SPEAKER_01 0:00

If they utilize that to gain time and then they utilize that time to invest in those relationships, we have an opportunity to rehumanize in a way that we haven't been able to as well.

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Welcome to the day one list, the podcast about who you call first and how you earn that position. This show is for anyone who wants to become that person people trust enough to call first. This is the day one list.

SPEAKER_02 0:23

Welcome to the day one list, a podcast about who you can call first and how you earn that position. I'm your host, Hunter Schwenky, alongside co-host Andrew Morgan. Andrew, how you doing? Hey, how you doing today? Doing good. You have a good weekend? I did. I did. How was yours? It was good. Um was able to surf last weekend, which was fun at the Worgan Coast. Okay. Um, and then just hanging out with family, had a uh birthday up in Salem, so did that and just hang out with family.

SPEAKER_03 0:49

So surfing and and and golfing. So what's next? I mean, like it I don't know. All right. I gotta figure out another hobby to figure out, but I'm excited. I'm excited about today's guest. Yeah because you know, as an entrepreneur, I love when we have um entrepreneurs, so I'm super excited about today's guests.

SPEAKER_02 1:06

And today's guest is Eric Gregg. Eric, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. Appreciate it. Glad to be here. If you don't know uh who Eric is, he's actually the founder of Clearly Rated, and formerly known as Inovaro. Um he's an entrepreneur, business leader, and relationship builder. Clearly Rated helps companies measure how people their customers and employees are. They actually understand what's going well and poorly, and then they use that information to improve the business. In today's conversation, we're going to talk about entrepreneurship, trusted relationships, customer feedback, and how one business relationship can change everything. For those who are meeting you for the first time, tell us a little bit about yourself, Eric.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

Thank you. Uh I'm thrilled to be here and uh love love to talk business and entrepreneurship. And so um, yeah, my background uh was in analytics. I grew up in Montana, um, grew up in an entrepreneurial family. So you talk, you know, there's always somebody that lights that entrepreneurial spark. And for me, my both my parents had uh ran their own businesses. And so I always kind of knew that growing growing up and um and started a business in college and liked having that uh autonomy and liked how it made me feel. And so I went to grad school uh in Virginia um and uh came back out here to Portland, started the business uh gosh in 2003, so 23 years ago, and uh I started with $10,000 and told my wife that when I ran out of money, I would get a real job and knock on wood. Uh I haven't ran out of that $10,000 yet. Um, and so I continue to work in the business today.

SPEAKER_02 2:40

I know, yeah, many people know you as clear rated today, but when you first started the company, it was called Innovaro.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

Oh my gosh. Yeah, even before that. I started it as acuity market research, um, and that was a terrible one. Uh, and then uh everything was you know e. It went through that time in the early 2000s when every business was e this and e that. And so I said, no, I'm gonna go I, like information loyalty. So I went I loyalty. And the company uh called eLoyalty said, hey, that's a little close to us, you're gonna have to change that. So I went to Innovero, thought I'm never gonna change my name again, right? Completely made up word. Uh, you know, that what I told people was it was, you know, the the mashup of uh you know information and truth, Vero is truth, and uh so truth and information. Truth is I just didn't want to change the name again. Uh and then uh we were that for like a decade and then uh convinced, you know, as the business changed and we started to go not just from measuring satisfaction, but from actually helping people promote that um uh with uh you know a profile page and and star ratings and testimonials, uh, that we needed to have a name that really aligned with that. And so we went to Clearly Rated.

SPEAKER_02 3:50

I mean, what inspired you to start a business like this?

SPEAKER_01 3:53

You know, uh I I I had started, you know, I grew up with entrepreneurial family. Um, and then when I was in high school, I I was big into uh car stereos. So I started a car stereo business, selling car stereos to my friends. Uh and then when I went to um undergrad, uh I had a mobile DJing business. And so uh I made money DJing on the nights and weekends. And so I just always kind of knew that uh came out, uh, was fortunate enough. You know, you talk about day one list. I was fortunate enough. I I got my first job because of a marketing professor that I was close with. And that job didn't work out, but I said, hey, I I can't stay at this job, but I would love to just, you know, work with you more. And so we started North Star Consulting Group. Um, and I was in that business until they kind of kicked me out and said, Hey, we want you to go get your MBA. And so I went and got my MBA and and then we wanted to come out here and so I started that business. Um, and so it was never I didn't have one of those great entrepreneurial stories where it was like, you know, somebody was wronged by a staffing firm, and so I wanted to measure satisfaction and and publish the best staffing firms out there. It wasn't really that so much as it just uh was I was really interested in feedback and I was really interested in analytics and how that could really change a business, and uh and that just kind of morphed into the business that we have today. I mean, did you always like wanted to be like an entrepreneur or yeah, I I think yeah, it was interesting because when you grow up, and I'd be curious, you know, you as another entrepreneur, I'd be curious your story, but you kind of just grow up knowing what you know. And if you are fortunate enough to grow up with, you know, a family that that has started their business, it just is a much more viable path where you just think about it more naturally. And so um I I did really enjoy like what that felt like to be able to have some autonomy, to be able to call my own shots and and to be able to like really build something, right? Uh that that's the part that I think I love the most. And so I if if I go back and I look at it, it wasn't ever intentional in the sense that I always knew I was gonna do that. But by the time I went to grad school, I knew I was probably not gonna take a job for a big corporation or anything. I knew I was gonna do something small.

SPEAKER_03 6:05

Right. One of the interesting things about being an entrepreneur is that it's always contextualized to like your interests. Like you say you were a mobile DJ at one point. You ever uh think about dusting them off, uh dusting off the ones and twos and getting back out there again?

SPEAKER_01 6:19

Oh man, I'll tell you what, I was the most mediocre mobile DJ you've ever seen in your life. But the thing is, is that in Montana, at least at that point, you know, if you showed up with sleeves and a collar, you were the most professional mobile DJ in three counties, right? And so it I didn't have to be good to be exceptional in that market. Um, and I think that that was one of the first lessons that I took was that if you can figure out a market where you can go in and and really bring some sophistication and some differentiation that doesn't exist in that market, man, that's a huge, you know, huge benefit. But in terms of my actual skills as a DJ, radio, uh uh nightclub or mobile, mediocre at best. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:04

So how do you feel? Let me add this along the same lines. As technology is progressing, and now we have AI and you know integrated into a lot of different things. Where do you see, do you see yourself possibly evolving even more in this entrepreneur market that you're in? Like, is that changing who you are?

SPEAKER_01 7:21

Yeah, it it's really interesting because I I think you you can go, we could spend the whole podcast just talking about this. Um, but but what I will say is that the AI revolution, whatever it is, is is ultimately just shortening the path between ideas and prototypes, right? You can't scale, at least where I work in the software side of it, you can't scale a piece of software generated with code from AI fully, right? But you can prototype really, really quickly. And so it's pretty fascinating as somebody that really likes to create. You know, there's a whole list of problems that I have always wanted to solve with our software that felt too expensive or too far out, or there was too much of a you know tail or edge case, right? And so you didn't have the ability to really justify the investment that it would take. And and now you can do a lot of this stuff and you can kind of get to a minimally viable kind of product and test it out in the market way quicker. So for me, that rapid prototyping is the most exciting aspect of it.

SPEAKER_02 8:29

Yeah, well, okay, let's go to their first segment of the day one decision. Um, I know Express kind of came like your very first staffing client. Yeah. And just kind of take us back to that meeting. Uh what do you like remember the most out of it?

SPEAKER_01 8:43

Yeah, so um and you know, you said it best, right? Where where every entrepreneurial story is contextualized, it also has a handful of people that believed before anybody else did, maybe even before the entrepreneur did. Um, and for me, you know, uh Mike Riley and Doug Fletcher, my first partners, fell into that camp, right? They they made me a partner in a business when I was 24 years old and I had no business being a partner, right? Um, and that was great, and that gave me a lot of confidence. And then when I I came out and I started what eventually became clearly rated, um, the opportunity arose. Um, and you know, through a relationship that I had built uh through the American Marketing Association, uh, I got an introduction and an opportunity to do a client feedback uh uh study for Express and for a handful of the branches here uh locally. And uh when I did that, um I remember distinctly, you know, the the results came in. We were really proud of the value that we added. And uh they said, Well, why don't you meet with Bill Stoller? And it's like, oh my gosh, you know, I was 28 years old at the time. And so now I'm in front of Bill Stoller and I'm sharing, hey, here's what we're seeing, here's the strengths of this office, here's some things that they need to work on. Here's some company, you know, some clients of yours that are at risk, and here's some that you should be expanding. And I get done with it, and I'll never forget this. He's like, Wow, this is great. You should be doing this for the whole industry. And and that was profound to me because most people in that space, if they thought that they just got a lot of value and a competitive advantage, they would say, Hey, this is great. Don't do this for any of my competitors. Right. And and because he said that and he sat on the the board of the American Staffing Association, I saw that as an opportunity. I said, Oh, maybe we should be looking at the staffing space. And and he really was the one that shepherded me into that relationship with the American Staffing Association, which really was transformational to our business.

SPEAKER_02 10:39

I mean, I know just earning that first client kind of means a lot. I mean to anybody like doing sales or just someone that's doing like entrepreneurship for the first time. Um, what was just like the excitement that you had or just what was going through your head?

SPEAKER_01 10:53

It was unbelievable because I before that, um, I I had come to a couple points where I was just even questioning whether I wanted to continue with the business or maybe go work for somebody else because you know, entrepreneurship can be a lonely endeavor as well, especially early days when you're kind of, you know, maybe one or two people uh and you you haven't kind of found that that fit yet. Um and so for me, it you know, the excitement of having somebody of of Bill's caliber, you know, not just from a business standpoint, but just from a uh a human, you just you know, he just emanated uh really solid individual and a lot to aspire to, and to have him really kind of believe in it and say, hey, take a look at this market, right? There's a need in this market. All of a sudden it just felt like, oh, you know what, this business actually has something to run towards. And and you know, from there we, you know, really developed the relationship with the American Staffing Association, and that allowed us to to really get this megaphone into that industry uh in a way that you know that that wasn't there before. And and I think it also underpinned something that I've I've taken at every step since then, which is you have to specialize. Like as an entrepreneur, what we want to do is say, hey, I can work with you, I can work with you, I can work with you, whatever. You have a problem, I can solve it. Um, but it's so much better to be like, okay, we are built specifically for the staffing industry, and we know this space and we know how to serve this, and we know we have more data that nobody else has, and and that approach. And so I I just think that that specialization is a big deal too.

SPEAKER_02 12:25

I know you've been partnering with Express for about over 20 years now, right? Yeah. Uh what kind of makes that relationship like still together and kind of work with you guys so well?

SPEAKER_01 12:36

I think the culture at Express has always been a mutually uh beneficial partnership, is the approach. Um and and I I wonder often if that stems from that franchise model, um, because the franchise model works really well because you have a bunch of entrepreneurially minded people at your individual locations. Um and also there has to be a give and take and a partnership. Um, you know, the franchise or has to be successful or it doesn't work, and the franchisees have to be successful or it doesn't work. And so that has always felt like that approach where you know we've done things where we could have charged more or we could have maybe done less than because it wasn't stipulated in the contract because of that relationship. And I feel like that's been reciprocated really well as well. And even the the latest evolution where we've really over the last two years really revamped um the client experience program and really made it um you know foundational and core uh at Express from a measurement standpoint, you know, that was an absolute partnership from start to finish. We meet weekly.

SPEAKER_02 13:45

I mean, did you have any idea that one conversation would grow what it is right now then?

SPEAKER_01 13:51

You never know. That's the thing, is and and that that's why you have to be out there and you have to be, you know, building relationships. Um and I think you also have to be willing to invest in a relationship where it's not obvious that what you're going to get from that relationship, right? Um, one of the best pieces of advice I ever got early in my career was to start doing the job that you hope that they'll eventually pay you for. And so if you think about that from a consulting standpoint, that means that, you know, if I'm meeting with you, I'm going in trying to make, if you spend a half hour with me, I'm hoping even if we never work together and you never actually, you know, pay me for that uh, you know, for for further work, that you've actually still gotten value as though I was a consultant that was being paid.

SPEAKER_03 14:37

You know, I I noticed that like your potential was able, you were able to your potential good was able to become more potent because of the opportunity they gave you. But you have these relationships. Um what's more valuable for you there? I just want your thoughts on like, was it the relationship or the opportunity?

SPEAKER_01 14:58

Yeah, I I it's hard. Um, it's hard to to not link the two, right? Um, but I I would say the relationship in that regard, because opportunities don't come without a relationship. You know, people do not refer companies, they refer individuals. And people do not refer individuals that they don't like, and they can't like you if they don't know you. And so uh, you know, using the example with Bill again, like Bill and I got to know each other and we got to um care about things outside of Express or Clearly Rated Um genuinely, right? Not a not a surface level, but um I invested in that relationship, he invested in that relationship, and and really that was a lot of what created his the next level piece of him just you know wanting to make introductions. We would go to staffing events and and uh he and Kathy would you know hold a spot like uh there'd be a table full of staffing executives and there'd be one seat next to Bill, and he'd usher me in and say, No, you guys sit here because I want you to meet these people. I mean, man, you know having somebody like that in in your corner at when you're 28 and your business has four people working at it. I mean, that's that is next level. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:21

Okay, well, let's go on to our next segment. It's called hired or fired. It's kind of fun. Um, it's something that kind of changes the um just like the seriousness of it. So I'm gonna ask you a question and you're gonna answer if it's gonna be a hired person or a fired person. Okay. Um, first one is making business decisions based only on survey scores.

SPEAKER_01 16:42

Uh fired. Uh survey scores is a a piece of feedback, um, and the score shouldn't matter as much as the feedback. I always tell people I don't care what your score is, I care what you do with it and and where you go with it. Um, and I think that that's a an important distinction um for people on that. And even really mature programs, uh, the score only tells you part of it, right? Um, you you need that, you know, that the managerial uh decision making, you need all the other pieces of that as well. So never never make decisions solely on survey feedback. What about asking customers for honest feedback? Hired. Absolutely. Yeah. Uh the reality is that uh customers, uh especially in professional services, um, staffing, recruiting, accounting, legal, architecture, engineering, all of those spaces, like these are relationships, right? These are mutually beneficial, strong relationships. Um, and so the idea that you wouldn't ask for feedback, you know, that the fact that I get asked uh for feedback more often uh when I go into the restaurant and order a soup than I do when I actually engage with my accounting firm is asinine, right? It doesn't make any sense. All right, what about ignoring negative reviews? Uh that's a fired. Uh you absolutely want to engage with that. Um it just sends a signal that you don't really care, right? Um and and the and the the best thing to do with a negative review, honestly, is to surround it with a dozen positive reviews. And so people tell me, like, well, what should I do if I get a negative review? We only have five reviews. Well, that's the problem, right? You you need to actually be building uh a process that gets good feedback and then amplifies the positive aspects of that whenever you can, uh, because somebody's gonna blow you up online. It's just gonna happen, right? It's not always fair, uh, but it's gonna happen. And the best way to combat that is to have 45, five-star ratings. So when that you know, one-star rating comes in, it's just a little bit of noise. Right.

SPEAKER_02 18:39

What about treating customer feedback as a relationship instead of a report card?

SPEAKER_01 18:43

Oh, 100% relationship. I I would uh hire that person for sure. Um, that's kind of the biggest mistake that we see people making with feedback is they they view it as, okay, I want to ask how I did. And I just want to see what that score is, I want to trend it, I want to contextualize it. But the fact of the matter is, is that really when you do it well, the whole process actually elevates that client experience, right? The mere fact that I ask you for feedback tells you that I care about our relationship. And when I do that, that elevates that up, right? Regardless of what that feedback is. And so now when we take that next step and and we're actually um, you know, really kind of driving this in in a positive way, um, that's where we really have the business impact.

SPEAKER_02 19:27

I'll ask you last one here. Is AI replacing human relationships.

SPEAKER_01 19:31

Now, fired for sure. Um the the thing I will say on this is that AI um could dehumanize or rehumanize uh staffing and recruiting specifically, but but business relationships dramatically, and it depends on how companies use it, right? If they utilize AI to add more value, to be more productive and to create more space, uh, if they just use that to then do more of the same, it's gonna dehumanize those relationships and it's gonna commoditize those relationships, and ultimately uh it's going to be a negative outcome. But if they utilize that to gain time and then they utilize that time to invest in those relationships, we have an opportunity to rehumanize in a way that we haven't been able to as well, right? Because we're able to deliver more value in less time, which opens us up to really help contextualize on those corner cases.

SPEAKER_03 20:26

Yeah, earlier you had mentioned uh we were talking about reviews. Uh a quick question. I think I know what the answer is gonna be. What about uh a person who's choosing to cheat on the reviews? Uh such as bringing in even friends or bots.

SPEAKER_01 20:39

Yeah, well, uh technically it's illegal. Um, it is uh it falls under the uh consumer protection pieces of this, and they've started to actually uh hammer a little bit on the edges of this um with some pretty big fines. Um and and the the fact of the matter is is that um as consumers of reviews, uh people have gotten much smarter, right? If they go on and they see 10 reviews and it's all five stars, like you're actually better off to have 50 reviews and a 4.6 or a 4.2 or 4.3 because people believe it. Um and so that it's harder and harder to game it effectively because people can sniff it out a little bit better. Uh, but the the the way to approach it is you know, the only sustainable way is to deliver exceptional service and and be consistently remarkable in your service delivery. And if you do that, then you don't have to game it, right? You don't have to bring in friends because you're gonna have strong ratings on that side.

SPEAKER_03 21:38

Our next segment is uh who's on your day one list. Uh so this is one of my favorite segments. I get excited about this. But first, I have to ask you uh, how do you define a day one relationship?

SPEAKER_01 21:50

Yeah, a day one relationship to me, and and part of what I love uh with the focus of of this podcast is I think that we probably oftentimes take for granted. Granted, the people on our day one list, and we don't actually give enough thought to how important that that that group of people are to us. But to me, the day one list is simply the people that I I trust that I'm willing to be vulnerable with, um, that I genuinely want to see them succeed, and I know that they want to see me succeed. Um, and and that to me is, you know, it's not just a business relationship. It's not the person that can give me the most opportunities. It is, you know, really embedded in trust. Um, it's really embedded in in depth. Um, that they know me beyond surface level. I know them beyond surface level.

SPEAKER_03 22:40

Yeah. What are some of the qualities that you you're finding in those relationships?

SPEAKER_01 22:44

Uh uh ability to be vulnerable. Um, I I find that that's one of the things that is hardest to find is somebody that's really willing to be like, oh man, it's not going that great right now. Like we're really struggling. Um, you know, we haven't done a good job with X, Y, and Z. And and uh that that ability to be vulnerable. If somebody's not uh willing to be vulnerable, it's it's really difficult to get on my day one list, right? Because I I just I can never get deep enough with you to where I have that kind of trust. Um and trust is the second piece of this. Uh honesty, right? Um, candor, I think is a big piece, kindness, right? I don't need somebody on my day one list. You know, if I'm doing something stupid, I don't need somebody that's gonna, you know, gaslight me like the AI tools. Oh, that's a great idea. Wow, what a way to go. Uh, but I also don't need somebody that's gonna be like, what are you doing? This is stupid, right? I need somebody that can kind of walk that middle ground. And I and I think everybody has probably slightly different things that they want out of that somebody on that day one list. But for me, those are the things that are important.

SPEAKER_02 23:48

I know when you started kind of just early in your career, who was that person that like was on your day one list?

SPEAKER_01 23:54

Yeah. I I mean at the very earliest stage, it was my mom and dad. Um, you know, they were they were very good about um allowing me to be you know a stupid teenager at times, um, and you know, knowing where to put the guardrails and where to take them away. Um, and then really at each stage in my in my career, um, I've had you know an amazing day one list. Um and so early in my career when I first you know met my wife and married my wife, um, you know, she is and remains probably at the top of that day one list. Um and I you don't even again, you kind of can kind of take it for granted, but there's so many partners that are uncomfortable with the path that I took, right? Where I actively turned down, you know, uh I turned down coming out of grad school a job that would have paid me in my first year what I never made as an entrepreneur until my tenth year. Uh and and there's a lot of partners that would have questioned that, like, are you sure you don't want that job? Like it's you know, full pay, uh benefits, all these different things. Um, and and so that was uh a big piece of it. You know, I've talked a lot about Bill. He certainly uh was on that. Uh Jenny McCollum was on that uh list for me and and remains on that list. Um we have uh I I had a great business partner, uh Nathan Goff, that I brought on to the business in 2008, and he became a partner uh certainly on the day one list there. And then I when I actually took investment, I took investment from uh four staffing executives. Um and I mean talk about you know the the best board and the best investors you could ever hope for. Um they just were so supportive. I uh about a year after taking money from them, I had to sit at a board meeting and tell them that I didn't think I was gonna make payroll. Uh and man, I was dragging, I I didn't sleep the night before. I was dragging myself through the glass and and they just look at me and they go, Yeah, we're all entrepreneurs. We've all almost ran out of money. Like, how much do you need? And I'm like, Well, like more than you think. And they're like, How much do you need? It's like $250,000. Otherwise, we're probably like not going to get back into a cash flow positive position for like three or four months. Like, great, wrote a check that day, bail me, you know, and so you just when you have people that are willing to bet on you like that, it's it really um gives you a safety net. It's like a motivation too. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I did not want to let them down. Right. I did not want to let them down, right?

SPEAKER_02 26:22

Um, okay, so like what are the lessons from those relationships kind of still influence you like today?

SPEAKER_01 26:28

The biggest thing is to be generous with your time um and and to recognize that the the best thing that you can do for somebody that that is really working to kind of create an opportunity is to to give them time if they if they're asking for time. Um that's yeah, one of the things that Bill was always so good about. I I was always amazed that I could text him and he would text me back within you know four or five hours. And yet I have, you know, I would I would be doing work actively in projects with other executives and they would ignore emails for a week, you know. And so I try to be really responsive. I try to be really respectful of people's time. Um, and and I just, you know, it's kind of that golden rule piece, right? So what what can I do that might actually make an impact? Because we never realize, you know, I I promise you that you know he didn't think, or Mike and Doug at the time, like they weren't saying, hey, let's do this so that we can launch Eric's career. Let's do this because Eric needs a little bit of confidence boost. They they did it because they felt like it was the right thing to do. Um and in in the moment, unbeknownst to them, they they created an opportunity that was an absolute pivot point in my career in my life.

SPEAKER_02 27:44

With all those kind of people on your day one list, um, do you have like something like in common? Have all those in common?

SPEAKER_01 27:50

Or uh I I think the the biggest thing that I would say is in common with with each of those um is that they are that they're believers, they're optimists. Um and you know, when you come in, you know, they they they feel like whatever problem exists, there's a solution to it. And um I I think the other piece of that that I would say on there too is I've I've always enjoyed having a diversity of thought in that list. Um I I try to have um you know, as a as a white male, you are gonna find yourself surrounded by white males unless you actively try to, you know, to make sure that you have diverse thoughts and you know, gender and background and culture and race, ethnicity, all of those different aspects. And you just learn so much when you have a diversity of thoughts in the group of people that you're talking to. And so I really try to foster that piece as well. Awesome.

SPEAKER_02 28:45

Well, as we kind of go on to our last segments, the day one challenge, yeah, it kind of gives the viewers, maybe like other entrepreneurs or just um other people that are listening, kind of like some things that they can do on their own. Um, what's one relationship habit every business leader should practice?

SPEAKER_01 29:02

I I think uh probably the biggest thing um that I would say on this is to put yourself in situations with groups where you practice being vulnerable. Um I I it's maybe the skill that I see least frequently amongst entrepreneurs. Um and part of it is like if you're leading a business, you you feel like, and I think this is wrong, but we tend to feel like, hey, everybody needs to look to us for strength. And so we need to tell them everything's okay. Um, and probably the most effective times I I've had as a leader were the times when I was willing to be vulnerable, when I was willing to ask for help, when I was willing to say, like, I I'm a little scared right now, but we'll I think we'll get through it because of this, this, and this. But yeah, this makes me nervous, right? Um, and and I just think that that's a skill that we all should be working more on.

SPEAKER_02 29:54

Um, what's one thing someone can do this week to earn more trust?

SPEAKER_01 30:00

Uh I think that the to earn more trust, um, you have to extend more trust, right? Um, and and I think that that's part of that vulnerability. Um, but you know, do something that's clearly not in your best interest, right? If you have never told, like those of us that are customer-facing, if you haven't sat across from a customer when they were ready to write you a check and said, you know what, I honestly, like I would love to do this project for you. I don't think we're the best fit for it. Um, and uh and and I really want to work with you. This is not the project. I would rather have you go get somebody that's really good at this, um, and I'll be here when the next time. Man, that that is you want to talk about earning trust. Like when somebody's willing to send you money and you say, No, I'm not the right choice for you, that's pretty powerful. And then the next time when when there is something that is a good fit and you tell them, like, yes, I can kill it on this, like, this is the type of thing that I'm really good at, you're gonna have just a uh a lot of credibility.

SPEAKER_02 31:02

So if every if anyone was listening um and remembered only one lesson from today's conversation, what would you hope it would be?

SPEAKER_01 31:09

I I would hope it would be um about allowing your personality to come through. Um I I think this is another thing that we get wrong in, you know, especially in business school education, right? We talk about you know professional communication and we talk about all these things and and and really we confuse that for boring communication, right? Um and and so one of the things that is really easy to do that I try to encourage myself to do and any of of my team to do is we're emailing back and forth all the time. And and I try to tell them like at least once a week, put something personal in there about your weekend, about something coming up, and then ask them something personal as well. And I'll tell you a story on this. We had a a guy um who was on our analytics team and and he was working uh at the time he was 25 years old, and he was working with a gal and out of Portland, Oregon, he was working with a gal on the East Coast, and she was near retirement, 64 years old. And on the face, you would have thought they had nothing in common. And he sent her a note and he he put in a couple sentences about his passion, which was hot rods, right? Uh and he was fixing hot rods in his uh garage and he said, Hey, I hope you had a great weekend. Uh I actually got a little bit of time, you know, wrenching in the garage on the hot rod and uh made some progress. Um, I attached a photo, you can see where it's going. And she responds back and she goes, Oh my God. She's like, I can't believe uh that you're doing that. She's like, My dad passed away just a little while ago and uh he left a 67 Chevelle that my husband and I really want to like reef you know restore in his honor, but we don't really know what we're doing. And he's like, Oh, so he leaned in, sent her a whole list of online places that could get you know hard to find parts and some of the things on that. And they built this amazing relationship that never would have happened if he hadn't done that. And so I just encourage people to to share a little bit about yourself. Don't try to, you know, I I don't want to be sitting here trying to figure out, oh, you know, Hunter said he's into surfing. I'm gonna pretend like I'm into surfing too, right? When I I barely have the balance to make it down the stairs, much less to sand on a surfboard uh you know in the ocean. Uh, but but there are things that I'm passionate about, and sharing passion points is a connecting point, even if you know it's not the same passion points.

SPEAKER_03 33:31

Yeah, I love that. You know, I I got I got a question for you. How are you paying, like paying it forward? How are you giving back?

SPEAKER_01 33:38

Yeah. Uh I I think the time piece of it is is a big part of it. I try to be really, really open for other entrepreneurs, uh, just recognizing that there are a million reasons not to start your own business. And if if you can help light a little bit of fire, a little bit of confidence for somebody as to one of the reasons why they should, um, I just think that that's a really powerful thing. I just think as a as a society, we need more people thinking entrepreneurially minded, even if that means that they're they're just acting as owners within an organization and and they're problem solvers instead of problem identifiers. And so anytime I find somebody that seems to kind of have that that passion, I really try to give time there.

SPEAKER_02 34:22

Well, as we close, I always have a day one challenge for the listeners too. Um if you can have that conversation where your only goal is to listen, um, make sure you ask thoughtful questions, uh, seek that honest feedback and then act when you hear it. Great relationships aren't built by having all the answers, but they're built by just making people feel heard. And as we close, I just want to thank you, Eric, for coming on and joining the show with us. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 34:49

Yeah, as it was a great conversation, and uh I really uh look forward to continuing to listen to you guys' podcast.

SPEAKER_02 34:55

Where can people kind of just go online to maybe find out a little bit about you or uh clearly rated?

SPEAKER_01 35:00

Yeah, so at clearlyrated.com, uh you've got uh all of our um content and uh clearlyrated.ai because we've got to do that as well. Um so either those two sites uh we'll pull in um our uh client experience software platform uh for professional service firms. Uh you can find me on LinkedIn uh again if if I can be helpful or if you want to bounce ideas, um I'm pretty available uh on those types of topics.

SPEAKER_03 35:26

All right. Well, listen, thank you so much for joining us on the day one list. If this episode made you think of someone uh that's been there for you, I want you to share this episode with them. Please do that. And we'll see you next time. And always remember, who's on your day one list?

SPEAKER_00 35:44

Thanks for listening to the day one list. It's all about the people you can count on and the people who can count on you. Until next time, who's on your day one list? And more importantly, whose day one list are you on? The day one list is proudly brought to you by Express Employment Professionals, Express Healthcare Staffing, and the Specialized Recruiting Group. The people you call first.