Go ahead, Jaime.
So Rick, dude, thanks for being here.
Did you know, I talked to Jessica Light today.
Yeah, that was what I was there.
I did, what was that?
What's going on with her?
Man, she's an amazing as always.
So Jessica's who introduced Rick and I back in the day.
So it's fun to have that go full circle.
I actually, I didn't know that we,
that I was hosting you today.
I was really excited.
I was,
all right, welcome in to Vision Pros Live.
But Jackson Callum, I'm your show host.
We'll be doing interviews for visionary entrepreneurs
and guests, guest leaders who are building fantastic visions
out there.
Ultimately, I just want to go through some of the things
that might help you with your vision.
So if you have a vision that you're pursuing,
drop a link in the comments and let us know what that is.
That's a business or a brand, if it's a nonprofit
that you run, be happy to promote it,
be happy to talk to you about it.
And if you'd like to apply to be on Vision Pros
and be interviewed about that vision,
then by all means, feel free to reach out.
And I'll see you in a minute.
What's up, welcome to Vision Pros.
This is Jackson, founder of First Class Business,
Able Health, CEO of Podbook.
And we're really excited to bring you
another amazing guest on today.
So one of the things I just revealed was that
I didn't know Rick was my guest today.
There's kind of a nuance I need to mention with that.
I have an extremely weird short-term memory loop.
So we knew this yesterday.
Rick and I talked the day before yesterday too,
I believe, if not yesterday.
And I've been meeting with a lot of guests
that I tend to talk to on a regular basis.
But my short-term memory is kind of like absent mindedness.
So here I was talking to the person who introduced Rick
to me originally, Jessica Light.
It's our first time catching up in years.
And when we were in the middle of talking,
I hadn't realized that Rick was going to be my guest
an hour after.
So I didn't mention that to her.
She's like, how is Rick?
How are things?
I was like, it's great.
Like, I don't know what I'm going to talk to him next.
Well, we're bringing him onto the show.
So without further ado, Rick Meekins, founder of Epiphany,
and Converge Marketing, two different companies.
Welcome to the show, man.
I'm super happy to have you here.
Hey, thanks, man.
Thanks.
I'm happy to be here.
Thanks for having me, man.
I really appreciate it.
Yes, absolutely.
So for those of you who don't know,
Rick has become seriously a brother from another mother
to me.
Over the last several years, our relationship,
the depth of our relationship, which
was built first with that introduction regarding business.
But here we go, talking about business for about, I don't know,
20 seconds maybe.
And next thing you know, we end up talking for four hours
about the responsibilities of fatherhood, of marriage,
of being there for your spouse.
We had a four hour conversation about life
and what matters most.
And I remember I was at the driving range,
and I realized pretty soon into that talk
that I needed to just lay down on the grass
and have this conversation because there's no way I was
going to golf while having it.
So dude, thanks for that, mom.
I think it should be in who you are.
What do you remember about that?
That it was funny because it was kind of hot that day.
When I was sitting, I was sitting by the pool.
I wasn't sitting in the pool where it was nice and comfortable.
I was sitting in my car outside the pool,
and I'm just sitting there and I'm just talking away.
I'm talking away.
I'm like, man, I don't even have conversations this long.
What am I doing?
But it was a great conversation.
I really just enjoy.
You know what I enjoy about you is your spirit.
It's that the way that you draw people in,
you're interested, and you ask the question,
and that sort of thing, which is awesome.
And so that was cool, man.
I really enjoyed that conversation,
and the many, many conversations after that.
Absolutely, man.
It was a great start.
It was certainly obvious how special the relationship could
be.
And for those of you listening, you visionaries out there,
if you're a visionary, you're going
to have so many opportunities in life.
That's not even funny.
Opportunities are a dime a dozen.
Ideas are a bit of a dime a dozen, too.
If you have that nature, my greatest counsel to you
is look for what I call the golden window of truth.
The golden window of opportunity.
The golden window of opportunity
is what you want to look for.
Because again, there's so many windows and doors
that will open for you that it's very important
to be patient with realizing which doors are the right ones.
And so Rick and I recognize that as we got talking.
Like maybe there's some opportunities to work together,
but it just didn't have that feeling of certainty.
So we did some consulting together
on a few projects in the beginning.
We talked about different campaigns.
What do you remember about that?
Man, it was interesting.
There were great ideas.
I think that, as you just said, I
don't think the timing wasn't right there.
I knew something could.
I felt like something could come of it.
I felt like there was opportunity.
But looking at it from an alignment at that particular time,
it was like it just wouldn't.
I guess I just wasn't ready for it.
And I think that that was a good thing,
because I think that if we had tried to force it,
it might have crashed and burned,
but it might have hurt our relationship as well.
That certainly isn't worth it.
Well, and it was mutual, too.
And I remember we were looking at Epiphany, evaluating
what the brand of potential was, how
you were winning in the market as a small business consultant.
You were dominating the Google search rankings as well,
regarding to that, which is fascinating to me.
And so we both knew that.
And that's usually how healthy relationships unfold.
It's not a matter of forcing the fit as much as a matter of,
let's just give this space and time.
Let's keep being virtuous, provided the world what we can.
And maybe something comes of this.
And I would say it's amazing to see the things that
have transpired.
So as a small business consultant, also, of 18 years now
for Epiphany, and then the Converge Marketing Company
opening and branching out two years ago as well that you
have, one of the interesting full circle events that occurred
was as I went through my second divorce
and started to come back into the world of consulting,
I saw that one of my students, Ashley DeMonte DeTeo,
had launched DeTeo Publishing.com,
which we had initially conceived together,
like the idea of doing it.
Or she brought that to my attention.
We were going to launch it.
And now she was working with you.
And you were building the website.
And I was like, whoa, like small world,
that yes, we have some control in and meeting people.
But it was such a really cool experience.
Because for me, there was a moment of harmony
where dissonance could have existed.
I could have felt like, oh, that's not fair.
They went and did this without me.
And I could have felt like, wow, way to stab me in the back,
guys.
I see these things happen in business.
I don't bring it up from my perspective.
I bring it up from the movies.
I bring it up from what we see happen in life.
But once again, it was just this,
like, huh, things are serendipitously aligning
in different ways, converging, so to speak, pun intended.
So it's, and we've had several overlapping interactions
like that over the last several years that have led us
to an opportunity to think, you know what,
is this breaking our relationship
or is this creating a bond, man?
And like, I can't wait for us to get together in person.
I can't believe that hasn't happened yet.
Yeah, yeah, almost, but not quite.
That's right.
It was really close, right, with the book retreat.
So anyway, diving in for this audience, you know,
we're going to talk about your vision.
We're going to talk about entrepreneurs
and what they may need.
We're going to talk about your goal to help people find work.
You've got a goal by 2035 to create 1 million jobs.
And I think that's a huge, amazing vision.
So tell me more about that vision.
Now that they know what it is, and that's one of the visions.
We've got other visions to probably talk about,
but this one really intrigues me, creating 1 million jobs.
Where did that come from?
What are you doing?
What do we need to learn about this to help you out with it?
For sure.
I mean, the big deal, you know, for me is when I started
the company, you know, 18 years ago, you know, one of the deals,
one of the reasons I started the company was because I saw a lot
of entrepreneurs that were talented or had a great product
or service or whatever, but they didn't know how
to scale their business.
And so what that means to me is that they couldn't build
a business that could operate without them.
You know, we talk a lot about, you know, working in your business,
not on your business, be the CEO, not the bottle washer,
et cetera, et cetera.
And so while that sounds good, like in, you know,
in conversation, it was something very personal to me.
And it really goes all the way back to my childhood.
You know, I went to, I don't know how old I was,
but I was very, very young.
I went to a Pacific Guard mission in Chicago.
And, you know, it was a homeless shelter.
I had no idea at the time it was, but it was a homeless shelter.
And, you know, you see these people and, you know,
they are trying to survive, you know what I mean?
And I found this, I found like over the years,
I was always drawn back to homeless shelters and places
like that, not the proper organization to just to help
to be like those boots on the ground.
And I think that that kind of shaped my thinking.
I want to help people become independent.
And so, you know, looking back to my toolbox, it's like,
okay, I'm a consultant, I build companies, you know what?
If I can help people either make their own companies sustainable
and employee, help them create jobs or create jobs on my own,
you know, then I'm helping people become sustainable.
I needed to have a big, hairy, audacious goal,
if I may borrow that.
I needed a goal that was going to really drive me,
really drive my team.
I didn't want to say I want to create 1,000, 5,000, 10,000.
I want to create a million jobs.
I really and truly want to do that.
It needed to be something that's big that makes us work hard
for it.
It needs to inspire other people.
So that's where that vision comes from.
So I want to ask, if I may, when you said you ended up,
you know, in that homeless shelter,
were you in the homeless shelter?
Or were you doing a project to help the homeless shelter?
Do you mind telling me a little bit more about that story?
Sure.
I was just working there.
I was working there as a cook.
So I was, what was I doing?
I think I had another job.
I had a regular job.
But then I would go to the homeless shelter.
This was the Allentown Mission up in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
And I would go in there and I would cook breakfast.
And I had another job as a, I think,
as a restaurant manager at the time.
But that was, you know, that's what I was passionate about.
And I've done that, you know, or involved myself
one way or another, and other not for profit to do well.
All right.
So how did you find that passion?
What would you ever want to do that?
Again, I mean, it really came back from my childhood.
I don't know where that came from, you know, initially.
But when I was thinking about what I wanted to,
the impact that I would like to make on the world, you know,
what would make me an important asset to the world,
if you will.
I just went back and was like, OK, what are these things that,
you know, were, you know, that stick out to me in my mind?
What are the things that bother me?
What are the things that I'm passionate about?
And going all the way back, you know, I hit, you know,
that one homeless shelter.
I'm just like, wow, wow.
And then just going forward and just seeing the patterns
throughout my life.
When I came here to Atlanta back in, well, I got here in 2003,
I think in 2005, I started doing some work
for community consulting teams, which is a,
which is pro bono consulting for not-for-profit organizations.
And I did that for like seven years.
You know, so I'm doing that through the 2008 crisis.
I'm doing that through getting my master's degree, et cetera,
et cetera.
Because again, it was something, you know, helping these people
that I guess couldn't help me in a way,
or helping them accomplish their goals,
or helping them help other people become sustainable.
I mean, it was really, it's really a really good
and passionate for me.
So I mean, something that is just, you know, I could do that
and not get paid for that.
Yep, I hear you on that.
That's awesome, man.
So let's talk about the creating 1 million jobs a little bit
further.
What does that look like?
You know, and I know there's probably lots of questions
to be answered, just like it is in the case of any visionary,
right?
You don't always have the full path.
But what does that mean?
What, how do you measure that?
You know, we did, me masterminded about this a little bit
last week.
So let's just talk about that further.
I'll let you lead.
So some of that's about planting seeds.
You know, some of that is just investing in companies
when they have need.
You know, I'm working with a young tech company,
but I think it's got to do some great,
they're going to do great work, you know.
And I think that, you know, over the next 10 or so years,
I mean, they'll hire 50,000 people, you know,
if they're on the track that I think that they're going to go on.
You know, so that would be one example,
doing that over and over again.
You know, that's, that starts that process.
That's kind of, that's kind of where that starts.
But a lot of our targets are really growth-stage companies.
So we're looking at companies that are, you know,
three, four, five years old, and they're like,
hey, you know what, I want to go, I want to grow.
You know, and so this, you can say this adds to our head count.
Each time we pick up a new client, we help them,
you know, whether it's, you know, typically it's going to be
streamlined in their operations or helping them expand
their operations or, you know, doing their marketing for them.
You know, it certainly helps.
Now, on the back end of things, you know, we often,
we have to, you know, hire our own team.
And sometimes we're hiring people, you know,
it could be anywhere in the world, you know,
just depending on what the need is and where the,
where the talent's going to be.
And so we'll certainly continue to do that.
The third component, I don't think we really talked about a lot,
but one of the things, one of the other things
that I would like to do at some point is,
I want to teach, you know, and in teaching people
entrepreneurial thought and teaching people how to think
like an entrepreneur, how to think,
how to lead like an entrepreneur, you know,
we're putting ourselves in a position where these people
can also go out and create businesses and create jobs.
So we're looking at it from, you know, multiple perspectives,
but having very clear steps, you know,
in order to, in order to accomplish the goals.
I love it.
Okay. So we definitely are,
I'm excited to learn about the teaching aspect
as the years go by, months go by, weeks go by,
I know we'll be exploring that more.
And one of the things that you said struck me,
and I think this is important for everybody
listening to this right now,
you could say that Rick's work, right,
of helping these startups leads to jobs created.
And you could say that it doesn't.
Don't be that guy.
We have enough people out there in the world.
Those people aren't miserable.
You know, I just want to point that out.
Like, you know, if you have a tendency
to take things away from people,
like take credit away, don't like,
you're just causing more hurt, harm, and problems
in the world.
But yes, Rick, you're 1000% correct
as you help stabilize any companies you're working with
and you provide to their dream or vision.
I'm really glad that you get to see the ripple effect
of what occurs and the ripple effect
is not just a physical reality.
It's also spiritual.
But if I put my finger in my pool, right,
and those ripples that go out,
it is a cause and effect to the fact
that I touched the water, right?
So we have this amazing opportunity
to create ripple effects in life.
And that's what I see you doing.
So I'm looking forward to,
and one of the other things I know is,
you know, your vision on that's going to expand.
And at the same time, I get it.
Some people are like,
well, then technically, you know, you can say,
well, if you just said hi to that person,
you made them feel good,
then you just made billions of people, you know, happy
because the ripple effect never stops.
Like you could say that.
And who might have judged the fact
that you see it that way, right?
When we leverage our visions to justify a plane small,
right, then we might get into a challenging situation
where we're just saying, oh, you know what?
Well, I made my teacher happy,
so I don't have to do my homework, mom, you know,
because all that really matters is happiness, right?
That's plane small, right?
That's leveraging and manipulating the reality
to justify being lazy, right?
And taking time off.
That's not what visionaries do.
Vision to the opposite.
They have a vision that inspires them to give their best
and do their best.
And I see that in you every single day,
but every visionary is listening to this.
If you have people who are in your life telling you
that you're not really making that effect
or that's really not that important
or you really shouldn't be going after this,
all these negative nets and negative Nazis
that exist in the world,
find a way to politely ignore them.
That's my advice.
Find a way to politely get them out of your head
and focus on finding friends,
people who will help support your cause
and help you move forward goodness in this world.
Rick, I'll let you take the mic from me on that.
I'm getting off my soapbox, but that's it.
I love what your vision is. Go ahead.
Oh man, I agree 100%.
It's like, great.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, your humble thoughts.
You will thought out thoughts,
but I'm going to be over here doing it.
That's where we live.
It's interesting looking at this from the,
you can say from the bottom of the mountain.
And it is,
it could be considered an intimidating.
It could be something where,
someone would say, like I said,
it looks like a pine sky,
but I believe that with the concerted effort,
you know, and my expectation is that,
you know what I mentioned to you,
I think I mentioned before,
my expectation is that,
once we really get into doing what we do
down this particular path,
I expect that we'll have a bit of a snowball effect
because we're not just able to leverage our own learnings,
you know, as we go through this process,
but we should be able to,
I guess help more companies by bringing more companies
or bring more individuals into our companies
that are going to help push that vision forward.
This is not a, it's not a one man show.
It's not just me, you know,
hey, I'm doing consulting, I'm doing this,
I'm doing that,
and I'm going to create my jobs,
hey, I'm going to create a platform,
you know, for people to assist,
people to buy into this vision and push it forward.
And I think as an entrepreneur,
I mean, that's really what,
as an entrepreneur and the leader,
you know, that's really our real great mission.
You know, it's not just to build this thing,
it's not just to take it to market,
but it's to create a vision
and get other people to follow us.
You know, it's like how many, you know,
how many people can do every single thing in their business
or want to do everything single thing in their business.
You know, one of the things I've learned over the past few years
is, you know, and you talk about it a lot,
Timothy Morgan has talked about it a lot,
is the super power thing.
It's like, where do I need to be, you know, in this company?
I can't be all things to everyone, you know,
but by being able to take my strategic mind
and say, okay, this is a problem,
how do I solve this problem?
I'm able to create that roadmap.
I'm able to be, you know, somewhat confident
in how to move forward.
I'm able to create, you know, steps
that I can bring other people into
to help move that vision forward.
Absolutely.
So to circle back a little bit
or continue to build on this cycle,
these, we want to talk about the vision
or rather the advice that you give to entrepreneurs
and to employees, I mean, or people who want to be employees,
people who are seeking jobs.
We brought up Timothy Morgan a little bit,
so I'm just gonna give him a quick shout out
and throw this on the screen.
Oh, wrong one, there we go.
You know, he's a phenomenal networker.
I don't remember who introduced who to who
and how all that came down.
Do you remember, like?
Yeah, that was you, man.
You said, hey, you should meet this guy.
And it's like, yeah.
Oh, man, yeah, he's awesome.
He's a great visionary leader who's also helping
to create jobs.
And so if you don't know him and you're in the networking space,
you definitely want to talk to him.
Now, one of the things you said that you want to teach,
how to think like an entrepreneur, right?
How to act like an entrepreneur and all those things.
And I agree that's an important skill set
that needs to be out there.
Now, if you're, again, if you're on the hunt
for job opportunities or you're wanting to expand
your own skill set, one of the things
that a lot of people listening right now are coaches, right?
And they're, or they want to get into life coaching
or career coaching or something like that.
And one of the negative concepts that's going around
is, well, there's already too many coaches out there.
There's enough coaches, right?
Oh my gosh, not another ad for another coach.
Well, I remember in the 2000s, there was this commercial
I saw, and I was in either the end of my high school careers
or I was in the beginning of college or my career.
And this commercial, you know, the dad,
this little boy says, dad, I want to be a teacher
when I grow up, you know, and his dad's disappointed,
you know, his dad tells him, you know, son, you know,
like, why don't, why don't you be a doctor?
You know, why, why don't I want to be a doctor, a lawyer?
You know, he's going for all like the wealth-minded, right?
The wealth-minded.
This is what we use to brainwash kids to believe.
And, you know, the kid goes, I want to be a teacher
because I want to inspire kids to become doctors
and lawyers and all that.
I want to create more of them as his dad like,
takes this like humble heartfelt moment of like,
okay, cool, my kid's amazing.
You know, and it appreciates the vision now.
And I remember thinking like, man, that kid's awesome.
I want to be that kid.
I don't want to be that kid.
I don't want to be the doctor.
I want to be the person who helps doctors succeed.
And so we do get a unique opportunity,
but if you were to think about the world and say,
you know what, do we truly need more elementary teachers,
you know, in the world?
The answer is usually a resounding yes.
Everybody says absolutely, right?
Do we need better teachers and education systems
or resounding, you know,
so the same is true for the coaching world.
There's a lot of opportunity there.
So what advice would you give to job seekers today?
Should everybody be an entrepreneur
or is there room for also seeking jobs?
And what things should they gravitate towards
to help them make their decisions about what they do
in this economic collapse, if you will.
We know that some people are facing
or they're in other parts of the world.
How do they position themselves for the best opportunities?
Let's just talk about that where we can give
whoever's listening to this particular segment
some real feedback, real advice
what they should take notes on.
Yeah, yeah, wow.
That's a really great question.
You know, I hire a lot of people over the years
and I find that using,
I often look at people's personality,
personality, you know,
conversationally, but also look at their personality,
you know, personality test.
I look at how, I guess, aggressive.
They are in terms of, you know,
making sure that the communication lines don't break down.
So I guess the last person I hired,
she's our office manager, you know,
really wonderful person, I'm very well-spoken,
et cetera, et cetera.
Interesting thing about her is she wasn't
the most experienced person that applied for the job.
She may not even have the wider skill set of all the people.
But I saw in her characteristics
that made me very confident that I could train her
and make her into the person that we need for the company.
But at the same time, she had a strong enough foundation
and work ethic where I was confident
that she wouldn't get bored, you know, very quickly.
And, you know, she's been with us for about a week now,
a week, week and a half now.
And she's already creating that, creating that value.
So I would say if you're out looking for a job,
I would say first and foremost,
you know, understand where you are.
You know, I look at myself, for example,
and I say, okay, could I go into a company?
Could I go into a corporation and work there?
So like, probably not.
That's probably not gonna be a good environment for me
because, you know, I really need the change.
I like the autonomy, you know, of my work.
I don't like a lot of drama, if you will.
And, you know, I am very driven, you know.
You know, I found there was a short stint
where I did work and I found I was like anxious,
you know, in the car, you know, getting, you know,
tuned from work, cause I'm like,
what else can I be doing?
What else can I be doing?
Now there are other people,
and there's nothing wrong with these roles,
but I mean, there are other people that prefer to say,
hey, you know what, I need to be on a team.
I want to be part of a team and, you know,
that have that team move forward to do something, you know.
And I think that that is very important as well.
I know that we couldn't get where we are as a company
if there weren't a lot of people like that.
You know, if there weren't a lot of people that said,
hey, you know what, I want to be part of a bigger story.
I want to be a part of a bigger vision.
I want to accomplish something.
Now the trouble, personally that,
personally the trouble that I run into is where
I'm looking at people that don't really,
they just want a job, if you will.
You know, they're just coming and saying,
hey, you know what, I want to get a paycheck
every couple of weeks, I'm going to do,
you know, bare minimum, you know,
whatever you tell me to do, and then you're going to pay.
And those types of people,
they tend not to last in our company
because they tend not to have that passion
for doing what we're doing, the level of work that we do.
You know, sometimes it's like, hey, you know,
we need to pull a rabbit out of our hat.
You know, who's going to be, who's going to get on board?
Who's going to be the person that's going to pick up the phone
or step on the stage and make that happen?
And, you know, without, without,
with people like that on the team,
it's almost like carrying an anchor.
So it's say to people that are looking for jobs,
I mean, it's like, you've got to make yourself
indispensable, you know, you've got to be committed,
you know, to the vision of the company that you work before.
The people, you know, some of the other people
I interviewed well, they would say, hey, you know,
I love the vision for your company
because that's something that we put out there.
You know, we let people know where we're going.
And that, again, is inspiring for me.
So, but I think one of the big things,
one of the gaps that I saw in a lot of people's resumes,
they didn't really, I think that the accomplishments
that they listed on their resumes were very transactional.
You know, they had things such as,
I work hard, I'm a team player and stuff like that.
And I'm like, okay, give me something more.
You know, what have you done?
How have you moved an organization or a department
or even yourself forward?
How have you made yourself indispensable,
you know, to the pursuit to your previous employer?
And if I couldn't see that on a resume,
I was just, I simply passed by.
There were 300 and 300 some applicants
to the last role that we filled.
And I think five people got interviewed, you know,
and those five people were, you know, they were great.
And the person that got hired was outstanding.
That's amazing.
And that's supply and demand, right?
So advice to people seeking jobs out there.
The great news is there's an abundance of companies
that are struggling so badly
that you can walk into a restaurant right now
and get hired almost in the spot.
You know, you can walk into a lot of companies
and get hired right in the spot.
And to Rick's point, some of the better companies,
some of the companies that have
much harder qualification processes,
there's always going to be a great demand for work
in those companies.
You know, you don't get hired at Google by chance.
You know, you don't get hired at Harvard by chance.
They don't put them in themselves
in a weak position of need, right?
They take care of their people.
They take care of their customers.
They diversify their brands and their businesses.
And so, you know, you brought up as well
how we feel in the different environments that we're in.
And one of the virtues that you brought up
that I've kind of overlooked
but now appreciate better as you're right,
we would not have StreamYard, for instance,
if the system we're using to broadcast on this,
if there weren't people who wanted to be employees
to build the dream of that visionary, right?
We wouldn't have our own companies
as entrepreneurs, you know, if we didn't have people
who also believed in and supported our dream
and the expansion of what we want to expand.
We wouldn't have our providers like Slack, you know,
probably has a couple hundred employees is my guess,
maybe more, you know, my bank wouldn't operate
without the people who want to be part of that culture.
And just because somebody's more risk adverse
or risk oriented, willing to take risks on
than somebody else doesn't make the people better
than each other.
They're just different and how they do things.
And if we learn to appreciate that, then, you know,
those differences can work together in harmony
to build amazing things.
So let's shift gears on that.
Going back to these entrepreneurs,
and this is huge, Rick, you have amazing insight, you know,
as somebody who's hiring, and I've hired
at a lot of companies too, the pitfalls, right?
Most entrepreneurs only interview one to two applicants
out of one to two applicants.
You know, they might have three to five,
you know, they might have 10, they might be smart
and work with a recruiting firm
that has a better system for that.
But I see so many people, you know, put out a job ad
or they just talk to a friend
and they hire a friend of a friend
and there's ultimately no due diligence in the process.
Hint, hint, anybody who's listening with ears
will let you hear, you know.
But what advice would you give to entrepreneurs?
How do you get 300 applications for those positions?
And yeah, let's teach them entrepreneurs.
How do you go about attracting
and bringing great people in to your organization?
Yeah, that's great.
Interesting, we've been hiring for this position
since January, looking for a solid person since January.
So what we initially did is we used,
we used what we call it an application management system
and the application management system
allowed us to push out the job orders
to a number of different boards.
So there were, I think about 10 or 15 boards.
I think it was about 10 or 15 boards
that we're gonna push your job out to.
I mean, let me back up.
When you say the application software,
as you're talking about,
Monster indeed, you know, Upwork, Fiverr,
places like that where you can find a workforce.
Well, we use a tool called a Zoho recruit.
Zoho recruit with push, push job.
I wasn't gonna make you reveal that,
but I appreciate you sharing it with everybody.
No, it's all good.
We're Zoho team, we have used lots of Zoho,
we support lots of companies with their Zoho needs.
But it's actually a good job description though.
And I bring that up because I remember
I was working with a company I was looking at,
I see key summary of job descriptions
and it was kind of just a list of things
that different people did.
And I said, is this what you're using to recruit?
And I was like, yeah, that's pretty much what we use.
Our job description talks about our company,
who we are and what our vision is and where we're going.
And then we have a very specific list of things
or capabilities that we need from someone
and we have a list of education and that sort of thing.
So I mean, it's not, yeah, I kind of take that for granted,
but I realized that that's not always the case.
So anyway, we get the application, put it out there.
You know, we start getting applicants
and start reviewing those applications
pretty much right away
because they pile up quickly
and there's nothing fun about going
through a hundred applications at one time.
And so we go through and I'm looking for,
again, I'm looking for the same sort of criteria.
So I'm looking at skills, I'm looking at their passion,
even how they're formatting their resume.
Someone comes to me and brings a resume
that that spelling mistakes is like just done
like really, really poorly.
I'm not even gonna look at that resume twice.
That's not a person that cares enough
to especially be in an office manager
to be able to do that very, very well.
So once we get, once we screen all of the applicants,
then we do the initial interview.
So I'll go and I'll talk to them,
you'll find out a little bit about them, who they are,
et cetera, et cetera.
After that, we do a, I guess a personality survey
or not a bit of a survey includes a personality test.
So we learn a little bit more about them,
what their interests are, if they're still a good fit
then they'll do what we call a culture fit interview.
Culture fit interviews where we're looking to see
if they would fit well in our, fit well in our company.
There have been a lot of people
that are really, really talented
that just didn't have the right personality,
wouldn't work well, we didn't feel it would work well
with our team, which was, it was unfortunate,
but these things are gonna happen
and I'm sure they don't work over other places.
And then finally we do a skills interview
or a skills interview where we're actually trying
to find out if they actually have the skills
that they talk about.
We'll make a job offer at that point
and then if they accept it then they become part of the team.
I love it.
Thank you for sharing all the details.
You're an entrepreneur and you're listening to that,
like seriously take some notes
because you just didn't,
you don't recruit the LeBron James's of the world haphazardly.
It doesn't happen.
You've gotta have a combine,
you've gotta have a system in place
to evaluate the type of person they're gonna be.
Somebody can have all the talents in the world too
and be a horrible fit for a team.
And they could have certain expectations
or desires of your company,
maybe your company is a horrible fit for them.
There's a lot of angles that should be evaluated
in that process and I appreciate you going through that.
You've got on your website as well,
the featured job positions once you have them,
a place where people can go and see that.
Now, I brought up Converge.
You can go back to the recording and look at this
and they don't have that on that version
of their, on that company.
Now, one thing is also true in the world of job seeking.
Not every entrepreneur, not every website's proposing
the idea that they're hiring,
but it doesn't mean they're not hiring either, right?
That's, I learned from a car dealer a long time ago
as a mentor of mine, he said,
car dealers that are successful
never have were hiring signs,
for their sales positions.
In order to get on a team at an advanced car dealership,
you walk in the door,
you let them know how amazing you are at selling
by showing that in the way you present yourself
and you earn your spot on the team.
You have absolutely no fear to talk to somebody
and earn your spot.
Well, that's true for a lot of opportunities in life.
It's not necessarily possible for Elon Musk
to find another Elon Musk, right?
It's not necessarily something where you're like,
oh, you know what, my name's Jeff Bezos.
I'm gonna go see if I can find another Jeff Bezos,
you know, who work alongside me.
Now, those relationships happen much more naturally
and organically.
So as you climb the executive ladder
and move towards the more important job roles,
they may not be doing their hiring process
the way that Rick talked to us about.
And you may have an awesome opportunity there,
but again, make sure you know your red flags as well,
about what's good, about the company,
what things or signs that the company might not work out too
well, do your research, do your homework,
look on Google and find articles that say like the seven tips,
you know, seven things to watch out for,
you know, when you're interviewing for a job.
There's so many resources that are fingertips
if we're willing to look for those resources
or reach out to Rick, you know, and give him a call
or reach out to him on LinkedIn or Facebook
or somewhere else and see if he's willing to mentor you
through the process.
And you'll often be pleasantly surprised
how available people are willing to be
when you come forward with a genuine question, you know,
and you're authentic about what your desire is.
Let's see, Cynthia says, hey, Rick,
it's a pleasure, what message would you give
to the new entrepreneurs who take the path
of betting on their vision.
I like this, let's shift gears fully.
So you got new entrepreneurs out there,
maybe people who've been in it five, 10 years
and still, you know, still trying to figure out
how to get that light on a hilltop, so to speak,
how to get their victory and help the world see their value.
What do you got, Rick?
What message, what advice would you give them?
You know, hey, Cynthia, thanks for the question.
I know for me, you know, my vision is really
what sustains me, you know, because the path that we take,
the journey that we take is not a short sprint,
it's not something where, you know, we'll do what we do
for, you know, six months a year, whatever,
and then suddenly, you know, we're there, you know,
chasing a vision is sometimes like chasing a horizon,
you know, and it's always got to stay in front of you,
it's always got to be that thing
that's going to rebround you.
You know, I look at, you know, those tough times
that we have to go to, you know, it's like,
sometimes you just really, really want to quit,
sometimes you just really want to lay down and say,
you know, this isn't worth it.
But if your vision is strong enough,
your vision is powerful enough,
if your vision is something that is going to fulfill you,
if your vision is something that if you don't do,
you're going to look back when you regret,
you know, you've got something to work for,
and I would always, always encourage you
to keep that vision in front of you.
When everything is bad, look up, say,
okay, this is my vision, this is where we're going,
let me just focus on this for now, you know,
we'll take one step at a time,
and then eventually we'll get there.
And that's how I've done what I've done for 18 years,
because, you know, I've been through, you know,
economic downturn, I've been through employees quit
and everything, I've been through, I've been through a lot,
but, you know, knowing where I'm going has always enabled me
to, you know, refocus and continue on the path.
Dude, I love your advice.
On both sides of that angle,
I'm going to flip both sides of the coin.
The first one, you know, if you don't feel like
you're going to regret it if you quit, you know,
if you're like, I can give this up,
and he said, don't do it.
Like, don't do it, watch out.
Oh, you know, you're in for a very tough battle.
On the flip side, if you're going to regret it,
why do you want to live with that?
You know, go for it, you know, give your heart
and soul to that, stand, you know, inside the fire,
so to speak, thank you, Garth Brooks.
You know, it's super important.
And then Jaime says here, he brings up a good note,
you know, hey guys, what are your thoughts
on using disk assessment as part
of the qualification process for candidates?
We don't have too much time,
so I'm going to ramble my side of this.
There's so many important assessments out there.
There's great assessments from Strengths Finder 2.0,
to disk, to Myers-Briggs, to the Passions Pro assessment,
which is what I use, you know, and I built it.
So I have a certain partial bias towards using that.
And then I've modeled certain funnels, you know,
people who are hiring and have been
through their hiring process or have studied them,
and like, I want my hiring process
to look like that company,
because I want my people to act like people at that company.
And there's not just one, there's many
that I've gone through and seen, all right,
how are they doing their hiring?
What types of questions do they ask?
When you see an article like,
why does Elon Musk ask this question to every candidate?
That lasers into my brain, you know, and I'm like,
okay, I need to learn this question,
and you learn why he asks it,
and you learn some cool truths.
Rick, do you have any specific assessments
that you abide by, in addition to your process,
or that are part of that, or is your process,
you know, ultimately what helps you assess?
You know, we actually go back to that,
we use, what is it called, Reason Myers-Briggs, actually.
And the reason that we use it,
is because it's something that I will use
when I'm communicating with my team.
I'm like, oh, this person is this,
and I have to communicate a certain way.
So the personality test that you use
has to be something that's gonna connect with you,
regardless of what it is that you're gonna use.
Don't just make it a tool,
or don't just use it for the sake of using it,
but use it as your tool to lead your team.
And I've seen most entrepreneurs
not practice the diligence with it to make that happen.
And that is the sad thing,
is like if you're gonna implement the quiz,
or the assessment, just implement the assessment,
you know, you're not really going to get a lot out of it.
The person who takes it, well, which is great.
So it's like StrengthsFinder 2.0.
We aren't actually using StrengthsFinder 2.0
as a company yet.
We will get there, where we put it into our package.
But one of the other realities there,
Jaime, and other executive leaders out there,
is that you can also utilize it,
and it gives you superpowers,
you may not know how to utilize, right?
Then you end up manipulating the relationship,
because you're using the tactics that are associated with it.
That's why Myers-Briggs, Disc,
and StrengthsFinder and other platforms,
they usually have certified coaches
that distribute and deliver those on your behalf.
So you don't accidentally try to read
into what it is you haven't fully learned about.
You're not an expert on it.
So just because I learned somebody has a flight personality,
doesn't make me the automatic magic wizard
of talking to people who are flight-oriented.
There's...
Excuse me.
There are very important realities about that
that expand beyond most entrepreneurs' capabilities
as a single entity.
And so we've got to be careful to have other people
help us assess and help us pull what's great
and what's harmonious
with these different assessment tools and opportunities.
So Rick, we absolutely appreciate you coming on,
sharing your vision.
We love what you do at Epiphany for Small Business Consulting.
As a final plug on that, everybody,
when our clients get to a certain level,
the ones who are going through our power launch process,
Rick is my foremost person to go to
for all things expansion and scale.
He's got just incredible business consulting knowledge
for companies that have...
Remind me of the entry-level mark on that, Rick,
is it 500,000?
Yeah, 500,000 or more.
He does an excellent job of putting amazing proposals
together for businesses and scope of works.
And he's got a fantastic heart.
He's got a huge vision for what he's put out into the world.
Rick, is there anything...
And you've got a great podcast too,
and off the cuff that I got to go on
and it's amazing podcast.
I highly recommend following Rick on all that he's doing.
Rick, where would you send people today?
If they wanted to get in touch with you
or they wanted to learn more,
where's the best place to connect
and what's the best resource to look at?
I guess there's two ways.
I mean, you can always find me on LinkedIn.
I'm probably the only Rick Meekins out there.
That's who I am, Atlanta.
Be good at our website, of course.
You can go to coffeeandaconsult.com
and that'll take you directly to our page.
You fill out that form and you can get in touch with us
that way.
We've got an appointment and we can get started.
That's awesome.
Let me drop that link in there real quick.
Post a comment.
Bam, coffeeandaconsult.com,
which translated to this website right here.
I'll throw it up there so you can see it.
And that's a great way to get in touch with Rick.
Rick, thanks for being a superhero to me.
A fantastic friend and all you Vision Pros.
Thanks for tuning in.
Please let us know in the comments.
If there's anything that you'd like to contribute
to the show, if you'd like to be on the show,
we'd love to have you.
Everybody have a fantastic week.
Thanks, Jackson.
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.
We optimize them as the months go by.
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.
And have a great week.