Good People, Bad Fit

Jason · 00:00Welcome to episode 237 of The Numbers Game. I'm Jace. I'm here with Nick, and we've got Marty back with us today. If you listen to all the episodes in sequence. Marty, great to have you back. How's it going mate? What have you got for us today?

Marty · 00:11Going well, mate. Going well, but I have to throw the question out to you.

Marty · 00:15Do you feel like you've ever underperformed in your career? Oof. Targeting

Jason · 00:20me. I'm straight up. Sorry to do with that. Yep. Yeah. Um. No, no. I've always been a high performer. I'm a,

Marty · 00:28I like that

Jason · 00:28confidence.

Nick · 00:29Oh, no, no. I'm just, I'm astounded that you sat there and thought about it.

Jason · 00:33Well, I just, I had to think about all the different jobs I've done and just gone.

Jason · 00:36Was there one that I kind of pulled the foot off the accelerator and didn't do properly, but in the quick recap and, and thought then that I had to go through my entire life of work. I, anything that I do, I throw myself into it. I wanna be the best at it.

Nick · 00:50Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. Oh shit.

Jason · 00:50Here we go.

Nick · 00:51Alright, give me, what was the first job you had? Mackers. You went in there and gave 110% every day At Mackers

Jason · 00:58I, within

Jason · 01:0015 to 18, it was, you know, start, become a crew trainer, become a crew training coordinator, become a supervisor, become a manager. And then between 18 and 21 was, you know, absolutely smashing it.

Jason · 01:12Great results winning awards had like the best

Nick · 01:15ne never let a burger slip by. Its sort of 90% quality because. You know,

Marty · 01:20never spat in one just because someone pissed you off

Jason · 01:23and look, no, actually this is where it probably came from. Maccas teaches you systems and processes and every burger, every cheeseburger you get around the world should be exactly the same.

Jason · 01:32Okay. And that for me was like, and then when you're teaching other people, you know, I had a young team and this becoming a manager and a leader and wanting to be good at. What you do and drive performance, which I think, you know, this is where this conversation's probably going. Um, it was then about teaching the rest of the team.

Jason · 01:47The, the better they performed, the more successful we were, then the better outcomes that we got as an entire team. So for me at McDonald's, it might have been letting them know, oh look, I'm not meant to do it. I'll give you a free meal when the shift is over. If you

Jason · 02:00absolutely smash it tonight, we get every meal dangling out that window, so it's a great experience through the drive through.

Jason · 02:05When you finish your shift, I'll give you a free meal, mate. Tell me. A 15-year-old kid works at Macca's that isn't excited by a free meal. I had them working like you wouldn't

Nick · 02:12believe. Well. Marty Jace is a 10 outta 10. So do you wanna ask me the question?

Marty · 02:18Well, well, just before we go to, it's like, this is the, the epitome of high performance in action here.

Marty · 02:25That even when the high performance is challenged, they're already maneuvering through to, uh, ensure that, uh, you know, they're drawing the dots to high performance in the future. So, very impressive. But, but Nick, I'm sure you've had a day where you've come away from work thinking Plenty. Al I don't know if I got the best out of myself that day.

Marty · 02:42Oh, plenty mate.

Nick · 02:43Yeah,

Marty · 02:43plenty. How do you feel when that happens? Like what do you do about it when it happens?

Nick · 02:49Okay, so let's be serious now. How do I feel you? Um, definitely disappointed. Definitely disappointed. Um, I guess you do try and make

Nick · 03:00up for it, but I think, um, sometimes you need to accept you're not at your best as well.

Nick · 03:07Yeah, and I think that's a big thing, accepting that sometimes you're just not. At your best.

Marty · 03:12Well, there's days you just, yeah, you just get frustrated with yourself. Like you try and sometimes you might be trying your best, but things just aren't going to plan. But I think the difference is you're aware of it.

Marty · 03:23Yeah. And I think that's the, yeah, that that's the pivotal difference between people that progress and that people sometimes are unaware in poor performance. But I was chatting to another business owner just two days ago, and it was interesting. I said to him, how. How much do you think poor performance has cost you, given your team's poor performance, has cost you over the journey?

Marty · 03:44Like bad hires, um, not developing staff, and he goes millions, like literally millions. And I, and, and coming away from that question, asking the question, sometimes you ask the question you need to hear yourself, right? And I thought the same thing. Goodness me, how

Marty · 04:00many, how many times have you let. Poor performance just go a long path for the course without really addressing it.

Marty · 04:08And there's different reasons why. You know, we all don't address it sometimes, and sometimes when we do, but I go. What is the cost of that to a business? Not only to to, you know, the person that you're dealing with in regards to the poor performance, but just as a business cost in general. It must be, it must be millions if, if you're hiring staff have to be, have to be millions of millions.

Marty · 04:28Uh, it actually scares me. It's not sometimes not the money you make, it's the money you don't make because of not taking, you know, strong actions around your own performance culture.

Nick · 04:38So why do you think that is? If people know it? And they don't do anything about it, and the ramifications are obviously considerably large.

Nick · 04:49Why

Marty · 04:50I, I think, I think they get just distracted with busyness. Nick, I think you, like we talked about a couple episodes ago, a few episodes back now, but sometimes the business owners doing

Marty · 05:00so much of the work across different areas that they don't really address the problem. That is the real core problem.

Marty · 05:08And I think sometimes it could be the fear of addressing it with the individual. I like, I think back to my thirties and go. I really struggled with that. When people were underperforming, I'd get really. Frustrated and angry, but I didn't know how to deal with it effectively. I didn't know how to communicate and, and maneuver them through that poor performance.

Marty · 05:30So it ends up in a blowup that really doesn't help anyone. It doesn't help the development of the person, and it doesn't help your own state of mind either. But I think there'd be a bit of that going on, Nick, because again, you know, I'm 53 now and I've pretty much seen most of it. But it's, um, the difference now in dealing with, uh, underperformer.

Marty · 05:50Given the skill sets you pick up along the way and, and even, you know, leveraging off HR and, you know, getting inside as to what to do and how to effectively work

Marty · 06:00through that, um, is just chalk and cheese and, but I think just people just sweep it under the carpet and hope that it gets better, but it never does.

Marty · 06:08Um. Jason, have you come across that? I, I guess we all have Oh,

Jason · 06:12it's, it's resonating hard. 'cause we've had probably one of our more challenging years just with, you know, we, we turned over a couple of team members at the start of the year. We then started trying to rehire for the more senior kind of roles and, you know, the, the, not just the financial cost, but the cultural cost of some of the wrong hires that we made.

Jason · 06:30And, you know, I'd love to sit on this podcast to pretend that future advisory is perfect and we're having the best year ever and life's good and rosy, but. You know, you can make a few little small choices in business that can have dramatic and huge profound effects on the business. And, and unfortunately for us, you know, we started the first half of this year, um, you know, we landed a couple of wrong hires.

Jason · 06:50Um, these, these people weren't bad people, but they weren't necessarily great culture fits. Their performance kind of had an impact on other people's performance, and all of a

Jason · 07:00sudden the cost of keeping people around, and we've done it a few times. I mean, this is why, why I'm actually really interested in unpacking this episode, is that cost of keeping people around when you think it's gonna get better or, you know, you, you, oh, give 'em a little bit more of a chance.

Jason · 07:13But you know, how long is too long, right? Like, is it three months? Is it six months? Should you know, after 12 months? And unfortunately we've made the mistake of holding onto people. Rather than focusing on what does a high performer look like and how do I make sure I just keep high performers in my business?

Jason · 07:29You know, sometimes you make excuses like, oh, it's really hard to hire in our industry. Oh, it's hard to find that particular role. We better just hold on. As opposed to not thinking about the financial and cultural damage it does by holding onto the wrong person.

Marty · 07:42It's, it's a great point. 'cause sometimes you'll fill a position rather than think about who's optimal in that position, and you need to know metrics around that.

Marty · 07:50I think past performance is always a great indicator of future performance too, in a better environment. Um, they say that's not the case in shares, but I think with

Marty · 08:00people it generally is, um, you know, you want, you want some good, a good track record, but I think the systemic problem too is if you allow that to fester, then you very quickly can become an average company.

Marty · 08:12Like if that, if the expectation's not set where the bar's high, then all of a sudden you could be in an environment. Of, of a really challenging environment of people just underperforming across the board. And I think we've always, you know, at innovate, held a very high performance culture, and you still get people that slip through the cracks on that too.

Marty · 08:31But again, there's an expectation that's set very early days, even in the hiring process of what the expectation is, what's expected to be delivered in the first six months. Uh, even the first week, you know, there's, there's, everything is really. Um, communicated at the early stages, and if for some reason the activity and the trend isn't on that upward spiral, then it enables you to quickly be able to communicate and

Marty · 09:00work out the, there might be a problem here and you can, you know, you can take a different course of action, um, to, to alleviate that problem or try and develop further.

Marty · 09:09But I, and, and I was thinking about the balance and, and what this guy was talking about was just the. The fine dance about. Improved performance and setting higher metrics, and also then feeling like virtually an asshole for doing it. Right. And um, and I said, yeah, that, that's because the methodology isn't set.

Marty · 09:29And I said, the, the interesting thing about it was. If you want someone to get a result for your business, you really gotta get to understand the person beyond the result you want 'em to get. So you gotta really look into their personal drivers. Um, what motivates them? Is it money? Is it like they want to contribute to a team?

Marty · 09:49You know, what, what, what gets them going? Do they wanna buy a house? What are they doing in their personal life? Like you really, even though we talk about. Tangible targets and KPIs and

Marty · 10:00metrics. The driver of that is a person at the end of the day. So if you can find that alignment between the business values and performance and their own individual values and align those two, then remarkable things can happen.

Marty · 10:12But I just don't think, um. And whether it's busyness or whatever the case may be, that that's not always the case. And then you've gotta look out for the people that just, there's a touch of laziness and passiveness about their own performance as well, which is different to being underdeveloped. Right.

Jason · 10:30So on, on that, Marty, you know, what, what steps would you put in place to find that out about the person?

Jason · 10:35Is it a sim? You know, is it send them a survey? Is it regular one-on-one? Catchups like. Personality profiling. So if you're saying, you know, it's important to get to the root of what drives someone and you're working with 10, 20, 30 different team members, what's the process to actually make that a reality?

Jason · 10:52Because you, you know, you've said it a few times that business owners seem to be too busy not focusing on those things. But I'm probably picking up that that is an

Jason · 11:00area that needs focus.

Marty · 11:01Correct. 'cause it's such an important decision. Right. And that's, that's a. Big financial and cultural decision, but I think the first thing is you have to look at what the performance of that person has been, you know, prior to coming to your business.

Marty · 11:14I think that's the best indicator. If they've been successful and they just might not have an environment that's resourcing them as effectively as it could, then they can go from very good to exceptional. That's, that's an easier path than average to good and. I think that's a key, that's a key driver. I think communicate, set expectations from the first interview.

Marty · 11:37You know, and, and good, good actual interviewees will say, how would you see me doing well at this business? What would your expectations be as a business owner? You know, that's a great question. You go, well, I would be really pleased if you actually just hit the results I'm putting in front of you. But, but you know, you could have that, you could have that discussion and then you would put.

Marty · 11:58Um, you would put a set of minimum

Marty · 12:00standards of what the growth curve is in regards to being a high performer within the business and a quality performer in the business. And again, you are not looking to go from A to B overnight, but you're looking for the trend to be going upwards and not to start at ordinary and then just end up plateauing at that point and not seeing any form of development.

Marty · 12:22And you can spend a lot of time trying to develop people through. But some people just aren't right for the job at the end of the day. So having those metrics and having key, you know, key discussions early week to week, uh, you can pretty much work out within the first four to six weeks, whether that's gonna be, you know, a, a really good relationship and good performance or not, I reckon.

Nick · 12:44I think one of the things that I've learned too, Marty, and you know, we've learn this together in, in, in this business, is being really clear about the, those metrics. Upfront, possibly. Well, definitely in the

Nick · 13:00interview process. So this is the expectation in our business. Um, this is the metrics that we'll look at the lead indicators as to whether or not you're gonna perform.

Nick · 13:09'cause in our business, um, a result or a return on investment can come a fair way down the path. So there's things that we need to see, call it the first three months that will, that are lead indicators that will determine whether or not. The performance is gonna be there. Um, and being, uh, really clear on that, whether it's in the interview process or whether it's with a recruiter, means you get people that are serious and that can, that think, um, they can make that work.

Nick · 13:38And to your point earlier, and people that have already been performed, they'll see those metrics and those expectations and they'll be okay with it. But I think being clear with them up front. Push away anyone who wasn't going to perform in the first place, because that, to them will be scary or a problem.

Nick · 13:54And if those metrics are scary, then they're probably not the right person for the role.

Marty · 13:58Yeah. And, and they'll actually back

Marty · 14:00away. You're right from the interview process at that stage, and that's what you want because you haven't invested, you haven't invested in them yet. So it's a really, it's a key, key way to go about it.

Nick · 14:11Yeah. And this is to another extreme, but I had someone tell me one day, um. Talking about sales roles, you should all almost try and push them away from the role. It's as if to say, do you know what you're getting? Self yourself into here? Whether it's high performance culture, our team's, you know best in industry.

Nick · 14:30This is the minimum expectation. Almost try and scare them out of the role. And if they say yes, then you've either got a performer or you've got a dreamer. So you're down to kind of 50 50 chance of getting it right, you know?

Marty · 14:42Well, it impacts too the high performing people within your business, like if you are carrying a few under performers and you are not addressing it effectively to improve that performance.

Marty · 14:53Um. It can have a systemic effect on the high performers because you're spending

Marty · 15:00time in the wrong areas. Right. In, in their minds because, and they don't like that either. So.

Nick · 15:05Yeah. And you just made me think, you know, obviously referring to our business, um, because I know it, but also calculating the cost of having, uh, underperformance.

Nick · 15:15What's the opportunity cost to your point then by not spending time with the, the high performers. But what we've seen in this business is that standard or minimum level performance going to that next level and everyone going with it. So you kind of create this high performance culture where maybe the person that um, you know, was a i'll, I'll use the broking terms, was a 60 mil broker in our business is a 70 mil broker, just because they feel good.

Nick · 15:45Someone next to them's doing it, they feed off each other's energy. So it's probably even hard to quantify what that opportunity cost would be. Having performers that, well, people that don't perform versus a high performance culture.

Marty · 15:58And I think the,

Marty · 16:00the other thing in regards to even leadership is how you manage those people if you need to manage them out, that you do it from a corporate responsibility to the business and the other people into the business.

Marty · 16:14A lot of people, you know, obviously will take it personally, but. Ultimately you've got in small to medium business enterprises, you've got other people's jobs on the line. You know, you've got, you've got shareholder value on the line and a lot of people don't think about that. But, but there is a corporate responsibility that if that person is not performing, that, that you're doing them a favor ultimately, because they'll go to another environment where they can.

Marty · 16:39Potentially have a better fit, but your, your ultimate responsibility is to make sure that the business is okay and that the jobs in the business are okay as well. So, and, and again, it's, I, I've changed my perspective because in the early days I always felt bad. Like I always felt horrible when you had to do something like that, you had to actually tell people they had to go.

Marty · 17:00And I don't love it. Don't get me wrong. I don't, it's not something anyone enjoys, but I have a methodology now and that's thanks to HR and learning from hr, good instruction from them that you actually go, okay, you can follow a course and there's a right way to go about it. You can be cnce in the metrics that you're setting.

Marty · 17:17You be, you can be confident in the performance, you know, reviews and improvement programs, and hopefully there's a bounce off those. But if not, you know, there's, there's a way to go about it. So I think that gives a lot of comfort, um, in something that's a very difficult thing to do. And yeah, to me that was a skill gap, and I'm glad I've bridged that skill gap because I could see how vitally important it is for, for, you know, A SME business.

Jason · 17:43Yeah. Well, it's super important. I mean, I remember reading Netflix, um, no Rules, rules, the book by Reed, is it Reed Hastings? Um, he talks about. In the early days, he had to let go of 20% of his workforce and they, let's say there was 400 employees, they fired around 80 people,

Jason · 18:00and, but they had the same amount of work to do.

Jason · 18:02What they ended up finding happening was that the remaining 320 people actually did all of the work of what 400 were doing. But what they found was that because of the, the bottom 80 performers, all of the other really high performers were going, well, don't have to work that hard, like much harder because the person next to me kind of does it at this level.

Jason · 18:21So why should I go above and beyond and go any further or any higher and, and, and outperform. So you kind of build this kind of level of like what is okay performance by holding onto people that aren't. High performance. Yeah,

Marty · 18:31it's a great link into Nick's point about the rising tide and how important that rising tide of high performance is.

Jason · 18:38Yeah. And then the flow on from that is, I mean, I think a lot of business owners will have the human side of going, well that's a good person, right? Like they're actually going, okay. 'cause you've got okay performance and then you've got high performance. So I think it's, you know, as you said, putting in framework or, or levels of acceptable behavior.

Jason · 18:56And you know, I guess having some. Some processes

Jason · 19:00around it. So you've talked about HR kind of gave you, you know, a bit of a, a roadmap of how to follow it. I mean, what does it look like if you've got someone who you think you can get from an okay performer to a high performer? What is the path that you take with them, and then what's the difference then when it's somebody who you just don't see a hope for, you know, to performance manage them outta the business?

Jason · 19:18Is there a different approach or the same approach?

Marty · 19:20Great question, because a high performer will bounce off the, uh, off a performance improvement plan. Like they, their ego will be pricked and they want to do well. And you find that next level of performance. And some people actually, that's a motivator.

Marty · 19:34The fear of the loss is actually the motivator to kick them into a new gear. And, um, you, you hope that once they get to that gear, they can maintain it, but sometimes they can regress too. But then you understand the style of that person. And it's like at footy, you know, there's some players you can go get the damn ball, pick it up and kick the goal.

Marty · 19:53And don't let me see you do that again. Other people, you go, look, I'd prefer you just go into the pack and

Marty · 20:00get another possession and find your way through the goal. So, you know, different, uh, different tones and different, different sort of, you know, angles in regards to get there. But I find the, I find if someone's going to be a good performer, they can, they can go up a gear.

Marty · 20:14And they'll find something different. And then you also, in fairness to them, have to address the, if there's a skill gap. So is there a skill gap? Do they need development? Do they need resources? Like what do they need in sort of to bridge that performance difference? So. So if you're seeing a trend and you're seeing a great attitude and you're seeing performance start to evolve, then you've got hope.

Marty · 20:38But you might be doing the same thing with the poor performer and you just see it, you know, flat lining, like it doesn't matter what you say. Even if they're slightly enthusiastic, you could see that their tone is still a bit downtrodden their. Basically playing for time, um, thinking about what the next move is potentially.

Marty · 20:57And then generally they resign. You know, if

Marty · 21:00they feel like there's no, there's no way for them to get to where they need to be anyway. So a lot of times people resign prior to, you know, a potential, a potential sacking.

Jason · 21:09I love what you said though, like the, the perform if, if you get put on a performance improvement plan and you've got the right attitude, you bounce back and you come back stronger and better than ever.

Jason · 21:18Like if, if you are a high performer and that's where you want to be and where you want to get to, that's actually your opportunity to work with the person on, I. How to get you to where you wanna be, hit those goals, be the best you can be. So I absolutely love that. I never thought about that idea of, you know, if, I mean, 'cause I've never been put on a performance improvement plan, you know, obviously.

Jason · 21:36No, just kidding. No, no. It's, it's a good, it's a good mindset and the way to look at it to go, you know, and then if, if somebody is, I mean, this is what I see now, you know, we do have some HR assistants and we are trying to, you know, increase performance. I think we're gonna have the strongest. Quarter we've ever had.

Jason · 21:51And that's come through a lot of hard work and a lot of energy and effort on getting the team and the mindset to where it needed to be. But you know, part of that, you know, doing a performance improvement plan,

Jason · 22:00I've probably been scared to do it in the past. I haven't felt like, geez, I don't wanna piss someone off.

Jason · 22:03I don't wanna lose an employee for doing a performance improvement plan when it feels like, you know, I know they're trying. But now actually with that mindset of going. It's good for them, it's good for us. We're both gonna end up somewhere better off in the near short to, near short to medium term future.

Jason · 22:18Then why wouldn't we do it? It's silly not to. Yeah.

Marty · 22:20Well, well you're gonna get the most amount of resources at that time, you know, moving through that performance plan and, you know, linking it into accountability. As long as the, as long as the accountability on the metrics start to trend and there's improvement.

Marty · 22:34And the other thing is that once someone hits a certain level and they break through. It's very rare they regress unless it's attitudinal. Mm-hmm. So it's like once you can get them to a certain level and they, you create a new foundation at that higher level, generally you've got now proof of concept that they can be developed and they can grow, which offers the opportunity for further progression and you can resource them for

Marty · 23:00further progression moving forward.

Marty · 23:02So that's pretty exciting. Now, whether that takes a. Performance improvement plan, or it happens just in general. Um, but that's what you're looking for. You, and, and I guarantee you Nick will back me up on this, no doubt. When you put someone in a circumstance that really stretches them, initially, they're going, holy crap.

Marty · 23:20But then they find something and then they find efficiencies that they didn't know they have, and they find, you know, personal resources that, that start to develop that can handle this new level, and then all of a sudden they find this. You know, they find this, this new level becomes the norm.

Nick · 23:36Well, it's, it's, it's your identity, right?

Nick · 23:38And we've heard this over and over. I think, um, the Habits, books talks about this, but you've gotta, once you create that new identity, uh, and you know what I, in, in relation to performance, this is, this is who I am. Now, to your point, it just becomes a norm. And then you create more habit. You create habits that, that are more in line with that new identity that, you know, this is the level of

Nick · 24:00performance that is just standard for me now.

Nick · 24:02Um. Yeah, you're right. They, they don't go backwards. And, um, I think almost people, if, if they have an identity set in their mind that's, um, you know, maybe at 50% capacity of where they could be, they'll almost self-sabotage to, to stay at that identity. So you've gotta get them, get, get them to have a, um, to jump outside, have a look in and say, well, know what.

Nick · 24:31That's not me. I'm this person. I'm the, I'm not a 50 mil broker. I'm a hundred mil broker. Um, so I'll just do the activity I've gotta do to get there versus where I, I think a lot of people self-sabotage.

Marty · 24:43Oh, you, you've nailed it, Nick. You've absolutely nailed it. You can, and as a leader and as a coach, you can get.

Marty · 24:51Higher performance for a period of time, but if the identity is not aligned, it will bounce back to the poorer performance As soon as you, you know, you

Marty · 25:00let them go and do their own thing. So it's, um, that's a great observation for people. And that's what you're looking for. You're looking for patterns of behavior in regards to performance.

Marty · 25:09It's really, it's, it's understated, but if you can pick up patterns and you can see improvement on improvement, then that's pretty exciting. But if you are seeing, you know, and, and. The other thing you've gotta take into account, if you have had a good performer, consistent, good performer, and they fall away, really have a have a good conversation around it because again, you dunno what goes on in people's lives.

Marty · 25:33There might be problems at home. Um, they might be going through a rough patch. Um, so, you know, you, you see that happen as well. And that's where empathy and compassion need to come in because you know, someone's been very loyal and, and and done well for the business and being a great contributor. And that's where you do have a little bit more leeway to say, okay, well do what?

Marty · 25:54Do you need to move through this? Do you need a day off? Do you need to go and see someone? Can we back you up

Marty · 26:00on that? Um. You know, and, and that's, that's where that, that human element can come in a little bit further

Jason · 26:06on, on the human side, right. I think that's where I've also struggled a bit in the past, getting too close, personally, having deep care for someone.

Jason · 26:14You know, you talked about, you know, empathy and compassion. How do you balance caring for people and then making tough calls?

Marty · 26:21Yeah. Well that, that's an easy one. Now, if it's a friend, I go, can I have a discussion outside our friendship for a moment? Frame, frame it up. 'cause it comes back to the performance, you know?

Marty · 26:33So, Marty, you said

Nick · 26:34something earlier that just is so spot on. Um, I'm referring to you now, Jace. You've got a responsibility to correct 40 people. So, you know, fir the first thing is. That responsibility is higher than, you know, being nice to an underperformer, but there, the reality is, if they're underperforming in your role, they're not getting the best outta

Nick · 27:00themselves anyway.

Nick · 27:00So. I think you're actually, this is the one thing I learned that the sooner you can bring it to the surface and talk to them, they either, they either go up a level in performance or they go and find a job that's more, um, that's more suited to them. So I think you're actually doing them a disservice by not hitting it.

Nick · 27:21On the head. And I've learned that the hard way too, mate, myself. So

Jason · 27:24very helpful. Appreciate

Marty · 27:25it. No, it is, it, it's, it's, it's a good point. It, it's always gotta come back to, you know, there, there's two conversations in that. One, there's the business conversation and then it's supporting the person, you know, if something has gone wrong for them, supporting them, the person outside of the metrics.

Marty · 27:43But the metrics are still the core on what needs to be achieved. And, and you, you'll pick it up. You'll pick up what's going on in, in the actual metrics. Like we could tell from week to week, you know, whether it's leads, whether it's lodgements, whether it's you settlements, it's,

Marty · 28:00um, the, the data never lies.

Marty · 28:02It, you, you can torture data and it'll give you, it'll tell you exactly where a person's at and then you can have discussions around it.

Jason · 28:09Yeah. Well I think that that other mindset there that you dropped Nick or the, the thought of. Looking after that one person and to the detriment of up to 29 or 30 other people, what is that saying to the rest of the team?

Jason · 28:21So that's, that's, yeah. How does that look? Powerful thought, very thought provoking.

Marty · 28:25And I lost a friendship over doing that Jace, in, um, in the early days, like, 'cause whether I had the conversation the way it should have been had is, might, might be a different story, but, but again, I had to protect the business, you know, at the end of the day.

Marty · 28:40And, you know, lost a good friendship over it. But I could have lost the business and lost everyone's livelihood. And you know, you just have to make those stern calls. And you know, I guess at the end of the day, people will think what they think, but you haven't collapsed the whole entity. Um, by, by letting that sort of behavior foster

Nick · 29:00Marty.

Nick · 29:00So question, um, if. If someone is running a small business, they're obviously good salespeople, but might lack some business acumen, which is more than, okay, where do you start with this stuff? So obviously we've talked about what you need to do to attack it. How do you, how do you build out the minimum level or minimum expectations?

Nick · 29:23Like where does that start? Like how do I even know what those minimum expectations are because I might be. Super sales person at 10, outta 10 working my way up through the macas chain. But that's not, that's, you don't necessarily need 10 of those in your business, for example. So how do I build out those metrics?

Nick · 29:43Like if I don't know, can I talk to you? Like where, how do you start?

Marty · 29:47Yeah. Well. Street smarts is gonna come from, from my mouth on this, because to me, I looked at, like even in broking, I looked at the industry average was about 1.2 mil, 1.3

Marty · 30:00million settlements, which I thought was atrocious. I go, why would you leave?

Marty · 30:04Any career to go and do that, but that's the industry average. So I never thought that was a good idea. So to me it had to be three times industry average. 'cause if you want to be average, you do average things, you get average results, well, that's the environment that you're fostering. So, so to me it was always, and there's, there's subtleties in this.

Marty · 30:23So let's say you set the benchmark three times higher as to what the expectation is. Now, generally the first response is, holy crap. Like shock. There's no way this is, this is a joke. And you go, well sit with it for a bit because you're coming at it from a business level first. So you're going, what do I want the business to do, you know, and do for me, uh, running this business.

Marty · 30:47And then you can work backwards and go, alright, where are we at? What's the gap and what qualities do we need to bring to the table in order to start tr trending towards that result? Now, it's not gonna

Marty · 31:00happen overnight, but it's gonna happen in time because you've now set a different benchmark expectation for the business.

Marty · 31:08So your, your ideal is that the three times above industry average becomes the norm for your business, becomes the average for your business, right? At a whole different level now. You need to start developing people. How do you give them a point of difference that's separate to what everyone else is doing?

Marty · 31:26It might only be something little, but it's something you can deliver to the market. That is a unique point of difference. Now you instill confidence in the sales person, so you develop the sales person, give them confidence to put it out there in the market. Guess what starts to happen as you get momentum?

Marty · 31:42As you get momentum, confidence builds. All of a sudden they hear other people in the industry doing that lower performance going, oh, well I'm doubling that, or I'm one and a half times that confidence builds. Then you start drawing good people to your business that want to be a part of that. So you get

Marty · 32:00this flywheel effect across a lot of different areas.

Marty · 32:03By actually setting the expectation and as leaders of a business and owners of a business, it's up to us. It's confidence in our own selves to be able to set that and then map that journey as to what it looks like. What do we want to be known for in this business? Do we wanna be average? No, and we don't want one person shooting the lights out, no one else, because that's another problem in itself.

Marty · 32:26We want that rising tide effect because that's where everyone wins, including the business owner. That's where there's power it. It takes away, you know, the risk of having one person doing all the volumes. It's like you want that rising tide, and then you want to keep building and compounding on that. So that's what I do.

Marty · 32:44I'd sit down and just write out. What does this look like? Like scare yourself. Don't terrify yourself, but just scare yourself a little and go, what does this look like? Even if it's double, you know, if you're doing well, what does it look like? Where do we need to be? What resources do we need to put in to

Marty · 33:00support our people to get there?

Marty · 33:01What's our point of difference in the market? I. You start to, you start to bring different qualities in your thinking and the way you start planning and modeling out the journey to get there. And then you look back in three years time and you go, oh yeah, that's just what we do. It's not, it's, you're at that next foundation where you've probably gotta stretch again, Ray and in a new way, but that's the enjoyment of it.

Marty · 33:24That's the enjoyment of progress, and that's what. Nick was talking about you get juiced up talking to other people, doing really well, you know, within the business. And everyone's on that, on that exciting journey together. It's um, it's, it's invigorating really.

Jason · 33:38Yeah. Your high performers are watching how you handle your low performers.

Jason · 33:41Um, so basically as Marty you're saying either raise the bar or your whole team will just be okay with standard and they'll think that the standards don't matter. Um, for those listening though, I know where I'd be starting. I'd be starting by reaching out to Marty. Um, I know for a fact. That you've put high performing teams in place and uh, yeah, that's what I would be doing.

Jason · 33:58And I probably will reach out to you, Marty,

Jason · 34:00'cause I've mis chatting to you. And for those listening out there, um, give us a, like, give us a follow, definitely reach out to Marty. He's on LinkedIn. You'd find him on Instagram actually. He's everywhere. He's uh, he's the man of the people. We've absolutely loved this episode from you today, Marty, and until next time,

Marty · 34:15do you want fries with that chase?

Marty · 34:16Keep performing mate. Keep performing. I love that. Game over

Jason · 34:22this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only. The conversations are of general nature and do not qualify as financial or tax advice. We recommend before you make any financial decisions, you consult a licensed professional.

Jason · 34:35Individuals on the podcast may hold positions in the companies discussed. ---