House proper.
Just outside of Dallas proper,
a little bit north of the McKinney area.
In the McKinney area.
Okay, cool.
Awesome.
I got a sister over in Mount Pleasant,
if you know where that's at.
So, but all right, cool.
Well, let's see here.
So why did you choose?
It's out here in Tyler.
Ah, why did you choose exceptional HR solutions?
What made you so bold to put that in the name?
Because that's the service I want to give.
I want to give exceptional service to people
that need support and help with their people.
And anything less isn't good enough for me.
So I want to be exceptional.
And it's a goal that we strive for each and every day.
We make progress some days
and some days we were learning to test.
Yeah, very good.
And so, you know, how do you inspire entrepreneurs
and those that you work with
to also maintain that exceptional performance?
What do you do to go about
getting them to buy into that concept themselves?
I think the key to getting somebody motivated
is really recognizing what's their passion,
helping them uncover that passion
and helping them recognize it's a journey to learn.
It's a journey that takes time and effort,
but as you get there and helping them create experiences.
All right, welcome in to Vision Pros Live.
With Jackson Calame, I'm your show host.
We'll be doing interviews for visionary entrepreneurs
and guest leaders who are building
fantastic visions out there.
Hey, hey, what's up everybody?
Welcome in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm your host, Jackson Calame,
founder and CEO of First Class Business.
And we're gonna be interviewing Neil Katz today
from Exceptional HR Solutions.
You may notice a trend.
I like to interview people in the space of HR.
I think it's one of the most overlooked competencies
for entrepreneurs, at least as far as I've seen
in our nation, in the United States.
And that's not a good thing.
If you don't know how to take care of your people
and attract great people,
then you're gonna have a really hard time
providing great service,
which is going to lead to a hard time
of creating sustainable revenue growth.
It's one of the most important skill sets
you can have as a leader.
It's how do I attract great people
and how do I retain great people?
And so pre-looting a little bit,
giving Neil the time to warm up.
By the way, audio connection may suffer a little bit
on this one, but the content is gonna be valuable.
So when you hear these little pauses that take place,
that's just Neil's internet catching up with mine.
And give it some patience
because I know he's gonna throw down today.
You don't name your company exceptional HR solutions
on accident and you don't maintain a brand
that's named exceptional easily.
That means you have to provide great services
to your clients.
Otherwise your clients are gonna say,
well, it was just mediocre.
We have that same challenge at first class business
and we made it so because we don't wanna provide
second class service and we don't want a scapegoat.
We don't want people to be able to,
justify away what it is we did or ourselves justified away.
We know it's so important to provide excellent services
that we work with.
So let's dive into the sponsors a little bit.
Icon Maker Live, great conference,
great presentations on how to launch a seven figure podcast.
They're all about building the brand essentials
and the offers upfront,
making sure that the business is ready to go
and then spring boarding to the podcast
with the right assets in place and the right revenues.
I think it's very smart.
We did not launch our podcasts out the gate.
We launched our business first
and that led into the podcast.
Now I'm not saying either way is the best way to do it,
but I am saying it's very wise to get a perspective
from Tom Mattson and Cheryl Pluff over at Icon Maker Live.
I keep pointing in the wrong direction here.
On iconmakerlive.com as you evaluate and assess
what types of assets do you wanna move forward with
and do you see podcasting as a means of distribution
for your brand so you can create some awareness
for yourself, create some great relationships
and attract people to want to work with you in the future.
CapShow.com also does an excellent job
of helping us on that.
Woo, I got the directions down this time.
CapShow, C-A-P-S-H-O.com.
I highly recommend the software.
In fact, it's number one recommended software
for content creation, AI content creation
by digitalmarketer.com.
And CapShow, you can take an episode like this
or you can take a video.
If you just wanted to do a video,
imagine doing a video of yourself
that you're not gonna share with anybody.
But you actually, you whiteboard out some things
about how important your business is
and you give people the four tips to accomplish X, Y or Z
and you go through that and you present it
really, really well.
The cool thing is you can take that video,
you can upload it in a CapShow
and the little copywriting machine will go to work for you
to create all the different social media content
that you might need.
So what I recommend doing is upload user free trials,
upload your credits,
you get two to three free credits on there
and just start clicking as fast as you can
on all the different mechanisms,
the LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, blog posts, et cetera.
Go through and click on all that
and then you'll see the type of content
they can produce for you.
And now you've got a whole treasure trove of assets
that you can schedule on social media and get posted.
It's quite the amazing system.
I highly recommend checking it out.
And last and of course not least, the water project.
The water project is my favorite nonprofit to support.
I love the transparency that's provided
when you donate or contribute a dollar or a thousand
or more to those projects.
You can even sponsor an entire sand dam
or entire borehole well and get clean drinking water
to those who are in severe need of it.
But if you have it within yourself to give a dollar or two,
you can always check the show notes.
We've got the links in there available for you.
But I don't feel comfortable going live on these shows
without thinking about the needs of others
who have so little when we have so much.
So I hope you get back to that.
Now, Neil Katz again is the founder
of Exceptional HR Solutions.
And he's been at this for 25 years, leading, advising,
consulting with suite executives,
navigating the human capital challenges
while aligning people and business strategies.
You can always catch his bio in the about section
on this page.
I'm gonna drop that, but I wanna take the time
to actually dive in, discuss this with him.
If you have questions about HR,
don't hesitate to hit us up during this or after.
Either one of us would be happy to reach out.
And I think he's a wealth of knowledge.
So without further ado,
Neil, thank you so much for being on the show.
Jackson, thanks for having me.
Look forward to our conversation today.
Absolutely.
Let's dive in hot and heavy.
So Neil, who should be listening?
Why should they listen to you?
And what are they going to get out of today's show?
Well, Jackson, thanks.
I think at the end of the day,
what I would tell you who should listen,
I think anybody that is growing and scaling a business
has value to listen and understand what it is
that we can talk about today.
Why should they listen is the time that they're gonna take
is gonna help them hopefully take a nugget or two away
that they can take back to their business
or their teams today and implement and impact their teams
and the people that work with them and for them.
And what are they gonna get out today, Shell?
Hopefully a great treasure trove of knowledge
and information and content that they can really act on today
or to have the resources to get those answers they need.
As I always say, if you don't know the answers,
know the person that can help you get to them.
That's the true value there.
And myself and my team are that team
that can help answer your people-related questions
and your business.
Excellent.
Neil, what's in 30 seconds,
what's your vision for those that you're serving?
My vision is to empower my leaders to take the time back
in their back office people operations
and let them have that time back
for front-facing meetings, conversations, interactions,
and engagement with their teams and their people.
Eliminate the hurdles, make the process easier
and let me be the expert in those areas
that they don't need to be.
Allowing them to be what they are and who they are
and those exceptional leaders they're trying to be.
Okay.
What are some of those areas,
we'll go beyond the 30 seconds now, of course,
but what are some of those areas
where you mentioned they don't need to be,
but they may feel kind of stuck in?
What does that look like?
Jackson, the two that always come to mind for me is,
I love leaders, but I don't need leaders
to be excellent recruiters.
At the end of the day, I need a leader
to know what they're looking for in their talent,
but let me do those five, 10, 20, 30, 50 interviews,
screens, resume reviews, things of that nature,
because leaders, I don't want them
to be excellent recruiters.
Recruiting is a specialized skill and function.
Let us do the hard work.
Let us present the top two to three people
and let them find the best talent.
The second one is, I don't need owners, founders, CEOs
to be exceptional benefits experts.
I'll do the benefits consulting, advising.
I'll bring you the plans.
I'll bring you the models.
I'll bring you the opportunities.
We'll talk through it and we're gonna build
the best benefits offering we can for you
and total rewards offering we can for you and your team.
I don't need you to be in the weeds of every detail.
Let us manage that for you.
Let us bring you the final results
and let us support you and your team
so you can really focus on those other components.
Those are just two of many other areas
that we can help those leaders with.
Sign me up.
All right.
We're talking right after this call, by the way.
I'm going to see what I can do to get into your doors.
Dan Martel of SaaS Academy is one of the leading coaches
in relation to helping SaaS companies scale and grow.
I had a little private session with him, not private.
It was a mastermind session,
but him and I had a little one-on-one about it.
And he said, Jackson, you're way behind.
And finding a recruiting team.
So that should have been one of the first things
that you did.
And it is a painful process to find a great recruiting company
with all the other things you have to go through
as a business owner as well.
But the fact that you keyed in on that aspect
and both the articulated that
and the benefits and offerings part, like just so clearly,
you've been around the block.
That was kind of easy to tell.
I want to hear the next steps though.
I want to hear this little bucket list.
So you mentioned those are the two that come to mind first.
I'm going to put you on the spot further, Neil.
What else should I be aware of that as an entrepreneur,
sometimes we go through it all with heavy blinders on.
I'll give you a couple more to add to this payroll.
Why do you need to be a payroll expert?
Look, you need to fund it.
You need to build the revenue to grow your business.
You need to make sure we have the funds to pay our people,
but that's it.
Let me take systems and technologies and people
and make it a streamlined process
and let me manage it for you.
So at the end of the day,
you look every week or two weeks when you pay them,
you look and go, yep, looks good, thanks, click pay.
Do you really need to know what a garnishment is
if you have one, what to do with it?
Did you pay your state taxes?
Did you pay unemployment?
Are you keeping up with those components,
the 401k, HSA distributions?
Probably not.
And maybe you are, but you don't need to.
I don't need leaders to be experts in payroll.
Compensation, what do I pay people?
My best example, one of the things
that just came up recently,
New York state just passed a new law.
I believe it's earlier this week
called a pay transparency law that is requiring states
and employers to post on internal and external postings,
pay ranges.
California has done and a few other states do as well,
but I don't want a leader to spend your time researching
and understanding, does it impact me?
How does it impact me?
I'll send you a one sentence blurb
or better than that, if we support you,
I'll just email you and say,
hey, going forward and all postings
were gonna be adding this and here's why,
if you wanna see the details, I could send it to you.
Taking those burdens off of leaders' plates
so that you can do what you need to do,
growing revenue, engaging with your customers or clients,
taking care of your people, that's the part,
that's why you started the business.
Let me take all that stuff behind you,
make it easy, simplified and streamlined
and we'll manage it for you.
Dude, I can tell that if I had a time machine
and I could go back 10 years
and with the knowledge I have now, of course, right?
And say, Neil, please teach me about diplomacy.
That would also probably be one of the best things
that you could have taught me as a young leader.
And I still have so far to go,
but I'm gonna highlight something very important.
I'm still not the most diplomatic person
and I'm gonna do this for you.
Neil said, you do not need to be a payroll expert
as an entrepreneur.
I'm going to say, you are not a payroll expert
as an entrepreneur, you are not.
That is not your job.
You are supposed to hand these jobs off to people
so that you can go lead as a visionary.
So again, I prefer your approach, I love it.
I can sense an incredible empathy in you
and I will find your flaws eventually,
but for now this has been a super joyful show.
Let's talk about your vision a little bit, Neil.
So what's your vision for yourself?
And you don't have to use 15 seconds,
but over the next 15, 20 years,
what do you wanna be doing?
I think Jackson, what I really wanna do
is continue to expand this business,
which is fractional HR and consulting and advising.
So, and one of the things I wanna hit home on
is the fractional component,
because the reality is companies hear,
oh, this sounds great, but I can't afford a full-time HR
or I can't afford this or that, you can't.
And I bring 25 years myself of HR expertise
and wisdom and knowledge, along with my team,
we have over 70 years of HR experience we bring to you.
And my vision is to continue to grow
and provide the services to grow small
and medium-sized companies.
And then the second part of my vision
is to allow HR practitioners that have been
in corporate America for a while,
ready to get out and wanting to really come
support this business and support these small,
growing, expanding companies.
They're looking for that next opportunity.
And then the last part of my vision is to continue
on something one of my team members helped me create,
which is the key, family first, work second.
And that's a core vision of my business.
And I always say, if you struggle between the decision
and you have a question between, do I do work or family?
Family always first, work second,
and we'll help solve that if you have that conflict.
And that's been a cornerstone of the business
and will be forever.
I'm falling in love with these concepts,
these realities that you're hitting.
Again, I just hope everybody is listening
is eating this up.
Fractional HR, and I love the vision
because in order to provide that,
in order to scale that, you certainly wanna be
constantly recruiting your own HR team.
And so, and I love the fact that you know
those in proper order.
And I look forward to seeing the business world
shift to family first.
Right now we're the outliers, I would say.
And that's painful.
I mean, that might be painful for certain people to hear,
but I don't know too many entrepreneurs
who've been a stay at home dad since day one
of being an entrepreneur.
I'm one of the few on that.
And I look forward to seeing more people
transition towards that and also understand
that there's new pros and cons in life
that come out of making that transition.
There's new challenges that exist.
But one of the things, one of the most challenging aspects
of being a work, I'm sorry, a family first
balanced entrepreneur is the friction
that creates with clients or business people
who don't understand that.
And don't feel that they can coexist with that.
And thank goodness, people like you are in the market.
And I'm also striving to make that shift a reality.
So if you're listening to this and that's what you want,
I think it's also important that you contribute
to that cause and start standing up for that belief
and saying, hey, this is what we want
for our families as well.
As families and people who care about families,
you've got to stand together and make sure
that that's a priority in life.
So I'll get off my soap box a little bit.
Fractional HR, fractional, the term fractional
for chief executive officers, chief operating officers,
chief financial officers, et cetera,
I would say started to become quite popular
within the last five years.
It wasn't something that, I still think most of mainstream
does not know that those opportunities exist.
How long have you been pioneering fractional HR development?
So I've been doing fractional HR for over 15 years.
And about two years ago,
I decided to commit to this full-time.
So I went into this two years ago, full-time
and still to this day, I get so many people going,
what does this mean fractional?
And the analogy I give and most people
in the business community understand
the word fractional CFO.
Fractional CFO seems to be the cornerstone of where it began.
And I say, once you like somebody that has 10, 15, 20 years
of experience to come into your organization
on five hours a week, five hours a month, five hours a day,
whatever the need of your business,
we will build a personalized, customized plan
to your business and we'll allocate a resource
to support and help you.
But what I've done is I've taken it one step further
and myself or one of my senior colleagues
helps manage that client and that consultant
on that account.
So really they're getting a two for one deal.
So I'm there to support my client
along with one of my consultants.
So they get a two for one.
So they're averaging 20 to 50 years of experience
at a fractional basis.
And that's just amazing to the client
to have that sense of knowledge and expertise
and not having to pay that six plus figure number
to bring in somebody for 40 hours a week,
50 hours a week that might not have that industry background.
We support all industries across the United States
and that's what's been very advantageous
for us and the clients.
Wow, yeah.
Absolutely.
Again, I'm hoping that one of the challenges
that you face, Neil, and that I face as well
in terms of helping the market at large
is that most entrepreneurs, you know, these days,
when I say most, I mean, you've got to look
at the grand majority of the millions that are out there.
Most of them do not have corporate background.
Most of them have never faced a workers comp problem.
Most of them have never faced somebody taking them
to small claims court and realizing that,
whoa, business means there's all these other challenges
that exist.
So I can see how corporate level clients
and people with a lot of corporate experience
could instantly value what it is that you do.
And yet that's the small majority of the market, right?
So I tend to look at the bigger problem,
which is far less profitable in the beginning,
far more difficult and say, well, what are we doing
to bridge the gap to help the entrepreneur, right?
The solopreneur, the ones who don't have that experience
understand the value of everything that you're putting down
because it's clear as day to me and that's good news,
but I have a lot of background with really dangerous,
nightmarish HR experiences that many of the people
who listen to the show don't.
So let's keep going on that path if you don't mind.
What are we doing to bridge the gap
for the ignorant entrepreneur,
the one who doesn't have a background in HR
and understand the nightmares that they might face,
they go it alone.
I don't want to scare them,
but what are we doing to bridge that gap?
Jackson, the simple bridge is get somebody to help you,
get a colleague, get a professional.
What I always say, get somebody like myself.
And you know what?
I always get the pushback.
I can't afford it.
Then you know what?
Let's set up an executive coaching session.
Let me coach you twice a month for an hour or two.
Let me answer your questions.
Let's talk about your business strategy.
Jackson, I can't tell you how many times I get,
I'm on a call six, seven, eight o'clock at night
with somebody talking about how to build out an LLC.
And when do I open the bank account?
And what do I need?
How do I hire my first person?
And what do I do to pay them?
And then you get to three, four, five, seven, 10 employees.
And they're like, now what?
Do I need a payroll system?
Do I need this?
Oh my gosh, somebody just said
they're gonna file a complaint.
What do I do?
Call me, we'll help you.
I can't tell you, half my business probably has started
with that first phone call.
What do I do with this?
And they're like, okay.
I'm like, you do this, this and this.
They're like, what do you mean?
I'm like, look, give me 30 minutes of your time.
I'll walk you through it
and we'll help solve this together.
And the very first question of most solopreneurs
or entrepreneurs growing their businesses,
I can't afford you.
Like, look, I'll make you a deal.
Give me 15 minutes, I'm not gonna charge you.
I'm not here to nickel and dime people.
I wanna hear to support you short term and long term.
So let's work through the problem together.
And that's what we do is we sit down
and have a short conversation, talk through it,
give them the best advice, knowledge and wisdom I have
and help them in their journey.
And then generally speaking,
I usually get a call back three weeks, three months,
six months, a year, two years.
You know, do you remember me?
I need your help.
I'm like, I got you, let's go.
What can we do?
It's the relationship and finding that network
of knowledge and support, but turning to the experts
to really know what you're doing
and recognizing what you can do,
but admitting what you can't do.
And HR is not a realm for probably 90% of leaders
I see today.
Well said, you're being generous with the 90%.
I think it should be like more like 96%.
Granted that the failure rate of businesses
within 10 years is 96%.
In fact, I would say 98%
because some of the businesses that are winning
are winning in spite of how they treat people.
And so there's still lots of adjustments to be made
even within the winner circle.
So just incredible value in that too.
Now, family aspect, I wanna dive into something
that some of you may have caught.
I have my own answer on this.
I'm curious about Neils.
We're gonna talk about it openly.
Now you admitted to taking calls at six, seven or 8 p.m.
Doesn't that interrupt family time?
And where's the balance or where's the give?
How does that coincide with also being a family man?
Jackson, great question.
And you know what?
Life is give and take.
And my famous philosophy is we talk about work-life balance.
You can't balance the two, there's no such thing.
It's a work-life integration.
You gotta integrate the two models together.
So yesterday I left the office at three o'clock
so I could attend my daughter's tennis game.
And then my youngest daughter was doing cheerleading.
So you flex your schedules.
The other thing is don't waste time.
I have an hour drive both ways.
I have an hour drive both ways to work when I'm in the office.
So what do I do?
I use every one of my hour drives
with a minimum of 30 minute call.
So what I do is I manage my time.
And there are times that my family's doing their thing
and I'm on a call.
Part of it is when you grow and scale a business,
sometimes you gotta give to get.
But you know what?
It's a balance between the two.
And when I know it's important for me and the family,
I'm gonna make sure I'm there.
And I will sacrifice a client meeting for a tennis match
or cheerleading event.
Because those are important moments for me
and I'm not gonna miss them.
But you can't have your cake and eat it too.
So you do have to work hard at this.
But it's about how you balance the two out
and you surround yourself with great talent
to help and support you.
Nice.
I think it's a bit of a semantics game.
I hate that quote.
I love you.
I hate that quote.
I say you can have your cake, you can eat it too,
and you can create a conveyor belt of cakes.
Like that's like a Richard Branson.
I say, look at what you're doing.
I would say you are having your cake and eating it too.
And it was funny.
You said it's not balanced and you said it's integration,
but then you came back to balance.
And again, that's we as Americans,
I don't see this in many other cultures.
I don't speak many languages, but I do speak Spanish.
I don't see people argue over semantics in Spanish.
In English, we love to do that.
You know, where it's like, I say balance, you say harmony.
And like, we're both wrong.
Oh, you know, like it's so crazy how we do that.
But my favorite mentor, Jake Larson,
video power marketing, love him to death.
He's like a brother to me.
And he taught me so much about life.
He's like the super dad, right?
I look at him for, if I wanna be a better dad,
I just watch a few videos of Jake and I take notes.
And he told me about this story
about the plate spinners and the circus.
And how a lot of people think that work and life
get balanced like juggling,
which is pretty much equal distribution.
But in plate balancing,
those guys that have 20 different plates spinning
on different sticks,
you've probably seen that in videos at least.
Sometimes there's one agitated plate
that you have to spin more often than all the others.
And that could be representation of a kid
who's struggling to read, learn how to read.
That could be a kid who's going through drugs problems
or it could be a wife
who's going through a midlife crisis, right?
There's a lot of different times in life
when you're gonna need to dedicate certain effort
towards certain plates more often than others.
And it's not a matter of equal distribution
as much as a matter of paying attention
to what needs my attention now.
So I love that you talk about that.
I think more people need to recognize that,
the flexibility.
If you love what you do,
why would you not take a call at 8 p.m. with somebody?
Because you're excited to dive into that.
And if your family is not there
because they had a mommy daughter date or something,
and you've only got one daughter,
then you might find yourself diving into work
because you love it.
You don't need permission to dive in to do that
and to say, hey, I'm gonna run my business
outside of this nine to five thing.
Very, very well set examples.
And that does mean sometimes seeing family
and doing family things when you should be working.
Should by whose standards?
I hope it's your own,
not the world or us pressuring you
on when you should be the visionary at all times,
period in my opinion.
So thank you for that.
Anything you wanna add before we move on?
No, I think the key is just make the moments count.
A great leader once told me, I said, okay,
I said, I gotta go to another meeting.
She goes, we still have a minute
and make every minute of that moment count
before you go to the next.
And it's the same for family,
not just for work, but for family.
When you're walking your child to the car
or taking him dropping off at school,
are you having a conversation?
Are you interacting?
Are you engaging?
Are you asking about their day
or the moment of challenge or your wife?
Make the moments count and don't miss the moments.
Every moment should count, make them count.
That's really, I think we're so much of that opportunity
of spinning one plate, but talking to another plate
at the same time is a great way to make it happen.
Wow, you just reminded me of an executive
I worked with a long time ago, I was very young.
His name was Presidente Vanilla, president of the area.
And he happened to attend one of the district meetings
that was occurring.
And the district leader finished the meeting
10 minutes early and he was like, okay, cool, we're done.
We don't have to do anything else.
And he was excited to give everybody the time,
to just whatever, get out early and not do it.
And President Vanilla got up and he said,
he said, absolutely not.
He said, we have 10 minutes
and we're going to use them effectively.
And he said, let's take an inventory of who's not here.
It's the first step, right?
He wrote all the names on the board,
all the people that weren't there.
And he said, now who's going to go visit so-and-so?
Who's going to go visit this person?
Who's going to go check on them?
What needs do they have in their lives
that we can account for?
And he used the 10 minutes making sure to account
for the individuals who were inactive in this experience.
And I just remember being like, whoa, that was so brilliant
and so helpful.
And I've to this day, I've never seen anybody
use that same style of time, but you invoked that,
that last minute, every minute counts
when you're being purposeful.
And it's again, it's something
that everybody's listening right now.
You can write that down.
You can be the person who implements that.
You don't have to look for President Vanilla
as in the world, do it yourself.
Be the person who makes that happen.
So let's dive into a darker subject, Neil.
What's your worst business experience ever?
That's an interesting question.
Worst business experience ever.
And this is going to sound a bit cliche,
but it's working for leaders that did not understand
how to lead effectively people.
And being in an environment where I watched people
that weren't happy, weren't engaged,
were punching a clock, were all the other acronyms
and analogies that we love to use.
It just, that was my worst experience ever.
And I've seen it multiple times in my career
and it's very disheartening to me as a people leader,
but just as a person.
I had an opportunity to work for another organization
where this is a long-term organization,
been around for over a hundred years
and people worked there because there was a pension plan
and it was great, but they were miserable.
And life is too short to be doing things
you're miserable with.
Enjoy what you do, embrace it.
As you said earlier, doing a call at eight o'clock is okay.
If you love it, do it.
I gotta tell you some of the most rewarding moments
I've had is those meetings and conversations and topics,
but working for somebody or with somebody
or for an organization that doesn't value its people
is really the worst business experience ever.
It's, I just, I don't wanna see that for people.
And that's really, I think the driving part
of why I've been in HR for over 25 years
and why I wanna help other leaders get better
and help them become better leaders of their people.
Yeah, I probably should have done an HR career myself.
Like everything I do about marketing
is really all about the people first aspect.
And you're making me have my own sense of like, man,
maybe I should just shift and start doing that.
But it's one of those departments
that tends to get so overlooked
and looked at as a high compliance.
Let me put my glasses on, what do you want today?
Why are we helping you?
There's just so much lack of personality typically
in that environment yet you're turning the tables on it
and I appreciate that.
So, let's talk about your best experience in business.
What does that look like?
What's your best experience with HR business?
I think it's those moments with people.
It's not one singular experience,
but it's the moments of enlightenment,
success, celebration.
When you help somebody achieve
what they're trying to go for.
When people, you look back and the example I'll give
is I very early in my career,
I had a gentleman that worked for me
and we just butted heads.
I was the manager of the store
and he was one of my junior managers
and we just butted heads.
And finally we learned to kind of work together
and I just kept trying to put together
I just kept trying to teach him and educate him
and support him and help him in his journey.
And the best experience was about three years later
we were doing some site visits
and we went to his store as a store manager.
And his comment to me was,
I know we butted heads,
but thanks for all the support and help you gave me
over those years to help me be the leader I am today.
And for me, it's helping people achieve
what sometimes they don't think they can do
and supporting and teaching and taking those moments again
to make a difference with somebody.
Those are the best experiences in business
when you can look back and reflect and just go.
And that's usually when it is,
is you see the success over time.
That's the challenge with HR is we don't,
not everything we do is quick and fast
and check the box and it's done.
A lot of what we do takes weeks, days, months, years
to revolve and evolve folks
to get somewhere they need to be, but that's okay.
You just gotta be patient and persistent.
Absolutely.
And some of what you do as an HR professional,
I mean, I'm reaching here a little bit.
You can correct me if I'm wrong,
but I think some of what you do in HR as an HR individual,
not you yourself, can lead to a dip
before it leads to a rise in success.
And are there certain trends?
Are there certain realities that you have to face
as an HR director or an HR consultant
where you have to advise the entrepreneur,
hey, when this happens,
we typically see a slight dip until we see the rise.
And I'm making this up as a theory.
Am I spot on or am I wrong about this?
You're spot on.
The best example I'll give you is new leaders.
So when we have a leader come into a new team,
a new function, generally we see an average
of 30 to 60% turnover.
So you're gonna see the dip and you're gonna see this team.
And with that right support of that leader,
especially in the dip.
Oh no, this was fantastic and I lost you, Neil.
Am I back?
You're back, you're back.
All right, I'll try to take off.
So what I was saying is catch the leaders in the dip
and help support them on the journey back up
and be there, but recognize as a leader,
that doesn't mean that they're a bad leader.
They're hitting the dip of change, evolution, challenge
and help move them and carry them.
Support them in that journey back up
because it'll come, it just takes time.
Yes, I'm kind of like sitting here,
like I've been that new leader so many times
where the support isn't there.
And I saw this cartoon the other day.
This guy does marketing cartoons.
I can't remember his name.
I'll probably drop it in the show notes,
but it showed the COO at his desk.
It showed the CEO at his desk
and it showed the CMO entering a revolving door.
You know, that basically spit pulls them in
and spits them out and pulls them in and spits them out.
And I was like, wow, that is so, so unfortunately true.
So, and I like that you, you know, without an expert,
you don't get to learn those things.
You know, again, I can theorize about the reality,
but you actually know the numbers related to it.
You can forecast that.
You can help entrepreneurs understand
what they don't understand
and stop them from jumping to fast conclusions.
So thank you for that.
That's very helpful insight.
Let's dive into another powerful,
in fact, you dropped one powerful lesson.
We're gonna come back to this question.
I wanna highlight it.
You talked about actively using your mobile office, right?
And that means making phone calls in the car.
I'm gonna talk about that because I'm not one to,
to stir the pot when it comes to giving bad advice
or dangerous advice.
But if you know how to drive really well,
you've been at it for years,
I'm really sorry if you have the misfortune
of what could happen, but use your time.
You know, you use your time,
do the good in the world
that you know you're gonna be able to do.
I'm not saying write notes.
I'm not saying don't look at the street.
If you are very good at driving and able to stay focused,
then that is a perfectly great time
to have conversations with people about your business
and make sure, or listen to a podcast,
where you can use that time to be productive.
Don't use it as an excuse, but also, you know,
be mindful, be careful as you do so,
and know that your repercussions are yours alone.
We just happen to be admitting our guilty productivity.
So, all right, beyond that,
I won't get you in trouble there.
We'll keep going.
What powerful lesson can other visionaries learn
from your experience, Neil?
I think dedication and determination.
You gotta be dedicated to what you do.
You gotta love it, and you gotta be determined.
Not everything is gonna be a high
and not everything is gonna be a low,
and the highs are good and the lows are bad,
but recognize, just stay in the middle.
It's okay.
Celebrate the successes.
Learn from the failures or opportunities,
but just keep driving.
And then, the other last part of that lesson,
I would say, is networking.
Just network.
Get out to meet new people, meet new groups,
new industries, new leaders.
Get to know people.
Networking has paid off exponentially for me
and will continue to,
and I'm a huge fan of anybody in your audience
who wants to reach out to me on LinkedIn,
send me an invite, let's connect and talk.
That's how you build and get to know all the wisdom
and knowledge we get from each other,
and we can share from each other.
And there's no reason we can't all learn
and help each other out.
And that, to me, is networking
is such an important component of all of this.
Yeah, absolutely.
Way to quadruple down on that one.
Dedication, determination,
define that as a little bit of tenacity in there as well,
and that networking.
Who wouldn't want to network with Neil?
I gotta say this.
It's like you were made in a build-a-bear factory.
It's like so much goodness coming out, man.
So I definitely appreciate that.
How did you get to that?
How did you arrive at such an open-loving personality?
I sound like such a brown-noser right now,
but I mean, I'm serious.
You've got this demeanor about you
that it's pretty easy to see
how much you care about people.
What made you you?
25 years of work and experience to become who I am.
And one of the things I will encourage your listeners today
is don't sacrifice in the experience.
Experience teaches you things and helps you learn
and form who you are and who you want to become,
both what people do that you like
and what people do that you don't like.
And over the years, I've learned from great leaders
and I've learned from not so many great leaders,
but I've learned what works and I found that.
And then I found what resonated with people.
At the end of the day, we can do everything and anything,
but it's about people at the core.
And I just love people.
I love doing these.
I love talking with people.
I love to get to know people.
And I just have an insatiable appetite to learn
and support and help them
and just watching those moments when they succeed.
That's the real, when what looks unachievable to them
becomes easy to me, that's the best reward
at the end of the day is how do I make it look so easy?
Because I've been doing this for 25 years
and I don't want it to be hard for you.
Let it be easy for me and hard, not hard for you
and we'll both win out of this.
That's really just, I just love what I do.
And this is a great example of when people find
their true passion and make it a career in a business.
It's easy.
Yeah, I'd agree with that.
It's easy to see that you're living that by example
and I appreciate that.
I wanna, I'm not gonna end on this,
but it is, we're getting closer to time,
but I gotta ask Neil, what are some of your weaknesses?
What are some of the things, areas that you shouldn't touch?
Obviously, you know, you'd obviously say like,
well, I shouldn't be a petroleum engineer, you know,
but let's be more realistic here.
What are some of those weaknesses and areas of,
areas that if an entrepreneur is gonna work for you,
they should be aware of and ready for?
One of my greatest weaknesses, I'm not patient.
I have very little patience in the world of work.
I like things done.
I like them executed, delivered, followed up on,
and I just, it's an area I still have to learn.
And candidly, I'm not sure I'm ever gonna be great at it,
but I'll be okay.
So for me, that is a weakness.
And I will say the other thing that I am not is,
I'm not your CEO, but I can help consult and advise
and help you align your principles to your people's strategy.
So I have a very good business mind
and I enjoy the business of it,
but I'll let you be the CEO
and I'll help you build your people's strategies
and maybe give you some thoughts and feedback
on your business.
But at the end of the day, I'm gonna let you be the leader
and I'll support your people function.
I'll support your people function.
Good.
So you have firm boundaries,
which would be a weakness for anybody
who wants more flexibility in that regard,
but you also recognize the strength of having those.
And I think it'd be very hard to run an exceptional company,
like to be exceptional and to be 100% patient,
because when it comes to exceptional, you've got to deliver.
And usually there's a timeline involved with that too.
So that makes sense.
How does that manifest itself?
You're not being patient.
I think lots of follow-up, lots of communication
and lots of either early mornings or late nights
thinking through and making sure I followed up
and developing better and better systems
to make sure the execution and follow-up
and deliverables are delivered.
And I'm sorry, I meant,
how does the lack of patience manifest itself?
Some people are angry tyrants
and yell and scream and want to destroy people.
Other people are more cut and dry,
like, nope, you're gone.
One mistake, you're gone.
And then there's somewhere in between.
I think how it manifests myself is I try to get better.
I try to find ways to better help my people
to deliver the results and outcomes that we need.
And for me, it's just driving, driving, driving.
At times it makes you tired.
You're persistent.
Yeah, you can only drive so much before you get tired.
And there's nights I'll just sit on the couch
and I'm like, it's it, I'm done.
I'm clocked out because you burnt so much energy,
but I'm just dedicated to find unique ways
to help my team support our clients.
I love it.
I'm excited to talk to you after the show, as I mentioned.
Vision Pros, I hope you wrote down some notes.
And if you're not in a position to write notes,
of course, come back and listen to this episode again.
It's great to have you.
We would love to have your thoughts.
Again, any questions that you may have in the comments
that I didn't cover, please leave them
so that Neil can answer.
We'll make sure that he gets those.
And if you have expertise yourself
and would like to come on the show,
if you even have that inkling that you might want to be here,
then go to visionpros.com and there's a button there
where you can click to apply.
We have an extensive line of experts,
but we're always looking for certain types of people
and we have the flexibility to sometimes bump people
up the list.
So don't hesitate to apply.
Don't knock yourself out.
You don't have to be Michael Jordan or Ryan Reynolds
to be on here.
But if you're listening, Ryan, we would love to have you,
by the way.
And Vision Pros, we look forward to seeing you
in the next episode.
I think we even have one later today.
Neil, it's been an absolute honor and pleasure.
And everybody, we will see you on the next show.
Take care, guys.
Thank you, Jactron.
Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions
as these episodes continue to move forward.
This is going to get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show.
And thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision
and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.
I'll talk to you soon.
Bye bye.