It’s a Pile of Money

[Music] hello everyone welcome to the 21 hats podcast I'm your host Lauren Feldman this week Paul Downs makes two seemingly contradictory points one is that his business is on track to have its best year ever the other is that he expects to claim another big government subsidy courtesy of the enhanced employee retention tax credit as Paul says if you don't know about the ERC or if you don't know that its requirements have been relaxed you probably should check check it out meanwhile Jay go tells us what happened when three of his employees found out what the others were being paid and Dana White feels a little deflated after talking to an investment banker plus Paul shares his new strategy for coping with the labor shortage even a 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 highlights the most important news of the day 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 makes custom conference tables outside of Philadelphia Jay 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 paral Boyd a chain of hair salons based in Detroit the episode is titled it's a pile of money welcome Paul Jay and Dana great to have you all here let's start with you Paul we haven't seen you in a little while how's business business is pretty good we have suffered through a number of Staff vacations and one guy was out while his wife had a baby and that turned into a couple of extra weeks says there were some complications which is all resolved we're back up and running full capacity made a couple of hires and things look good that's good to hear you told me when we talked the other day that you have something cooking with the employee retention tax credit yes uh the employee retention tax credit was originally rolled out at the same time as the PPP and was intended to as far as I can understand to Provide support for employers who did not lay off uh employees when times were hard or had been shut down by the government is a credit against your 941 obligations when you pay payroll you know the the employer portion of the payroll tax and it's actually an pretty amazing subsidy because they've expanded the eligibility well Beyond last year and now it's available for every quarter of 2021 the summary is that if you have a business that was either shut down by government action or experienced a drop in Revenue compared to 2019 for any of the quarters in 2021 you can claim a credit of up to $77,000 per employee uh for each quarter that you qualify it seems like a a lot of people including us would qualify for this subsidy and it's just another big pile of cash from the government so it looks like we're going to qualify for two quarters this year and it should amount to about another $300,000 in uh Credit Now unlike the PPP loan this is a credit against your tax obligation so it would tend to increase your profits and you would be taxed on the increased profits but you're not going to you're not going to lose money by claiming this credit if you qualify and I would encourage anybody who thought that that all the goodies had already been handed out to take a careful look at this and see whether your company qualifies because it's a pile of money so you're going to be able to take this for the first two quarters of this year it looks like we're going to qualify for the second quarter and probably for the fourth quarter based on our crudee revenues you had told us previously that you were on your way to your I think you said your best year ever why would you think that your fourth quarter would be below 2019 fourth quarter because our fourth quarter in 2019 was the best quarter we've ever had so in order to be in order to have a 20% drop on that quarter to quarter comparison we can still book a pretty reasonable amount of income and qualify for the credit interesting yeah it's it's kind of amazing and uh Uncle Sam after my entire life of being very stingy to small business owners to suddenly Unleashed these piles of cash and well not out of nowhere I mean there was a pandemic there was a pandemic but the the the qualification process is mathematical you know like take a look at what your revenues were for each quarter of 2019 and compare them to each quarter of 2020 and uh depending on what happens you may well Subs you may well qualify for this subsidy I mean for us it's going to be about 300,000 bucks for the two quarters where do you find more information about this there's various IRS Publications that explain it in the IRS way which is incomprehensible uh I found a pretty succinct explanation which I can email to to uh Lauren to put in the show notes and it's called the employee retention tax credit the is a program that's been changed twice since it was rolled out in March of 2020 and basically the last change they expanded it so that it it's available for all four quarters of 2021 and that's a a real blessing for anybody who's had Revenue go down Paul I think there was initially a rule that said you can't do this and the PPP loan simultaneously for the same employees in the same period I think that was later changed you know what I'm talking about I do know what you're talking about and I my understanding is maybe you can't claim forgiveness for the PPP loan if you're also claiming the credit for the same time period so you got to kind of think about which one you want and I would suggest that anybody who's interested in looking into this talk to your accountant about it or your payroll company they would certainly know something about it there's more to it than what I describ there's you know as always there's there's things that need to be thought about carefully but the basic idea being that here's another pile of money may as well see whether you qualify Jay have you looked into this at all you just gave me a headache I believe we've got the credit the biggest change that happened relatively recently was that the eligib ility was pushed was opened up for the third and fourth quarters of this year so you've got quarters that haven't arrived yet and you can actually ask for the credit in advance for a quarter when you anticipate being down in revenues and get a check from the government you apply for the upcoming quarter and they'll send you money I know somebody who did this and got 2.6 million bucks for his payroll cuz they are con Construction Industries and the material problems have really delayed all their projects and they're going to suffer poorer revenues because of that and so and here's this thing you know like they don't they don't ask you why your revenues are down it's just are they down and uh if they are then there you go you may as well take a look at it and you get an actual check for the money as opposed to waiting till you pay the taxes there's two different ways you can get you can wait and pay the taxes take a credit or you can apply for the credit in advance and get a check that's my understanding all right do not try this at home this is not to be perceived as legal accouny advice please speak to your accounting professional and legal professionals yes I think speaking to the accountants and the payroll guys is are people is uh critical and uh but it exists it's real and I do know people who've received substantial amounts of money through this Paul one thing if I can try to clarify I wasn't sure what you were saying in response to the point about whether you can claim both the PPP and the uh credit for the same period with the same employees my understanding was that that initially you couldn't but it was changed so that you could I believe that you're right that it is now possible to get both but I would not claim I mean I was just looking in this link that I was going to send you for the language about it but it this is going to be the kind of thing that your accountant needs to answer and I don't really want to say yes or no but I I think you're right that they removed the they removed some of the restrictions on claiming both of them and it's now easier to do that the larger point is it's gotten easier to claim and yet very few people know about this right and it's a substantial amount of money and uh and it could be it could make a real difference in terms of a business that's under capitalized or struggling because of loss of Revenue and so people understand how much money could possibly be uh at stake here how do you get to 300,000 the basic calculation and there are complexities that might change these numbers but uh they're giving you a 70% credit on the first $10,000 of payroll per eligible employee per quarter so that if you qualified for all four quarters and all of your employees it would be $28,000 per employee as a refundable credit all right let's make the rest of this conversation and accounting and IRS fre conversation but Paul thank you for raising that Jay you gonna look into it yeah I'm on it I put it on my Todo list yep I've already Googled it emailed the information link to my accountant bookkeeper Financial Manager so we'll talk about it in our meeting on Monday excellent Dana how you doing I'm hanging in there I'm hanging in there I'm um excited to be headed to uh Texas and North Carolina this week wow headed there to go do some site visits Ah that's exciting it is I'm looking forward to it they're looking forward to having me um it's a great opportunity these are site visits on military bases as you've been telling us about the last few weeks right yes site visits on on Military basis I'm excited um I've took Diana's advice and um went ahead and set up some calls with uh some investment bankers and I had my first one yesterday it was quite jarring how so well it's part of the reason why I haven't you know submerged myself in this world um they're a very numbers driven and they're not completely wrong um but they're very numbers driven and so their numbers are a lot higher than where we are or where some brick-and-mortar businesses will be so you know they're they're in the startup world and they're in this the rounds of funding in the seed world and when you've got people making it to billion dollar companies in five years or you know $500 million companies in three years or even $50 million companies in five years that's where they're used to playing I got off the phone yesterday and I was a little off balance it's not because he told me anything wrong it's just that he had his Lane of looking at what he was looking at and in short you know it was a matter of listen you only have one location yes you were right to close your first one but until you have five six seven 8 nine locations you know this is this is you know maybe franchising shouldn't have been what you chose that's in short uh um and so I asked him you know the people that he knows he's a franchisee of a location and he knows friends that are about to be franchisors and I asked him how did they get to you know 5 six seven 8 nine locations and he said oh friends and family and so yeah that's just you know $300,000 per location um is not something that I could go to friends and family with and he said well it's not friends and family really it's people who know friends and family um and that's just not my community and so that's why I chose to franchise because waiting until you found the friends and Family's dollar to build out five locations um just would have taken me years it took me eight years to get to this point so that was it that's so I've got some other calls coming up was he not interested in the conversation about a the potential contract from the military he said that's your best bet but it's a fishbowl and that's not going to necessarily be reflective as to what would happen in the private sector and again I don't disagree with them I just was a little discouraged getting off the phone um as to the viability of the franchise option um because he you know he was saying that it's not a viable franchise similarly to what Diana's husband was saying which was you know why would somebody invest in that um and I just think that there's a privilege and there's a perspective that is limited by people who have the money to make these decisions because there's things there's a lot they don't know and it's hard when you're saying you know you don't know and they're like what do you mean you don't know you're not a billion dollar company what do you mean you're not a you know $50 million company of course I know because if if if if you were viable you'd be at these numbers and it's like okay you just say okay it sounds like you brought your fun back um no he I I not no actually he um gave me a very he healthy um perspective and I wasn't like oh this is bad it just you know I what's done is done again it is what it is deal with it I know I've made the best decision for me at the time I made it and [ __ ] you like I mean I don't mean to say that to him and a you know he wasn't a bad guy and to be fair to him he's given you honest input he could exactly you know good for him he's being honest with you and he's telling you what he thinks good for him good for him I appreciate it it wasn't oh no I shouldn't have done it but you know he he's not here and he doesn't know right and he even you admitted to that you know that there may be some things I don't know but I think when we're talking in the investment banking World they look a certain way they look at things a certain way um and unless I'm coming with numbers of you know High millions or high high single- digigit millions or high double- digigit Millions I'm not really going to be of any interest can I make a comment here in my vistage group we've had a number of business owners who went through a process of talking to investment bankers to uh look at Capital infusions and the takeaway we took as a group was that the world of investment bankers is specialized so that when you say oh I called an investment banker you called one investment banker and that there's Capital sources that specialize in the launch phase sort of like where you are and there's capital sources that that specialize in the 10 to $50 million and another one in the 50 to 150 they're all specialized and if you happen to call a guy who is not doing what you're doing don't necessarily take his dismissal of your project as dismissal of the project it's like he's really saying this is not what we do and there there are people who are looking for those early opportunities and you just haven't found him yet so I think that the the the move is to continue to ask around and it may be that you need an angel type investor at this point rather than a real uh Investment Banking shop because you are at this takeoff point and the right person may understand it and a lot of people won't understand it she paid the consulting firm that does franchises and the question is how much can you trust their judgment they told her you can do this they took her money they put the stuff together and they gave her a budget for okay here's what's going to cost to Market this to go find your customers and the question is are they right you left the part out that I think is critical he did qualify it didn't he say to you listen I might just be a dumb white guy he said that right he said there's there may be some things I don't know but I I he's he doesn't understand black hair care and the black hair care um lifestyle and the whole thing I don't know that he spent that much time thinking about it I've been on this podcast with you so many times I have a very thorough understanding of that opportunity so just the fact that your numbers don't you know blow off you know page and oh my God this is unbelievable you have to understand that what this Market is and I don't know that he put that much under thinking about it to Paul's Point that's who Golden Sex is putting me in touch with early stage investors I'm fairly competent on the stages of funding and I've read up on you know having your data room and just this whole entire process so the people that they're putting me in touch with are people who not only are funding early stage businesses that but are funding you know minority women businesses that cater to minority women so but here's the thing they're products and so that is also different because you're looking for someone who's in Target I don't have products so I'm a service um so it's just you know being in this space where when you're one of the first to do things you know maybe it'd be easier if I had a burger joint Maybe not maybe it'd be easier if I had a Wing Stop or something that was more familiar so people are like oh I know how this goes but um yesterday's conversation just allowed me to have a different perspective and will continue to bounce his feed back off of other people to hear what you know they've said I have already and several people disagree with him they're like oh he just doesn't know and I said oh okay um yeah he feels that you know I'd have a stronger position for franchising he was very skeptical about me only having the one maybe two locations he felt I should have a lot more listen there's no question You' be better off if you had five locations going but to your point that would take you quite a quite a while to pull off and I said you in the first day I said I won't be surprised if you become a zillionaire from this or I won't be surprised if in two years you think oh my God what I get myself into and I don't think this is a black and white decision it's it's a case of it's nuanced there's an opportunity there you don't have a lot of locations so I don't think anyone can definitively sit there and say oh this is absolutely the greatest idea ever or a terrible idea that's what you're figuring out the decision's been made I mean you've chosen to go down that path I'm curious Dana you're you're kind of operating on two tracks now one franchising the other company owns stores potentially on Military basis are you concerned at all about your energy and time being divided between those tracks no if there were a lot of missing pieces if there were a lot of things left to be done I would be oh man I can't I still have to develop in this area I think both of the opportunities will allow me time to how should I say it they allow me time to grow in them so if I were scrambling to put our processes together if I were scrambling on the business stuff yes it would be a lot but a lot of this is going to be Plug and Play I know there is a technological component that we're going to be developing that needs you know that I'll have to you know get acquainted with but that's not going to take long because I'm a part of the development process well to be clear though you haven't really St you got all the paperwork done and and all the structure put together for the franchise you could put that on hold for six months while you do this other thing it's not like you're it's already going and you've got a trade show set up and you've already got people looking at you could correct me if I'm wrong you could just say all right I'm putting the franchise thing hold until I get this military based thing figured out isn't that true sure thing yep that's true yeah so you're not you're at a good place you can take a you know you've got it worked out and you can just go put your focus into that for a little while I can develop it and then wait to Market it you were going to learn a lot more in a very short period of time and we'll continue this conversation yep what's going on with you Jay well I'm interviewing another CFO candidate today that sounds promising I'm very confident I will find someone that fits well um my cfo's giving me plenty of time he's not leaving till the end of the year uh so that's what I'm spending my time on and um the covid thing is back to being challenging like overnight everybody's wearing masks again I assume you're referring to your employees did they no everybody the city of Chicago said you got to wear a mask indoors so overnight it went from nothing to all of a sudden overnight so we're doing it and I can't take off the table that it's possible there's going to come a day that I might have to make the extremely difficult decision do I tell people you have to get a shot which I'm extremely uncomfortable with and I've got some really solid long-term employees that work for me and uh there's no win in this there's no there's no good answer to this you have some very solid long-term employees that you know have not been vaccinated oh yeah and I I'm really uncomfortable grilling them and I asked one of them any chance going to get the vaccine he goes no and you know that was that um the other one I haven't talked to yet I'm not going to start getting into a debate with them I I was hoping this was going away fairly quickly and we I wouldn't have to deal with it but um I don't know what's coming now I mean if you watch the news it's not encouraging I'm thinking of not watching the news that's one solution did you see uh people are trying to use incentives Vanguard Vanguard group is paying everybody who gets vaccinated whether they've already done it or they're about to do it ,000 I philosophically have a huge problem with that for God's sakes we're supposed to go pay people to do something to help themsel and in my case that would be 130 I have 130 employees I'm going to go write a check for $130,000 so they can go do what they should do to take care of their own health I just philosophically find that to be just um I don't even have a word for it I it just it doesn't seem right to me like be grown-ups if it's a good idea go do it yeah but that still leaves you with a difficult situation I know I say there's no good solution to this how are you thinking about it Paul oh my god um well we we settled on if you are vaccinated you don't have to wear a mask in the shop and if you aren't you do and that's the policy I'm sticking with now we're not public facing so that makes it considerably simpler I have two employees who told me they weren't going to get vaccinated and they're wearing their masks so um in our area the mass have started to pop up again when you go out in public but it's not anywhere near the level of compliance that we saw last year so I think that people are sick of it and there's going to be a diminishing respect for whatever new uh whatever new rules come out of the government people are just going to start ignoring it I mean how many people drive 55 miles an hour well I I think it's a combination of sick of it and they have had the shots so they feel a little protected so it's different and I was I traveled through from Nashville or from Philadelphia to Nashville and back last week and I got to say in the South nobody's wearing masks and if you do they laugh at you so um I don't know how effective all this is going to be the tragedy for this are the hospital workers that are putting putting their lives at risks for people who didn't get shots and now they're putting their lives at risk taking care of these people that's that's the tragedy it's a tragedy but the people who I encountered in various places you know rest stops and gas stations and restaurants and in Nashville they didn't care they just don't care you know like that that's uh I think that that's that's pretty much how America's going to go we're going to learn to live with it even if it's painful Dana is this an issue for you no most of if not all of my staff are vaccinated and they're wearing masks we've asked them to wear masks regardless because we don't know if our customers are vaccinated or not we're not going to ask that's their personal private business they asked me how I felt about it as an owner and I said I believe vaccination is your personal choice I understand but I don't agree if you don't want to get vaccinated but if you don't wear your mask and it's just required everybody's on the floor wearing masks for themselves and for our customers Jay you had an interesting experience recently with some salaries in your shop being inadvertently disclosed um someone sent out a report with uh you know cost of goods sold on it and just labor cost and inadvertently on there was three people's salaries and um there's disparity between the three salaries which I feel comfortable about personally I I try to pay people the right amount and it it kind of blew up and people are upset and uh it brings up the whole issue of oh should you just post everybody's salary on the wall and um I don't believe so and you find yourself having conversations with people what they think somebody else should make and well if they're making that why aren't I making that and uh it's just uh it's unfortunate and um I believe I've got it all calmed down but it um it puts it puts the boss in a funny position it puts the employee in a funny position and the employee the the argument of I should make more money because I just found out Lauren makes more money than me it's if it was the exact same job fair enough but it's not the exact same job and I've never had this level because it was never this never happened but I remember I was at a seminar years ago where this consultant did a speech this is 30 years ago and she said you should be able to post everybody's salary on the wall it wouldn't be a problem and I said are you serious I've got Factory workers making X dollar an hour and then I've got salespeople making 50% more well maybe that'll encourage the the factory workers to go to college and become salespeople I I thought they're trying to to to put food on their table and I was just blown away and then my wife told me later she happened to be there with me she goes oh I saw that woman out in the hallway she was crying like I made her cry and like oops I I just I'm I'm so disgusted at people that don't own businesses if you own if you if you if you own a business and you've done that and it's worked out great more power to you go out there and tell everybody how well that worked but don't give me this theoretical concept that in many cases does not work I'm sure in some cases it works very well but it doesn't work in some cases at all so I was sharing that I was a you know labor organizer in my past life and that's the example of when it works when you get less Guff from staff because it's very clear from day one here are the salary ranges for you know framer a here's the salary ranges for framer B here's the salary range for framer C all of it are based on the following time in experience education and the like and so that's where when we were negotiating contracts that's where we would say okay now that we've got this salary structure in place let's put it in let's put it out there so we're not having any questions about why does this person make more than me because it's not a secret well how big is that range okay but you just said salary range is walk me through how big is that range it depends on the company it could be $10,000 so you know let's say hypothetically in company a framer position a is is your entrylevel framer well everybody who's a framer a knows that they're going to make anywhere between 50,000 and $60,000 it depends on how you structure it or put it out but they know okay so let's walk through this so framer a is making 50 and they look on the this chart they found that's up on the wall and it says someone else is making 60 they go wait a second I work I I I framed more pictures last week than they did why am I why why is she making $10,000 more than that's ridiculous because you've comp because you've communicated that it's not about your output it could be output it could be performance-based it could be but we've recommended make it on things that are tangible years in education okay and in the real world that I'm living in when you tell the person um well so and so's making more because they're really gifted it they write great ad copy and they're in charge of the advertising for this and then and then the person can go oh well I do too I'm good at there too okay and so I've I've dealt with this in my labor background you are well we'll re-evaluate it when you're given the opportunity to write great ad copy for us we'll keep you in mind we're running short on time and I want to get Paul into this Paul you've told us that you put your own salary up on the wall do your employees know what the other employees are making not not because I've told them I think it's a mine field and I've never wanted to drag the company into it personally um I would not be surprised if uh some of the staff have talk to each other about what they're making but I think part of it is that a lot of times there's a disparity in the pay the hourly pay for some of my employees that is evened out by the cost of the benefits so uh if if someone wants to have a conversation with me about compensation I'm I'm happy to do it and when I tell them how much their health insurance costs the company they're often quite surprised and uh you know it can be it can be a number of dollars per hour and in one case it's almost $10 per hour for this worker and so that affects their hourly wage because you know we're providing the compensation in a different way now health insurance is like the worst possible way to get compensation because everybody hates having to pay for it and you hope to God you never use it but I still got to pay for it so we do have a couple of positions where the basics of the salary are known the two salese are pretty clear on what the other one is making because they're they they can see it like the part of the system of monitoring the commissions is that they can see the income but short answer is no I would not announce what everybody is getting paid mind Fields a good phrase and and salespeople pretty simple if you they've got a base plus a commission okay everyone knows if you sell more you make more that's one of the easier ones it's the other jobs that are softer that you know one person is always helpful and he's given you some great insight and it's a pleasure to work with and the other person is not so much I I mean it's it's just but you can't that's but that's very personal and that's why staff get upset because like you said this person is a pleasant person whether they're Pleasant or not shouldn't depend on how they're compensate it the other thing is it's not a matter no no no no but no but in the other is we're not saying to the letter put up what people make I said it's a range and so they understand but I think the mindfield is paying people based on whether you like them or not that's hardly what I'm saying I'm suggesting there's 10 criteria as to why someone makes what they're making if someone's unpleasant to work if someone's Less Pleasant and one person's easier to work with yes I just ass soon make sure that person hangs around who determines whether that's their manager that's how it works in the real world their manager but that's part of the problem if you're saying the manager finds this person Pleasant to work with that shouldn't be a criteria for pay because that's determines whether I like you or not it doesn't matter is if if I'm doing my job Pleasant to work with is a job criter is makes it easier to manage them and requires less time to manage them that is absolutely a not the whole that is a criteria I'm not suggesting everyone gets paid on whether they're Pleasant or not I'm saying there are 10 different issues about some people need a lot of management and some people don't need any management so the person who doesn't need any management is probably going to make more because they're worth more because I don't have to spend any resources to manage that person other people that need require a lot of management that takes up resources they're going to make less money and it works out because if someone's going to quit I just assume they be the one to quit than the one who's great but you just made a very important difference management level of involvement in your in your job is very different than Pleasant to work with right Pleasant to work with is I like you we get along it's easy to work with you okay we could argue what Pleasant means all day long like I said there's 10 different criteria do they take initiative are they the one that comes in early to to get the job done are they the ones that that always stays late are they the one that picks up the slack are they the one that comes up with some good ideas are they the ones that customers call you once in a while and go I just have to tell you Dana is the greatest person I've ever done business with I just want to thank you for that blah there's 10 different reasons it's why somebody could be worth more money to a company and it's just not as black and white as putting it on the wall going okay all of you to do this you're gonna make that and all of you do that's gonna make that it's just not that simple Jay let me ask you this in the situation you described with the three workers whose salaries were disclosed and it caused some uh consternation how did it end up in the end with them knowing what each other was paid and you explaining to them why are you in a better place or a worse place I would say that um we're in a good place because at the end of the day these are three very important employees that have been with me a long time that I have a very deep relationship with and we got to a good place and I had little to do with this because I'm not their direct manager uh one of them took the time when I went uh in the area pulled me to the side and said I just want you to know we're okay how lovely is that that's about as lovely as you can get we're good we figured it out but it just was something I would have rather have avoided it wasn't a a great thing but but everybody's good and reforging on because it's about building a relationship and uh if you have a good relationship you with can withstand some bumps along the road all right I just want to do one more thing which is I got a really interesting email from a listener the other day who reacted to something you said Jay a couple weeks ago this listener Jacob Kelly from American Gunsmith heard you talking about how you had so many people uh making appointments for job interviews and then blowing them off not showing up and he wrote to say that he'd had uh a similar experience uh We've noticed a dramatic percentage increase in no- shows for all positions we are talking to hire for and he came to the conclusion that it it may be a number of factors but one is the unemployment payments that because states are requiring people to look for jobs again people are making these appointments to prove that they're looking but not necessarily showing up I think he's right I that makes sense I think because there's something going on because we never literally I'm not exaggerating literally 20 appointments five people show up that's how bad it is and we never had that I think he's on to something I think that there may be something else at work too which is that people apply for a lot of jobs and then they get offered one and then they take it and then they're just too lazy to cancel the other appointment because i' I've noticed that when we interview people now we really need to be ready to lock them down right that second make a decision take them out of the job search or they're gone like the idea that we could spend time thinking about it and you know dragging our feet you know what I'm sure you're absolutely right that that's part of it for sure so someone else will hire them I mean it's just a different market now we're not in 2009 anymore and employers are going to have to make adjustments and that's one of them you see someone you want like what I do is I hire them and try to get them in here and then we'll take our time to make a decision about it and but then we've removed them from the job market and we have the chance to make the decision as opposed to them them making the decision and that costs money basically the way you do that is by if they're asking for 17 say tell you what I want to hire you right now and I'll give you 18 and you can start you know whenever you can and then if it works out it'll be great and if not I'll fire you and but they're at least they respect the honesty and they understand what's going on and they're in they're in a they got to make a decision if they they've been identified as someone who's worth more than they think they are and then I got a chance to do whatever I want with them and I have had people who we let go fairly quickly after hiring them because they didn't turn out to be a good fit but then there's others that were even better and I was glad that I didn't let them walk out the door at that interview and go get hired somewhere else because someone else would hire them but do you actually say to them if it doesn't work out I'll fire you yeah a lot of people actually appreciate a company which is clear about it standards now I have a whole list of what we call the new employee guidelines that say okay here's what you're expected to achieve do you show up on time B you know like here's a whole bunch of things if you can answer yes to all these questions after 3 weeks great and if you can't then don't take this job because the these are the these are the rules of the game you're playing it's not that hard to succeed do a good job and show up and be a good teammate and uh you're in do they need to be pleasant yeah absolutely abely that's one of our that's one of our uh one of our Criterion is do you get along with the rest of the team yes if you're an awful person no we don't want you all right let me just say we had some technical difficulties today on my end and you guys were all incredibly patient and pleasant with me and I appreciate that my thanks to Paul Downs Jay go and Dana White you guys are great thanks for sharing 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 Lauren at21 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 Theron founder of blank word Productions okay now you can leave thanks for listening everyone [Music]