Transcript

Michael Palumbos (00:59.173)

Welcome everybody to the Family Biz Show. I am your host, Michael Palumbos with Family Wealth and Legacy in Rochester, New York. And we have a return guest for you, Joey Coleman. How are you buddy? 

Joey Coleman (01:11.106)

Great, Michael. Thank you so much for inviting me back. And thanks to everybody who's kind enough to be listening in. I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I'm sure I'm going to enjoy it with Michael. 

Michael Palumbos (01:21.336)

So you and I met and we talked about how to never lose a customer again. And that was awesome. That was right near when we started this podcast two, three years ago, I want to say. And for me, the thing that was just really interesting was how does somebody with your background end up in doing what you're doing? And then not only did you do it, it's like, okay, let's not talk about customers. 

Michael Palumbos (01:49.614)

Let's also talk about employees. You're, know what I love about this is I was just, I was listening to Brene Brown recently and this is a, it's not either or. And that's what I, the one of the things I would just want to start with is that, you know, I'm a father and a husband. I'm a, I'm a wealth advisor and a business coach. And so to take the expertise. 

Joey Coleman (02:07.564)

Yes. 

Michael Palumbos (02:15.392)

around what you did around the customer journey and the customer experience so that somebody would never lose a customer again, especially after what we went through with COVID and this, you know, all of the things that are going on, the quiet quitting and, you know, the things that are happening, the lack of engagement for you to take that knowledge and say, you know what, let me take this to the employee experience. Hats off to you. 

Joey Coleman (02:36.526)

Joey Coleman (02:37.146)

Well, thank you, Michael. I so appreciate that. Yeah, you know, it's interesting. Some folks have come to me and they've said, Joey, wait, you're the customer experience guy. Now you're the employee experience guy. And I was like, folks, I've always been an experience guy. That's been the common thread that connects all of it. And what I realized 20 plus years ago when I really started focusing and paying more attention to customer experience is that we can't create a remarkable customer experience. 

Joey Coleman (03:04.46)

if we don't have remarkable employees, they're the ones that are delivering on the experience. So for what it's worth, I've always known that this was a piece of the puzzle. The thing that has been somewhat hesitant for me to dive into this before now is that in most organizations, they see customer experience and employee experience is two totally different enterprises, right? So customer experience is usually maybe some marketing, mostly sales, lots of customer service and support. 

Joey Coleman (03:33.76)

On the employee experience side, it's the HR department. And with all due respect to my friends in HR, if HR gets invited to a meeting that you're in, that's usually not good news, right? So there was this siloing or bifurcation between these two approaches. Whereas I always knew that they were two sides of the same coin. Happier employees means happier customers. Frustrated customers means frustrated employees. 

Joey Coleman (04:01.624)

They're literally two sides of the same coin. If you polish one, the other side increases in its value as well. And so that's really the genesis behind devoting a book and a conversation in keynotes and consulting specifically to the employee side of the equation. And basically leaving it up to the business leaders to say, you want to focus on the customer experience or the employee experience first? Doesn't matter because we're going to have to get to both of them. 

Michael Palumbos (04:27.18)

Love it. You know, I would say I have been working with business owners for a bunch of years now. We've interviewed over 70 business owners, CEOs over the last 12, 18 months. And at the end of the day, what we learned was that they're not in the business they think they're in. 

Michael Palumbos (04:52.802)

They think they're in manufacturing. think they're in roofing or food or whatever, but they're all in the people business. 

Joey Coleman (05:02.464)

Michael, so true, so true. You and you alluded earlier to the whirlwind of insanity that was the last few years with the COVID pandemic. And I think if anyone didn't believe they were in the business of people before COVID, how do you have a doubt after COVID that you're not in that bit? it, and if folks disagree with this, please reach out. I'd actually genuinely love to have this conversation because 

Joey Coleman (05:31.926)

At the end of the day, how your people feel about you is what matters most. Whether those people are your customers or your employees, it's those interactions, that personal and emotional connection. And at the time we're recording this, we're at a point in human history where our desire for personal and emotional connection has never been greater as human beings. We have friends, quote unquote friends, on social media that are all over the world. 

Joey Coleman (06:00.29)

but we have higher degrees of loneliness and despair and depression than in any other time in recorded human history. We used to work for an employer who most likely had their headquarters within 30 miles of our house. Now, if you work for an employer whose headquarters is within 30 miles of your house, it tells me one of a couple of things. Either you're in a very hands-on industry or you work for a very small business that has kind of a retail footprint or 

Joey Coleman (06:29.238)

You have a skillset that it's just a matter of time before you lose your job to someone who doesn't work within 30 miles of headquarters that will be able to do it faster, more efficiently at a different pay rate, et cetera. So we're at a very tumultuous time right now where all the rules for employee experience and employee engagement that we've known for decades, if not a century, have been flipped on their head and we're trying to figure it out as we go. 

Michael Palumbos (06:57.326)

Yeah. And it's, I try to remind myself on a regular basis about the fact that the first word in the name of our business is family. And so anytime I start thinking about things from a standpoint of, you know, profit and loss and, you know, revenue, it's like, wait a minute, let's think about these people as family. have a family, an employee right now whose house caught on fire two weeks ago. She's only been able to work, she's fine, family's fine. 

Joey Coleman (07:22.654)

wow. 

Michael Palumbos (07:26.306)

The house will be fine, but you know, she's only been able to work like three, four hours in the last two weeks. And you just got to help and you just got to be there for her and get them through that because it'll be appreciated and that will pay dividends. 

Joey Coleman (07:39.278)

my goodness, Michael, so true. mean, I have not met a human being that hasn't seen tremendous return on investment when caring about another human being. now I recognize that sometimes we pour a lot of care in and we don't feel that the returned care is commensurate with what we've put out. But I like to think that everyone has had a situation in their life where someone 

Joey Coleman (08:06.7)

showed them a little extra care and grace when maybe they didn't deserve it or when maybe they really needed it. And I think our opportunity, our potential to do that with others, whether that's in an employee context or just in a walking down the road, seeing someone context has never been richer and broader than it is right now. 

Michael Palumbos (08:27.278)

Awesome. So let's talk about the book. So we're Never Lose an Employee Again. And inside of there, you talk about an employee going through eight different phases of experience. What does that look like? Let's map that out for people so they can kind of visualize this. 

Joey Coleman (08:52.014)

Absolutely. Well, I think many employers think about the employee journey as you're a prospective employee. We bring in and interview you. We hire you. And then you work here until you quit, retire or are fired. And pretty short and sweet. What I wanted to do is actually dissect the employee experience into a series of steps. 

Joey Coleman (09:17.656)

to number one, make it easier for us to plan and strategize and build our interactions and our communications with our employees. But more importantly, to recognize the emotional and mental journey that accompanies the more physical journey of being an employee. And so what we've done is identify eight key phases in the employee journey. Now I'll tell you, Michael, they all start with the letter A, and that isn't to confuse people, but rather to think of it as if you get each step. 

Joey Coleman (09:46.35)

in this process, right? It's like getting straight A's on your report card from the teacher or from your employees, right? They say, hey, you did a great job at every step of the way. So let me, if I may, with your permission, give a brief overview of each of the eight phases and then we can dive into whichever one sounds most interesting. The first phase is the assess phase. In the assess phase, a prospective employee is trying to decide whether or not they want to come work with you. 

Joey Coleman (10:10.722)

They're looking at your job listing, your job descriptions. They're checking out the career page on your website. They might be reading reviews on Glassdoor. They're talking to other people they know. They're checking out your social media profiles. They're getting a feel. They apply for the position. They go through your interview process. This is kind of the courting of, I gonna become an employee? Am I going to be selected? We then move to phase two, the accept phase. 

Joey Coleman (10:38.498)

Two things happen in the accept phase. Number one, the employer accepts that this is the person they want. They say, we've looked at the couple of candidates, you're the one we want. They make a formal job offer. If we're lucky, that candidate accepts our offer and transitions from being a prospect to being an employee. We then come to the third phase, Michael, and I gotta tell you, this is a phase where a lot of organizations miss huge opportunities. This is the affirm phase. 

Joey Coleman (11:07.714)

Now you might be familiar in a customer context with the phrase buyer's remorse. Allow me to introduce our listeners to a new phrase you might not as be as familiar with, new hires remorse. The research shows that a new hire experiences the same chemical reactions in the brain and emotional reactions in the heart of a brand new customer in that they begin to doubt the decision they just made to accept your offer. 

Joey Coleman (11:35.01)

And if you doubt the validity of that statement, I ask you just to think about a time in your own career when you applied for a job and maybe you were applying for more than one job at a time and you heard an offer from one, but you hadn't heard back from the other ones. And now you feel like you're on the gun. You're trying to get the other people that are outstanding to make a decision. So maybe you can get them to negotiate against themselves. And what often happens is we have to accept that first offer with incomplete information because we're not sure about the other positions we were interviewing for. 

Joey Coleman (12:04.654)

And so what do we do? We doubt our own decision. Or if you're not interviewing for other places and you get into the interview or negotiation process after an offer has been made and you finally allied on, is the package I'm going to agree to. Most people are wondering, should I have asked for more? Could I have gotten more vacation? Could I've gotten a higher salary? Did I really negotiate and get everything I could have? So we're in this state. We haven't even had the first day on the job. 

Joey Coleman (12:33.694)

and we are feeling tenuous about our relationship with the employer. We then come to phase four, the activate phase. The activate phase is the only phase in the eight phases that is limited to one day on the calendar. And that day is the first day on the job. When you show up at work, what is that experience like? And I like to think about in the activate phase, that famous song by the country music icon, Bonnie Raitt, where she says, give them something to talk about. 

Joey Coleman (13:02.89)

At the end of the day, when your employee goes home, when they open the door to their spouse, their significant other, their children, their family, or they're driving home and they call their roommate or their parents and they, what is the first question they're going to be asked? How was the first day on the job? How are your employees going to answer that? If you hear nothing else in this podcast, but that question, and you think about 

Joey Coleman (13:28.546)

how can we make sure that our employees on the first day on the job that we've given them something to talk about, your employee experience will be better. We then come to the acclimate phase, phase five, right? We're halfway through the phases and we've just had the first day on the job. But the acclimate phase is where things really slow down and where things often get missed. Because while I'm sure there is someone at your organization that to some degree is paying attention to the new employees first day on the job. 

Joey Coleman (13:56.918)

Who at your company is responsible for day two and day four and day 10 and day 30 and day 50 and carrying that out throughout their entire career? In most organizations, there isn't a single person responsible for that. In the acclimate phase, our new employees becoming used to our way of doing business, our communication styles, our cadence of interactions, the various people we work with, our roles and responsibilities. 

Joey Coleman (14:22.402)

You have to hold the hand of your new employee while they acclimate to this new environment. If you do that well, you reach the next phase, phase six, the accomplished phase. When the employee achieves the goal they originally had when they decided to do business with you, every employee has a vision of what it will be like to work for you. Are we delivering on that vision? It may be a promotion, it may be a certain pay... 

Joey Coleman (14:47.022)

period, or pay raise or pay level, if you will, it may be a certain type of work they're doing or responsibility or autonomy. If we're not tracking and paying attention to that, and then celebrating with the employee when they achieve it, we have no hope of getting them to the last two phases. Phase seven, the adopt phase, when they become loyal to us and only us, they're not going anywhere else. They're not picking up the call from the headhunter or the recruiter. And phase eight, the final phase, when they become a raving fan. 

Joey Coleman (15:13.92)

singing our praises far and wide, writing reviews on Glassdoor, recruiting their friends for open positions. These are the eight phases. And we've got to hold our employees' hands through each phase as they transition to the next one if we hope to have long-term engaged and retained employees. 

Michael Palumbos (15:32.47)

Yeah. And you know, in our audience is mostly family-owned businesses or people to consult with them. So for them, you know, the, the Edelman Trust Barometer says that family-owned businesses have a smidge higher trust than the non-family-owned businesses. what I would say is to take and keep that trust and employees feel the same way in order to keep that trust you best. 

Michael Palumbos (16:00.482)

be getting them through these phases and be thinking about these things as you're doing it so that you can keep that high level of trust that the non-family-owned businesses don't have. 

Joey Coleman (16:09.915)

Michael, it's so true. And here's the interesting thing, especially for family owned businesses. Lots of times someone comes into the family owned business and eventually there's going to be a transition to their running the business, right? Not always, but often. Yep. As we navigate through the various roles in an organization as an employee, every time we get promoted, we go back to the beginning. 

Joey Coleman (16:33.836)

Whoa, wait a second, folks. I'm already an adopter. I'm loyal. Don't I just stay an adopter? No, no, no. We go back to the first day on the new job with the new title, with the new roles responsibilities. We have a whole new acclimate phase, which often requires unlearning some of the things we learned and or relearning them from a different perspective or point of view. And so to think that we're done at any point in this journey is a mistake. 

Joey Coleman (17:02.754)

Because I would posit that even when the person retires or leaves, we still want them to be an advocate. We still need to be in relationship with them. So many employers take a burn the boats mentality when somebody leaves, they're like, they're gone, forget about it. We'll never speak of them again. And it's like, no, you want people in the marketplace saying, my gosh, the best place I ever worked was Acme Corp. I know I'm somewhere else now, but that place was amazing. 

Joey Coleman (17:32.332)

You want them talking about it or even saying, you know, for a first time job right out of school, they're amazing. They give great training. You're probably not going to be there your whole career, but for your first three, four or five years, that's foundational. We all know there are businesses that have that reputation, that reputation of being really good on training, really good on networking, really good on building your skillsets, whatever it may be. What kind of business do you want to be known for? 

Joey Coleman (18:01.046)

in the marketplace as it relates to the employee experience. I understand how you want to be known for your brand promise and what you do in terms of the products or the services you provide. But if we were to gather all the employees in your community and say your company's name, what would people say? What have they heard about you? Who do they know who works with you? What has the experience been like of those who have? 

Michael Palumbos (18:25.068)

Love it, love it. And we happen to be lucky in the Rochester, New York area, we have Wegmans Food Markets is number three on the employee satisfaction, employee charts. And I had several of our kids work for Wegmans. And one of the things that was their attributes was if you wanted one shift or you wanted 20 shifts. 

Michael Palumbos (18:51.874)

You just signed up for it. And as long as you had been through training and done those things, you know, the, kids could come home from college and be like, I want to pick up a couple of extra shifts, but I'm on break. I don't want to be all in for too many hours. And they were like, done. And so, you know, they can bring these trained people in. They were ready to go and they made it easy on them. They didn't have to go looking for something when they were on break. Just one little attribute. 

Michael Palumbos (19:21.784)

that they did for the employees to make their lives better. 

Joey Coleman (19:25.142)

love it. And here's the great thing, Michael, one could look at that from the perspective of look at Wegmans did to make the employees life better. But Wegmans also made their own life better with this model. They had a cadre of trained ready employees that they could call on in a moment's notice. If they know it's going to be a high season, they could reach out to people and say, Hey, want to pick up a day a shift here or there. And what they recognized, it sounds like early on and clearly continuing is that 

Joey Coleman (19:54.414)

flexibility of employment is increasingly the number one thing that employees are looking for. If you want to stand out in the marketplace, be flexible in terms of what employment means for you. Now, let me be clear, because a lot of folks listening to this, Michael, they're going to get anxious. They're going to be like, Joey, talking like those millennials, they just want to come and go as they want. What I'm saying is treat humans like humans. 

Joey Coleman (20:22.764)

recognize that they have other things going on in their life. You know, the best employers in the world have come to the understanding and the conclusion that paying attention to what happens between 5pm and 9am in your employees life is just as important, if not more so than paying attention to what happens between 9am and 5pm. 

Joey Coleman (20:46.402)

For those of you that aren't getting this statement, what I mean is you got to care about their life outside of their status as an employee. As you said earlier, it's the Brene Brown. Yes. And you're a father and a husband. You're a worker and an owner. You're, playing multiple roles. And so as we embrace this whole idea that, well there's work and then there's personal. That was foolish when people said it before. Now it's dangerous because. 

Joey Coleman (21:15.522)

to keep living under this delusion that we're two separate people goes back to those silos and that bifurcation I talked about in the beginning. It's all connected folks. It's all the same ecosystem. It's all the same humans. It's just a question of whether we're gonna pay attention to it or not. 

Michael Palumbos (21:32.078)

Michael Palumbos (21:32.338)

It's an exciting time because there's going to be, you know, the haves and the haves not have knots. The haves will, you know, have made the changes. They will have looked at things differently. They will have realized that there, you know, are employees that have lives outside of what they're doing. And then there will be the have knots, right? Totally. I was coaching. 

Joey Coleman (21:55.406)

And 

Joey Coleman (21:55.666)

the kicker is we can, we can take a stopwatch and time how long those businesses are going to be around. Cause the horses left the barn. It's over. I understand that some of the people listening may be saying, but Joey, just want it to go back to the way it was in 2019. I get it. I understand. I empathize with that desire. It's not going to happen. It's just not going to happen. It's okay for you to want that for a bit, but now you got to get over it. 

Joey Coleman (22:23.522)

You got to recognize we're living in a new world and adjust your business accordingly. Yeah. 

Michael Palumbos (22:28.142)

company that I was coaching this morning. They were working on their BHAG statement, their Big Hairy Audacious Goal. And they're a company that's all about helping employers help their employees become more emotionally intelligent in order to reduce stress outside of and at work. And their BHAG was 10 million 

Michael Palumbos (22:57.64)

leaders that they've impacted within the businesses and the employees within 30 or within 20 years. And I'm like, that's really, really cool. But you know, if you think about that, there wasn't a company five years ago that was probably thinking about those things. So to your point, know, Pandora's out of the box. It's time to start thinking differently. And here's, you know, a group of guys, you know, and women that just said, you know what, 

Michael Palumbos (23:26.412)

We can do this differently and we have some things that we can help with them. 

Joey Coleman (23:30.478)

So true. And isn't increasing the EQ, the emotional intelligence of our peers and our coworkers and our colleagues and our friends and our family. Shouldn't that be the primary goal we all have? I don't know about you, but you know, IQ is useful. EQ is necessary. Yeah. Like if you don't have EQ, you're done. 

Joey Coleman (23:55.01)

You're done. Everybody talks about chat GPT and AIs and all the things that are changing. And it's an exciting time to be alive. It's a scary time to be alive, but it's also an exciting time to be alive. What almost all of the AI experts will tell you is that the thing they're not sure they're going to be able to teach or embed in the AI or have the AIs teach themselves is empathy. 

Joey Coleman (24:20.138)

It's emotional understanding and connection. Now I would posit Michael respectfully that most humans aren't doing a good job of teaching empathy or practicing empathy, but we know that's what we need to do to move forward. You know, I do an exercise sometimes with my boys when we're driving. I've got two little boys, a seven year old and a nine year old. We'll be driving to school and a car will cut us off. Maybe I have to slam on the brakes. Now, if you're like me, folks listening in, 

Joey Coleman (24:49.696)

a number of words that are not appropriate for young ears often come to mind, at least for me in this scenario. But what I try to do is ask, what could be going on? So I'll say to my boys, hey, what do we think could be going on in that car? And they might say, they're not paying attention. Okay, yes, what else? They didn't look in their rear view mirror. Yes, what else? And then my youngest chimed in one day and he said, maybe they're on their way to the hospital. I said, ooh. 

Joey Coleman (25:19.106)

That's interesting. And what might they be thinking? Well, they might be more focused on getting there fast than paying attention to the other cars on the road. And if we just took a millisecond to not presume the worst of our fellow humans, to not presume that everything that is being done in the world is being done to us instead of being done for us, to recognize that 

Joey Coleman (25:42.986)

Other people have stuff going on there in their lives that we're not even aware of. mean, Michael, you mentioned the person in your office who suffered the fire in their home. I I'd be willing to bet that there are interactions happening in her lives where people might be like, she potentially seems a little short or a little frayed or a little unfocused today or whatever. 

Joey Coleman (26:06.816)

just going through her day to day life, not in her work with you, but you know, at the grocery store, waiting at a stoplight when somebody's laying on the horn because the light just a millisecond ago turned to green and they didn't stop on the gas like they were an indie car driver. It's like there might be other things going on in people's lives. And the more we as employers and as coworkers and frankly, as humans recognize that the better our life experiences. 

Joey Coleman (26:36.44)

not only in terms of how we interact with others, but in how we interact with ourselves. I think we give ourselves a little more grace when we recognize that we don't have to be on all the time. We don't need to be performing at quote unquote perfect optimized and maximumly efficient levels every minute of the waking day. It's okay to be human. 

Michael Palumbos (26:57.998)

And I want to so how could if I'm an employer running a family business, how do I how do I take that temperature? How do I find out without being intrusive, so to speak, and you know how they're doing things? 

Joey Coleman (27:14.028)

Yeah, I think the secret here is a lot of times people will say to me, Joey, I'm anxious about prying into my people's personal lives. I'm anxious into seeming like a stalker, you know, or bugging them too much. The best advice I can give 

Joey Coleman (27:35.57)

lies under the umbrella of this principle of reciprocity. The principle of reciprocity tells us when interacting with other human beings that when we give, someone feels compelled to give back. Okay. So the secret here leaders is you go first. 

Joey Coleman (27:53.132)

You talk about your life. You share your challenges. You come in and you say, Hey everybody, how was your weekend? You know, I actually got the chance to just sit in the backyard and read a little bit. It's been a crazy week last week. And I just realized that I needed some time to decompress and just kind of put my feet up and, read the paper. And yeah, the lawn didn't get mowed and it probably should have. And yeah, the garage didn't get painted and it probably could have. 

Joey Coleman (28:21.312)

And yeah, the basement didn't get organized and it probably might have. Well, no, that's never getting organized, but you know, I had a good weekend. How about you? What'd you do? See, what I did there is I went first. I made it okay to be vulnerable. I made it okay to share some things that were not, again, optimized for productivity. They were not optimized for accomplishment and efficiency. When we go first, it changes the conversation. 

Joey Coleman (28:49.228)

The other way I think employers can do this is to set a standard within your culture around communicating openly and honestly. know, one of the companies that I profile in the book, there's over 50 case studies in the book. One of the companies is called Impact. And what Impact does is they send all of their employees two books between the time they get hired and the time they start their first day on the job during that affirm stage, that new hires remorse stage we talked about. 

Joey Coleman (29:17.87)

And one of the books is radical candor. And the principle of this book, it's a wonderful book if you get the chance to read it. The principle behind this book is we need to get better at being honest. We need to get better at giving feedback. And the assignment for the first week on the job is to read that book. It's like you go to the office and you're sitting in your office reading. Now some people look at that and they're like, Joey, reading is the first... 

Joey Coleman (29:47.212)

assignment at work? Yeah, because that's how key and important and foundational the principles in those books are to the culture of communication that they've established at Impact. So if you're listening in, you might be asking yourself, what are the things that are key and foundational in your organization that your people need to know? And how are you teaching that? How are you exhibiting that? How are you leaning into those conversations? 

Joey Coleman (30:16.416)

in a way that make it seem like the norm from day one on the job, or maybe even before day one on the job. 

Michael Palumbos (30:23.63)

That's awesome. Yeah. When we're thinking about that, love leaders go first when we're talking about being vulnerable, right? That's cause that's really what we're doing. And then the reverse rule is when we're asking for employees opinions on where we're going and what we're doing, leaders go last so that they don't suck the air out of their room. Because as soon as you give your idea as the leader, everybody's saying, yeah, what you said. 

Joey Coleman (30:33.353)

Absolutely. 

Michael Palumbos (30:52.078)

where you're missing getting that valuable input by voicing your opinions first. So there's a good time to go first, vulnerability. You're asking for somebody to do something uncomfortable maybe to share and to go last when you're looking for how do we make things better when we're looking for ideas and innovation. Love it. 

Joey Coleman (31:15.636)

Michael, Michael, that is so true. And in fact, what I try to use in my own internal compass, I don't know if this will be useful to anyone is anytime I'm in a situation where I think, Ooh, I've got something to say. I try to bite my tongue and wait a minute. Anytime I'm in a situation where I think, I really don't want to get into this. I don't, I don't want to share first. I try to propel myself forward and it's that same theory, right? 

Joey Coleman (31:45.398)

Check in with how you're feeling. If you feel the need to pontificate and share your idea and perspective, that's fine. You're not gonna forget it. I promise you. You will remember it in 10 minutes after everybody else talks. You're gonna be fine. If you're not sure, jot a couple notes down, write it down and refresh your recollection later. What I wanna do is be in a situation where when someone has expressed vulnerability, 

Joey Coleman (32:11.918)

that you match vulnerability or where an opportunity for honesty is presented to itself, you speak to that. The way we remove the stigma that exists in the workplace around mental health, around hours worked, around what's appropriate or not appropriate about work versus personal is not to codify rules. It's not to come up with a playbook and a handbook that details. 

Joey Coleman (32:39.34)

These are the topics that can be discussed and these are the topics that can't know it's to create the environment where we can talk about things that are hard to talk about because we've established some ground rules. You I saw in the interview, you mentioned Brene Brown earlier. saw an interview recently that she did with Tim Ferris on his podcast and she was talking about her relationship with her husband and that they come home at the end of the night and they say, what percentage they're at. So she might come home and say, I'm at a 20. 

Joey Coleman (33:09.102)

Out of a hundred and her husband will say, don't worry. got you. got, I can, I can pull the other 80 and we'll get us to a hundred. And she said, there are times where he comes home and he's like, Hey, I'm at like a 15. And she's like, don't worry. I got you. I got the other 85 tonight. But what was beautiful about this interview, Michael is she said every once in a while I'll come home and I'll say, I'm at a 20 and he'll say, all I've got is 10. 

Joey Coleman (33:39.232)

And she said, everything stops. And we sit down at the table and we talk about how are we going to interact in the next 24 hours to be kind to each other. Because see, this is the time when we know it's going to be really easy to be unkind. 

Joey Coleman (33:57.582)

This is the time when we know it's going to be easy to be short with someone or hypercritical or be hysterical and historical by bringing up something that's old that has nothing to do with the conversation. We're right in it. Raming it. Well, remember that one time at our wedding 15 years ago when your mother in laws or your mother said blah, blah, blah to mom. It's like, Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's pump the brakes. How can we be kind in this time? And then what's great is there are times where you might come and say, Hey, I've got 90. And the other person says, I've got 92. 

Joey Coleman (34:27.661)

Well, now you're having 180 % day. This is what we need to do with our employees as well. Where are you at? Check in. You having a good day? You having a bad day? How was last night? How'd you sleep? How are the kids? How's the family? What's going on? I worked with the last story, because I get so excited about this stuff, Michael. I worked with a theater company one time out in the Berkshire Shakespeare and Company, amazing Shakespearean actor and theater company. And they do a check-in. Every time they have a meeting, 

Joey Coleman (34:57.088)

Literally every time they have a meeting and you might have five meetings in one day. This happens at the beginning of every meeting. They check in and they go around the circle and they'll do something like, if you were to use one word to describe how you're feeling right now, what would that word be? Or on a scale of one to 10 with 10 being like, I am so looking forward to this meeting and I'm ready to rock. And one being like, I would rather be, you know, stuck in a prison somewhere without ever having the opportunity for parole. 

Joey Coleman (35:26.83)

Where are you right now? Or my favorite question they would ask, what is keeping you from being fully present in this meeting right now? And that's what you can say, my kid's home sick or my house caught on fire, or I've got 70 emails I need to respond to and I know this meeting is three hours and when I come out, I'm gonna have 130 to respond to. 

Joey Coleman (35:53.794)

Whatever it is, it just allows our humanity to come to the front of the conversation. That's how you create a remarkable business. 

Michael Palumbos (36:06.038)

And so go back to your eight phases for a second and think about, you know, how can we take each of those phases as an owner? What we should be thinking about is how do I take each of these phases and inject humanity into these phases, right? 

Joey Coleman (36:24.238)

Joey Coleman (36:24.738)

So true. So true. Yeah. And this stuff, when we look at it from that lens, the answers become quite easy, in my opinion. You know, I think as business owners and business leaders, often we're operating with limited and imperfect information. We're trying to make our best possible guess with the cards that we can see, knowing that there's a huge stack of cards that we can't see and those are going to be played next. We have no idea. 

Joey Coleman (36:53.218)

So let's look for example, at that assess phase, that very first stage where they're kind of checking it out, trying to decide if they wanna work going through your interview process. How can we bring more humanity? Well, why not let them know how long it's gonna be? Why not tell a candidate, hey, from the time you apply to the time we make a decision on whether we're gonna hire you is three weeks. No longer, no shorter, it's three weeks. 

Joey Coleman (37:21.218)

and then hold yourself to that standard. Why, when someone applies, do we not acknowledge receipt of their resume and application? So many businesses we submit, and then what do we do? And we've been, we have been in their shoes. Almost everybody listening has been in the shoes of applying for something or putting something out there and then wondering, did they get it? I'm not sure if they got it. 

Joey Coleman (37:43.48)

Should I ask again? Or would it be weird if I asked again? Better not ask again. I'm not sure. Maybe my phone isn't working. What about my email? I'm gonna, somebody, call my phone, make sure my phone's working, because I'm not exactly sure it's working. Our minds play all kinds of tricks on. We know this is happening with our candidates. So why aren't we more forthright? Why not say to them, hey, our internal policy was that we wanted to have at least three candidates before we made a decision. We've had two. We're waiting on a third. 

Joey Coleman (38:12.184)

We're not sure who that is, but we're waiting to see. Now I understand you may not want to say that. I also understand that may be a pretty ridiculous rule and policy to have operating in your business, but you've just shared with the person that number one, they haven't risen the level to be accepted and offered the job immediately. Number two, you're an organization that operates based on rules and timelines. Either they're going to like that or not like that, but at least they know the criteria by which they're being evaluated. This applies at any phase. 

Joey Coleman (38:42.488)

How can we make the first day more enjoyable? How can we make it more human? Well, lots of people show up for the first day of work knowing none of their coworkers. So what are we going to do? I got an idea. Let's walk them around the office and introduce them to everyone and overwhelm them with 50 names. No, don't do that. I understand that's your instinct, but let me take you in an overwhelmed, anxious state and plow you in front of 15 people so that you can meet all of them. What? No, not a good choice. 

Joey Coleman (39:12.566)

Maybe what you do is say, today we're going to be focused on having you interact with and meet with the two people who you're going to be working with the most. Tomorrow we'll introduce you to the rest of the company. But today, these are the only two people you need to know. I'm the head of HR. This is your direct manager. We're spending the day with you. Totally different conversation because it's focused on humanity. 

Michael Palumbos (39:38.222)

We just brought in an intern week and a half ago, not even. So first day, you we made sure we had a, I emailed them and said, breakfast sandwich or bagel and cream cheese. And, you know, made the breakfast sandwich for myself rather than going out and getting it. And, you know, so it's like, I hear what you're saying and it just, 

Joey Coleman (39:58.037)

nice. 

Michael Palumbos (40:05.344)

resonates and it's probably because I read, you know, how to never lose a customer again. And, you know, other things like that, that I can relate to these, these pieces. We did zoom meetings. have not all of our employees are in this, you know, in the office. So it's like, you know what? Meet with Alex. That's the name of the intern for, you know, 30 minutes, 45 minutes, and just tell them what you do. Don't worry about asking him anything else. Just say, 

Michael Palumbos (40:34.382)

Here's what I like about working here. Here's what I don't like working about here. Give them the ins and outs and give them the lowdown so that, you know, they have a little bit of a, an idea of what your position is and how you interact. And we did that over, know, we were a small company. So we did that over the course of two days, got them to meet with everybody. And then just little by little acclimate. I love that first day. I know how important that was. So that was that one little thing that I'm like, I could do a little something. 

Joey Coleman (41:02.19)

I love it. And here's the thing. How many people listening ever had their boss make them breakfast on their first day on the job? I'd be willing to bet less than 1%. But that might be the thing that he remembers. That might be the thing that he says, wow, you know, this, they really cared early on. They were showing me that they cared. And I also love what you shared about in the conversations between the employees and the intern, the employee leading first. Here's what I do. 

Joey Coleman (41:31.724)

Here's what's going on. If you go first, that opens the space. We talked about that earlier, but I also think there's such a great opportunity for everyone to be more curious than they are. Just get curious, ask better questions, ask more meaningful questions. I have the glorious opportunity to be involved in a number of great mastermind groups and networking groups. 

Joey Coleman (41:59.264)

of folks that are just really committed to growth and learning. And I was at several of those events this past week and it just filled me up. I was feeling excited. Well, then I ended up going to an event that I was, let's put it this way. It's not a community that I'm part of. I was invited to go. It felt like I needed to go. So I went and you would not believe how much we talked about the weather. And I was just like, what, is actually happening here? If I was at a meteorologist convention, 

Joey Coleman (42:29.326)

happy to talk about the weather. If I'm hanging out with the folks at NOAA, happy to talk about the weather. If I'm hanging out with a bunch of randos that I just met, why are we talking about the weather? The reason we're talking about the weather is no one wants to go first. No one wants to be vulnerable. No one wants to talk about the things that matter because they're like, oh, that doesn't feel appropriate or that feels like it might be pushing to buy. I think most people wish they were having better conversations. So it's an opportunity for us to lead into that. 

Michael Palumbos (43:00.046)

Love it, love it. When you look at the phases and the research and the things that you've done, know, obviously each one of the phases somebody can get tripped up in and not pay attention to it. But is there another one where you're like over and over it's like, oh, I see this, like everybody seems to like have a hard time with this or a lot, many people do. What would you point? 

Joey Coleman (43:24.974)

Yeah, I would say, Michael, the two phases that seem to cause the biggest problems are that affirm phase we talked about earlier, that new hires remorse. And mainly the problem is there is we're just not even acknowledging the face. We're just moving from, hey, you got the offer, you accepted the offer. Great. See on your start date. And it's just this quiet period dead zone. If you do nothing but send a thank you note thanking them for accepting the job or send a little video saying you're excited to see them on the first day, a little tiny 

Joey Coleman (43:53.824)

miniscule touch is going to be better than nothing. The other phase where people often just fall off the rails is that acclimate phase. We expect our employees to be up and running instantly. We expect them to understand our cadence, who's who, our org chart, how we're supposed to do emails, how we're supposed to prepare agendas and meetings. Folks, you didn't know how to do all of that stuff on your first day on the job. 

Joey Coleman (44:23.95)

And most listeners listening, I say this respectfully, you made that up as you went along. And you made it up as you went along, probably because you made mistakes with ways you tried it, and then you refined it into better ways. One of my favorite examples of a company that does this is Ritz-Carlton. And there's some bonus case studies. This one isn't actually in the book. So Ritz-Carlton didn't make the book, folks. Ritz-Carlton's amazing. Don't get me wrong. But Ritz-Carlton does something really interesting on day 21. 

Joey Coleman (44:53.036)

So you've been on the job for three weeks. On day 21, they bring you into a meeting with your manager and the head manager for the entire property where you're working at. And you come into the meeting and they say, great. Thanks so much. We love that you've been here for three weeks, doing a great job. Question, what are we doing that you think we're doing wrong? 

Joey Coleman (45:18.914)

Where are we making mistakes? What are we doing that you think, gosh, why do they do it that way? What are we doing that you think, there's a better way to do that. What are we doing that you're like, gosh, I still don't understand that even though I've been here three weeks. New employees are a gold mine of perspective. They're not jaded. They haven't been bought into your cadence. They haven't. 

Joey Coleman (45:46.794)

adopted the, well, we've always done it that way philosophy. I love new employees because new employees in the same way that children in a new environment can do it, can see the secrets. They can see the things that aren't working. They can see the things that are ripe for improvement or opportunity. know, you, anybody listening who has children, who has been around children. 

Joey Coleman (46:14.69)

You know, you think you've baby proofed your house. You think you're good until a baby comes over. And then you're like, my gosh, no, wait a second. No, I can't believe we left that out. And then it changes when a toddler comes over. You're like, this is a whole separate set of problems. And then an elementary level student, and then a middle schooler, and then a teenager. 

Joey Coleman (46:38.86)

You're learning at each step along the way based on the perspective of the human that's coming in that the things you thought you would set up pretty clearly and efficiently aren't as set up and as efficient as you thought. New employees are a goldmine of perspective. Make sure you're spending the time to talk to them early on to dissect what you're doing and why you're doing it from their point of view. 

Michael Palumbos (47:03.15)

That's awesome. That makes me think as we're going through this, you've provided some really great usable tools and information of things that I could do. Any employer could do to boost that employee relationship to their experience. How do you remember all this stuff? 

Michael Palumbos (47:26.444)

How do I, you know, I mean, I'm just like, if I'm somebody listening to this, I might be getting a little overwhelmed with how do you put this together? What is your secret to helping people to think through all this stuff and turn it into usable pieces of information and not, know, what it would, one more thing. There's how many times we start doing something, it works so well, we stopped doing it. So how do I keep from that happening? 

Joey Coleman (47:52.876)

Michael, fantastic, fantastic question. Couple of things come to mind. Number one, before we can really look at ways to improve our employee experience, we have to have a clear understanding of what it currently is. So the first thing you're gonna wanna do is sit down with these eight phases and say, what are we doing right now in this phase? I will tell you, I have spoken to audiences on all seven continents. 

Joey Coleman (48:18.934)

I've done workshops with crowds that range from, you know, a half a dozen people to thousands of people. And here's what I know. I have yet to find an employee in any organization that can track the full employee journey accurately by themselves. There are too many handoffs that happen in an organization. There's too many different ways of doing it. There's not enough consistency, enough uniformity, enough procedure and process that it's kind of all over the place. So step one, 

Joey Coleman (48:48.014)

Get a map of what reality is. Nine times out of 10, that map alone will be worth its weight in gold. Somebody can look at it and go, oh my gosh, look at how many problems we have. Look at how we could just fix the things that are on the map would be a year's worth of effort. But then we say, how could we make this journey better? Now, when we make it better, a couple of things happen. We either take things that are currently on the map and remove them. 

Joey Coleman (49:16.558)

Cause sometimes we're just doing too much. Sending that new employee 78 emails on their first day, too much. You're choking them. Stop. Don't do that. Sometimes we have to add something in because there's a gap. that affirm phase. Nothing's happening during that new hires remorse. We need to put a contact in. And other times we need to take things that are happening in one phase and move them to another phase. What do I mean by that? Most organizations have a tendency to overwhelm 

Joey Coleman (49:45.73)

their employees in the first day or two on the job. What do you really need to know at the end of day one? Do you really need to know the set details of the seven year stock option investing policy that you don't become eligible for until you've been at the firm for a year? You don't need to know that on day one. Don't spend any time on that on day one. In fact, one of the companies I profile in the book, Pila, does this amazing job of 

Joey Coleman (50:15.682)

doing the benefits review on day 30, not on day one, because on day one, there's so much other stuff I'm dealing with. Let me get into it. Let me feel it. It's not going to make a difference whether I've made the proper election on my paycheck withholding in the first two paychecks. We can come at that on day 30 and have a much better conversation about it. So get the clear map. Look at the map. Figure out what you need to do going forward. 

Joey Coleman (50:44.46)

And now you've got a whole list of things. then to your point, prioritize, pick two or three, get them in place, get them systematized, get them automated, get them codified, live with it for a while. See how it works in the real world. Great. Now go back to the list and pick two more things. Don't try to do all of it at once because what'll end up happening is you'll do none of it. 

Michael Palumbos (51:06.222)

Yeah, we call that when we're coaching progress, not perfection. Good is good enough. You know, you just have to gut it out a little bit, right? 

Joey Coleman (51:13.814)

Absolutely. 

Joey Coleman (51:18.164)

Absolutely. And I also like the idea of recognizing that, you know, in the immortal words of Cervantes, you know, it's not about the destination. Okay. The end isn't the goal. The finish line isn't the goal. The goal is the journey. And so when we adopt a philosophy internally that we're never done examining the employee experience, we're on the right track. 

Joey Coleman (51:48.046)

You're not trying to build this, then set it on autopilot and walk away. No, this is, you're constantly building the ship while you're sailing. And I know that's hard. I empathize with the fact that that is difficult to do, but guess what? You're a leader. You signed up to be a leader. You accepted the job to be a leader. You started the business. You're the leader. That's the job of the leader. You have to keep moving forward. You have to be creating the progress. 

Joey Coleman (52:18.09)

and working on things a little bit at a time. 

Michael Palumbos (52:22.616)

love it. In this world of, you you and I are working remotely right now. It's a wonderful, wonderful way of doing things. One of my mentors says he's in his eighties and he goes, I love zoom. He's like, don't want see his geography anymore. 

Michael Palumbos (52:40.658)

I can meet with anyone anywhere and it just doesn't matter. have friends in Australia. I have friends in Europe that we communicate with on a regular basis. It's so different today to share ideas with people. When you have remote employees and we will all at some level probably have remote employees. How do you, what are some ideas to like, you know, what do you do some special things to. 

Michael Palumbos (53:06.414)

Help them out, especially, I mean, day one as a remote employee, couldn't even imagine. 

Joey Coleman (53:11.916)

Yeah, it's, you are absolutely right, Michael, that there isn't a question of whether or not you're going to have remote employees. It's a question of when. Some of you already have them right now. Most of you will have more three years from now than you have today. This is the world we live in. Again, I know it may not be what you've signed up for or wanted. And if that's the case, retirement is an option. I'm just saying it's an option. 

Joey Coleman (53:39.724)

You can exit the business now, pass it on to the next generation now. That's okay. If you don't want to play this game, but that's the new game. So what do you do? I think we have wonderful tools. Like your friend was saying, your client was saying, I love zoom, right? We have wonderful tools for creating digital connection. Where I think we want to double down on our efforts in a remote world is on analog connections. 

Joey Coleman (54:07.532)

So what can you do to move beyond the digital into the physical? One of the companies that I profile in the book is called Budai Media. Budai Media has employed 35 employees across 17 countries. I'll let you do the math there, folks. OK, they literally go from every time zone from Budapest to Brazil, going the long way, not the short way, the long way. They're operating in all those different time zones. 

Joey Coleman (54:36.342)

So they are in asynchronous operation. They don't have set business hours. People are working at different hours. They're chasing the sun. They do something really interesting. On your first day on the job, you get a package. You actually get it a couple of days before your first day. And it's clearly marked, don't open until the first day. So then you get on a Zoom call with all your teammates on the first day. And everybody's talking in there, meet everybody in your induction. say, okay, open the package. 

Joey Coleman (55:04.418)

and you open the package and in the package is a coffee mug. Now the coffee mug doesn't have the Boudin Media logo on it. The coffee mug has pictures, headshots of all of your coworkers. 

Michael Palumbos (55:19.118)

What a great idea. 

Joey Coleman (55:22.612)

So now you have a context and as you open the mug and you look at it, all the other coworkers lift their mugs in a toast to you. You're now part of the family. You're now part of the team. and you know what? Your picture's on the mug too. 

Michael Palumbos (55:42.448)

Joey Coleman (55:44.39)

Now you feel like you're a part of something. Now you feel like even though you may be separated by time zones and oceans, you're all part of the same mission, the same cause. And it's interesting. The CEO, Daniel Budai, when we were talking about this in our interview, you know, he said to me, know, Joey, got to admit in the beginning, I thought about putting my logo on it, the company logo on it. Like, sure, that's what we should do. And then he's like, I thought. 

Joey Coleman (56:12.054)

Nobody really wants a coffee mug with the logo on it. But what they will enjoy is the coffee mug with the picture of their coworkers on it. And guess what, Michael, let's pretend that person leaves. Let's pretend something happens. They'll always have that mug. They'll always be able to look back fondly on the other people they worked with, no matter where they are. And every time they get a new employee, they send new mugs. It's an investment that is miniscule. 

Joey Coleman (56:41.696)

in the grand scheme of things. But the return on that investment in terms of connection between their teammates, absolutely incredible. 

Michael Palumbos (56:51.458)

You've shared a ton of valuable, valuable information. The book is out there right now, correct? Where can people get 

Joey Coleman (56:59.566)

Joey Coleman (57:00.046)

Yeah. So the book is available, depending on when you're listening to this, the book comes out June 27th. So the book is available on Amazon, on Barnes and Noble. There's depending on which version of the book, the indie bookstore you'd love to go to, gotta love our Indies. So don't forget those folks. But what I really want to share is it's available in all three formats of books in the sense that there's a hardcover version, there's an ebook version. And if you've enjoyed the conversation today and you don't mind my voice, 

Joey Coleman (57:27.96)

there's an audio book version that I narrate. So however you like to consume books, it's there. I hope folks will check it out. It's called Never Lose an Employee Again. And my hope is that it will spark you to think a little bit differently about how you can be more human with your employees to create even better experiences, not just for them, but for you, for your customers, for your community at large. 

Michael Palumbos (57:53.134)

Joey, this has been fabulous. I really, really appreciate you sharing all of this. It couldn't come at a better time. Everybody grab Joey's book. really, I read the first one. I'm looking forward to reading the second one. How to Never Lose a Customer Again is still fabulous. And I, you know, I think it would be add onto this, How to Never Lose an Employee Again. Amazing. So Joey Coleman, thank you for sharing with us. My name is Michael Palumbos. 

Michael Palumbos (58:20.696)

This has been the Family Biz Show. I'm at Family Wealth and Legacy in Rochester, New York. And if you've enjoyed listening this, please forward it to a friend, pass it on to somebody else and allow them to enjoy this as well. Have a great day everybody. We'll see you on the next episode.