How to Hire Better and Build a Stronger Remodeling Team

Kyle Hunt: if you want more structure and accountability in your remodeling business, you need to check out the Remodelers on the Rise Peer Groups. The foundation of the program is when you meet with your group of nine other remodelers from around the country for a spring and a fall two and a half day in-person retreat. These retreats give you the space to slow down, gain perspective, regroup, and come out of it with a clear game plan for the months that follow. Then to keep momentum strong between retreats, groups meet monthly via Zoom, and each member receives a quarterly one-on-one call with their peer group coach. We're all about setting clear commitments and going out there and achieving those commitments so you can make more and more progress and be a remodeler on the rise. If you're tired of doing this alone and you want a coach-led group, that helps you grow with structure and attention. Learn more at RemodelersOnTheRise.com. Check out our peer groups. They're great.

 

Kyle: Welcome to the Remodelers on the Rise show. Start with the end in mind. We're going to start with the end in mind. This is a that is a good phrase for you to consider in your as you're working with clients, as you're working with employees. You could go, hey employee, let's start with the end in mind. We want you to get to here six months from now. This is where we're currently at. How do we get from here to there? Ooh, start with the end in mind. Here's the start to the end in mind for this podcast. Hiring challenges are rarely solved by simply posting more job postings. The best remodeling companies succeed because they build clear roles, have a strong hiring system, and an intentional people process. Start with the end in mind. So how do you do that? I have two guests today. I have two guests today. I have Brian Sebring, the Brian Sebring. Yes, folks. He's back on the Remollers on the Rise show. Brian, say hello to people.

 

Bryan Sebring: Hello?

 

Kyle: Brian is the owner of Seabring, Seabring Design Build. He's down in beautiful Franklin, Tennessee. He is also a wonderful Remodelers on the Rise Peer Group coach. We love him, and his members love him as well. and also joining us all the way from Hawaii is Justin Landry. I think it's, I don't know if it's 4 a.m. there, 7 a.m. I don't know. He is the founder and CEO of JL Talent Solutions. Hello, Justin.

 

Justin: Hey Carl, thanks for having us on today.

 

Kyle: You betcha. Justin, give a little intro to the people of who you are and what you do. And then Brian, I will scoot over to you. And we're gonna tell a little story today of Brian's approach to the hiring process. He has worked with Justin, who has assisted him in that approach, and we're gonna see what we can learn. And again, kind of keeping the end in mind, I think there's gonna be some good value nuggets for the remodelers listening. Justin.

 

Justin: Thanks, Kyle. my name is Justin Landry and I own and operate a company named Jail Talent Solutions. For the

 

Kyle: Wait, what does the JL stand for?

 

Justin: Hmm. Jail's my name, Justin Landry.

 

Kyle: you didn't get you didn't get super creative with that part of it. It's like somebody that names

 

Justin: You know, we played with Nate.

 

Kyle: it's like somebody that names their business C Bring Design Build.

 

Justin: It's like we build these companies for production and for function, you know? It's crazy.

 

Kyle: huh.

 

Justin: So when I started JL Talent Solutions, and for the last 10 years that I've been in the HR space, truly focused on residential construction and home builders, I really came to this idea that there's a better way to do recruiting. And that I took all of the best fundaments from the professors I had at Cornell. I took my boots on the ground experience. I took my previous working experience, and I built jail talent solutions as a disruptor to the previous way that recruitment had been done. So the intention of JL Talent Solutions is to find a way that we can use technique and talent and strategy, but also bring heartfelt humanity to the things that we do, balancing art and science in recruiting.

 

Kyle: Lovely. Lovely. And you are in Hawaii, aren't you?

 

Justin: We are on the big island of Hawaii. It's seven, not four in the morning. and yes, we we we are early risers here on the big island. So aloha.

 

Kyle: Aloha. And Brian, introduce yourself on the business side and then maybe get us into things by explaining how you kind of crossed paths with Justin and and how that kinda came about.

 

Bryan Sebring: So yeah, I've been in business since nineteen ninety nine. Recently, about five years ago, I moved from Naperville, Illinois to Franklin, Tennessee, which has been fun. we do high end luxury interiors, kitchens, bathrooms, basements. on the design build side, I have designers on staff. We you know, we do both design and the remodeling of homes here in Franklin. So how did I meet Justin? I got I actually referred from a friend, another member of Remallers on the Rise, had some success. And so I think we started, it's probably about a year ago, I think. and I've now done actually it's probably longer than about a year and a half. I've done three hires with Justin. And so yeah, it's been part of the problem with owning your own business that you're so busy trying to get the work done that I've learned I need help. at least vetting and getting me down funneling the process of hiring someone for my company. And so Justin's been very helpful with that for sure.

 

Kyle: Awesome. Awesome. So I think that's what we're gonna try to do today is just kind of walk through the C bring design build kind of hiring process and maybe a little bit of what you were doing before, Justin, kind of what you've implemented. And I think by doing that, we're just gonna see some best practices, we're gonna see some things that work, that don't work, things to watch out for. Because this this whole topic of it's it's interesting from a coaching standpoint. If you talk to a remodeler and say, Hey, you need to invest in your marketing side of things. Hey, we need to invest time and energy into really streamlining our sales process. Rem most of remodelers would go, absolutely, yes, we need to invest in that. We need to take time in that. We need to really think systematically about both of those things. And I would say a lot of us as business owners, when we look at the hiring side, we're lackadaisical with it. I used to think it was laxadaisical. Turns out there's no S in there. Did we know that, gentlemen?

 

Justin: I'm not sure that I'm not sure I actually knew that.

 

Kyle: Takeaway for you, takeaway, lackadaisical. You're welcome to my listeners. Am I an English guru? No, I am not. Actually, I'd you'd start talking to me about pronouns and proper nouns and adjectives and this and that. Not my forte, but I did just teach you. Brian's actually writing it down right now. Lackadaisical. Wow. Takeaway.

 

Justin: Ha ha ha.

 

Kyle: but we're lackadaisical about the hiring side of things. Holy crap, people, your team. Remodelers listening to this. Your team is what is going to put you on the path of truly being not not to play on my game, name, business a remodeler on the rise, or to kind of linger, or to kind of be frustrated. Your people are extremely, extremely important. How we recruit those people to our team is very important and can be and should be probably more systematic than you're doing it. And also on top of that. The better we recruit, the better our retention is. And man, if we can retain our our great our great team members, that just strengthens your business. It allows you to build a business that that really is enhancing your life instead of ruling your life. So I'll get off a little soapbox there. Let's kind of walk through, I think maybe the first hire that you did with Justin and Brian, kind of tell us a little about what you were looking for, hiring-wise. And then Justin, kind of share maybe a little bit about that or even kind of teach us a little bit related to some early mistakes that people make, even in their approach to this. Brian, who would be an example of one of your first hires that you were doing?

 

Bryan Sebring: I mean, we did a designer and project manager late last year. I think almost continuous where we started with one and then moved to the next one. But probably the number I would start off by saying this. The number one thing I hear from my peer group is there's no good workers out there, right? my gosh, I can't find anybody. And it's just a misnomer. In my mind, it's it all it is is you have to be patient and find the right one. And so part of my problem was before I engaged with Justin is that problem is always putting out fires. Like I need someone fast. I need someone this quick and this fast. Put out an ad, start interviewing and hire the first person that can breathe that maybe has the same culture as we have a little bit. But what Justin taught me to do is I guess obviously start we we had started with roles. He helped me refine that for sure. But take your time you know the the biggest part of this is taking your time and finding the right person. So I mean his process, I'll kind of go through that Justin, you fill in the gaps where I'm missing, but He has the biggest thing is I'm big on disc, so I already know who I wanted for the role. Again, he he puts it into words for the actual ad, but what he filled in the gaps for me is that he has a I call the preview test, and maybe slightly different language, where it actually they have the aptitude to get the job done. they also they also do the interviewing process to when we narrow it down to write candidates to see if they move on to the next step. And then what I like, he does for me, wedge testing, which is another test so I can actually see them answer questions so I can visually see them. Cause I don't want to personally interview twenty people for every role. I we I would say it's gets normal normally narrowed down to maybe two or three people that Justin vets with his staff.

 

Kyle: And and wedge testing is literally them doing verbal, kind of a verbal one way interview.

 

Justin: Yeah.

 

Bryan Sebring: Exactly. With their phone. It's five basic questions. They're they're not detailed about the position. It's more holistically about how they approach a job or, you know, team building, that sort of stuff. And that has been big for me because when I get a resume, I don't get a face with it. I don't get a personality with it. It's just written on a piece of paper. And so, you know, his staff will send me documentation over saying, you know, this is how they interview, this is what they said. I'm like, that's great. But I'd like to see them and so they you know they'll do that, which is nice. And so go ahead.

 

Kyle: All right. Pause. Justin, we gotta get we're going back, we're going back a different direction. back to the start rather a bit. He mentioned patience. He mentioned making sure we're not

 

Justin: Yeah.

 

Kyle: doing a quick hire. He mentioned several of those things. feel free to riff on some of that. and then and then we'll get back to the process.

 

Justin: Absolutely. You know, so many clients that I've seen over the last decade come in for a reactive hire rather than a proactive hire. So many times I hear, my God, I got all of this work and I need to get somebody immediately. Rather than I'm about to go shop for work, we should probably start looking for somebody. So there's some strategy in there as well. There's also some psychology in how the industry works. Most commonly, we're task-based. There are tasks that need to get done. So let's execute for these tasks rather than global, positional, or cultural fit. Those are the things that we look for when we look for better retention. And I think that's the biggest separation I see between the expectations of owners and best practice in human resources. Human resources uses what's called a multiple hurdle engagement system, where each step along the way gets a little bit more challenging and elucidates a little bit more in information about that individual. That's how a great recruitment process works is that we build begin on a base level to understand who an individual is and gather information and build trust. Because all of the things that we do here are trust based. And then as we garner that trust, we can ask for more and more information. So through building that process, which is slower and deliberate, like Brian has shared, we can elucidate that deep amount of information. Because in recruitment, our number one responsibility isn't to make a hire, it's to make sure we don't make a bad hire. And

 

Kyle: Hmm.

 

Justin: our number two responsibility is to make a great hire. If we look at the concept of Markov analysis, it's a way to look at the cost of something and how it's gonna amortize over time. A bad hire in project manager could cost a remodeler $80,000 to $100,000 within the first 18 months of that bad hire. So it's so essential that when we have this proactive need for a hire, We take some time and we strategize what do we need? Why do we need it? What is the clear role? Let's define the role and let's define the process.

 

Kyle: Hm. Justin, the right people are aren't out there. It's impossible to find good people. What do you say?

 

Justin: That's absolutely untrue. And many of the most common places, they've stopped looking. If you're only searching on Indeed, you're not searching in the market. There are a thousand other places that a firm like mine goes, actual construction portals, actual networks that we've built. The other thing that I would say, Kyle, I'm a humongous Lord of the Rings fan, and I use a concept called Frodo and Gandalf. If you can't find the person that you're looking for, someone more senior or someone more junior might be out there. The more senior individual will train your team, or the more junior individual is ready to be trained by your team. So perhaps

 

Kyle: Wait, are one of those Fran one of one of those Frodo and one of those Gandalf?

 

Justin: The senior would be Gandalf and the junior would be Frodo. 'Cause mo

 

Kyle: There's some people listening to this that are that are thrilled right now that you're using this analogy. There's other people that are like, What is he talking about? beautiful. Beautiful. You don't love it as

 

Bryan Sebring: Or Yoda and Luke Skywalker. There you go. Come on, dude.

 

Justin: I've a I can attach

 

Kyle: you don't love it as much, Justin. You love the Lord of the Rings side of things.

 

Justin: Well, except for the Darth Vader standing right next to my desk, yeah, perhaps.

 

Bryan Sebring: He's a he's a Star Wars geek.

 

Kyle: No, what pause pause, pause. So I get you, I I love what you're saying there. We're gonna unpack the other places that you do it. I'm hearing takeaways of be patient, people, be pay if you're gonna be patient at anything in your business, the hiring process, you've gotta be careful with that. The right people are out there. If you're gonna start the recruiting process already half defeated, I'm not like, hey, power of positive thinking. I'm not even saying that, but absolutely, if you are already approaching of going, this hasn't worked in the past. The right person aren't isn't out there. Chances are that you're gonna probably go find that to be your answer. You're gonna try to confirm it. You just heard from an expert who does a lot of recruiting. Bologna, that's not true. The right people are out there. Frankly, yes, they're not on the normal boards. And a lot of people that you're looking to bring over to your team, they are just looking not to change their careers. They're gonna continue to do their similar career, but they're changing their leadership team. And if we can start sounding different on our job descriptions, show how organized we are on the hiring process, that no like and trust starts building on the recruiting end and that matters. Also, Justin, why do you have a Darth Vader like right next to you? Is does it represent something or or you is it a fidget toy for you or what?

 

Justin: I have a Yoda too. There's b baby Yoda my daughter made for me.

 

Kyle: No, I mean that's about as cute as it gets, folks. Okay. All right. so we're we're kind of walking through that's that's a little bit of maybe our mindset and our approach to this side of things. I want to kind of pick up, Brian, where you started going of going, all right. I've got, I'm coming with kind of the personality type I'm looking for. Brian, you're super in depth on the disc and experience on the disc front. and then you started going through preview test, interview process. I wanted to kind of slowly go through each of those if we could. And maybe Justin kind of talk to us about maybe where you're po let's let's unpack kind of the posting side of things and where we're posting it and then talk about best practices of what happens as people start to reach out. What can people learn?

 

Justin: Absolutely. You know, the best practices that I would instate is that the number one hiring mistake is to go by your gut alone. As Brian is is indicating, these assessments and these tools take us from a thing called clinical prediction into a place called qualitative methodology. In clinical prediction, we're using our gut. We're kind of figuring it out as we go, we're using what history has taught us. In qualitative methodology, we're creating a points system. And in that points system, someone either has the right points to make the fit or has the wrong points to make the fit. I internally use a system called the Five Pillars methodology. And the five pillars are do you have the right job skills? Do you have the right computer skills? Do you have the right communication skills? Do you have the right personality? And do you have the right presentation? I would encourage listeners at the end of each interview or each review of a resume to ask yourself those five questions and rate them one to five.

 

Kyle: Hit us hit us with those five again.

 

Justin: Do you have the right, does this applicant have the right job skills? Does this applicant have the right computer skills? Does this applicant have the right communication skills? Does this applicant have the right personality? And does this applicant have the right presentation for the job? I'd rate them each one to five. If that applicant scored lower than 15, that's not a great applicant. If that applicant scores higher than 20, you found an exceptional applicant. And anything in between, we would discuss the nuance. So that's one one of the great ways that we can start to kind of break things down, use data and science. One of the things I've really enjoyed in working with Brian is Brian is creative and thoughtful, but he's also really willing to use the data science and the data technology. I'm a data science geek at my heart. If we don't have the data, we don't really know. So that's why preview, which preview measures IQ, EQ, and AQ. AQ is a new one, action quotient. Action quotient is how we are motivated to behave. Not just how we think and feel. So why I love preview and why we use preview in disk, Brian and I, is so we can really understand somebody, head, heart, operatic value, how they work. And when I bring that to an interview, I can say to someone, and I'll use your name, Kyle. Kyle, I just reviewed your resume and I reviewed your assessment, and I can tell you're a hardworking professional who's competitive and hungry. Can we talk about how that's going to show up in the workplace and what a great boss looks like for you?

 

Kyle: Yeah.

 

Justin: And because I understand who that individual is on a meaningful level, they connect in a moat with me on a meaningful level, creating a more poignant and emotionally connected interview. So

 

Kyle: Mm.

 

Justin: that we can really take the power of wedge and the power of preview and disc to the nth level in the interview. And that's where all of these hurdles reach the finish line, if you will, is that highly

 

Kyle: So so a lot of a lot of that, the preview test, the all of that side of things, you're kind of taken care of before you're even presenting somebody to Brian. Yeah. Okay. And then you go

 

Justin: Absolutely, yeah. In that first week of working with

 

Kyle: and then you go into your interviewing process and maybe even the wedge testing before Brian's even set, you know, presented, hey, I like these two candidates quite a bit, Brian. And Brian, you have access to a lot of this detail and information.

 

Bryan Sebring: Yeah, there's a there's a dashboard that I look at regularly. Justin and I get on once a week. It's usually can be five minutes, it can be forty-five minutes, depending on how how many of their and we talk about each candidate, go through each you know, just what he's seeing. Again, I listen to him with the expectation of his knowledge. I'll give you one example. I when I was looking for a designer, I was looking for a senior designer and and we it was probably a couple months in and I'm starting to get antsy. And we had someone come through that was more of a junior designer. And he's like, Well, wait a minute. You said you wanted a senior designer. Let's talk about what that looks like. And I go, Well, I think she can move to that pretty quickly. And he goes, Well, let me interview her. And it was actually nice having someone that's outside of my company do the interviewing process and him putting his stamp of approval I, you know, on top of my what I read from our interview. So having again, it's a it's a mentor on that, right? I It's not like I'm I've got this amazing skill hiring the right people. I've hired the wrong people before. And so having someone mentor alongside of you to make sure again, nothing is perfect. Just because I hire someone doesn't mean that they'll they'll last the ninety days, but it's definitely reduced the amount of bad hires I make for sure.

 

Kyle: Good. Well, as you know, in recruiting, the number one job is to not make a bad hire. And the second is to make a good hire. Sometimes, sometimes I even listen to the people I'm interviewing. It's something I've developed over the years.

 

Justin: Ha ha ha.

 

Kyle: I thought, you know, it might be helpful not to just ask questions. so that gives that gives a good feel for the process, but also it's it's opening some eyes, hopefully, to people listening to this of going, yes, this can be much more systematic. This can be much more detailed. sitting in on the interview process and even the wedge testing, it's not a great question to ask, Justin, because obviously it depends on a lot of different factors, but you're you're coming into the initial interview, let's say, already seeing some assessments, which which, if you're doing that well, there's going to be some things you want to lean into. Hmm, they're a low C on the disc. And this is kind of an estimatory type position. I need to ask them about some attention to detail. I need to ask them about some process related stuff. So obviously you're the the questions will ebb and flow based on some of that. But if we were to also just say, Justin, what are some of the best interview questions? What are the ones that you've found just gets people to open up a bit? That remodelers need to, hey, even if you don't hire me, you know, J JT, I don't know what that JT stands for again. right.

 

Bryan Sebring: Yeah.

 

Kyle: yeah. even if they don't hire you and they start just doing better at these interviews. What are what are some ideas related to that initial interview? How can we improve that?

 

Justin: Thank you, Kyle. There's some really

 

Kyle: Yes.

 

Justin: great questions to ask here. And my favorite patented question is a culmination of all the raw

 

Kyle: I said J I said J T by the way, J L is what I meant.

 

Justin: I used to get called Justin Timberlake all the time. I'll take it. It's okay.

 

Kyle: Well,

 

Bryan Sebring: Yeah.

 

Kyle: you know, the looks yeah. Why are you laughing Brian, why you laughing so hard at that?

 

Bryan Sebring: When I see Justin, I think Justin Timberlake all the time. That's just something

 

Kyle: All right. Carry on.

 

Justin: So, you know, the biggest thing, and I've supplied this for all the listeners today, is we're gonna offer a higher right framework. The reason I use the datas and the tools and the assessments that I use is so that I can get in and I can do this. That I can get in and I can be human with an applicant. And having a data system allows us to trust and verify. So I think that really is the superpower that I would impart to people. The question that I wouldn't ask you to ask is that where do you want to see people see yourself in five years? What do you but everyone practices that in the mirror, the bathroom before

 

Kyle: Mm-hmm.

 

Justin: they came to your interview. So rather than that, ask this question. If you had to be considered one of these two superlatives, which would you pick? Dependable or effective? Another way that I asked that same question is if you had to be considered a dependable professional or an effective professional and could only pick one, which would you pick? Most commonly, dependable professionals are saying, I want to join your team and I want to be your subordinate. I want to be part of this team and I want to follow under you. Effective professionals are saying, I want to stand alongside you and I want what you have. Teach me how to get that. If you're looking for team members that want to be your contemporary, Bringing in people who answer effective will allow you to do so. If you're looking in to bring team members who are subordinate, bringing in team members who say dependable will more likely do so. Very few no

 

Kyle: Ooh, I want you to go ahead, please.

 

Justin: very few people will understand the intent of this question. And on many interviews, I've seen the steam come out of the applicant's ears trying to identify what is this guy trying to get out of me here? I just don't know what.

 

Kyle: Yeah, he's he's up he's up to something here. Yeah. Is this a trick question? Yeah. So then they just have to answer it, right? And think about it. Go ahead, Brian.

 

Bryan Sebring: wonder Justin if if there's one that's you know effective is probably DI and the other one is S C. Would you you know S and C. Would you say that on the Discord profile? Yeah. So

 

Justin: Yes, absolutely.

 

Bryan Sebring: that that's part of my the next step after Justin hands me like I think this could be a good applicant. I do, I call it a date, you know, a 15 minute Zoom date. And I don't go into are you a great carpenter or you great designer. It's tell me about yourself both personally and professionally whatever you feel comfortable with. And I tell them this is just me getting to know you as a person. I'm sure you're a great carpenter. That's maybe a next step, but just tell me more about you. And I'm listening for the the disc in what they talk how they talk. And usually I can pick that up after a 15 minute. Sometimes it creeps into half an hour, but I I want that to be, you know, I want them to be comfortable on that call. Because if they're not comfortable with me on that. How are they going to be with clients? So that's really I'm just listening. Okay, this is we're not jumping into marriage where I'm ready to hire you. You let's do that first day, just get to know each other. And then I tell I tell them about what I'm, you know, our company and where our history and who we are, if they're interested. I want them to be interested in our company too. And I'm I may even say, what do you know about us? Tell me what you know. And if they've studied, if they've done some research on us, that it I want someone that wants to work for us. So that's what I'm listening for in that first. Step from you know, from just in

 

Kyle: That's good.

 

Bryan Sebring: handing it off

 

Kyle: That's good. And then Justin, what's go ahead. You had something brilliant to say. Okay.

 

Justin: Another I have another question that I think is really powerful that I ask a lot of times.

 

Kyle: Well, let me interrupt you.

 

Justin: Yeah.

 

Kyle: People go to the show notes. He mentioned he mentioned this little hiring this little it's called the r higher right framework. If you go to the show notes, there's a direct link or go to jltalent solutions dot com and then write that first that first link at the top says higher right framework. Bada bing bada boom. It's very nice of you to offer that, sir. So sweet. Another question you'll have.

 

Justin: So one of the questions that I ask quite commonly when we're kind of moving in closer to the final interviews is what are some traits that you would consider in a great boss? Or what is and what are some traits that you would consider in a in a horrible boss? In your in the when you took your last position, what were the traits in that company and in that employer that made you want to choose? And why are you leaving now? And getting some differential to really understand the story, but also the aspiritus of the applicant. And being able to encapsulate that is one of the things that'll take them past the can do task and can't do task to they understand my culture and they can fit my culture. And that's one thing that Brian and I have done so wonderfully together is Brian has a very clear culture and says, Hey, let's build this culture, which makes it easy for me as a recruiter, because I don't have to guess and just go based on what are called K S A O. knowledge, skill, ability, and other, I can do a culture survey, which we've done quite successfully with C bring, and that really, really improves your retention. Maybe even five to ten percent improvement in retention by having an

 

Kyle: Mm. Tell us

 

Justin: actual culture.

 

Kyle: Tell us a little more about that, Brian. How how culture has played a role in it in the process?

 

Bryan Sebring: Well, I mean, even that first question, I I mean, I say to him, He I'm just trying to get to know you to see if you fit in our family. I mean, business is not a family, right? You can't fire your family members, but we're pretty close to a family. And it said a anything in this first step is literally to say, Are you gonna fit with the other employees? You don't know the other employees, so d just tell me who you are and and be real of who you are. And and that even rolls into when I when we finally get we do disc, Yeah, actually Justin's not doing discs as well. What we do disc and that's part of my process too. In between if we decide to take the 15 minute zoom to we do a team interview. That's probably a little different than most people. I don't know if Justin has anybody else doing that. Where I actually, if it's a designer, I I make sure any other does anyone that's working with them is gonna be in that interview. Partly is and I've got a series of pretty thought-provoking questions getting them to talk. communicating. I want to hear them. And then after that interview, I've got a team bunch of team members going, Okay, what do you think? Right. I want to get buy-in on the culture of them helping me train them, them helping their success. And by bringing them in that team interview, and that has been a game changer. I I think I've used started doing about 10 years ago. And

 

Kyle: Hm.

 

Bryan Sebring: that has definitely helped. Because when they join, and I'll say, you know, you start to hear different personalities. we're different. I'm remember you were sitting in that interview and you said you could work with them and you were ready to help them get to that next. Remember that? Let's how do we figure out how they fit? And then and again, I want to go back to the beginning. I know who disc-wise, I know who I'm hiring for each role. And so I'm constantly looking for that. And I've not hired roles because I could pick up a different type of disc that does not fit what I was looking for. And then when they finally did the disc, I kind of stuck to my guns. And so again, disc is not the end all be all, but it just helps me. It guides me in that process for sure.

 

Kyle: Good. And for those for those listening, Brian likes disc. In fact, when when he's 104 years old, surrounded by his great grandchildren, and and the Lord takes him home, on his gravestone it's gonna say, you know, husband, father, and this and that, and lover of the disc assessment. the man loves a good disc assessment. Just it's gonna it's gonna be right up there. Excellent. This is going well. I was worried about it. I'm like, I got two heavy hitters here. I got to balance how to tell the story. You guys are doing fantastic. It's going well. I feel like we've really unpacked a good amount of the structured hiring process. I want to move on to a couple other elements. one, I want your guys' pretty cliff notes version of because we just barely touched on it, how important is having clear role definitions in place? I just want to spend two minutes on that. And then I want to move into onboarding and that side of things. either of you want to take that role definition? Go ahead.

 

Justin: Clear L definitions, I would say, are absolutely essential. And I would encourage listeners to think of them in a trickle-down methodology. This is a buyback your time methodology as you build your roles. You should be the central piece of your business. And as we build your business, each role should help you funnel your time and energy to the best effect. This is one of the things that Jail Talent Solutions, we love to do with clients, is have an initial meeting. kind of understand what their work ecology looks like. Sometimes goad or sometimes challenge them to find a new way to adjust that and create a new operatic ecology. I use that word ecology a lot because of the Latin formation of echo and logia, which mean way of life. Sometimes we have to change the way we think in the way of life to get a better system running. For a lot of people, again, I know it's a little long-winded, but we we think about solving a problem, not solving, not filling a role. And for So that that I think is the biggest thing in our heads to navigate is if we have clear role definitions, it's not gonna be about the panic of so and so the Jones's job isn't getting done. It's gonna be about we need these activities to be done by a professional. And I think that's really

 

Kyle: What

 

Justin: really essential.

 

Kyle: that's good. That's good. Anything you'd add to that, Brian?

 

Bryan Sebring: Yeah, I mean i obvious when I give a job offer, it's in writing. I mean, it sounds basic, but not a lot of conjugators do that. It's got my mission core values, it's got a job description, it's got the benefits laid out. There's clear I mean again, it's a clearly laid out of what my expectations are there. When you start out in that way, there's no there's no ambigu and how do you say that? Ambigue

 

Kyle: Mm ambiguity.

 

Bryan Sebring: There you go. And it's a very laid out detail. And it's the same as what they saw in the ad. so yeah, again, it's not just about what they're doing, it's the culture and obviously the benefits of working here as as well. So yeah, I'm I'm a big proponent of that, so they know what to expect.

 

Kyle: Good. Again, starting with the end in mind, the best remodeling companies succeed because they build clear roles. We touched on that, strong hiring systems. We dug deep into that and intentional people processes. I want to kind of go into the onboarding stuff. And also, Justin, I thought it was kind of rude for you to you know, I was bragging earlier about my English skills, and then you gotta go Latin and you gotta show off how sm much smarter you are than me on my own show. Well, Kyle talked about lackadaisical, that was cute. Let me teach people some Latin. Jeez. And Brian

 

Justin: Ha ha ha.

 

Kyle: and Brian knew how to say that word, but he was just like, Kyle will feel good about himself if he can correct it. That's how

 

Bryan Sebring: Yeah, yeah. Trying to help you.

 

Kyle: Kyle is supposed to be treated on his show. Brian's like, he'll appreciate saving the day on pronouncing this. And here's

 

Bryan Sebring: Ha ha ha

 

Kyle: Justin throwing me like amateur hour. Get out of the way. What were the what were the Latin words again?

 

Justin: Echo and logia make e ecology.

 

Kyle: Man, my boy's wicked smart. My boy's wicked smart. cool.

 

Bryan Sebring: Before you go to before you go to onboarding, I just want to add two two more items. It there's remember, I treat employee, you know, prospects of employees like a client, right? They're gonna do research on your company as well, right? And so the two two really good tips there. If you if you've not looked at your glass door reviews, If you haven't built out reviews on there, you should, right? Because the first thing to do is they go look at your website, who they are, they complain how all that stuff. And then the other thing is if you don't have a company video, like a company video of who we are, what we do, our culture that you're that you actually originally make for a client, that can help you with good hires, right? If they feel connected to you and how you do business. sometimes I don't know if we've ever used it. Ever you use it in an ad I think an ad before, I've used it in ads, right? You're trying to connect them to the company because not only it's not just not everyone wants to work for you. Sometimes I'm ready to make an offer and they've got another offer. And I've beaten out other offers just from the culture that we have and how different we are. So I just wanted to.

 

Kyle: Okay, excellent. Those are great. One one other kind of just in the random, random ideas. We get clear on that role. let's say you you brought on a project manager. I just gave this advice earlier to somebody. You know, I need to do I need to train my project manager more. There's just a lot of different areas. Go through that role description, maybe do a little one to five, one being pitiful, ten being amazing on each of those. And then, hey, one of those. Pick one of those for the month of September and just focus on training around that. Hey, you're a little low on your proactive scheduling of updating scheduling. Let's just train on that. I think sometimes when we need to continue to train new employees, we get overwhelmed by it. You got a nice role description. Let's grab one of those items, let's focus on that this month. Let's kick butt with it. And then the next month, let's move on to another. Speaking of moving on, all right, time the clocks are ticking. and we want to talk a little bit more about onboarding, strong onboarding. Justin, you did an amazing job. And Brian, you did a great job. And we have hired this person. We've got a nice you know, hiring offer and we get into onboarding. Justin, talk to us about some best practices related to that.

 

Justin: So, onboarding, we often think about the 30, 60, 90 when we think about onboarding. And what we're talking about here is a psychological concept of habituation, of creating good habits. So in the first 30 days, understanding what the role is and what success in the role will look like. In the second month, gaining proficiency in the activities that will garner that success. And in the third month, becoming an independent performer of those activities with a strong level of proficiency. So that over the first ninety days of onboarding, this 3060-90, if you will, is a comfortable way for a team member to come in, both operatically and culturally, to understand the environment and begin to work capably. Once we hit day 91, we would expect full proficiency in all of the activities on the task list. We'd have a fully operatic team member. Generally that's the way that HR And employment professionals would consider a healthy onboarding. We would then do a review at six months and a review at 12 months to make sure we're on task. Most commonly, people will use goals, and the most common sets of goals are KPIs or key performance indicators. There's a lot of different ways that people will use KPIs. I think too many KPIs can bog down a position and make an applicant or team member confused. There is a methodology out there called the big five methodology, where you break down a position into five key key performance indicators. For example, if we were talking about a production team member, getting the jobs done on time, getting the jobs done on budget, having happy clients, having safe projects, and having good construction skills might potentially be some of the KPIs that we would use. I would strongly recommend this 30, 60, 90 and this KPI structure. Be instigated for any hire that be made. So we can build the trust and rapport that we need to make the success not just culturally, but also operatically.

 

Kyle: Gotcha. Brian, what are your thoughts related to some of that?

 

Bryan Sebring: Yeah, I'd probably I would say I probably focus on day one. We tend to I tend to normally at least spend a half a day with the new again, we don't have a hundred employees, so we're a small business. I have twelve employees, but I start with getting going back to the disc. I know you love the disc, Kyle. Is that I review their disc, you know, honestly teach them about it. I ask them, does this sound like you? Like, yeah, that does sound like me. and then we actually review everyone else's disk. and how they fit. I actually do a company disc where I put their faces wherever they are, not just if they're an S C or a D or an I. It's if they're low on certain things or high in certain things. And I and I'll go through each employee, things that they may have issues with that employee, or things that they will actually connect with that employee. And then I will, you know, take them out to lunch and then we'll actually go check some jobs, introduce them to the staff. And then I talk over our client journey, how a customer kind of runs through our our company. And that actually is very helpful to have them understand holistically how you know how our company works. So

 

Kyle: Hmm. I like that. So Brian mentioned kind of the first day. That first impression when they start is huge and very important. You see how he's making it company culture. Justin, you were talking about just very, very clearly broken down of like, here's what the purpose of the 306090 is. Yes, for modelers listening to this, the great majority of you do you know KPIs, you've heard of KPIs. You could probably list out a few KPIs for different positions, but you're not using them very much. And there's wonderful. practical accountability that can happen when it just just start with two. Start with two. You listed off five, Justin, just start with two. Projects are are you know happening on schedule and on budget, Mr. Project Manager. Let's just focus on those. What gets measured gets improved and what what KPIs are is if those are happening, the results, the good result that we're going for in your role will be happening. So I I loved kind of the, and then even just the let's be systematic the six month mark, the 12 month mark, I'll add one little thing kind of in between those two things. Your goal when you bring them on and they start that Tuesday morning, because Monday morning be a little tough. Maybe Tuesday morning might be better. Is at the end of the week, when they go home to their family, their spouse, or whoever, that they're gonna say, I think I made the right decision. That's a good barometer right there, of like at the end of the week, you're you're organized enough. You've treated them great on day one, you've you've really structured their first week where they go, I made the right decision here. This this is great. Cause that first week is is very important, just like that first ninety days plus. excellent. That was very helpful, folks. Brian, how tell us a little bit more about Justin and yes, you talked about kind of how he's helping on the hiring process. During these weekly meetings you're having, are you guys talking about some of the retention stuff or some of the existing employees? Is there a little bit of that action?

 

Bryan Sebring: Yeah, I mean when obviously every every company you sometimes you'll get contentiousness or conflict. what's nice is that he'll help with that too, for sure. Because again, almost like a fractional HR. Is that what you would you call that, Justin? Fraction. I mean,

 

Justin: Absolutely.

 

Bryan Sebring: that is nice because one of the hardest thing I think for remodelers is leadership. Leadership skills, learning good leadership skills, you know, dealing with conflict resolution, all that stuff because man, you I mean it it's hard for me because I want everyone to be happy when they're not, it bothers me. And so having someone from an outside perspective, more a scientific perspective, be able to help me in and how to deal with that. That that is really nice. But again, I actually still go back to the disc and understand two different personalities and how they both interact in in with each other. But having him be a part of that is again ment it's more of a mentor level because again, we we're good at building a home or remodeling a home. It's dealing with people that's probably the biggest struggle of what we do.

 

Kyle: Yeah, no doubt. And then were you taking notes while we were going there, Brian? Did you even have some takeaways yourself or what were you jotting down?

 

Bryan Sebring: No, I just I can't give you behind the baseball. I can't tell you that that secret. It's a secret.

 

Kyle: All right, though here's here's what I'm gonna say. I

 

Justin: Ha ha ha.

 

Kyle: think I think Brian was actually taking some notes. I think it was during Justin saying something, he's like, that was interesting. And I the reason I bring it up is because I saw you do it and I thought, Remodelers, this that's a good if you're watching the video version, you saw it. That's a good best practice. Like Brian is a student. Brian like, I'm gonna grab it from here and I'm gonna grab it here. Here I am doing an interview as a guest, but I still think you're learning and reminding yourself I should follow up on that. And that is a huge best practice remodelers listening. It's about continual improvement. There's not some magic bullet that we just, you know, that one thing and it's all good. It's a combination of a lot of little things in order to run an effective remodeling business. So that's what you were doing, Brian, at least as far as my story goes.

 

Bryan Sebring: Yeah.

 

Kyle: Justin, you're gonna end this podcast for us. and you're going to tell people again where to go to kind of find out a little bit more about you. That's the first task that you have. And then the second task is hey. You heard it could be something that we've already mentioned that you want to just emphasize of if you heard nothing else, folks, hear this. Or it could be another idea that comes to your mind. we didn't even mention this, but here's another little nugget. if you could do those two things for us, Justin.

 

Justin: Thank you, Kyle. Please visit me at www.jltalentsolutions.com. Can check us out there, learn a little bit more about us. And if you're interested, click on the contact us page. And me and my ops manager, Grace, will reach out to get together on Zoom. the thing that we didn't talk about in the 25 and 26 marketplace is money and the role that money plays in the marketplace. And it's not the number one standing point. It used to be, pre-pandemic, everything was governed by money. Right now, people are looking for meaning, for purpose, for position. About 35% of the people, and this is from Indeed's numbers, that are looking for a job right now have identified I've hit the glass ceiling. The PM above me ain't going nowhere. The directory of construction above me ain't going nowhere. This is a family business and junior's gonna take it over. I'm looking for a new job, not just for money, but for opportunity. And my opportunities have all dried up. So at least 30% of the people we're looking for are not just coming in solely for money. It's a balance of money and mission. And that's where a disk assessment, a preview assessment, our in-depth processes can help you identify what are their money needs, what are their mission needs, and what's the harmony of those two things. Because for each company and for each applicant, the balance between money and mission. intrinsic and extrinsic motivational values is different. And that's where this this data and this data science has been so powerful for me and my firm is understanding the juxtaposition between these two and how the markets around us shift and how we can undulate those two things to then associate with the market that we're in.

 

Kyle: I got it. I got it. Cool. That was wonderful. That was helpful. Gentlemen, keep up the good work. Gentlemen, I'll see you at the Rise conference. Both of you excited about that. Thanks for both coming. and people listening, before you move on to your next thing, jot down a couple takeaways. Make sure that if you heard something that you're like, I gotta do more of that, I gotta adjust this, or write down if you need to reach out to Justin, that type thing. But make sure you capture some of those action steps. A lot of times we're we got so much going on as business folks that it it comes in and we're, we need to do some of that. And if we don't jot it down, if we don't make a note of it, it can slip away. So grab your grab your next action step, the next right thing before you move on to your next part of conquering the remodeler remodeling world today. Thanks everybody. Appreciate listening. Thank you guys.

 

Kyle Hunt: Thanks for tuning into the Remodelers on the Rise show. Whether you're listening or watching, I appreciate you being here. If this was helpful, make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss the next one. We're putting out new episodes every single week focused on helping you build a better remodeling business with real stories, practical ideas, and things you can actually take and use. If you're on YouTube, hit that like button and turn on notifications so you know when new episodes drop. If you're listening on a podcast app, a five-star review goes a long way and helps more remodelers find the show. We've got great links below or in the show notes where you can connect with us, check out our remodelers community and learn more about our coaching and resources. Appreciate you very much. See you on the next episode.