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Episode 3: Implementing the onboard training

Writer's picture: NelsonNelson

Nelson and Liz discuss the next step in the hiring process: Onboarding. How to create a frictionless process for your new team members First day.



Mon, 3/21 11:29PM • 57:41


SUMMARY KEYWORDS

employee, training, people, hire, week, person, teach, learn, mindset, customers,

onboarding, agents, day, business, clients, build, talk, job, mistakes, team



SPEAKERS

Liz Sears, Nelson Barss


Liz Sears 00:00

Well, today's topic is one that you and I both had a lot of experience both successfully and unsuccessfully in implementing the onboarding and training. And so I would love to just talk to you a little bit first about or share with our visitors or visitors, I guess business works to listeners, viewers. And the difference are what you do between You've now made the offer, you're about ready to hire, and that two week period that you needed to get ready for what do you do to prepare during that?


Nelson Barss 00:29

Yeah, I'm excited about this, too. I think first of all, we're still recruiting them. Right? When I have someone who I'm really excited about. I'm still nervous that they're not going to come.


Liz Sears 00:40

Yeah, or that they'll show up and not be as bought in or not.


Nelson Barss 00:43

Yeah, see. But if you think about it, they're out there interviewing with a lot of companies. Some of them are unemployed, and they've got plenty of interviews and options, especially if they're great. Yeah, especially if they're new hire. And so I need those two weeks anyway, to get ready for a good start for that employee. But I look at it too, as I want to keep building the experience for them. It's almost like a client, right? We, we want them to have a wow experience, just like our clients. So we've built in touch points, you know, we're doing our office manager does a lot of this, but we're doing background checks and credit checks. And sometimes I'll call after the credit check comes back just to say, Hey, we got it, it looks amazing. Still super excited ahead.


Liz Sears 01:21

Unless it doesn't, yeah,


Nelson Barss 01:22

if it doesn't work, I'll say, can we talk about this a little bit, and I want to understand what happened and give you a chance to explain more, you know, yeah, but we're also our office manager will reach out and ask him to order a couple of shirts. So we'll send them like a catalog and say, Okay, we're gonna get you to logoed shirts. And our goal is to have them on their desk when they show up on day one.


Liz Sears 01:46

Nice,


Nelson Barss 01:47

right. And then I've also asked our office manager to have their business cards on their desk, by the time they get here on day one, which means they've got to have a phone number, they've got to have an email address.


Liz Sears 01:59

Yep.


Nelson Barss 02:00

They got to have logins to our systems,


Liz Sears 02:03

right.


Nelson Barss 02:04

So a lot of the onboarding process happens remotely, emails over the phone between us and the candidate. Just keeping the momentum going and the excitement going for the first day, right? And selling them selling them. Sometimes I'll just call, you know, two days before their start day, and just say, Hey, we're really excited. Just want to see if you have any questions. How's How's it feeling to you? I want to hear if there's any doubts, or if there's any concerns, like they might not show up, right? I just get nervous. Like, I really love this person, I really want them to come. So I'm gonna keep recruiting. Yeah,


Liz Sears 02:39

in our onboarding, and well, the courtship I think, is what we had called it before. But yeah, offering that good name job and bringing them on. And we have a similar process. So since you're talking about staff, I'll talk about, again, the contract employee. So for us, it's realtors that we bring on, we, we send them the agreements that they sign, you know, just what it looks like joining our team. And once they've signed the agreements, then we start doing everything in preparation for onboarding. So we bring on our agents in batches or groups onboarding group once a month. And between the time they sign the contracts until they come in, we'd do a bit of the same thing. You know, we're still getting to know him. We haven't started plugging into all of the team stuff. So the productivity coaching and our roleplay and our team trainings and things. And we have them come and sit down.


Nelson Barss 03:31

Oh, cool.


Liz Sears 03:31

Mama, hen Jen. So we call her she was one of our original hire. So when I you know how I said, we started, we had two admin and two agents. Well, the two admin and Shannon and I, we run the office, and so we call ourselves the core four. And Mama hen Jen is one of them. And so and she got that nickname, just because she is so personable. So she was like the perfect person with interacting with agents. Ironically, she's the one that came from the paralegal background with dotting I's and crossing T's. So she meets with them, and she gets them set up on all their systems answers their questions, and make sure that they have all of the systems and structure ready to go. So when they show up to onboarding, they can log in, and, and all of that great. And then just meeting the team. In the meantime, same thing, you know, just building that momentum getting excited.


Nelson Barss 04:21

We do that too. You know, you mentioned something that we have a big meeting, sometimes we'll do a monthly review, meeting with all the employees where I'll talk about the numbers for the month and our goals for the next month. I'll bring the candidate to that meeting, or if someone who's been offered, but they haven't had their start date yet. I'll ask them to come and they always of course, would love to come and meet start being part of the culture and stuff. I think that's really helpful. So I guess that's I mean, that's the first phase right between offer and start day. And then the second thing we want to talk about is the first day right giving them an exciting first day and how to how to do that. and prepare, can I tell a little nightmare story? First, I would love my first day in the mortgage business. I worked for the guy already in a different capacity. And so he's like, wants to come join my mortgage office. So I show up on the first day. And of course, no one's there except for him. And I walk into his office and I said, Okay, I'm ready to get started. He hands me a stack of leads and says, Oh, call these leads. I'm like, okay, so I turn around and look around. And I'm like, where do you want to sit? And he's like, I don't know. Find a place. So I found a cubicle kind of off alone. Yeah. And then there was no phone at this cubicle. So I go back to his office, like, where's where are the phones? He's like, Oh, over in the closet. So I go over to the closet, grab a phone, plug it in. Oh, there's a dial tone. Like, hey, I can go I got leads. I got a dial tone. Dial the first number and I'm like, Hey, this is Nelson and I leave a voicemail?


Liz Sears 05:49

Yeah.


Nelson Barss 05:52

I had no, I didn't know what phone number.


Liz Sears 05:54

Like, if you could call me at. click


Nelson Barss 05:55

Yeah. And I'm like, I will call you back. Because I don't know what phone number. And that's, that was my onboarding experience in my mortgage company. And I really, I really learned what not to do there. I want I want a good experience for people on their first day.


Liz Sears 06:10

You know, my first day in real estate was actually at a mortgage office too. And I showed up, and he said, I need help with this file. And he handed me a file. And I said, How do I help? He's like, call the sales rep for that lender and figure it out. And I'm like, I don't even know like what this document means. Like, I don't even speak this language mortgagees. I don't think it yet. And so just knowing what you're getting into and knowing how to do the job is huge.


Nelson Barss 06:36

Yeah. Somehow I stayed, right. This is the same guy who bait and switch me I told you about showing up? Yeah, my first day at the job before this same, same owner? Yeah. And I mean, I should have should probably learn at some point.


Liz Sears 06:49

But good thing you stuck it out? Because that's what we're talking about


Nelson Barss 06:51

first day, at My Utah Agents. What does that like? What do you guys do try to make that special and why?


Liz Sears 06:57

Alright, so first day with our agents, when they come on, like I said, we bring them in, in a batch. So they always start on a Monday. And Mondays we already do either mindset training or improv. And that's for all our agents. Yeah, the reason we do improv is because everybody in sales, learned their script. But the stinking clients don't know their lines. And so you got to be able to pivot with them when they throw something crazy at you how to smile, and yes, and rather than what and so in the mindset training, just because mindset is everything, you know, if your mindsets not in the right place, then you're not going to be nearly as successful as you could be. And so they start Monday with one of the two and we do team huddle. team huddle is something we do Monday through Friday with the whole team anyways, we show


Nelson Barss 07:45

you start them on Monday, because you want them to have those experiences.


Liz Sears 07:48

Yep. And and we just want them to start the work week off the way that it starts. And so team huddle, you get to know the team, five minutes jump off, and then you go straight into onboarding, first day of onboarding is kind of get to know you, the onboarding trainer is going to be your number one point of contact, as well as the other people you come on board with, that you reach out to each other, you reach out to your onboarding trainer, and then each one is assigned a mentor. So that first day get to know you tell what it's about go into a lot of mindset training. A big mindset training we do too, is to almost rewire their brains, most people are to a point where they think that if they don't do something, right, that means they made a mistake. And what we want to train their brain to be about is that if you don't do something, right, it's because you don't have enough training yet. And mistakes are a price you pay along the road to success. It's mandatory that you make mistakes, if you don't make mistakes, it's kind of like JK Rowling said that "the only way to avoid making mistakes is to live so small that you fail by default."


Nelson Barss 08:50

Oh wow,


Liz Sears 08:51

and so you have to be willing to get out there. And so to teach them, go ahead and just know that you're gonna learn as you go. And here's the mistakes you don't want to make. And here's the ones you've probably will and it's okay. And so and then after we get that, then we kind of go into the week and we start the routine that way, but it's a lot about get to know you and setting themselves up to have expectations of success.


Nelson Barss 09:14

Yeah, sounds great. Sounds like they probably get if they're not already excited. They get excited about being part of the team.


Liz Sears 09:20

Yeah,


Nelson Barss 09:21

on day one.


Liz Sears 09:21

And we talk about, in fact, one little piece here, that that we like to share a lot with our agents on the first day is one little mindset shift, which I think applies to this just because of how it is. We tell the story about a lot of parents will say to their two kids, like let's pretend a son and a daughter and they tell the son you did something mean, or no. They'll say you hurt your sister's feelings or you made your sister cry, say sorry. And then we say what's the problem with that? And the problem is that you just taught your daughter that when you We're not talking to her, that her feelings and her emotional state and everything like that is dependent upon her brother, rather than teaching her how to be empowered. And so what you should say instead is what you did was really mean. Say you're sorry, you know, so then you're teaching that story. And so we just start talking about empowerment within their mind. And so, yeah, that's,


Nelson Barss 10:21

it sounds like a powerful first day, though.


Liz Sears 10:23

It's necessary. Sales is a tough job.


Nelson Barss 10:26

Yeah,


Liz Sears 10:26

it's a really tough job. So you got to have that mental ability.


Nelson Barss 10:30

So necessary. You do it every week, right? You keep it going,


Liz Sears 10:32

Yeah,


Nelson Barss 10:33

forever.


Liz Sears 10:34

Yep.


Nelson Barss 10:34

Our first day, I focus a lot on the desk. It might sound strange, but I want them to walk in and see a desk. That's the opposite of what I walked into. Right. And so what that looks like to me is, there's a card on the desk that's signed by everyone in the office.


Liz Sears 10:51

Oh I love that


Nelson Barss 10:51

we're so excited to have you here. Thanks for coming, right? There's a bag full of treats and drinks, that are their favorite treats and drinks, right?


Liz Sears 11:01

You learn that through the interview process.


Nelson Barss 11:03

Yeah, and we have an all about you form that we have every employee fill out as part of the onboarding process. So we know what the favorite flower is, what their favorite drink is favorite candy. We do that with our clients, too, right? But we want these guys to have this experience when they show up on day one. And it's like, wow, they know I like Diet Coke. There's big cold Diet Coke sitting on my desk. Not only that, but there's an employee handbook. on their desk, when they open up the handbook, it says, this is your training schedule for the next month. And it shows them the whole day blocked out every single day for four weeks of how their training schedule is gonna work.


Liz Sears 11:36

We do have that we have an onboarding notebook that has tabs in it, and for their 12 weeks, like we don't give them their content for that day until they show that day. So they get to add it to their binder and make they build their


Nelson Barss 11:47

they build their binder with you.


Liz Sears 11:48

Yeah.


Nelson Barss 11:48

Yeah. And just I think that the the wow factor is important. You know, we've already given them a wow factor during the working interview, but we want to step that up.


Liz Sears 11:57

Yep.


Nelson Barss 11:57

On their first day. So they come in, they see this, this desk, obviously, their drawers full of supplies, they already have pencils, notebooks, like the computer works, both monitors work. There has logins and passwords in their binder, to get them in to have them check their email. I mean, all of this is just done before they show up. That's, that's the first five minutes, right. That's their, that's their wow experience. And then, you know, the first day is really a Culture Day, similar to what you do, we always have a lunch with the with the whole team. So this is not just the few people who went during the working interview to lunch. This is everybody. And you know that if you can picture there's 20 of us 22 of us now. So we usually tell everybody to bring their camp chairs, and we'll go sit out back behind the office in the grass,


Liz Sears 12:44

Oh, I'd love that


Nelson Barss 12:45

we'll have a big circle, and everybody gets lunch and we chat, we just introduce each person kind of go around the circle and talk about when they started, why they started, how long they've been with the company, what their job is, and so forth. Right?


Liz Sears 13:00

That's great.


Nelson Barss 13:01

We do. We do an hour where I just sit down with them and tell them about the history of the company, why I started the business. And who, who I hired first and second. And third, I kinda like to build, this is a new thing for me. But I want to build up those first few hires. Now they're in leadership positions in the company. And I want to set up some lore around them right about what do you mean by just like they they came in, and they figured this out? They these are the things that I loved about them, and they're for employee. That's how I want you to operate as well. Right?


Liz Sears 13:41

It's amazing how when you tell stories of how people show up, and you lot it you, you know, champion that this is how you show up, it almost sets the stage of how the new employee is going to show up. And you expect from them.


Nelson Barss 13:57

Yeah,


Liz Sears 13:58

that makes a big difference.


Nelson Barss 13:59

Yeah, I think so. I think I think people want to know, what do I need to do to succeed? Who's my role model? Who can I look to, and just do what they did. And it'll, it'll be, it'll be a successful thing, right? We also have this document site. If I can paint the picture. The night before I brought on my first mortgage assistant, I had hired someone to do office management type stuff. But the first time I had someone who was going to come on and actually take my clients and talk to them as as my assistant and take them to closing. I was up till I don't know, four in the morning


Liz Sears 14:31

closing, you're like, oh, wait, yeah, I'm giving away my baby.


Nelson Barss 14:33

Yeah, it felt like that. And I was up till almost time for that person to come in and start


Liz Sears 14:39

yeah,


Nelson Barss 14:39

getting ready. And one of the things I did is I put together a big spreadsheet roles and responsibilities, right, who does what is what I call it, and we went over that on their first day. And the other thing I did is I put together a document that we still use every day. It's called Keys, rules, philosophies and tools. And it was just like twenty five points of customer service things like, you know, we prefer phone calls over emails. And we don't deliver bad news without a plan. Yeah, just I mean, I could think of 25 points I learned this from but that's


Liz Sears 15:14

a huge one. don't deliver bad news without a plan. That's the worst thing ever to do without a plan.


Nelson Barss 15:19

I mean, there's so many like that. But the point is, I spend a good hour to two hours to sitting down with that employee and reading through all 25. Yeah, it's almost like a first day. This is how we treat our customers training, right. And then what we do every morning in our stand up meeting, as a team, we we read one of those items and discuss it together as a group. I learned that from the Ritz Carlton, the one of the founders of the Ritz Carlton wrote a book recently about how they achieve that level of service. That's legendary. Right?


Liz Sears 15:49

Yeah, I mean, they call it the Ritz Carlton experience. I mean, yeah.


Nelson Barss 15:53

So this came from them, we just kind of pushed it from that book. But, but going over that on day one, and it just gave me almost like, get it off my chest experience here. New employee, this is how we treat our customers here. This is what we expect. And I wrote it with the thinking that they don't come into the building, with any training or knowledge about customer, I know they do have customer service experience. But I have to, I have to say the little things, right? Like, if we promise to do something, we do it by noon, the next day, not by 5pm, the next day, because we want people to so there's all these things, there's I don't want to get into all the different points on the list.But yeah,


Liz Sears 16:34

but we should put it on our


Nelson Barss 16:36

we could have sewed about that. Or I could put the document on the show notes, probably do an entire episode. And I'd love to link to the book too, I would really encourage people to, to just just study this concept of transferring your customer service expectations to your people. And it takes repetition, it takes kind of a real basic level. Well, it


Liz Sears 16:57

goes back to the whole main point, except for your mom and your select best friends, the people who hire you are not hiring you for you. They are hiring you for the experience. They're hiring you for that professionalism, the knowledge that what they would get if they worked with you. And so that's why it's so critical to make sure that every single person you bring on to the staff is fully versed, and what that experience is supposed to look like


Nelson Barss 17:21

I confused with what you're saying, but I understand it now. So I want to clarify for the listeners.


Liz Sears 17:25

Okay.


Nelson Barss 17:25

You said the people that hire you. Right, but Well, I mean, is your customers, your customers choose you?


Liz Sears 17:31

Yeah,


Nelson Barss 17:32

not because they want Liz Sears. Right? They want the Liz Sears experience.


Liz Sears 17:36

Yep.


Nelson Barss 17:37

They want what the other customers who worked with Liz Sears got. And it's your job, Liz Sears to make sure that everyone on your team


Liz Sears 17:44

knows what that looks like. Right? Yeah. And it's funny because people will have a perception of what they feel customer service should be. But it's the two millimeter changes that really make all the difference.


Nelson Barss 17:54

Yeah.


Liz Sears 17:54

And those two millimeter changes are not obvious to everybody. And sometimes they're not even obvious to you in the moment, moment. But as you teach them, promote them, practice them, they become how you show up. Yeah.


Nelson Barss 18:09

Some other things that we do on the first day. Obviously, there's employment forms,


Liz Sears 18:14

yeah,


Nelson Barss 18:14

right. They bring their stuff, they fill out some, they meet with our benefits person, all of this, we try to really structure a first day they show up and their first day schedule is like hour by hour, here's what you're doing every hour today. And then let's move into training. Let's just talk about the the training of a new employee, again, about a lot of people that I hire come in as a staff member as a as a service provider. And their hourly, a lot of people that you hire are 1099 agents. And so I think there's going to be some differences. And I mentioned we have a schedule already mapped out for a month of training with them. Talk about your training schedule, and what you map out and how you how you train your people.


Liz Sears 18:52

So our agents, when they come in, we have a 12 week course that we call My Utah Agents University. And the first week, it's you know, we start at 8:30 in the morning and end at two o'clock, the first half hour is with the entire team. And then they split off into their onboarding group for their instruction. So the first week it goes till two o'clock and then they have about three hours of homework. It's a lot of homework, because we follow a process of I do, we do, you do. So I do it and you watch, we do it together. You do it by yourself. And then we are role playing as being your customer


Nelson Barss 19:25

awesome.


Liz Sears 19:26

So by the time you sit in front of a customer, you really know what you're doing. So our first week is all about mindset, the systems, everything like that just learning how to use all the programs and such. Second week the instruction, it starts again at 8:30 every morning and ends at 11:30. So it's just a few hours of instruction that day. And we go beginning to end buyer beginning to end seller because we want you to spend the afternoons finding clients so we teach you also what to say because we want you to have a client as fast as possible. We want you making money as fast as possible. And then starting on the third week, it's just too hours a week with homework. And that's where weeks three through 12, we dive really deep into how to successfully hold an open house how to successfully negotiate a contract, how to successfully, you know, all of the different pieces. And so


Nelson Barss 20:14

that's a big difference for most real estate companies.


Liz Sears 20:16

Yeah,


Nelson Barss 20:17

the training that you provide not just the mindset stuff, but I've seen you work with customers, right, what to say, How to win a listing, how to help your buyers win an offer in this competitive market, there's just so much that you guys teach your agents, it's a big deal.


Liz Sears 20:33

Yeah, and going into absolute best practices, all the sales techniques and everything. And we, one of the things that we love to tell them is that you do not apologize for your first month if you make a mistake. And kind of going back to a scenario we like to say is that if you see parents watching their child walk for the first time, you will never see those parents say, oh my gosh, seriously, you stumbled again and you fell, pick up your foot moving in front of the other one, it's tilting your balance, you have to fall forward, catch yourself, that's how you want. And no, they're gonna be like, Oh my gosh, you did such a good job.


Nelson Barss 21:10

Even though you didn't do a good job,


Liz Sears 21:12

No, you didn't


Nelson Barss 21:13

horrible Walker,


Liz Sears 21:14

the first time you walk, You're terrible. And so that's how we view it with real estate is that as you get out there, and you practice, we're gonna champion and see all the things that you did, right? And we're gonna keep showing you and teaching you until you become very proficient and effective in doing all the different parts of the business.


Nelson Barss 21:32

Can I just interject, right there? I think there's a culture killer. In a lot of organizations. I've seen it in people who've come to work for me.


Liz Sears 21:39

Yeah.


Nelson Barss 21:40

Where they are afraid to take a risk. Make a decision, because they get reamed.


Liz Sears 21:47

Yeah,


Nelson Barss 21:47

for a mistake, right


Liz Sears 21:49

and publicly and they get embarrassed about it. And they're told you should be embarrassed. You should feel bad.


Nelson Barss 21:53

They come in almost like a wounded puppy.


Liz Sears 21:55

Yep.


Nelson Barss 21:55

into our organization thinking that that's how it's going to be right. And you have to overcome that. Right? You have to I think the other problem too, you've got as a business owner, if you expect someone to not make mistakes,


Liz Sears 22:08

right?


Nelson Barss 22:09

You are you are in for a big surprise. Honestly, it might be what's holding you back from from


Liz Sears 22:14

making those hires


Nelson Barss 22:15

Delegating is thinking nobody's perfect. And I I'm perfect. And I can't find anybody else. That's perfect as me


Liz Sears 22:21

and I can't have my customers experience anything but perfection.


Nelson Barss 22:24

Yeah,


Liz Sears 22:24

well, the interesting thing is that most things that your employees might do wrong, is something that you can fix very, very easily,


Nelson Barss 22:31

great point


Liz Sears 22:31

especially if for the first period of time, when they go to do something, have them run it past you first, like right now, we just barely promoted our transaction coordinator to Transaction Manager, because we have the two VA s that are helping her. And so we told her for their first month that or however long it takes. And every email they're about to send out, they have to send it to her first every you know, task that's going to affect a client, you know, interactions that way a text message they're going to send, they have to send it to her first. So that way she can make sure it's correct. And then tell them what needs to be fixed. So there's ways that you can implement things that will minimize impact to you and your reputation. And then also just making sure the first time you do it, kind of like we mentioned in the last video or episode is video yourself doing it and showing them how to do it and then tell them to take that video and create the operations manual.


Nelson Barss 23:25

Yeah,


Liz Sears 23:25

for that.


Nelson Barss 23:26

There's a great book about this. Clockwork business by Mike McCalla wits. It's kind of like if you remember the E Myth from 25 years ago, where he teaches us to look at ourselves not as technicians but as business owners and to put together process manuals, right? Well, Mike McCalla wits, he was really good at kind of kind of one upping that idea with video. You know, he's like, I wrote these manuals, and they were outdated the day they were written.


Liz Sears 23:54

Right,


Nelson Barss 23:54

you record yourself doing it. And you post it. We have in our company, we have a training library of different topics.


Liz Sears 23:59

Yeah.


Nelson Barss 24:00

And everyone in our company has done a couple of videos, how to order title, how to order appraisal, you know, all these things. And then


Liz Sears 24:06

updating it is so easy, because just simply the next time you do the task,


Nelson Barss 24:10

or if an employee watches the video and notices that it's outdated, it's their job to replace it with a new video


Liz Sears 24:16

Oh I like that one. We don't do that one. That would be a good one.


Nelson Barss 24:18

Yeah. So I mean, for us, the process looks we have a when we bring in most of our when we bring in comes in as an assistant on a loan team. And we don't always bring them in in batches. Sometimes there's two or three at a time. Sometimes there's one, we've designed it that way on purpose, we want to be able to just bring one person on when we need a person,


Liz Sears 24:37

right?


Nelson Barss 24:37

And we're pretty much almost always bringing somebody on by once a quarter at least we've had a hire or two, right? And so they have that monthly training schedule that's in their book on day one. But what it looks like is half a day of shadowing, half a day of class. And the classes are not we don't have a trainer when I have somebody full time that can just stand in front of a classroom and teach.


Liz Sears 24:59

Yeah,


Nelson Barss 24:59

right. So the classes are things we found, that are video presentations that take an hour or two, right. So for example, how to calculate someone's income. We found a video training from one of our mortgage insurance partners. And they watched that. And at the end of the of the video, they have a meeting, just a one hour meeting where they dive into that topic and answer questions. And they do some practice. Right?


Liz Sears 25:21

Yeah.


Nelson Barss 25:22

So it's like class, meeting, Shadow, everyday class meeting shadow. Love that. And that goes on for a couple of weeks. And I liked what you said about I've heard you say this before about I do, we do, you do. And the way the way we look at that in our we have this skills transfer pyramid that I've been taught a lot about from our coaching program. It's the same idea, right? We need to show someone how to do it a few times, then we need to watch them do it a few times,


Liz Sears 25:50

right


Nelson Barss 25:50

before we just send them off to do it on their own. So we created was a document called the watch and do checklist. We went down and just listen, I think there's 20 things on the checklist that someone needs to learn how to do in order to consider themselves fully trained. Some of it's simple, right? Order title report.


Liz Sears 26:07

Yeah.


Nelson Barss 26:08

Right. Some of its calculate income off of a self employed tax return. And that piece could be a little bit more challenging.


Liz Sears 26:15

Yeah,


Nelson Barss 26:16

lots of variables there. So after about two weeks in the classroom, time is done. We hand them this watch and do checklists. And we say it's your job. And it has, it has watched this item two times do this item with a coach two times. So they and some of the more complicated items might have three times and three times, right. But they run around, it's printed on cardstock. And run around the office.


Liz Sears 26:36

Is anyone ordering title?


Nelson Barss 26:37

exactly who's got to order an appraisal today, because I still got to watch one more person order appraisal,


Liz Sears 26:41

I love it.


Nelson Barss 26:41

And then when it's time next thing they say is who's got to order an appraisal today, I need to order an appraisal, I need someone to watch me.


Liz Sears 26:47

Yeah, I'll do it for you.


Nelson Barss 26:49

Yeah. So they run around, and they fill out their watch and do checklists. And we we want them to finish that before they consider their training to be complete. I think it's pretty handy.


Liz Sears 26:58

Yep. Perfect. You know, I had one more thought that I wanted to bring up about the apologies I moved on a little too quick from that is when someone apologizes, they are basically saying, I have right and reason to feel bad and inferior. And you have right to feel irritated and annoyed by me. And I must therefore ask your forgiveness. That's technically what an apology is. And so it actually kind of messes up the relationship also between the person who's apologizing the person who's training because technically, if I've hired somebody to do a job, and I have failed to train them how to do it, effectively, then they're not the ones at fault I am. And so as we both enter this relationship, knowing that we're both going to do our best. And as we work, like, neither person owes the other an apology, and what they owe is, yep, that wasn't done. Right, let me share with you how to do it. And if you have an employee, if you have someone you have hired, in fact, I'll look at the camera. While I say this, if you have somebody that you've hired, that's not working out the way that you need them to, it's one of three things, it's either the systems, so they don't have like the right programs or whatever to do it. It's the right structure or support is what I meant to say have, you know, there's too much on their plate or the support to be able to do it, or it's the training and the training has two parts it has, how to do the job, and why to do the job. Because sometimes they'll have the system they need to do, they'll have all the support, they know they need, they also know how to do the job. But if they don't understand how it impacts you, and why it's important for them to get it done, they might bump it or not do it or not do it as well. And so it's not just teaching them how to do the job course that might be where the fault is, but it's also teaching them the impact behind it. So have both of those pieces. So as you have your new employee, and as you're going through things, I think that's probably why you and I built the training out the way we have is to make sure that they have the full structure, they have the full support and they have the training.


Nelson Barss 29:02

Yeah, otherwise, if it doesn't work out, I would say more often than not, it's your fault as the business owner, as the trainer,


Liz Sears 29:08

you did not explain to them


Nelson Barss 29:10

right,


Liz Sears 29:11

why it was so important, especially


Nelson Barss 29:13

right, you spent a lot of time vetting this person, the they appeared to have all of the capabilities to come in. And then if you don't think you really should have the right to be disappointed with somebody in the first week. Like why did you do it that way?


Liz Sears 29:30

Right.


Nelson Barss 29:31

It's like wait a minute, it's your job now to show them how to do it.


Liz Sears 29:35

And I've also found that during the first week as your training and everything like that, if you when I should say when I thank them for what I want to see as though it's already there, they feel now obligated to do that because I already said thank you, you know, so I really appreciate that you just show up it's it's awesome that you are always on time they're like I am always on time so if they ever felt running late later they won't you know and I am so grateful that you're resourceful that you try to figure it out. And I'm grateful that you asked me questions before you waste too much time, I don't want you to spend 20 minutes researching something that would take me 20 seconds to answer. But I also don't want you to ask me if it only take you three minutes to find because power in the process. Yeah, as they learn it. So just teaching them that balance. And I'm always coming from a perspective of congratulating them. And also, making sure that your feedback that you're doing during the first week, the first month, the first lifetime that they work with, you know, indefinitely is have feedback, compliment, often, any time they do even a teeny thing, a big thing, anything like that, you want to make sure that it is often that it is spontaneous, and that it is specific. So you don't just say thanks for being a great employee, you say, thank you so much for making that tough phone call. Because I know that that was something that was really hard. And not only did you make it, you did it before noon, which matches our, you know, one of our top 25 Thank you, that really means a lot to me that you represent our company at that level. And they think I did represent our company at that level. Now they haven't read it or you know, reinforce to do so.


Nelson Barss 31:14

Yeah, that's awesome. So what about negative feedback? Obviously, we want to do more positive than negative, right? When somebody does something wrong, how do you go about correcting it, and when


Liz Sears 31:29

perfect, and if you do not correct it quickly, you are implying that it was fine. Like you're actually telling them that their behavior was acceptable if you don't address it. And the more often that you let them get away with not doing something or let them get away with doing something that you don't like, then you are basically telling them, that's fine.


Nelson Barss 31:51

I learned that with the time clock.


Liz Sears 31:53

Oh gosh, right?


Nelson Barss 31:55

By not saying something I just kind of let everybody know, I don't care.


Liz Sears 31:59

So


Nelson Barss 31:59

which isn't true?


Liz Sears 32:01

Yeah, it's not true. And so having some things upfront, to know what to say to them can be a big deal. So even like with customers, if they are clients, if they show up late to an appointment, I'll say something like, oh, shoot, did you have trouble finding the place? I'm sorry? Yeah, won't say I'm sorry,


Nelson Barss 32:17

passive aggressive, there


Liz Sears 32:18

A little passive aggressive. And so with them, I'll just, I'll just bring up what happened with that? And what can we put into play? So it doesn't happen again? And is there anything you need from me, I will often just say that, and I enter the conversation. Already in my head, I've chosen to see them as they are a smart person, something happened, either they don't know the impact, yeah, or they don't have all the pieces or it's one of these things here. Or maybe I haven't communicated, you know, something like that. So I enter the conversation expecting that we will have a professional conversation of I respect them, they respect me, let's resolve this, rather than I have to go in there and tell them they did something wrong. And I have to tell them, they need to fix it. And I'm going to make them feel like they owe me an apology because I am superior and they're inferior,


Nelson Barss 33:12

right?


Liz Sears 33:13

Most people without meaning to enter it that way. And most people enter it expecting them to feel like I did something wrong, and I owe an apology. So going in there instead saying, I'm gonna figure out what happened and how to make sure it doesn't happen.


Nelson Barss 33:25

It could go with an attitude of like, I trust and respect this person. Something must have gone wrong. Not either this person's an idiot. And I'm gonna fix one phrase that are my team is learning and our coaches talking to us about is the first time someone does something wrong. You can say, I'm sorry, I must not have explained something. Right. I don't know. It's is on me. I don't think I coached you on this correctly.


Liz Sears 33:48

Yeah.


Nelson Barss 33:48

And if they keep doing it, then you change to I'm confused.


Liz Sears 33:51

Yeah, right.


Nelson Barss 33:52

I'm confused. I thought we talked about this ad helped me understand why this is still happening. You know? Yeah, I think that's two levels of just an easy way to start a conversation. Hey, we haven't talked about this before. I am sorry. Let me explain how I want this done and how we need it done for the sake of our customers. And here's why.


Liz Sears 34:10

Yep.


Nelson Barss 34:11

So great.


Liz Sears 34:12

Yeah. And you know, it's so funny is that might be a time when saying I'm sorry, does make sense. Because there was


Nelson Barss 34:18

you guys don't allow that word in your office


Liz Sears 34:19

normally we don't, not from us, not from them. We want to both view it. Yeah, you know, this level, I had gone to my marketer. And this was a few years ago, when I, before Shannon, I teamed up I just had a support staff team. You know, I had four people underneath me. And I had told her apparently over and over again, different things like she would start going down a path and I'd say nah I don't like it. Let's switch this nah. You know, actually, let's do this inside. And she came to me like practically in tears and said, I just can't get anything right. I just keep screwing up and I went, Oh my gosh, maybe that would have been a time where I can say I'm sorry. I realized I don't like the path I sent you down. And since we're past that point, instead, what I, the conversation I had with her, which is a conversation I've had a few times as an employer with employees is that I told her everything she did, right, you know, I said, I sent you down this path, this was what I want to do presented it. And you did exactly what I wanted. And in seeing the finished product, I realized that I wanted to pivot. And so I want you to know that I so much appreciate everything you did. And I will always retain the right to change my mind. As I see things as I know, it needs to evolve. And so now what I try to do is kind of back to that complements, you know, tell her you this fantastic, I've realized that I want to shift my direction that I'm giving to you to go down this other way. And so making sure that we don't accidentally even good, give good information that could be received poorly,


Nelson Barss 34:37

I think it's so important to have that positive interaction with everyone if you're constantly using negativity, to reinforce or to coach to say, Yeah, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad instead of this was great. This was great. This was great. This is great. You reinforce Have you ever read the book Whale Done? No, it's by Ken Blanchard. It's pretty old one. But it's about how they teach the killer whales at SeaWorld, how they train them to do all the things they do. And it's all through positive reinforcement. Right? So it's whale done. It's a good book, I just think people want that's the kind of environment people want to be in.


Liz Sears 35:58

Well, you know, what's interesting is that the whole concept of through positive reinforcement has to do with mindset, it has to do so much with also habitual ways that you interact, I have found that as I become a better manager, I become a better self talker. The way I talk to myself is improving. And as I work better with the way I talk to myself, causes me to be better at interacting with my employees, which causes me to be better interacting with my husband, my kids, it's it all, is so much more intertwined than I ever thought. So I have realized that my parents who, by the way, were awesome parents, they were not perfect parents, and did the best they could with what they knew at the time. And I will find that sometimes the way that I self talk, or the way that I parent or the way that I manage, and things like that will be a reflection on the way that my parents had raised me. And so being coming more and more cognizant and aware of that, I'm really excited. I'm building a training right now that maybe we'll do an entire podcast about the different ways that you talk to yourself.


Nelson Barss 37:39

Yeah, that's really important. I mean, you're really good at this. I know, the mindset stuff. And the self talk has been very important in your life has been in mine to the last few years, especially if you're going to grow, right? If you want to get beyond your comfort level, you're gonna have to learn about self sabotage about negative self talk. And then you have to recognize it in your employees to and your people.


Liz Sears 38:03

Yeah,


Nelson Barss 38:03

and help them right. And help them see that, you know, there's growth and how to do it. Because that's how your business grows.


Liz Sears 38:11

Yeah. You know, honestly, one of the hires that we didn't put on here is hiring a coach. And so one of the coaches I'm going through right now, as a high performance coach, I have two coaches. And she calls me on stuff all the time. And one of the comments that she makes, to me repetitively is if you're letting yourself get away with this right now, and talking to me, that means you let your employees get away with it with you. So she's helping me recognize my self talk, in order to better recognize their's and even just what we say out loud how it impacts.


Nelson Barss 38:42

So we've talked a lot about the training process. And one thing I want to before we move on, you know, I've had quite a few employees who this is this is a month long training process. Yep. And a lot of them bristle at that there. Yeah, they're eager to get to work, give me give me some duties, give me a loan to work on me take some phone calls. And I think there's just a lot of value in saying to them, you're not ready.


Liz Sears 39:06

You know, earning something makes it more valuable.


Nelson Barss 39:09

Yeah. I don't know if I'm ready to have you talking to my customers just yet. Because you haven't been trained on these five things. Right. And when you talk to my customers, I want you to know, the answers to their questions. I want them to sense competence from you. And so I just I think everybody can benefit from pumping the brakes a little bit really pondering about a training program that's gonna be fair to the employee. And that's going to lead to a successful experience. And if you've tried this before, I'll talk to the viewers.


Liz Sears 39:39

Yeah,


Nelson Barss 39:40

if you've hired people, and it hasn't worked out, I would really examine your process for training. And I know it's hard. I mean, how do you when you're solopreneur and you're trying to bring on your first hire?


Liz Sears 39:55

Yeah.


Nelson Barss 39:55

How do you put this kind of structure in place? And all I can say is it grow? Over time, and you may have to water it down a little bit. But the expectation is, hey, you know, we're in training right now, not gonna throw you at the phones on day one, maybe it's shadowing, make them help you build my first hire. He was a guy who was very detail oriented. I didn't have an employee handbook. And I said, part of your job is to write the employee handbook.


Liz Sears 40:24

Yeah.


Nelson Barss 40:24

So every time you have a question, asked me, I'll answer it. And then you put it in handbook form. And by the end of his first six months, we had this amazing employee handbook,


Liz Sears 40:33

we jokingly call it hit by the bus buck. Yeah, got hit by the bus, somebody come in,


Nelson Barss 40:37

don't be afraid. I mean, don't be afraid to bring someone in and tell them this is an unfinished product, I need you to help me build this company.


Liz Sears 40:44

And also, don't be afraid that if you like, let's say, you're in the middle of training, and something comes up and you have to deal with a fire for a client, that's a perfect opportunity for them to shadow you, they're going to learn a lot, they're not just going to learn that the customer comes first, they're going to learn that. And by the way, let me add a caveat really quick before the rest of what you learn, the customer comes first when the customer has to the customer does not come first, because they snapped and you have to jump, it actually sets mindset in your customers minds. Of course, it depends on which industry you're in. You get to it when at fault when it's the appropriate time on your calendar, because that helps you be more efficient. So anyways, you're going to teach your new employee customer comes first, when it's supposed to, how to have grace under fire, how to be a problem solver, how to defuse the situation, and how to be efficient at solving a problem. Because sometimes people get in and they make it bigger than it needs to be more time consuming. And so you're gonna teach him how to dunk dunk. I've noticed when someone shadowing me, I am on my best game. Yeah, because I don't want to set a bad example. And I also don't want to waste time. So it's, it's not a bad thing.


Nelson Barss 41:58

No. And actually shadowing, if you have an intelligent employee, they're going to pick up so much just in shadowing you I think the worst thing you can do is go solve a problem behind a closed door, right. I'll fix this. You screwed up. I'm gonna go in there and be the hero, right? And I'm gonna solve this problem. And anything you do, I think, make that new employee sit behind you, and create the checklist that they're going to use for the rest of their time with you. Right? It doesn't take very long before you've got a checklist for every process, and then you just switch seats right now. Okay, you've watched me do this. Now it's time for me to watch you do it. Here's your checklist out, run through it. I'm here if you have questions, and when do you know what the way I know when someone is done? Is when they go through the checklist? And I don't have to correct them.


Liz Sears 42:11

oh my gosh, Yeah,


Nelson Barss 42:50

right. It's like, okay, we've done this a few times. Try again, I'm gonna do my best not to interject. And say do you do your best not to ask questions, but I'm here if you need me. Yep. And if they can get through it, and they say I got it, then you know, that piece is checked off on the training. Now training is training ever done. What do you guys do for ongoing training? You guys do a lot of ongoing


Liz Sears 43:08

Yeah, we do a lot of onboarding, on going training. So Monday is training that we do mindset and improv. Tuesday through Thursday is roleplay. So we do where they split into groups where we get all together and break down a call. And then where Shannon, me and Andrea their broker, go through the hot seat where they throw all the terrible, awful objections they can think of. So they get to witness how we would handle things. So that's Tuesday through Thursday, we do productivity coaching on Tuesdays, and then we do team training on Thursday. So team trainings about how to do the job better. Tuesdays is how to become more productive. And then periodically, we'll do like a one day or a two day workshops.


Nelson Barss 43:49

Yeah. So off site, you'll take them off and bring in a guest speaker, I've heard about some of the stuff you guys have done.


Liz Sears 43:54

Yeah.


Nelson Barss 43:55

That's so valuable. You're investing in your people, right? And they feel it.


Liz Sears 43:58

It's, you know, there's, there's a lot that comes from it, when you invest in your people. I can't remember who it was some famous guy said, Well, what if I spend all this money training my employee and they leave? And he goes, What if you don't, and they stay?


Nelson Barss 44:11

Yeah,


Liz Sears 44:12

you know, like, invest in your people, and makes them more loyal, as well as representing you and your brand and, and your company better?


Nelson Barss 44:20

You know, I think it's important to say to your employee, that you're going to invest in them and why not set a verbal expectation for how long you would like them to stay? Like, look, it's gonna take me two years to get you up to speed to where I'm investing in you for two years and then I would like another two years where I reap the reward of that and I get to make some money. Yeah, for this partnership, right. I think it's it's not a contract. It's not a you know, something to me is bound to but it at least sets the tone that that hey, I want him or her or them to to get a fair shake out of this deal, I'm not gonna just take all the investment and training and then disappear on them.


Liz Sears 45:05

Take their plate to go. Yeah, that's what we say a lot. So one of the things that we also tell our employees, so our staff and our agents, and even our vendors, too, is that there's the saying it takes a village to raise a child. And we say, this brokerage is our baby. And you guys are our village. And we know what we know, Shannon, I know what we know. We don't know what you know. And we know what we think the impact is going to be on the different decisions we make and as we grow, but we don't know the unintended consequences that sometimes don't even appear until later. And so we make sure that each one of them, we actually sit them down individually at some point and say it is both your right and your responsibility to share with us anything you see that could make the brokerage better. If this brokerage isn't functioning the way that you want it to, then is your responsibility to come and tell us. So then we can take that information. And perhaps what's going to happen is we're going to explain to you why we've already considered that and why we made the decision we did and here's how it impacts it. And maybe it'll just kind of put your mind at ease. Perhaps you'll bring something we'll say, we didn't think of that. Thank you for bringing it to our attention. Because we're as you grow your business, as you hire people, as you have more customers, you're going to have to evolve the way that you do things. And if you only evolve it based on your perspective of what's going on in the business, you will be stunted. Yeah. So make sure that they know that they're helping build the company they want to work for. So we tell them, it's not just our company, it's yours to that ownership feel me


Nelson Barss 46:37

I wish I had brought this up sooner. But there's a book I read that relates to this. Ego is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday. Have you heard of this book?


Liz Sears 46:44

I have heard of this book?


Nelson Barss 46:45

I could not. I mean, every page of that book had so much in it that I it took me forever to read it.


Liz Sears 46:52

Yeah.


Nelson Barss 46:52

And I feel like a lot of the problem with me, and with a lot of people who can't seem to grow is their ego. Right, too. I'm too good. Nobody else can be as good as me. Or, even worse, I want all the credit.


Liz Sears 47:07

Yeah,


Nelson Barss 47:08

I want to do this myself, I want to stand at the top of the mountain all alone and get all the credit, right? And that what you were saying made me think of that. Because you know, you, you built something awesome. And it takes a real check of your ego to let those people come in and improve it.


Liz Sears 47:25

Yeah,


Nelson Barss 47:25

it's all get defensive all the time. Somebody's got an idea. And I'm like, Well wait, well, that kind of improves upon my idea. And I want to defend my idea, instead of checking my ego a little bit and saying, Hey, that's even better.


Liz Sears 47:38

We literally tell them, It's okay to tell us our baby is ugly. You know, you never tell someone their baby's ugly. But if this brokerage is our baby, and there's something they don't like, we do have some ground rules, we say that when you come into tell us you need to be respectful. But you can be respectful by saying, this is the program you rolled out. This is why I don't like it at all, it doesn't work for me, because of dot dot dot. You can't come in and be like, I hate this, this is wrong. And the worst thing ever is complaining to the wrong person. So we this is another scenario, which actually this is something that's good to share with the people early on. I've done it in the interview process before and I've done it in the first week is that if there's something you don't like, most people respond with the first two options. First is you complain to the wrong person. And your intention is to say everything you hate about it so they can get on the same page as you and you guys can just have this toxic.


Nelson Barss 48:34

Yeah,


Liz Sears 48:35

you know, poopoo, about what's going on here. And it's just awful. The second one is that you are probably still going to the wrong person, sometimes the right person, and you're still kind of rude about it, and you have no solutions, but you're just trying to figure out what else is there. And then the third way is to go to the right person and say, here's what's happened, here's how it's impacting me. And here's what I'd like to see instead. Or here are some solutions, or help me come up with some. Most people don't go to this route, because they've been shot down bad by other people. Most people they go to they're like you told me my baby's ugly, or


Nelson Barss 49:10

get defensive right,


Liz Sears 49:11

or it's gonna hurt the relationship or anything like that. And so we make it very clear to them, that we, it's safe to come to us and tell us you don't like something. And it is safe to come and give some feedback that the average person would get offended by, by the way, we had to learn to become this kind of person because we weren't that way naturally. But as leadership, we learned that in order to have the most effective growth, the most sustainable growth and just to shorten our learning curve, honestly, is what it is shorten the learning curve of the different things we're implementing, because we have to be this way. And so we even help hold each other in check. Sometimes we like take a breath


Nelson Barss 49:53

and it's really important. It's really important for people to feel like a valued contributor thats in the organization,


Liz Sears 50:01

and it has to be implemented. I mean, if you haven't done it already in your hiring process, do it later. But it's amazing the impact it can have when you first you explain to them. That's how you want them to show up. And then you prove to them that it works.


Nelson Barss 50:13

Yeah.


Liz Sears 50:14

And then they keep coming more and more.


Nelson Barss 50:17

Any last thoughts about training? This topic that we've covered? We've covered it pretty well,


Liz Sears 50:21

I think we have, oh, I one thing that we do in our brokerage is that we purposely redline, which means that we push them to their absolute limit. And we usually do it the second week, and I know you don't do it this way. Our logic, the reason we do that is because inside of real estate, there are times when it gets really crazy. And if they are not able to handle the crazy that periodically happens, we don't want to find that out when someone's home is on the line. And so


Nelson Barss 50:51

what does that look like?


Liz Sears 50:52

And so we'll give them a significant amount of tasks that they need to get done, we'll, so we'll say we need you to get this done in a day. So for an average person, learning a new task, for example, takes an hour to complete. And once you get really proficient, it takes you 15 minutes. And so we'll give them enough tasks, homework, different things like that, that it's going to take them more than the eight hours and tell them, it can't get it done in eight hours. And we know that it's not going to impact our customers, it's stuff that we can pick up the pieces, it's not a big deal, but we make them get done more within an eight hour period than they're capable of doing. So then they're like, you know, learning figuring it out making it happen and stuff like that. There are a lot of tears.


Nelson Barss 51:37

Yeah,


Liz Sears 51:38

but but we we tell them, hey, we're redlining you on purpose, we want to see how you handle the stress. We want to see how you do with this. And just know that it's going to happen sometimes in the business. We don't always tell them that as we're doing it.


Nelson Barss 51:49

Yeah upfront.


Liz Sears 51:50

Sometimes we let them kind of experience and get into it. Because we also want to see, how do they respond under pressure? Do they become really mean? Some people become really mean when they're under pressure? Some people become really defensive, or blaming or anything like that. We want people who are going to be like, Hey, this is really hard. I don't know how I'm gonna get it done. Can you help me?


Nelson Barss 52:08

Yeah,


Liz Sears 52:09

type thing. So we want to learn their personality, we want to also see, are they the type will be like, You know what, I'm out. I just dont want to do this.


Nelson Barss 52:17

I'm sitting here thinking about a solopreneur, who's already drowning in business. Yeah. And then you want to hire, they want to build a team, and they're listening to this to learn how and they're like,


Liz Sears 52:27

oh, my gosh, I can't do that. Its too hard.


Nelson Barss 52:29

I'm sure they're overwhelmed, right? It's like, okay, I'm not gonna put together this really thorough interview process. And then I need a training, you know, structure. That's, that's all built out. And I feel


Liz Sears 52:42

so evolved. This is Yeah, keep in mind, guys that this is evolutionary, it is not revolutionary. You might have moments that are revolutionary, where you spend an entire weekend you build out a big piece. But even still, I've


Nelson Barss 52:56

liked that phrase. Yeah, evolutionary not revolution, because I always think I gotta go close myself off in a cabin in the woods for a whole week and write up the genius process that's never gonna change, which is a fool's errand. First of all, I don't have to do it. And I'm not smart enough to write the process that never will change.


Liz Sears 53:16

So if, if you have to start somewhere, and let's say, you're already too busy, let's start with make the job description that you could knock out literally in 20 minutes. Like I said, just make a list of everything you do, put your hearts and your dollar signs. And then what's left is your job description. Create your avatar, and with your first one, maybe I should be talking here with your first one, pick somebody that you would love to work with. In fact, that's even one way that I tell my potential clients, as I'm interviewing with them is pick somebody that you're going to enjoy working with, because you're going to be with them a lot. And then figure out what are your super strong strengths? And what are your super horrible weaknesses. And try to find someone who is awesome at your weaknesses, because you don't want to just straight duplicate yourself, you want somebody who's going to be synergistic with you, you want someone who's not going to end up with the same gaps in the same holes, because then you're in the same boat still. And then just kind of trust your gut pray, and just get your first person and get started, make them shadow you and build out the book.


Nelson Barss 54:16

And I would say, be open to the idea of training.


Liz Sears 54:20

Yeah,


Nelson Barss 54:21

put someone in training and tell them they're in training, you're in training, and just just the mindset alone will change their onboarding experience, right? You don't have to. You don't have to have the whole structure to have the mentality,


Liz Sears 54:35

Right


Nelson Barss 54:36

And say, Okay, for the next month, you're shadowing you're training. Maybe you can sprinkle in a task here and there, low level things that they can help you with. But it's like taking two steps forward to take three back it honestly will make your life harder for the first month if all you're doing is shadow got someone shadowing you you have to explain everything you do. It takes twice as long to do every single thing because you're talking about it in your That's, that's worth it. It's such a worthwhile investment.


Liz Sears 55:04

It's storing your leftovers and in single serving containers.


Nelson Barss 55:09

It is I mean, you're just, you just kind of have the mindset that you are building future capacity a business greater than you.


Liz Sears 55:18

And you don't have to teach them everything like pick, what are the tasks in particular on your list, have them shadow, just those couple. I've had them over


Nelson Barss 55:25

had moments where I'm training somebody, I'm sitting there, and I'm showing them how to do something very basic. And I thought to myself, that's such a waste of my time, I should be


Liz Sears 55:33

I could get this done in two minutes instead of ten,


Nelson Barss 55:35

Yeah, or I should not be doing this. I should be doing something high level, right? And always remind myself that I'm investing in my future.


Liz Sears 55:43

Yes,


Nelson Barss 55:43

this is going to pay off. I believe in this person that's sitting over my shoulder.


Liz Sears 55:48

Yeah,


Nelson Barss 55:48

he or she is is going to be amazing. And I picture, what's it gonna be like a year from now?


Liz Sears 55:53

Yeah,


Nelson Barss 55:53

five years from now, when we've been together, Oh my gosh, even just two months? Yeah, you know, you're gonna experience rewards, one or two months later, if you just pick a few tasks and teach them those well, and then just add to it as you can, I like to say that to the, to the assistant or the employee, like imagine how easy this is going to be a year from now. We've been doing this together for a whole year, and then five years.


Liz Sears 56:15

Yep. You know, one last thing that we didn't really put in here too, is that we do have their job description where they build out what their time blocks are going to look like. And time blocks. I'm sure everybody on here is familiar with it. It's just the blocks of time on your calendar, where you work on specific tasks, and then have them log, especially once they get going, and they're not necessarily onboarding with you anymore, and how they're spending each of those time blocks, them keeping track of how they're spending, it will actually help them identify where they might need to ask questions, and it'll help you identify, you know, whenever you can I, they do it every day, I review a day, maybe once a week or every two weeks, but my purposes so they're cognizant and so my and I can see you know, what is it that's maybe taking longer than it should and then we just kind of process analyze, you know, how are you doing that piece? How can we tighten it up stuff so, little two millimeter changes that you make as you go


Nelson Barss 57:08

evolutionary? Not revolutionary?


Liz Sears 57:10

Yeah,


Nelson Barss 57:11

that's gonna, that's gonna change my mindset. I love it.


Liz Sears 57:15

Look at us helping each other.


Nelson Barss 57:16

Okay, well, awesome. Well, thank you, Liz. It's great to chat with you again and talk about this. On the next episode, we're gonna dive into delegation.


Liz Sears 57:25

Yeah,


Nelson Barss 57:25

talk about how how to take this person who's now trained and


Liz Sears 57:29

that was hard for me to learn but


Nelson Barss 57:30

yeah, I've been getting a lot better and I love it. And were just dive into how we do that and, and go over that. So we'll see you all in the next episode.


Liz Sears 57:38

Okay. Thanks, Nelson. Thanks, guys for listening.


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