Dana Opens in Dallas

[Music] hello everyone welcome to the 21 hats podcast I'm your host Lauren Feldman this week Dana White tells Paul DS and Jay goz how her move to Dallas is going including hiring a manager firing a publicist tweaking her business model and for the first time confronting competition Dana also explains the surprising way she managed to get the financing she needed to open her first salon on a military base Fort Brag which she now thinks could be up and running by the end of the year plus Paul needs more people and more space to handle a sudden influx of business and Jay is still looking for a head of HR should he post the ad on zip recruiter or indeed should he disclose a salary range in his ad and is it reasonable for him to expect a follow-up email after an interview even in Good Times owning and running a business can be a lonely Pursuit our hope is that these weekly conversations will let owners know they are not alone in facing challenges same thing with our daily newsletter the 21 hats Morning Report which Inc magazine recently named the best newsletter for business owners and which you can subscribe to at 21h hats.com where you can also find transcripts of our podcast episodes and lots of other articles and interviews joining me this week on the podcast are regulars Paul DS who is CEO of Paul DS cabinet makers which is based outside of Philadelphia and makes custom conference tables Jake goz whose companies in Chicago include a picture frame business artist frame service and a home furnishing store Jason home and Dana White who is CEO of paraly Boyd a Dallas based chain of hair salons and please take a listen to my quick chat with Rob Levan co-founder of our sponsor work better now the episode is titled Dana opens in Dallas welcome Paul Jay and Dana it's great to have you all here especially you Dana White we haven't spoken in quite a while how are you I'm well Lauren how are you good to be here good to be here I'm fine but I'm more interested in how you you're doing it's been months and months what's going on a lot is going on I have closed the Midtown Detroit location I have relocated that location to Arlington Texas which is the suburb of Dallas I have begun seeking contract to start the buildout at Fort Brag and we are moving forward with the German entity Salon uh for graph and beer in Germany and I have put franchising on hold da well that's a lot um it is let's start with uh with leaving Detroit was that hard no okay it was bittersweet but it wasn't a hard business decision it um I spoke with my operations manager I spoke with my manager both of them have years and years of experience and we just were not able to get back to the numbers we saw in our hey day when preco and before we opened Midtown um we just weren't able to get back Staffing was very challenging we weren't able to do it we had to constantly make compromises um and then I was you know robbing Peter to pay Paul pulling money from here to pay that looking at getting a job and it just wasn't worth it at the end of the day Detroit just didn't have the density for my business for a hair salon and you look at other hair salons in the area they too are struggling not only just hair salons about five other lifestyle Beauty businesses have closed since I've closed and a major coffee shop that was a symbol Detroit's Resurgence on the same block as me although they closed for different reasons they closed as well a lot of Detroit businesses are closing sorry to hear that yeah I have to say that doesn't mean Detroit's in trouble or anything the fact of the matter is only 10% of the ZIP codes in the United States have a frame shop in it it's just one of those things you have to have the right neighborhood the right and you have an upscale business that's dealing with a certain kind of clientele there's a little bit of a mismatch and um like I said there's plenty of businesses that are like that that need the right location what I've learned from having that this business in Detroit it's not Detroit Detroit is still on the meteor rise right I mean Gucci just open there but Gucci isn't relying on Detroit Revenue to be Gucci right so what I've learned is that for the smaller business unless you have the volume you're 1 2 3 four 5 6 months away from closing in the event something happens so you take a combination of Co you take the population not being in that area you have to have a strong following from the suburbs who are willing to come to your location you take something breaking down in your building you take staff calling off all of these little things and it puts you closer and closer and closer to clothes and so that's why you know and it was just a series of events that said you know what there are other businesses like mine that have sprung up after me that are doing so much better than mine why look where they are look where they are so I changed my location much to the dismay of um the powers that be in Detroit there are people and those in Detroit who are not happy with me why is that because you know it at the time I was a a success story I was you know a business that they could say look what started here in Detroit look what was happening here in Detroit um and now there's not that the franchising there still is but then again that's on hold um and that's on hold because even though we had all these inquiries these were people who didn't understand business number one let alone small business let alone franchising questions we got were well can we change the name well can I add cuts and colors can I change the color scheme well can you give me all of your operations information before I give you the franchise fee not understanding that this is not how a franchise business works a lot of people did just didn't know and so I knew and I could have started the franchise process with them but I had in the back of my head them not knowing is going to be the foundation for issues in the future and I said no and I walked away well plus the reality is you have two other better opportunities so that you know they just help make right right now so that makes sense speaking of the other opportunity are you open in Arlington now I am but it's very slow um I put money into marketing I put money into PR uh that did not work I've gone ahead and reinvested in PR because I know more now as far as what to look for I had a publicist who was more comfortable with the Detroit Market he had done PR for another business in Dallas but I was told nobody wants your story in Dallas um you talk to a Dallas PR person uh they vly disagreed um and are and you can already tell the difference so um we're very slow because nobody really knows we're there and I also made changes we are no longer walking only in Dallas because that is foreign to my market why force them to adapt to something take appointments and just open your books sad be able to accept more appointments um instead of calling it a blow and go in marketing we're calling it a pressing curve my market doesn't know what a blow andg go is right um and then I still you know we're handing out flyers and they women walk by one of the things they're saying I've seen this is open I thought it was a white salon and you're the owner oh hey Sis hey girl right here's oh this is what I'm GNA make an appointment and they've started um but we don't have the volume to stay open every day all day um but that's about to change because the marketing the pr team is on the case we have an influencer event plan for early November um they start pitching October 10th it's going to start taking off Dana how long have you been open uh a month well that's not very long the lesson she learned is the same one I've gone through several times if you call up four plumbers they'll all fix your toilet whereas PR people three of them aren't going to get the job done I mean it's just the way it is especially a smaller one I'm not there's some that get it and there's some that don't and it's one of the few things I know of that you can spend money for and get absolutely nothing that's what happened with the last publicist how did you know obviously you hired that publicist and you were aware that it wasn't working cuz you weren't seeing any results how did you determine that it was the publicist's fault um and make the decision to go with someone else that's a great question so what happened was during our last call I hadn't heard anything from the fires that were in the oven so I decided to contact those people um and they reached right back out to me you contacted people in the media that you were trying to reach yourself yep so I knew we had um a story coming out in aure magazine um I knew I had done an interview for Dallas Business Journal so you know last I talked to him it was well I haven't heard from them so I said well let me try so I reached out to a lur magazine she contacted me right away with a link to where the story would be posted no September 2nd um and then I reached out to the Dallas Business Journal well the reason why we hadn't heard from her is because she had gone back to college so I had a call with him and I asked hey where are we with the Allure store well you know I haven't heard from her for over a week okay where are we with the Dallas Business Journal story well I haven't heard from her well I have heard from them um and she just contacted me about 20 minutes ago here's the link and he got quiet so I reached out to the new publicist and I said this is the reason my my former publicist said this is not going to work do you think that this is something you can take on and why they put me in touch with clients that did didn't have an impactful story like me but was in the news two or three times a month local Regional news and not just you know the block association's newsletter but like NBC CVS Fox snooze I spoke with references they gave me as well as references they didn't and I asked why didn't you give yourself as a reference they said because we didn't want to be inundated with calls they did really good with for me and I've got to manage this business and so I didn't hear anything bad I wasn't afraid to ask the question I pursued these publicists as if you work for me versus how can I help you work for me it's very different mindset did you end up paying the first person that didn't do the job I did so did I all these years and I have to tell you hindsight I say to myself maybe I shouldn't have maybe I'm enabling bad Behavior you hire them to do something they didn't do it and then I paid them anyway and just food for thought when you hire these people do you have any kind of written agreement yep you have a written agreement um and they say you know as with most there are no guarantees however this is our scope of work this is what we're going to do if that doesn't work this is what we're going to do here's our success rate and I literally had a client of theirs tell me I said sell $250 shirts blouses to women and they're able to get me on the news I am not the first African-American woman to franchise a hair salon that has moved their Salon from Dallas to Detroit that has a multi-base global Military contract hello she said why would no one no one in Dallas wants this story no one she said I find that hard to believe well what bothers me is you you caught him you caught him red-handed he didn't follow up like he said he did which is why you know I just that I just I'm still pissed about what happened to me 20 years ago which just paying these these fees and just getting nothing and in my case I didn't have him read handed though you did well that's a it's an interesting question and I hate to hijack the show but when do you not pay people when you're dissatisfied with their performance I've always paid them and I wonder whether that was smart in this case maybe the appropriate thing is tell you what I'll send you half the fee since you obviously didn't do what you said you were going to do you don't pay them to continue yeah well I think Paul was talking about in general not just with PR people yeah in general I can't think of anyone I refuse to pay no I take it back a head hunter um I found out the Head Hunter told the applicant to lie to me about how much money they were making at their last job that guy didn't pay he went to sue me I went to a deposition the deposition lasted about 20 seconds as soon as the lawyer heard what he did it was over so that's one I'm glad I didn't pay that was was just fraud I tend to pay people but you know I strong believer in karma so have you ever not though that's the question have you ever not paid someone no I'm just trying to think I've not paid someone for not finishing the job well that makes sense all right back to your story Dana um you you said before if I heard you right that one of the reasons you left Detroit and shut down there is that you saw other businesses that had opened after you doing better than you you referring to other businesses who do something similar to what you do or just businesses in general no businesses who do almost exact same thing as I do opening in New York Dallas California really yeah doing doing over a million dollars in their first year because I think for a while there you thought you were way ahead of the game and you were if not the first among the first to to do what you do I I am they all opened after me like several years after me these a lot of these salons have only been open in the first in the past a lot of them just since covid and that's something that my new publicist during our kickoff meeting they noticed they said we've done our homework and you're still very far ahead of them as far as your business mindset your business model we've even visited some of these businesses and you're still your professionalism you can tell that this is somebody who's been doing this longer than two years one of the reasons you mentioned for going from Detroit to Dallas was the the talent pool the people that you could hire how did that work out were you able to hire people you were looking for in Dallas we were able to hire people that you know that I was looking for but I've pushed uphill with managers um I've hired managers and none of them are with me now and I think well I know it's because I'm looking for the wrong person um one of the reasons why they've left is because they say the work of it wait people have left your Dallas store yep already that must have been pretty quick yeah and it's one because we're we're not we don't have the volume right that's one of the issues right the other issue is because like I literally had someone said well I I'm leaving because I want to spend more time with my husband like Sunday I can't work on Sundays he flies out on Monday and I want to be with him um why can't you just h three or four assistant managers so I can just come and go as I please well that's not going to happen one person we hired everything was fine and then she said my husband told me I need to take a break so she said I have to resign she has since come back to visit the salon to see how we're doing but I think some of them were very skeptical about how well we would do um and that's okay but I think I'm looking for the wrong person what do you mean the best people for this job are operations people who have Salon experience um I've been hiring Salon people with some business operation experience the last manager I hired I had to teach how to use the computer um I said well how do you measure kpi and it wasn't until after I hired her that she said well I never really have corporate is just kind of give me given me what to post and I posted it in the breakroom well during your interview I have to tell you what you're going through is exactly what I went through 25 years ago of figuring out who should be working for you what the job is I went through 10 production managers over a period of three years CU I had no clue what I was doing and it took me a long time to figure it out and it sounds like you're figuring it out quickly you got to figure out the nuances of every time you go through one of these you think oh next time I'll have to make sure they understand they got to work Sundays or whatever it is and I'm confident you will find the perfect person but first you have to figure out what the unperfect person looks like and I have yeah I'm working i' I know more and more I was so discouraged when the first managers quit because they quit quickly and then you know I had spoken with Jay about you know oh no and he said something that just kind of of course you know the four tenants it is what it is deal with it you're operating with a good Noble person and F you if you're going to stand in my way U which none of them have but the other thing he said was I said Jay I think this is a sign maybe coming down here to Dallas was a mistake and he said so you're going to cut your arm off because of mosquito bite they did you a favor every time I went through one of these people I would drive home thinking oh my God maybe you just can't find someone to run a picture framing business the owner has to do it every time I would do that and then I'd wake up in the morning and I'd say no I'm going to do this but every single time I thought wow maybe this just is impossible so you have the benefit of someone telling you that yeah just keep doing it you're going to find the right person just keep going and that's it keep going Dana in Detroit you had your operations manager a woman who had extensive experience working in national uh Salon chains uh is she still your operations manager no um we had a great talk um and she is going to stick to her commitment to her family um She'll always be there if I need her kind of is my salon rain trust but as far as you know she was starting to pull away pull away pull away more um because her priority is to be there for her girls and she can't use her skill set and be there as a mother so you're the person who's handling the the the searches for the manager and for stylist yep and I want to be yep I want to be I want to be the operations manager even for the military opportunities I want to do it I want to be the one to travel check in I want to do it and I eventually want to eventually want to replace myself eventually is there any sense of uh being an outsider in Dallas I know a zillion people moved to Texas so maybe it's just friendly to Outsiders but what's that like not at all it's outstanding it is outstanding I love Texas really oh yeah so I'll tell you why because people that southern hospitality is true and they meet you with the energy you bring them and if you bring them with good energy and positive they meet you with that versus what I've experienced in some other places you're just surprised at the level of customer service the double checking triple checking just a small example you're in line at a drive-thru picking something up normally I'm used to people closing the window and then just coming back when they're ready for you to pay or give you your product no here so how are you today what's going on with you today how are you right and you're like oh you really are going to talk to me you want to talk to me wow so it's just it's a different level of of customer service even with the stylist that I have their level of customer service Hi how are you you don't have to tell them to come to the front of the salon they come they want to they want to engage wow are you did you get a pair of cowboy boots yet that's what I want to know I already I had a pair when I lived in New York but I'm looking for my pair down here and I probably will buy some excellent Dana you mentioned that you you tweaked your business model you're not walk-in only anymore how big a deal is that does that matter it just makes it it's less I have to deal with less I have to teach with I've upgraded our POS system um it just makes a lot of things just more seamless and we just open our book to accept more people and we can focus more on the training and getting our appointment times down in and out so if we set it at an hour and a half let's get it down to an hour and 15 so is that something that you think you could or maybe should have done years ago I do I brought my salon in Detroit where I'd like to see it in 10 15 20 30 years instead of meeting my customer where they are your customer is not used to Walkin only get them used to it by getting them in and out on a certain at a certain time on their terms they love Walkin only red flag they thought Walkin only 247 so we would get appointment requests at 2:00 in the morning or can I you know I'm in out front of your salon is 2:00 in the morning why aren't you open I don't but they heard Walkin only seven days a week and assumed 247 Dana I think you've gotten like 15 years smarter in one year really very impressive very smart you're figuring it out I put a decal in the window $65 pressing curl and then you see people look and go oh and then they look in and then you go hand them a and then they see me and they go oh my God this is for us oh my goodness I saw the press and Cur I was wondering when it's going to open I went to your website it's you just meet them where they are it wouldn't have been the same if I put $65 blow and go that doesn't communicate to my market you said business has been slow for the for the first month are are you okay I'm okay um I had the privilege of having a former employee drive one hour to come see me and we sat and talked and she said I've worked for you three years this is exactly what Dallas needs and I said so you see nobody's in here right now she said because the only reason why I know you're here is because I've been following you on Facebook for years no one knows you're here she goes you need to get in front of Television you need to be on camera and she said I'm letting you know as soon as you get on television It's Going To Go Gang Buster she goes I promise you and because that's what happened with the other Salon my my competitor and I asked my PR people that's my competitor and they kept saying that is not your competitor she is catering to a much younger Market this is your other competitor in Dallas yes nearby same same neighborhood or yes she's she just opened her third location in two years in Arlington but you're not concerned about that as competition because you think you're going for a different Market I'm going for a different market and I've and I've been to her salon and that's just not who we're going to be that's not who we are that's and there's room for both of us there's millions of people there so like one person or three people it's not going to make a difference so I'm very proud of her though I'm very proud of her and I'm hoping to see her growth her Evolution over the years because I walked in and I can say yep she's new you can tell she hasn't owned it long um just the plug andplay things you know that I've learned to evolve from the tools and the processes and everything you know where I do it in one step she does it in three because she's new and so she'll learn and she'll evolve I want to ask you about Fort Brag and the military opportunity but first let's take a quick break to hear from our sponsor I'm here with Rob Levan co-founder of work better now which provides top remote Talent from Latin America and the Caribbean Rob have you found that the labor shortage has uh prompted more interest in your service it's a great question Lauren demand really started picking up in about late 2020 as businesses became more comfortable with remote work and the pace really hasn't led up one bit what has changed is what businesses are looking for up to about a year ago owners were looking for assistance as they needed to stop doing administrative work so they can focus on Big Picture items like increasing Revenue recently though half of our hires have been for roles such as project and account management marketing bookkeeping and customer service for many companies the recruiting process can take months uh these days and that can leave you important roles unfilled how quickly can wbn help you know what's really cool about this is our clients can have a matched assistant who is perfect for your needs within about 2 weeks and there are no contracts what does using wbn cost for $1,900 a month you get a full-time dedicated work better now assistant and if you mentioned 21 hats when you have your consult you get $150 off the first 3 months and that's for each assistant that you hire where can we learn more workb better now.com thanks Rob and we're back Dana you mentioned Fort Brag and the military opportunity is that proceeding it absolutely is proceeding and with the very valuable help of the 21 hats Community what do you mean by that it's proceeding because you have a listener who has heard me on your podcast for the years that I've been on and this listener um believes in what I can do and he has generously loaned me with very generous loan terms um $100,000 to go forward with Fort Brag which is which is what we'll need to open it was higher but um military people saw my Dallas location and they said Dana can you do this um without the architect and the buildout and the architectural draws I said said absolutely they said well this is what we want uh and so I'm going to do that there which cut the budget drastically um I don't have to hire an expensive GC or construction I've got meetings next week with contractors coming in to do the things that I need to do all within the budget which still leaves working capital for when we open and that process has started but it is because of the community that you have built here Lauren and that is not to be over look yeah for brag is great and it'll be fine and graph and wear is next when are you going to be open I don't know I have to check the timeline for the contractors and such I'm hoping by the end of the year you know and I've talked to the trades again the southern hospitality right the gentleman I've spoken to that want to do flooring they asked you know if you don't mind what else do you need done and I said well I'm looking for an electrician I'm looking for a handyman they said listen this job is so small you're going to be calling around for years trying to find somebody because most of these boys can't get on base you know they got backgrounds and such because you know they got records so we'll get on base with you we'll work it out most of our guys you know they can do that they can paint you don't need you know 10,000 sare foot painted you need a wall painted who can't handle a screwdriver or a power drill like we can help you um all three separate have said that and so that's what I'm looking now he said we're we're going to have to bring in somebody from meal work but that's just to get you a qu a quote we can find people who got good cabinets to put your towels in now didn't take long no they're the best people so that's who I'm meeting with next week uh at Fort Brag on Thursday and then when do you start looking to hire employees so we sent out a market survey once we have a start date for when they're going to come in and do the electrical and all of that then we're going to put out the job so she has the new signage for the window she already has a temporary peely boid coming wait who who's she the director for AES there at Fort Brag she's already put a temporary one up but she's going to take all those down and she's going to put the branded one up um and it's going to say now hiring and then we're going to update our website for Fort Brag now hiring but are you going to run those that hiring yourself just as you are in Dallas and I'm going to do the online interviews you're going to be going back and forth yep for between Dallas and Fort BR how far is that um it's about a twoh hour flight two-hour direct flight to fville and but a lot of it I'm going to do online Zoom initial interviews and then like I did with Dallas take my final interviews and go meet them in person phone interviews Zoom interview iners interview and then keep them a breast s to the build out and then get them in there for training but again it's this community I wouldn't be able to do this had I not you know dialed it back as an owner and said okay what do you need right do you need a Bentley or are you all right in Honda do you need a you need a Bentley are you okay with Honda I'm good with a Honda and the military is like that Honda to us is beautiful really because I can get a Honda and so I've got the Honda and I looked at my budget and I said all I need is $100,000 and sure enough connections were made and in this community and to me it's more than the money Lauren I didn't just want okay give me the loan and here we go with generous terms here we go no I want the relationship so this person told me what they're good at told me what they're not I pick the things they're good at and want them to be a part of my brain trust with monthly or as frequently as they would like updates I want that that's what the one of the first things I said I just don't want can can we talk and he go well I'm going to send you what I know and what I don't know you pick in any way I can help you and this is what he said that was key you don't have to sell me I already know you I've known you for two years that's because a 21 hats all right that gives me goosebumps what a beautiful I mean it that's just thank you kudos to you Lauren it's all working here here Lauren well that's great that's awful nice to hear and I got goosebumps too let's not stop there do you know what this does for my business the Fort Brad contract putting a salon on the largest military installation in the country The Exclusive Salon serving over 79,000 women what that does for graph and wear Ramstein Japan Fort Benning Fort Hood the that's the spark Lauren I mean sit with that for a second it's changing my life well that's a wonderful thing I don't want to get ahead of ourselves we're going to keep uh keep up with you Dana hopefully it won't be it won't take months to get you back on again and we'll hear that how that goes and maybe one of these days we'll uh be recording a podcast in Germany or something and unlike reality TV the scripted this is reality it's reality and it's not going to come without its challenges it's not going to managers that don't quit staff that don't do flights that are delayed it's not going to come without his challenges but it is what it is you deal with it all right well I want to hear a little bit about Paul and Jay's reality too before uh we have to shut down this episode Paul you've told us quite a few times about the marketing initiative you've been developing this year but it's been a while where do you stand well we've we've passed through the kind of message definition phase of things and we're about to do content production where the marketing firm is going to be sending camera Crews into our shop and filming in order to produce a series of short films that we're then going to use to support a final marketing effort so I would say we're about 2third of the way through at this point and the company I engaged has had a very rigorous process of developing the message that started with some uh research with our target audience and that was very useful and now we're we're going through the message development well in fact I think the last time we talked about this you told us that some of the research had led them to talk to a company um that said hey we want to know who these guys are it was yeah did that lead to business uh it's led to one opportunity that is sort of in the middle of of development um it certainly is has uh looks promising but I don't know the exact status of that because I handed the job off to one of my design engineers and while all that was happening we have just been buried with incoming orders our business is up 35% over last year and we've already blown past last year's uh sales last year wasn't bad right no last year was the best year we' ever had last year we sold 4.15 million and we're probably going to go past 5 million this year wow so I've been more focused on how to get all that work done and uh making sure that my team is strong and that we're continuing to hire into the positions we need to do that much work to what do you attribute that increased business Paul well a lot of our clients are military and uh defense contractors and they're the ones who've been feeling spending lately and uh for I think what should be obvious reasons if you're in the business of producing see military hardware there's a little event going on across the other side of the world which is soaking up all excess inventory and I think these people are rubbing their hands together so they're moving ahead with capex projects that in some cases we've known about for years that have just been sputtering along going nowhere and then all of a sudden they pulled the trigger on all of them and uh we're also doing a fair amount of work through our GSA contract which is heavily oriented towards military units and there's just a fairly healthy rate of people giving us a call anyway our inquiries from all sources are up about 25% over last year so rumors of recession as far as I'm concerned are are greatly exaggerated and I I can't speak for anybody else but uh we have people who are waving money at us and want to want to get in the queue so it's good so war is good for business basically so for those good for my business but peace is good for business too it's just we see different buyers emerge in different phases of the economy that when a when a business sector is doing very well there's always going to be someone who want who's expanding their office or whatever and gives us a call so in any given two-year period our top clients tend to come from different parts of the economy and right now it's heavily defense and Military Paul you said you're dealing with trying to figure out how to handle this uh production are you hiring additional people yeah hired five people this year and so we lost one uh and so we're at 27 at the moment and are you do you have openings are you looking for more I am kind of looking for more uh I filled all the immediate openings and the question is what happens next because we're so far beyond the normal pattern of growth which is usually about 10% a year that I'm I don't know whether it's the new normal or whether it's a blip and so uh I'm somewhat loathed to add a lot more people we're actually getting getting it done with the current crew although it's going to be a challenge for the next 3 months but uh I kind of want to see what happens after the New Year how's your space holding up I mean you're running out of space we were and I had started shopping around to see about a possible move with very discouraging results because because to get the amount of space that I wanted was going to Triple my monthly bill and probably incur about a million bucks in moving and refit costs so uh a parcel opened up in the ground floor in our complex and I took it even though it's not ideal because it gives me an extra 25% square fet and it just gives me some breathing room for the next few years so we're committed to stay here for the next 3 years now so one strategic move would be to perhaps look at the the jobs that are of the lower margin and just raise prices on them and maybe lose some of them it's better to lose customers because you've raised your price and because they got to wait too long so I wish someone would have told me that uh a long time ago but rather than go spend a million dollars that's that's one way to Throttle Down you know growth for various reasons we never really maximized the output from this particular space we're in and the space the new space that I rented allows us to get a lot of stuff that was just sitting around in our current space out of here and so that we can devote every square foot to production and I believe we can do what we need to do uh with the resources we have for the next few years that's good Jay uh let's turn to you uh I think one of the last times you were on you told us about your efforts to hire ahead of HR did you find one no and it's been very interesting first of all this is my third HR person I've had the last two lasted six or seven years each and I really didn't have that much to do with hiring them and now I'm very much involved and here's what I've learned a we were using zip recruiter for years and I talked to my friend who does recruiting she said you got to do indeed and she was right I'm getting way more responsive indeed than I was getting from zip recruiter let me stop you there Paul Dana have you had experience with zip recruiter and indeed did it make a difference for either of you I have zip recruiter just didn't work for me uh I just got a lot of overseas candidates um indeed is my go-to yeah I've been working with indeed lately too I don't love it I think that there's aspects of the user interface that are pretty bad but uh I do get applicants I mean I get a lot of applicants you know what I agree with that I actually like the the the interface with zi recruiter better but if you don't get people from it who cares so that just shows you for all these years I've been using a screwdriver instead of a hammer and like who knew I didn't think that there was I figured who care zip recruiters you know indeed same thing well not the case so that's the first lesson the second thing is I redid the ad I added in there work for a company that was profiled in the front cover of Inc magazine uh in and small Giants and the owner you know blog for the New York Times for five years and so I finished the ad I feel real good about it and I expected to get probably a hundred resumés in from it and I've gotten about 40 and the trickling is almost stopped it's like so wait a second did indeed make a difference or not no it did it did without indeed I would have had less I mean no it definitely helped but it's certainly not getting the response I thought one of the questions is why are you applying for this job and I would expect someone at this level would take about 30 seconds to say I was really intrigued by your ad I want to work at company that has a low turnover like you have or blah blah blah or I'd rather work for an entrepreneurial company than a large corporate and instead I get answers like it's an HR job or it fits my background or it's close to my house and really that's the best you can come up with so we go through the resumés we find 10 that we think are interesting we send emails to 10 of them four of them don't even get back to you which makes you think like why did you bother applying so out of the 10 six get back then we've interviewed then we do a phone interview we've interviewed three of them and none of them seem like the right fit I do have a real good Prospect coming in tonight and what I just figured out is I just made a list of my 25 key employees here and I realized that the average age of them when I hired them was 25 years old and most of them have been here 20 years at this point or so so I realized I'm really good at taking the D in the rough in their 20s and developing and keeping them so I this one that's coming in is 28 and that's the other interesting thing you can't ask how anyone how old they are but you can Google their name and it comes right up did you put a salary range in the ad no do you think that might make a difference you know what I don't want to commit my there's the salary range is pretty big if I get someone really Junior it's going to be 40% less than if somebody comes in that's plug andplay that knows what they're doing so I don't want to NE put out there arrange because I don't want to have to explain to somebody no no you're not qualified for that thing and you know what they turn the tables now you can't ask what they were making you know what you tell me then what do you want to make and most of the people do put a a salary in there some of them say negotiable which you know I don't think that's a great answer they know it I don't want to waste a lot of time talking to someone if they're looking for twice the price of what I want to pay so um that hasn't been the problem I'm more disappointed that most most of them don't take the time to actually think about why you applying for this job and then there's one last question do you hold it against somebody after you interview them for an hour and then they don't send you a note I mean really well one Jay one of the things is you're got a lot of experience and you're thinking back to those people you hired at 28 but that was 1991 and it's possible that people today come in different than that grw of people for sure that's why I ask the question the question is is it unre reasonable to expect someone applying for an HR job at a higher level is it unreasonable to think they should send you a an email after the interview if you're looking for someone young I think it's a high expectation wow we're talking about an H our job though we're not talking about someone working in you know in produ I don't think it's the job I think it's the the generation remarkable it was a sales job probably I would be looking for a followup but for any other position um no it's an HR job okay but what does that mean you've got an idea us to hiring I would think I would have thought that that would be standard procedure but I'm not ruling anyone out if they don't but I have to tell you I am surprised that most people do send one I I just I'm surprised that someone doesn't think that's a good idea well at the end of the day you're going to have a you're going to have a checklist of what you like and maybe you'll find somebody but maybe you won't but uh whether the checklist is reasonable is who knows everybody every owner comes with their own biases you know like the one thing that that person could do I like someone who comes uh shakes my hand right and uh but it's not a given that everybody's going to do that give you the firm grip and look in the eye I mean that's just just Golf Course in a way like why why should somebody want to do that when they're out there in the shop floor they don't have to shake anybody's hand so okay but again this isn't a shop floor person this is a highly paid human resource person so I I have higher expectations J you said you were talking to somebody who's fairly young is this somebody who has real HR experience oh absolutely absolutely I'm not talking about a 30 I'm talking about people that are probably making $7,000 a year this is someone who's been in HR for for five years that has hired a lot of people so I am expecting some minimum level what I figured out I need is two things I need someone who's not afraid of me who is going to and there are people that are 27 years old that I hire they'd come right in it'll tell you right to your face whatever they're thinking and it's a beautiful wonderful thing and I've got lots of those people and there are people who are afraid of their own shadow that are afraid of saying the wrong thing and I can't deal with that that's the first thing and two I need someone who's smart and I just don't know that it's smart not to send a follow-up email and I'm grappling with that we'll see what happens so my expectation is of tonight I think from what I saw so far I'm expecting I'm not asking for that much I'm expecting good answers to the questions follow up with a nice email and I do believe I'll find someone like that Jay you said that you're willing to wait to find the right person yes you have a company with uh 130 employees or so how's HR stuff being handled uh at this point the CFO is dealing with some of it I'm dealing with some of it uh fce has been with me for 30 years she's dealing with some of it the last thing I will do is the well I interviewed 10 people this was the best of them no that's a recipe for disaster I'm going to wait till I find the right person and if it takes another month whatever if I have to hire a head hunter I'll do whatever I need to do to find the right person I am not going to hire somebody that I don't feel is the right person because uh that's just a recipe for if not disaster a recipe for mediocrity Dana and Paul just curious do you guys put salary ranges in in ads typically yes I'll put starting pay X and then whatever else benefits are included in this case I like I said it could be anywhere from someone who's got five years of experience that I can mentor and train and do the rest of it or someone that'll come in here that can do this in their sleep that knows what they're doing so that that person is clearly worth more so I don't want to Corner myself with uh telling them up front but if it's a range you can explain that to someone right I just assume not I just assume have them tell me here's what I'm looking for and then I can decide I mean we used to be the cat and they were the mouse now it's the other way now we're the we're the mouse and they're the cat you still make the decision they can't tell you what to pay them yeah you you you said you wanted someone smart yeah and when someone says oh let's negotiate the salary but doesn't throw out the first number that to me is a sign of intelligence because everybody knows when you're negotiating whoever throws out the first number loses that's a philosophy this is all out of the J Playbook I want someone that will work cooperatively with me and give me a good faith number that okay I'm not going to come in high so you can come low I'm going to and it's worked for me it's worked me for 43 years I usually get to a number where I say okay what are you looking for tell me the real number and I go okay that's reasonable and I and that's it I'm not looking to get into a negotiation thing and I've never done it and it's worked extremely well for me so that's my philosophy all right and someone who spent most of his career as an employee and who has frequently put negotiable on the application and you've worked for all large most of the places you worked were larger organizations where I knew for sure that what I put in that box could only hurt me and couldn't possibly help me and that I was going to get paid what they wanted to pay me anyway and that I would rather have that discussion face to face and be able to um adjust and not put something down that might you know preclude my even having that conversation keep in mind now that was also back in the old days where you could ask someone what they're making the gamees changed now we're out of time Dana I have one last question for you sure you referred to the member of the 21 hats Community who is lending you the money to get you open at Fort Brag do you think this person wants to be named or would prefer not to be named I don't know all right then let's not do it my thanks to Paul DS Jay goz and Dana White and to our sponsor work better now thanks for sharing everyone wait wait don't leave yet if you have a question or a comment that you'd like the 21 hats owners to address send it to me by replying to your Morning Report or by email at lauren2 hats.com that's L ren21 hats.com do it now before you forget and don't be afraid to tell Jay what you really think he can take it and if you got something out of this conversation help us reach more business owners tell a friend subscribe and review us wherever you get your podcasts follow us on Twitter subscribe to the morning report at 21h hats.com this episode was produced by Jess thubron founder of blank word Productions okay now you can leave thanks for listening everyone 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