How Do I Manage My Managers?

[Music] hello everyone welcome to the 21 hats podcast I'm your host Lauren Feldman this week responding to a question from a listener we talk about managing your managers Jay gz offers a four-step plan that starts with making sure you've hired the right manager anytime you ever hear anyone complaining about their employees Jay tells us that's a bad manager Laura Xander talks about coming to the realization that her staff is not where she thought it was and how that's playing into her recent anxiety attack tax so now I've got anxiety about my anxiety she tells us plus Dan is getting married and I want to know how you can tell if you have a real business I'm just asking for a friend of course even in Good Times owning and running a business can be a lonely Pursuit our hope is that these weekly conversations will if nothing else let owners know they are not alone in facing these challenges same thing with our daily newsletter the 21 hats Morning Report which you can subscribe to at 21h hats.com and where you can also find trans scripts of our podcast episodes this week's lineup features Jay goz whose companies in Chicago include a picture frame business artist frame service and a home furnishing store Jason home Dana White who is CEO of paraly Boyd a chain of hair salons based in Detroit and Laura Xander who is CEO of Jimmy beans wool a digital version of a neighborhood yarn shop that is based in Reno Nevada and also owns a wholesale supplier mateline TSH in Fort Worth Texas the episode is titled how do I manage my managers [Music] welcome Jay Dana and Laura to our first podcast taping of 2021 a year that's already off to a rousing start uh let's start by catching up a little bit since uh we did take a few weeks off Dana um anything new with you yes tell us after four and a half amazing years um with my boyfriend on December 24th at 11:50 something at night he got down on one knee and asked me if I would do the honor of being his wife and I proudly said yes and I am officially engaged yay nice a congratulations welcome to the dark side and we've all met him and we all like him yes I'm so excited you know I've never been one of those girls who dreamt of her wedding and oh you know like a family member asked me like within hours of being engaged so what are your colors I have no idea um and then you know when are you getting married I you know uh I'll get back to you we um are going to have a small ceremony probably like 30 35 people then we're going to have a brunch for those people after and then later on that night we'll have a huge big reception of which all three of you are completely and totally and expected invited like I on Zoom is it going to all be on Zoom no but it'll be in like 2022 oh all right I'm not coming until you tell me the colors though I want to make sure I dress right Dana I am curious um are you concerned about marriage having any impact on your business my marriage yeah absolutely not I think I think me being married Jay's laughing why are you laughing Jay I'm just just laughing about all the people who are married that have been in business for a long time that are thinking about whether their spouse has any effect on their business whatsoever I just it kind of makes me laugh I mean but he and I have been together like yes that was a personal laughing at myself not laughing at you that was a personal laughing he and i' been together like he met me and on our first date he saw my office right in my paint calendar of it was full like he knows that per Boyd is is extremely extremely important um and I don't think he'd want me to be less Peril boy now that I'm married that would be weird to me like I don't even know o that's scary to me I've never been that because I know there's women who become less ambitious once they you know get married and I was never doing any of this to get married so I I don't see myself changing I think my customers oh man I think my numbers might go up how so why do you say that I mean I I I my business operates in the midwestern town I remember opening and getting the questions girl who's your husband just everybody assumed I was married and that I had someone helping me do this um and the looks on their faces when I would say no you got a boyfriend no well who told you to do do this I mean those are questions that I've gotten and so marriage checks one of the the societal boxes of this community um and that's important to some women here that you are married you think that'll make people more likely to come into your shop um I don't know if it'll make people more likely to come into my shop as it will make me an owner that they can relate to she's relatable you know and and where I'm at being you know the age that I am and not being married whoa right it's not New York where I live where it doesn't matter in Detroit it matters especially if you're black so yeah and then you know you got to go to the right Church you got to have the right job you had to go to the right high school and go to the right College which is local a lot of times that's Michigan State or U of M or out of state um that is exhausting that sounds absolutely exhausting it is extremely exhausting but I just now will check one of the boxes sadly it matters so yeah wow or not sadly whatever it is what it is you know no yeah I mean not like yeah yeah it is what it is it's not like you're doing it to check right it's okay yeah go I could care all right let's keep going Laura how are you doing were you able to take a break over the holidays um yeah I did take some breaks over the holidays I've actually been home in Reno for three weeks now so this is the longest stretch that I've been home since I think June wow um and I actually don't have plans to go back to Texas for at least another week or two so yeah so I've been uh I've been taking breaks but I've really struggled um I mean God my anxiety has just been through the roof through the I don't know and that's what's killing me and driving me nuts is you know as soon as I got back from Texas so the week before Christmas I'm having trouble breathing you know I've got I'm tired I'm exhausted uh and you know every time I come back I've got really severe allergies so I always have this period of a couple of days where I'm just like oh my god I've Got The Rona you know I've got it I must have it you know and then I've infected everybody and you know the guilt all that you know I don't it's not worrying about myself as much and I mean that sincerely as the guilt of what if Doug gets it what if blah blah blah anyway um so then I go into this spiral of I'm having trouble breathing and and I'm tired and exhausted so is it allergies is it just genuine exhaustion because I've been working my butt off and traveling non-stop um or am I sick and do I have the Rona and so then I worry that I'm sick which makes me more exhausted which makes me not be able to breathe which heightens the anxiety so now I've got anxiety about my anxiety you know and it's this like crazy vicious cycle so I finally had to sit down and and what sucks and what is so confusing is that intellectually like consciously there's nothing wrong there's nothing stressing me out right all right can you hear from the doctor now because I know what you're speak of you you're going through you've been on business adrenaline for the last like most of us dealing with multiple issues all year long all of a sudden the marry go around has stopped for a minute and your adrenaline's gone down and now all of a sudden you've got time to think about stuff like when you're getting shot at in the Foxhole you're not you're just thinking about shooting not in survival all of a sudden the the the shooting stopped for a minute and now you're thinking about oh I wonder what's going on at home and like yeah so you've got a little battle fatigue it's been a long year with all kinds of stuff going on and it's been a long simmer and um yeah so we're all readjusting now yeah that's exactly and that's like I finally the other day I'm like okay I'm going to write down when I can't breathe and when I can breathe and then call me and then call me and then so I recognized I'm like okay I'm baking a cake wow I can breathe you know because I'm just kind of in the moment I'm focused on blah blah blah I'm like oh I'm doing a puzzle I can breathe so it's not that I can't breathe you know um it's that you're right it's those moments of silence and it's those you know and I try really hard you know I meditate every day um but that's been harder I've trying to doing it for years um but I'm not doing a great job at it and that's not working and so I recognize that it's the what do you mean you're not doing a good great job at it listen to her Lauren listen to her this is what she's telling you well I'm I'm asking is it just not helping or do you think you're doing something wrong and you're meditating um I am not finding peace as easily and as frequently as I normally would it is it's more of a struggle you know right now for me to sit and be and to just sit and to sit with myself sitting you know um I can feel my heart racing I can feel the breath catching you know I can and so I'm it's you know the whole point of meditating right is to kind of relax into it and to just exist and I'm I can't wind down I need to wind down and I I'm not sure how to wind down knowing that no I don't need to work 40 hours a week right this second I don't need to be in the office every second but I still need to be engaged a little bit so um how do you sound like someone who you see you sound like someone who needs to meditate but you're telling us you are meditating so that yeah to your point to what I understand it's not working so maybe you need to double down on that and figure out well or maybe it is maybe I'd be in much worse shape if I wasn't you know um I mean I do think one of the things that you know now at 46 years old versus at 36 years old I now am aware like I'm aware that I'm having anxiety as opposed to just having it um I'm aware that this is that nothing is wrong but something is wrong and so I'm trying to fix it and that's part of where the meditation stuff comes in is that it's just forcing it helps me practice being aware of it now the trick is okay I know something's wrong I know like you said I've got the battle fatigue the adrenaline just stopped now what do I do do you know what I mean you brought up a very interesting difference between you and me which is real simple I'm 18 years older than you and I can tell you pe standing up that too um which is always important I I would say I yeah I realize now part of the reason why I I might have been talking just like you when I was 18 years ago you're still you're still getting your sea legs to the whole business thing and I realize part of this is you're just growing into your jobs still which I've said before you're still grown into it you you're you're doing the selft talk of there's nothing really wrong I've I've gotten used to doing it to myself I've had to go okay there's nothing wrong here so my point is it's going to continue to get easier for you it is well and I recognize how much better it is or how much easier I should say it is than it was five years ago or 10 years ago for sure so um and I also recognize and one of my favorite quotes recently is the only way to get through it is to get through it and so I'm like cutting my you know I'm just cutting myself some slack I recognize objectively that I'm having either panic attacks or anxiety attacks constantly I just got to get through it I've got to try to identify the things that are making it a little better and do more of those and less of the other things and and the big one for me is I recognize that I'm my tolerance is really low right now I'm I'm annoyed pretty frequently um and so I really have to be very aware of not reacting impulsively when I'm talking to people especially cuz slack and texting it's so easy to just fire off an impulsive message so I really am having to consciously stop myself and be like okay am I responding emotionally because I'm just exhausted and so I have no patience or is this the right way to do it which then that takes more work too you know it's much easier to just fire off and be like God you're an idiot what what do you think um but instead I got to be like good question have you thought of maybe looking this up yourself there's this thing called Google that you could type your question into and it will give you lots of answers stripping out the sarcastic part no I know I know you know what I mean yeah I do part of your issue is simply you're catching up to I've been in a similar situation where the company was growing faster than my brain and it took me 20 maybe 30 years to catch up to it and that's part of your issue which isn't a bad thing this is Growing Pains you've just bought another company you're growing you're doing stuff you're every time you get comfortable where you're at you've grown a little bit more so you will catch up Laura tell us about the business I know you said everything's okay but what are you concerned about I'm sure there are things you're concerned about oh absolutely some of us have a tendency to look at all the negative stuff you know or to I'll call it a critical view um so we're critical thinkers uh I asked everybody there's so many things that need to be fixed with the business that we bought in Texas there's still so much work to do um but I asked everybody to list out all of the great things that we accomplished this past year so you know we just spent Tuesday going through the 30 different things that we're almost proud of and how far we've come is pretty remarkable it's really really amazing okay great going to put it up on the wall so that I don't forget and I still have perspective that said moving on to being critical um our staff is just it's not where we want it to be right now uh you know we just did a we did end ofe bonuses and um not huge but something and we were I asked our the managers to go through all 35 people and rank them on a one to five right so five meaning Irreplaceable you know we'd be dead without them four is really awesome but there's still some room for growth three meaning really great but we'll be okay if they leave two shape up or ship out and then one they need to leave today um out of 35 people we had 11 ranked under a three wow and so that really shook me up because you know we let 11 people go back in March really shook me up so which I think was part of the anxiety stuff is like we just accomplished all this stuff we have gone over and you know overboard in being generous this year and trying to make everybody's lives better and blah blah blah and trying to make the business better um and to know that there's still a third of the people that aren't fully invested Laura you've been spending a lot of time down there uh and I presume you've gotten to know a lot of these people were you surprised at some of the people on the list uh who were threes or or below no um not really I wasn't I just didn't realize I guess I thought some of the twos the threes are fine I mean we're always going to have threes we're going to have threes fours and fives I mean that or at least that's my goal Jay you may have you know other I say it's out of a 10 scale I say seven eight n t and not thrilled with the sevens so I'm not sure threes are so hot out of five yeah that's a six out of 10 that's not great so I hope you will aspire to getting it to a little higher than that that works you know what but you know to be fair let's we're just going to start with no for sure you walk into a situation I'm not arguing I I think as time goes on you will upgrade those numbers you did say something that I'm just laughing I wish this was TV because it's funny you said what all the things that you're almost proud of so I'm trying to decide is it almost like all most or almost proud of so is it that you're almost proud of this or you're all yes most proud of this that we're all most proud of excellent because that was funnier the other way though I took it the either way that is funny see is that funny oh no no no no so it was like 10 of us you know it's our weekly meeting and each person came up with the three things that they were most proud of so together this is what we were all most proud of every single thing you're saying is showing you're really you're you're growing as a manager I would only challenge one word you said to say when you said they're not invested I don't think that they're not doing the good job whether they're invested or not I've had people that were invested to couldn't do a good job I've had people that weren't invested that did do a good job it's really about are they doing the job they're supposed to be doing so I I don't great Point that's all but other than that really good for you you're growing into the manager role that that you were destined to be in and you're doing everything right and I can totally identify with the anxiety of oh my God I got 12 things to do and part of the reason I don't have that anxiety anymore is because I've caught up to that stuff and you're still you just bought this company I mean you're just working on it so good for you you're making great and I love the idea you sat down and went through all the good stuff you've done that you are all most proud of that's a thing it's to me it's so important I have to keep that in perspective so sure the where we're at Lauren is we are over the next year our goal is to grow moderately but to work on efficiency is this just talking about mateline TSH in Texas or it is just the Texas business yeah so the Texas business is very controlled growth grow um while working on efficiency and um working on the foundations so we've got to get like our QC systems and to really prep us for scaling because I know that the business can be double or triple um you know the demand is out there so that part I'm not as worried about the tendency of this business has been to just throw bodies at stuff so you know when there's an increase and I would like us to work you know I'd like us to work smarter not harder and so I think think it's going to take us six months or a year to kind of change the mentality that we're going to figure out how and I'd like fewer people that make more like that's I keep telling them I'm like you know we could probably do 30% more business than we're doing now with the same headcount and that means everybody you know if we're all pushing hard we should all make a little bit more or a lot more I have to tell you a real life story this isn't some Parable this is a real life story I was buying glue to pictures and it comes in barrels so this guy selling it to me he's this was 30 years ago he was in his 50s or 60s I don't remember and I said to him how long have you worked for the company and he says I used to own the company I sold it to someone else I said really how did that go he goes well here's what happened I had 10 employees and this guy took over and it you know a real tough guy you know running a business and he said to me tell me who your top five people are so I told him and he fired the other five people and he gets the same produ out with the five people that I was getting out with 10 people to your point of yeah it happens and I never forgot that story because it was just so poignant so Laura along those lines were there any ones on the list no ones no there's never ones on the list because even the worst manager in the world fires the ones that's the ones that kill businesses are the ones that are out of a scale of 10 it's the sixes because the sixes aren't quite bad enough to fire maybe and you rationalize it and you say things like I've said all these things oh we could do worse you know or oh she's trying really hard or and like at the end of the day or oh they've been here a long time the customers don't care they want their stuff when they want it and and they don't want to hear about oh sorry the airplane crashed the pilot was really trying not to crash it but unfortunately he's not a good pilot I mean oh sorry your mother died in the hospital I was really trying but I did forget to give her the medication yesterday I mean no one cares so this is the growing up of being a manager and then whenever I do the speech someone goes oh you have to get rid of those people that are cancer no they're not cancers they just maybe they're just in the wrong job I don't you have to call them names for whatever reason they're invested they're not invested they're not working hard all that matters is are they doing their job or not and right uh that's the maturity of a manager when you finally get to that point and you're moving towards that point you're doing a good job excellent well I'm very say I'm very lucky to be able to jump into this and not have been there for 10 years and have the history and the emotional baggage and the emotional ties so it's given me a totally different perspective to be able to walk in and look at a lot of this so objectively um which has forced me to be more objective in the business in Reno you know it's forced me to take a look back and be like H like all the other part you're missing you realize you built a relationship with those people to where they gave you the honest true do you know how valuable that is that obviously you built a relationship with these key managers that when you ask them rate these people that they weren't covering for people and they told you the truth that's a that's a beautiful thing that is totally a credit to you if you were a jerk they wouldn't have told you that stuff they would have lied they would have told appreciate it and I've told them I'm so grateful that they were honest with me about it but yeah were you able to validate what they said to you with what you've seen since you've been there yeah okay good I was going to do this last but it kind of relates to the topic we're on so we've got a reader question that I want to uh address and I'm hoping to do this in most if not all of our podcasts going forward uh I've asked people to to send in questions for you guys either about their own businesses or about your businesses and and I've been getting some good ones uh hopefully I'll get more any of you listening uh who would like to submit a question you can send it to me by email Lauren l n at21 hats.com or you can simply reply to your 21 hats Morning Report uh today's question comes from hap camon he's owner of happy cones and ice cream shop in Denver i' have a question I'd love your panel to answer I'm more in Dana's position I started as an ice cream truck six years ago I opened the shop a year ago and I'm opening another shop in 3 months my question is how do I manage managers effectively bear in mind I'm not a big tech company I'm in ice cream shop I'm still trying to figure out whether to pay manager hourly or salary any advice would be greatly appreciated anybody got thoughts for hap um yeah let me chime in before the the experts do because it's something I still struggle with uh and I would read the book The emyth Revisited I think that that is that's very helpful that's all I've got that's good you guys Jay and Dana you're better managers than I am but um don't say I'm a I don't know if I'm a better manager I know that over my years of being open i' I've figured it out um I'm and then I also you know I was I've been in leadership in other positions and so I've had the opportunity to manage people before and and my management style is you know I I give you a long rope um and then I I see what you do with it um you know I try to meet with my operations manager regularly to go over the oper ations what are the 10 things that are important so I can help you know so I can grow the business do my job um and then these are the things I delegate to her um all of which I've done before but um I chose you know with the help of this show to pay my operations manager a salary uh my um day-to-day manager in the salon she is an hourly employee but I'm rethinking that um and I'm and as I expand um you know I think depending on you know what I'm going to have these managers do determines how I will pay them um but you have to I think part of determining what you're going to how you're going to manage your managers is based on what you're going to give them to do um there's certain things that I cannot delegate I can't delegate my presence in an incubator I have to be there and so there are things that are in the salon that needs to happen that I need I on and so I delegate that to her and then set up um frequent report outs um so we can go over the 10 or 12 things that I need to hear back from her um I found that since hiring I'm not in the weeds with human resources anymore I'm not into the well her boyfriend is upset with her I'm not in that I don't know um I don't know what's going on in the personal lives of my staff and I like that considering my industry and considering what I've learned in in my experience I know I've gotten some backlash from business owners who said well gosh you should know you're a small company you should know everybody okay you run an engineering firm right it's very different um than the culture of a hair salon so I found that having a manager just allows me to work on the grass tops um and the stock of peral boid and and the managers get dig into the Grassroots and Report out to me on the things they need in order to keep the business open and to grow it Jay any thoughts on compensating and managing managers I'll give it you in four steps number one and most people don't talk about this the most important part of management is in management it's hiring the right person in the first place so uh first i' put a lot more energy or put good energy into figuring out what kind of person is going to do the best job doing this put a great ad together interview thoroughly check references and most entrepreneurs are not real good at it including me why because we like people because we like to talk about our companies and we're in a hurry that's not a good thing in hiring slow down the hiring process and do your best to find someone that has had experience doing something with customers ask and ask good questions during the interview like tell me about a customer experience you had Jay is that realistic advice for an ice cream shop yeah okay why why not maybe they didn't work in an ice cream shop no question I'm but they did they have a job before they've never had a job okay maybe they're right up maybe maybe they just graduated high school C whatever and they've never had a job okay but most people have had a job before so I would ask them tell me about dealing with customers because at the end of the day um people are not going to be pissed at you because your chocolate ice cream wasn't quite as good as the chocolate no they're going to be pissed because your person wasn't nice go to Yelp that's all you have to do just look at Yelp and see the reviews usually it's about they've got an attitude in there or they weren't nice to me or I hate that it's usually not about the product it's usually about the people so you want to hire a nice person who's going to give a wonderful feeling to your ice cream shop so you've got to figure out what kind of questions do you ask to tease that out and the one I would ask is tell me about a difficult customer situation you've had and how did you handle it and you can tell by just their body language do they sigh do they say oh wow I HD one boy six months and they and then you find out what they learned from it and you find out whether they've got an attitude about it like well people are jerks times versus listen I understand my number one job is to make sure people are happy even if they're not nice to me I suck it up it's not a problem I don't take it Pur I want to see how they handle that how they process that hiring number one okay number two set standards in an ice cream shop I'll give you my top four make sure this door opens on time how many retail stores do you go to that they're not open when they're supposed to be open and you stand out in front waiting I have a simple solution to that my employees know our standards are we open five minutes early and we don't lock the door till five minutes after closing so there's none of that screaming through the door pointing at your wristwatch we're closed like you know if we close a six no one locked the door till 605 easy easy versus you know getting into the fight with the customers so setting standards like that cleanliness got to be critical like you shouldn't walk into your ice cream shop and find dirty napkin plane on the floor customer service if someone's not happy how do you handle it oh no problem let me get you something out you need to train people on that stuff because some people think they're doing the C the the company a favor if they fight with customers they think that's their job is it fair to ask this manager to write up those standards no not at all well you can ask on the interview to see if they can do it that certainly would be could you make that part of their job could you say look part of the reason I'm I'm hiring you is because I want you to create these standards I want us to agree on them absolutely not you've just given away you're no longer the owner now it's like boy is one is deciding who your store is no I don't mind the asking them what do you think if I had to here um Mar what are what do you think the four most important things to being a manager in the store and see if she can come up with it this ain't brain surgery they should come up with customer service cleanliness making sure that you know we got the place staffed properly for the right time they should be able to come up with this if you're wanted to be a manager so so okay so we get through hiring wa let let me interrupt you Jay for a second I I want to tell you about a a situation that I'm familiar with that I think actually resonates with some of what you're discussing and I'm curious what your reaction to it will be a a couple years ago when I was still at Forbes and Bo Burlingham and I were picking the annual Forbes small Giants list we put an ice cream uh chain on the list it's called Amy ice cream it's based in Austin Texas and they do a couple of things there that I'd never heard before one of them is they have no applications for jobs if somebody comes in and says they want to work there they hand them a white paper bag the kind of bag that they put ice cream um containers in uh for customers and say here do something with this what they the thinking on that is that they don't really care what someone does they care that someone takes the time to actually try to do something and they feel that sorts out the people who are just looking for a job from the people who really want to work at Amy's so that that's that's one thing they do that they claim has been really effective for them the other thing is they hire a lot of college uh graduates or even college students to work or and even to manage the stores but they rotate everybody through every position in the store so nobody has assigned one role they get to do everything and the goal there is to give everybody a great work experience they know they're going to go on and do other things and talk to their friends and they want them to tell their friends that was the best college you know graduate job or right out of college job uh anybody could have what do you think of that Jay I love the second part Good Karma like sure you got young people give them a nice experience I think that's great people should leave your company and feel good that they learned something or had a good experience there the bag thing I don't know if it works for them I can't argue if it works for them I don't know that it makes sense to me but I if it works for them it works for them I I you know I don't know what to think of that it seems like uh you're supposed to do something something with the bag you supposed to draw something fill something out I thought where you were going with that was here's a paper bag and a pencil I want you to write down the five things that you think are critical to running a great ice cream place you can do that okay yeah I love the bag idea yeah sure no I don't mind the difference of yeah sure the the point is the hiring what I figured out and I'm not that smart it took me 20 years what I figured out is great companies have great hiring processes period it's not an accident great companies don't accidentally end up with great employees they figured it out because of the the reality is out of 10 people coming in for a job only one of them is going to be a great employee for you and when how do you feel about hiring a recruiter like we need to um Doug is ready to look for another software engineer and we have hired and we've tried um multiple times we've hired four or five people that haven't worked out so we obviously aren't doing a good job at hiring is it time for us to get a recruiter well a as for a high level job person said they're not a high-tech business maybe in your business maybe you have to do that because there's such a demand I've used a recruiter but I'm not in a high-tech business I've used a recruiter three or four times for for management positions and every one of them ended up being extremely disappointing that's been my experience but I'm not hiring a high-tech my first question would you to you would be show me the ad I want to see did when you said you've tried okay but did you put a great ad together that gives a reason why they should work for you if you feel like you've done a great ad and you've done the best okay and maybe in that industry you have to use a recruiter so if you get the hiring thing down the rest gets much easier so a one go through a process and say to yourself I'm gonna take a lot of time and do this right set standards again cleanliness on time customer service make sure everyone understands three you're a manager you might to tell them a couple of times you might you got to monitor it and make sure things are happening correctly um and included in that included with the coaching management positive reinforcement all that good stuff this is where the manager has to come out you there will become a point that you need to have you need to have the skill set of knowing when this ain't working and then get rid of them because that's where people make the mistake they they rationalize they put up with and anytime you ever hear anyone complaining about their employees it's a bad manager you shouldn't be complaining about your employees you should have wonderful employees that's your job find them keep them so and then uh so my contention is hire the right people train them coach them manage them put standards together everything falls in place as far as hourly versus salary I would say unless they really want a salary I don't I think it's always safer to start on hourly that way if they're working extra they're getting paid and there's no downside to that um I have had the opposite where you put them on salery and then they get home and they're whoever girlfriend boyfriend husband wife mother what are you working extra time you're not getting paid for that you're working for free like some people don't get the salary thing so I wouldn't be so quick to throw everybody on salary Dana you just told us you were rethinking that uh for your manager and thinking about moving toward salary what are your thoughts I'm noticing how many hours she's working she's doing more for a man than you know you're usual manager she's more than just an on-site manager what kind of now or is she salary now she's hourly now just kind of talked about making it just easier to have your admin team on salary and it just yeah we don't have to watch hours we don't have this you know not include our own what kind what kind of money are we talking about what kind of money are we talking about like 17 an hour you know what we did is we when we've had that situation and it's it becomes an administrative burden to clock in and clock out we took their hourly wait and I don't know if this the right thing to do it's just what we've done especially for people who didn't really understand the salary and whose wives and moms and whoever would complain about you're working more and not getting paid for it we said look we're going to take your hourly rate we're going to salar tize it you know so multiply it times 2080 um and then we're going to add 5% and basically what that's doing is we are guaranteeing you two and a half hours of overtime every week so we're just just going to prepay you you know we're just going to assume that you're going to work blah blah blah over time um plus you get an extra week of vacation plus you get you know extra holidays plus you get a couple you know we made sure that in a salaried position there are some extra benefits that you don't get if you're hourly and that was kind of how we explained it to people why do you guys know that their families have an issue with them working salary because that's what comes up hey where are we going Saturday oh I can't we I got to go to work Saturday well oh are you getting paid no do they come to you and say what that's what I'm saying like oh they usually complain to somebody else everything always simmers up to the top you know if they don't get the salary thing my argument is they don't need to get it just pay them on the clock and I don't disagree with what you're saying Laura with the 5% the problem is you the way you stated it they're getting paid two and a half they're getting paid for two and a half hours of overtime not really because they get paid time and a half or overtime so I tweak that number a little bit because they're pay trust me they're aware of the fact they get time and a half when they work overtime so um but I don't think that's a bad philosophy and certainly there are some people that it's a great thing to put them on salary they feel like they feel like they're more part of the management team and they don't punch it and out it's a great thing except this is like do you ever go on the tilter world and the the carnival things that think the car that spins around there's people that get off the Tilt world and get back in line and can't wait to do it again and there's people that want to throw up and say I'm never going on there again that that's how salary it is there's some people it's great love it and there's people that hate it so you got to figure out which is which because if you put someone on salary that really has got an hourly mentality it's going to cause you problems all right we're almost out of time I got to ask one more question uh I want to squeeze this in quickly because it's about me um this question relates directly to what I'm doing as you know I'm trying my best to turn 21 hats into a real business I've got a daily email newsletter and weekly podcast um that you're participating in right now but I don't have any revenue and I'm hoping to address that situation in the next month or so uh which leads me to this question when you guys were getting started when did you know you had a real business Laura do you remember um you know I don't I mean it's different when you have a physical store and you like open it up and people I mean for me I guess it was the first time Susan Conrad was my very first customer and she walked in and she spent $88 I still remember the credit card that she used and I was just like holy and I almost I was just like are you sure are you sure is that okay like that seems like a lot for a little baby sweater is it GNA be all right um so yeah that was the fir I guess the first transaction I mean thought for sure you were going to say you still don't feel like you have a real business I was waiting for you to say that she knows she has a business she's got two yeah no I don't feel like I have a grownup business I don't feel like we got our together but I do know J well I'm always on the way it's a freaking Journey Dana how about you when we had volume I remember it uh it was December 16th 2012 and I looked around and all the chairs were full two of the sinks were full and there was a lady waiting and then at the end of that day when I looked at our receipts um I don't even remember how much we made that day but the fact that I realized the vision I got any everybody in and out under a certain time and they were all walking in and they were happy I said wow I've got something here we're it's closing and we're leaving and we've seen over 30 people today wow and then the next time is about shortly after that when I pulled up to open the salon at 9: and it was 8:15 and there was a line outside already I said oh here we go that's great Jade do you remember I I don't remember a specific moment but I you know in 1979 for those of you there well that's because it was like half a century ago well it was half almost yes it was yeah um when I pulled up in my horse and wagon and 19 everything was in black and white yeah and I in 1979 I made 20 some, a year which was the same amount of money that all the guys that took the accounting jobs were making so I felt pretty good like wow I I'm framing pictures and I made as much money as someone that took a job doing accounting so I was eating my Cheerios in my kindergarten class right then yeah so that but I will tell you getting bigger there was there is one moment I remember that really made me feel like wow I got like a real like a decent sized business I bought a forklift I mean that was a big deal I own a forklift I mean go to companies with forklift they just were there when you showed up there but like I bought a forklift I mean that was a huge thing like all right so you've told me what I what I needed to hear I've got to end this podcast so I can go buy a forklift yes that's what you need a forklift yeah for all the heavy lifting you do every day my thanks to Jay goz Dana White and Laura Xander as always guys thanks so much for sharing thanks for listening everybody this episode was produced by just through ubon founder of blank word Productions remember we started the 21 hats podcast to help business owners feel a little less isolated to let them know they aren't the only ones fighting these battles if you got something out of this conversation please help us reach more people tell a friend subscribe and review us wherever you get your podcasts follow us on Twitter at 21h hats and let me know if you have a question or a comment or a topic you'd like us to cover my email address is L Feldman at2 E1 hats.com see you next time [Music]