managing these leads once they get new customers? How are they going through those? How is your servicing team? Do you have sales engineers, you know, whatever the technology is? And so we’re really doing a deep dove into this and so are hiring managers are caught off guard because they don’t have all the answers, which is fine. You know, we’ll work with you on on building this plan, on building to make sure you can clearly communicate to your direct competitors. You’re going to be much better over here. Here is why, and it’s got to be so much more detail than just you’re going to get paid more. And I think as we map that out, we talk about some of the failures they’ve had in the past. Talk to me about some of the bad hires. Why didn’t they work out? Talk to me about some of the great hires. Where do they come from? What have you learned? What have you adjusted in your onboarding process to accommodate for that? And I think as you talk to some of these sales leaders hearing how they’ve adjusted, hearing how they are open and receptive to the market really defines them as a good leader. And a lot of times I’ll say, ask anyone on my team about me and how I lead and how I’m always there for them. You know, if they do something great, I’m I’m going to bang the drum and talk all about it. I do something bad. I’m going to cover it up, form and cover it up, but I’m gonna be there for him to make sure that I take the fall. You know, I always got my people, I always got their back. And, you know, all these other things that are good sales leaders will say. But you can tell right away when a sales leader gets it, you can tell they have the tools and support for their team. They have a good onboarding process, a good training process. They are better than their competitor. They have actual specific reasons, not that they just care too hard and work too much. And then on top of that, they can really create that amazing life for that person to come on board. Of course you joke about Work-Life Balance, but it’s more about career growth and who you’re going to become and who your family is going to be in the freedom and the flexibility. Because some, you know, let’s face it, you don’t live to work, you work to live. So you want this as a way to provide a better family and that for yourself and those that truly get it. They make that impact. And we love working with those clients all day long because we can get them really good sales reps. 

Greg Reffner [00:14:01] I can tell you’re passionate about this a little bit. Yes. You ever turn anybody away. Do you ever feel like, you know, you don’t get it? We’re never going to find anybody for you. I’m not going to waste your time. 

Matt Walsh [00:14:11] So, yeah, I mean, not I’m not as direct about that. So there are times where, you know, if they don’t have good answers to those or they’re not as receptive to the market conditions, I mean, they want in a player from their competitor, great. That person’s got a big sales funnel. They’re going to need some kind of a sign on there. I need some kind of a guarantee there. Well, we don’t want that. We don’t. OK, let’s find what you want. Is this and quite frankly, you don’t need a search firm like us to go find that, post an ad, find some other folks or, you know, there are some more affordable agencies out there. They’ll just slam you with resumes. That’s fine, too. So we do turn away, especially now a good amount of business if we don’t think we can help them. I’ll always give them advice and suggestions on what they can do differently. Sometimes, you know, if you can change this or this or this, I’m happy to work with you. But I I’m I’ve been doing this too long where I’m a firm believer of transparency, which is one of our biggest core values. Here is what we can do is what we can’t do. I never want to overpromise. Here is how we’re going to go to market. Here’s all this, this strategy that goes into it, and I just don’t think our companies are fit. And here’s why. And I actually have been having that conversation a lot recently, but it’s good. You know, they need to hear that and we need to hear that because I don’t want to ever set false expectations 

Greg Reffner [00:15:21] That probably it makes them lean in and want to work with you even more, though, right? When you do the take away 

Matt Walsh [00:15:25] Form us sometimes. Yeah, helped a couple of my best clients, actually really good clients. I did say because they wanted to partner with two or three firms, and I said, I appreciate that out of the success for this search, I’m actually going to bow out because you really want to partner with one firm who gets it. It’s a clear message. If you get multiple in there, it’s just a race. They’re going to send you people without doing their due diligence. Plus they’re not going to put time in the message and blah blah blah. So I understand and I appreciate that you should definitely do what’s best for you. But based off of that, you know, we don’t win on price. We went on speed and quality, and I go through all the other stuff that we always went on. But price is not one of them. If that’s one of your leading indicators and you’re right, a bunch of times they come back and they sometimes they’ll try the other firms. Sometimes they say, No, we want to work with you, we’re not going to work with them. And OK, let’s go. 

Greg Reffner [00:16:08] It should be like, that’s any time something. Oh, we’re looking at other people and what is our firm, just like, almost like default? Like, that’s your objection handling technique because people want what they can’t have. 

Matt Walsh [00:16:21] So, so sometimes the old joke was, you know, sell me this pen. Well, how would you sell this pen? And a couple of words I’d say, you can’t have it. Yeah, I want more. 

Greg Reffner [00:16:34] That’s awesome. Well, let’s switch gears a little bit here and still talk about your tech stack. Again, we have the unique opportunity. We don’t have to get to talk with folks that are our customers and also, you know, growing successful companies in parallel to that and investing in advising us. And so I want to hear a little bit about, you know, it’s been about a handful of months since you’ve been a customer of Abstrakt and you latched on to one specific thing about our product, which was that transcription and how fast that transcription was delivered after a call was over. Why is that so important to you? And what did you what have you tried prior to us meeting on that fateful day to get that end result of that transcript? 

Matt Walsh [00:17:25] Yes, thank you. I’ve been waiting for this question. So one of the things in recruiting and sales in general, but especially in recruiting, you’re having high level calls with folks, and it’s it’s important to listen to everything they’re saying and to type it out, transcribe it. You know, usually I’m doing chicken or whatever I need to do, but it’s also important to listen and understand where they’re going to conversation and then ask really good follow up questions. On top of that, because we’re not asking good questions, you’re not really leading the conversation. And so for me, that’s always been a struggle. The other thing is just making sure that you have accurate notes in the system, as I could be talking to a CEO about a new engineer that’s doing this and this and this. If you ever come across that person, let me know. Six years later, I could find that person. I put those keywords in our system. Holy cow, this CEO asked me for this person. Let’s ping him. You know, it’s just it’s just the ability to have all those things. And on top of that, a lot of times we’re having partnerships on a lot of these roles where I’m going to take the role in. I’m having some other recruiter work on it or vice versa. We have, you know, big teams and there’s several rainmaker models within those teams. And just being able to clearly communicate all those needs. And I’ve not found it. I was looking for a very long time. There’s several other companies out there that offer like dragons. I mean, I could go on and on and on because I like I said, I’m a I’m a tech junkie. I was out looking for and I’ve all these consultants, some of which I’ve referred to you that were in the recruiting industry. And I’m always asking, Listen, if you ever come across something like this, I honestly don’t care what if you find someone that can transcribe this stuff, put it into our system. Be smart about it. We can use this to me. I will pay any price I get. It is just so valuable, and I’ve not been able to find anything that does that because I know how crucial it is for our recruiting space. And so that’s when I think. Was introduced to your company, and then I did that first demo. I was trying my best to keep my smile hidden because I’m like, Oh my gosh, this is exactly what I’ve been looking for the last five, six years, and I finally found it. So I think I waited a few weeks before I finally called you up and I was like, Greg, I love it. I want, and this is amazing. This is a game changer not only for us and I’ve already told other recruiting firms about it. I’m not one of those that says, Oh, I want to keep all the tech for us and not let anyone else do what I want to win. And no, I mean, there’s enough business to go around. I always want to help other people. So I’ve already told several other people about it. We’ve already implemented in our side. But just that transcription piece, the real time to be able to keep that conversation going. In addition to getting accurate notes and you have the conversational intelligence piece on side of it, like having a real coach there with you, you can always fine tune and perfect. And in recruiting you just have to because it’s such high stakes. I mean, we’re charging 40-50 thousand dollars for the placements that we make. It is high stakes like we are only sending the best people. There is zero room for error and this just helps us be even better at what we already do. So for me, it’s been a game changer. I was very, very lucky and fortunate to have come across it and come across you, and it’s made a huge impact on our team. 

Greg Reffner [00:20:18] I appreciate that. So just real quick, let’s back up and how you’re using it. So I think it’s called like an intake, her an on boarding call where you. This is really mainly where it’s being deployed right now, and ultimately you’re using abstract as a way to standardize the questions and the engagement that you have with the client. And then the the real value is being able to take that within like three seconds after her call is over and then go and access everything that had just happened on that call. Move it over to your applicant tracking system. Instantly find the key points that you wanted before going on to your next call, as opposed to having to wait to go back and listen to it or wait for the call to be processed and then transcribed at a later date. You can literally just end the call, do your action items and move on, right? 

Matt Walsh [00:21:13] Yes. No. And thanks to that, that’s why my calendar is so crazy now because I can do back to back to back to back to back calls of this exact same thing, it automatically goes into the system. But yeah, we call it intakes for our clients, so they’ll say, Hey, I need a VP of sales that does this, this this. We’re looking for this and we do have a lot of the questions that we’ll ask on the intake and we do deeper dives in certain areas. But for the most part, we really need to understand what it is that they’re looking for. And we’re going through target companies when we’re going through backgrounds, when we’re going through the sizzle and selling points as to why they should come there, because none of that stuff’s on a job description. I mean, a lot of times I also look at the job description. That’s what we want. OK, well, you’ve already posted that. You’ve already seen how that’s worked. We can agree that it’s not working. That’s why you’re talking to me. So let’s get into all the stuff that’s not on the job description. And then what we do in our marketing team is is amazing in all this, but they take a lot of those notes in addition to the job description to really build this entire campaign from a marketing standpoint. So we’re going to these candidates and we’re going out externally. We can show them the whole story, not just a job description that says, you get to do this, you must do this. And what abstract has done is it’s been able to quickly translate those conversations right into our system, right over to marketing, right into our external scripts. Because when we ask a hiring manager, why should someone work for you? Tell me why they should take this job. I mean, what they say for the next 90 seconds is really whether or not we’re going to fill that. So actual accurate transcription on that is that’s in essence the message that my recruiters need to go take to market. And that’s what they’re able to do. And that’s what Abstrakt’s been able to help us do very quickly and seamlessly. 

Greg Reffner [00:22:50] And so what the framework? You can ask that question and then your marketing team doesn’t even have to go sort through the entire call. They can just jump through those framework points, find where that question was asked and then instantly find how that person responds. With that less than a minute of their time to find that that 90 second kind of answer to that key question. 

Matt Walsh [00:23:11] Oh yeah, it’s been. I mean, the amount of time it saved us. I mean, I don’t have I can’t quantify it, but we’re probably looking 30 to 45 minutes every time we do one of these just to get it all in there. Now, it’s instant. On top of that, it’s more accurate and it really is how we differentiate ourselves. Just just having that accurate information. So it’s it’s it’s been better and I know there’s many more applications that we can do with this and we’re still trying to improve on that, especially on the conversational intelligence side for recruiting, especially because you have there’s so many you want to get the most out of every call. And so often as a sales rep or media rep or recruiter, you don’t always do that. You you’ll listen to the recording afterwards or go back afterwards. You’re like, Oh, I should have said this, or I should have said that. And. And so over time, you know, when you’re in the years, 10, 15 years, you remember to do that. But if I could take all that 10 to 15 years of experience and boom, throw it into your very first calls because I’m right there telling you to do it. I mean, that’s just not only does it make their life easier, but it makes it better for our clients, better of our candidates and better for the company. 

Greg Reffner [00:24:13] Yeah. So real quick, let’s throw some numbers behind that and you can keep it high level kind of guesstimate. But you know, most folks, I talked to you, they might be making one hundred phone calls a day talking with maybe five to eight people. And then of those five to eight over, you know, getting faced with objections and three of them next steps with one of them and a follow up, maybe with one of that, right? So you have to make the most out of every single possible scenario. You can’t leave it to chance, especially when it’s 40 50 thousand dollar. Check in the company’s bank account, you know, to not overcome that objection correctly. Right? 

Matt Walsh [00:24:56] Yeah. I mean, it does us no good as our clients, no good if our recruiters aren’t equipped to overcome those, those basic objections. And yeah, I mean, to put the numbers behind it, I mean a typical search where we’re probably looking at two hundred two hundred and fifty folks that are qualified, they’re interested. They’re coming from the right companies, they have the right background and our recruiters are calling, emailing, texting, voicemail, LinkedIn. I mean, you name it, they’re they’re they. Are manually drip campaigning the heck out of these folks just to get them on the phone and say, Hey, listen, I’m sure things are good, you probably even don’t have the company, but could they be better? And so we’re just really hearing them out. What could be better? What could be better? And whenever never tell them anything, our client, whenever I want to fit a square peg in a round hole. But after we learn who they are and what and what they’re doing, you’re right. The numbers will show through the two to two hundred and fifty usually will identify five to six that are probably good fits. I probably will be presented. From there, we narrow it down to two to three to get one higher. So there’s so much work that goes on there. But if you think about it, was that one hire out of those 250 that we went through the man hours to go through those two hundred and fifty. And if that one objection was not handled the right way. Well, now that’s gone and you just you’ve wasted so much time, so much effort and you’re not going to have a happy client either. So you got to make sure you do that. 

Greg Reffner [00:26:07] It’s crazy. It’s crazy at all that work. All that money can ultimately come down to that one interaction that you have with that person, which is applicable recruiting B to B, B to C basically anywhere right like that. That one chance at overcoming that objection are asking that right question. So pivotal in any business and every aspect of life, actually, so that I can tell you the time, you know, I want to bundle all this up. Kind of wrap all this up. So you guys are kicking ass and recruiting world blue signals, obviously marquee recruiting firm in the Phenix area. I know you guys also work nationwide. Listen, talking to our audience, recruiting leaders, even business leaders in general, what what kind of advice may your top two piece advice that you give folks that you know, are thinking about growing a company or thinking about how to deploy technology or just advice in general? 

Matt Walsh [00:27:11] Well, I’d say a good question if I have a couple of different ones. So the first one is if you’re really trying to hire or grow a team or build a team, you have to start and think, you know what? I want to work for me and why. You know what? What are those, those items there? And you really need to be able to clearly articulate those to get anybody to work for you. I mean, it’s really just about being able to sell the opportunity, selling you, selling all that stuff around you. So you need to work on the value pitch. You need to have good process procedure and structure in place. You need to understand your onboarding process, what works, what doesn’t work. All too often, sales leaders like I was just the wrong hire wasn’t, I mean, for me, and that’s why our rates are much higher than the industry average, because every single person that comes through here, if they didn’t work out, I never say it was their fault. I never say it was our dranes fault. I say it was my fault. Something was wrong so that either the training was wrong, the onboarding was wrong, something was wrong, and we got to make sure we learn from. We fine tune it so always learn from those never think it’s perfect. If you think it’s perfect, it’s probably not. So you can always be adjusting. Always learn from it, always poll and ask your folks what’s working well, what’s not? What barriers can I remove for you? How and then as you’re you’re growing and scaling, you just need to remember that they’re all people, you know, behind that person. Behind that resume is an actual human being with a family with, you know, with feelings, with all the other stuff. So you have to be humble, you have to be able to to level with them and understand that, yes, it’s business. Yes, we need to focus on high performance. At the same time, we have our lives behind us too, and we have to make sure we’re doing it all for the right reasons. And I think if you can master those three things the selling pitch, the process and procedure and fine tuning that continuous improvement and be human and give a damn, I think that that really is a good combination to make sure you’re growing in the right place. 

Greg Reffner [00:28:58] I think we’re going to name our podcast that be human and give a damn. What do you think? I love that you talk about ownership. Extreme Ownership is probably one of my favorite books by a navy seal named Jocko Willink, and he talks about, you know. Own everything, because when you own it, it allows you to take responsibility for it, when you make excuses right, you separate yourself from the outcome and when you do that, you don’t have any control over it. And so I do believe that that is a fundamental characteristic of anybody who leads a successful company is coming from a place of ownership of outcomes, good or bad. And so I love that you talked about that and just be human, if anything, over the past couple of years. That’s what that’s what’s taught us. It’s taught us that it’s just be human, let people be human and understand that family is important. And the companies that are recognizing that owning that and leading with that are the ones that are are winning that talent war, allowing people to work from home and be flexible with taking their kids to the doctor. All that stuff. So Matt, appreciate your time today as always a pleasure, sir, and thank you. Thank you again for being a customer and advisor and investor. We’re lucky to have you on board and a fan of Abstrakts. 

Matt Walsh [00:30:20] Yeah, no. I really appreciate time. Greg’s been fun and yeah, I absolutely love Abstrakt. Love everything you’re doing for us. You make our job so much easier and so much more fun. So thank you for all you do. Appreciate it. 

Greg Reffner [00:30:30] Absolutely. Take it easy, Matt. All right. 

Matt Walsh [00:30:32] Bye for now.