IAM1732 – CEO Helps HR Leaders Get the Right People

Why it was selected for “CBNation Architects”: In this episode of the CEO Podcasts, host Gresham Harkless interviews Fletcher Wimbush, CEO of The Hire Talent, a talent assessment software company, and Wimbush & Associates, Inc., a talent search firm. Fletcher has interviewed over 10,000 job applicants and has authored a book on hiring team players.

Fletcher discusses his lifelong passion for identifying team players and avoiding problem generators, which led him to join his father's business and eventually take over. He emphasizes the importance of getting the right people on the bus and how his company helps clients identify whether they have the right person through talent assessment tools.

During the interview, Fletcher shares his CEO hack, which is using scheduling tools like the calendar to be efficient with time. He also shares his CEO nugget, which is to clearly define the target customer. Fletcher defines being a CEO as creating a vision, mission, and a better environment for customers and the internal team.

Overall, the podcast provides insights into talent search and assessment and offers valuable advice for entrepreneurs and business owners looking to hire the right team players for their organizations.

I AM CEO Handbook Volume 3 is HERE and it's FREE. Get your copy here: http://cbnation.co/iamceo3. Get the 100+ things that you can learn from 1600 business podcasts we recorded. Hear Gresh's story, learn the 16 business pillars from the podcast, find out about CBNation Architects and why you might be one and so much more. Did we mention it was FREE? Download it today!

Previous Episode: https://iamceo.co/2022/07/17/iam1434-ceo-helps-hr-leaders-get-the-right-people/

Transcription:

Fletcher Wimbush Teaser 00:00

I grew up running concession stands and selling hot dogs and breakfast burritos and espressos and it was ingrained that customer service is like the most important thing in the business of delivering on your promise to your customers, it's so important. And so we put a lot of emphasis on that. I think that's helped us a loyal follow-up.

Intro 00:25

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs, without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of.

This is to I AM CEO podcast.

Gresham Harkless 00:52

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I appreciate you listening to this episode. If you be listening this year, you know that we hit 1600 episodes at the beginning of this year. We're doing something a little bit different where we're repurposing our favorite episodes around certain categories or topics or as I like to call them, business pillars that we think are going to be extremely impactful for CEOs, entrepreneurs, and business owners, and what I like to call the CB nation architects who are looking to level up their organizations.

This month we are focused on our greatest asset, talent management and hiring. Think from great resignation to the great renovation. And if you disagree with me, maybe these episodes might be especially for you. Life and especially business has changed. It has forced those that are within organizations who look differently at talent, and how it's being managed.

When we talk about change, think about it, we have to realize that business as usual is no longer here. And that's evident in attracting and retaining clients, but also in setting up people within organizations to succeed. Think onboarding, think DEI- diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. How it is working from home and even going back into the office.

Things are different in this month. We are going to explore these topics by featuring CEO hacks and CEO nuggets, but also interviews that focus on these changes and how organizations can make sure they care for and attract the most valuable asset, their people. Sit back and enjoy this special episode of the I AM CEO podcast.

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today, back on the show, might I say. I have Fletcher Wimbush of Hire Talent.

Fletcher, super excited to have you on the show.

Fletcher Wimbush 02:26

Thank you Gresh for having me back, man. I'm looking forward to it.

Gresham Harkless 02:29

Yes. Excited to have you back on. Fletcher was on episode number 780 of the I AM CEO podcast so super excited to hear about all the things he's been working on and all the exciting things that he's doing to help out the community. So, before we jump in and do that, I want to read a little bit more about Fletcher so you can hear about some of those awesome things.

So founder and CEO of hire talent, Fletcher has interviewed over 10,000 applicants, assessed tens of thousands more, and has presented to numerous business groups and HR leaders on best recruiting practices based on his published content such as Hiring talented team players, A Guide to Get Into the Power Interview Guide, various eBooks and thousands of thousands of articles.

Like I mentioned before, he's back on the show. So Fletcher, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community again?

Fletcher Wimbush 03:10

Oh yeah. Thank you.

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Gresham Harkless 03:12

Awesome. Let's make it happen. He was born for this. So, trying to kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit, hear a little bit more on what you've been working on, what you've been doing since we last spoke and had you on the show.

Fletcher Wimbush 03:23

Yeah. I think that it's good timing. Yeah. It's been probably like almost two years, I think. A lot has changed in our world. So we're Primarily a talent assessment. So we help organizations evaluate candidates in the hiring process, whether that be through some of these interviewing techniques that you mentioned, and that's where we spend a lot of time sharing that content with anybody and everybody to help them get better at that.

Our core product is talent a series of talent assessments, we offer 30 different plus assessments and their behavior, aptitude skill and culture-based assessments ultimately also to help facilitate the selection of the ideal candidate. And as part of our journey like many, our platform has to evolve and Probably right before you and I started connecting a couple of years ago, we began the journey of redeveloping our whole delivery platform for helping our clients, which ultimately turned into what we'll call our discovered performance hiring platform, which we're really excited about.

It's just coming out of beta. So we've spent the last year, we've added 200 plus users to that platform, and they're getting great results from that. And now it's getting pretty close to its official launch date and it's really exciting. But that tool really helps people not only just evaluate candidates, but also talent acquisition. So collecting and managing the hiring process and then allowing people to use all our different talent evaluation tools. So it's not just our assessments, but it's like automated reference, checking one-way video interviewing. Interview guides or power interview guides, and 72 other interview guides are all built in there.

Then ultimately a performance management piece. All right? So once you collect candidates, you figure out who's gonna be the ideal fit for you, and then once you hire them, you have to provide them regular feedback, constructive feedback, set goals, and help them maximize their potential, right? So, It's a really cool platform and we're really excited about it. The other kind of cool thing I was just talking to you mentioned to you Gresh, is on Monday, bought a company and it's called Integrity First. And so it's a 40-year-old assessment. It was a singular product assessment platform and they had many loyal followers.

We acquired that, that product and we'll be adding it to our lineup and it's got all sorts of cool things. It's really great for making sure that you find folks that who are going to be really ideal good team players and eliminating risky behaviors in the workforce. So as drug use, hostility, theft, and lying. So it's really squarely focused on that. It's great for anybody who has a large population of frontline workers, essentially. So where, unfortunately sometimes those risk factors, Somebody driving a forklift stone can be a problem.

Gresham Harkless 06:09

Just a little bit. Yeah. I appreciate you sharing that. I imagine, disrupted during these times, but provide them the tools and information, and knowledge so that they're able to be as successful as possible too.

Fletcher Wimbush 06:20

Yeah. Yeah. And we think about it. We enable people by teaching them the strategy, and the techniques, and then we give them the tools to make executing the strategies and the techniques way easier.

Gresham Harkless 06:33

Yeah, that makes a much sense.

Fletcher Wimbush 06:35

I always, equate it to marketing, right? You're a marketing guy, right? Gresh. So, it's so complex, right? And you've got to have the strategy and you've got to have the techniques. You got to know those things. You got to become an expert in them. That is its own learning curve.

But then you need the tools to make it easier. So I think like HubSpot or Active Campaign, right? And those tools got to be paired with that expertise to a degree, but Ideally a good tool like HubSpot, I think is generally a pretty great tool. They have that whole learning database and bank and so they're also teaching you as you use the tool, right? And so we really love that model.

Gresham Harkless 07:12

Yeah. I love that. And you hear so many times in business that, sometimes when you come up with ideas or innovations or something, you guard it close to the chest because you don't want anybody to take those tools.

Fletcher Wimbush 07:22

Yeah. These things are complex, right? There's just not a simple silver bullet to hiring or marketing or even sales or whatever it is, right? So, the tools make it easier, but the strategy and the technique, that knowledge also helps you strengthen your ability to leverage the tools that we have. So it's great. Yeah, it's really fun.

Gresham Harkless 07:42

Absolutely. I love that. So you told us a little bit about how you're serving your clients, and definitely please let us know if there's anything that we didn't, touch on that you do to help, support and serve the clients that you work with. But I wanted to hear more about what I like to call your secret sauce. And that could be for yourself, the organization now, or a combination of both. But what do you feel sets your part and makes you unique?

Fletcher Wimbush 08:02

Yeah, I think as much as we are a tech-forward platform and we identify ourselves as a SaaS company. Again, I think it goes back to that educational aspect of it. We really embrace that very hands-on with our clients. And that throughout all our reviews, we have opportunity reviews across Captera and Trustpilot. 10 video testimonials and counting every day. The common theme is that kind of that human support and I see technology companies all the time and we all use different tech tools.

I think for me, one of my big rubs always has been, I got to submit a support ticket via email, and then they get back to me and they don't even answer my question, right? It's just so annoying, right? Like it's been over-technologized. When you're dealing with some complex matters like hiring or marketing or whatever it might be, it's nice to have an extra human touch there where you're having a client success person really not just teaching you how to use the tool, but giving you that strategic insight as well so that you can bring all that together.

I grew up in running concession stands and selling hot dogs and breakfast burritos and espressos and it was ingrained that customer service is the most important thing in business or one of the most important things. I think hiring is, but delivering, on your promise to your customers is so important. And so we put a lot of emphasis on that. I think that's helped us have a loyal following.

Gresham Harkless 09:30

Yeah, absolutely. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

Fletcher Wimbush 09:42

Okay. All right. Here's the first one that came to my mind, probably have many, but first of all, I'm like scheduling. The schedule has sets me free. I've got a million things going on in my life and at work, right? By having everything planned and scheduled right, it gives me freedom. Ultimately, it might seem constricting. You got all these appointments you got to go to and my calendar's full or whatever. But no, at the end of the day, I know I've done all my work. I know I've completed my tasks. I've been to all the appointments. I tended them. I did everything that I needed to do and so I can shut off right on the weekends or after work. This leads to probably my favorite hack, which is just self-scheduling tools, right?

If you haven't discovered them yet, I would really encourage you to do so. I've also come up with my own way and how I use those. So again, thinking about people first, right? In a sense it sometimes feels a little disingenuous to be like, Hey, Gresh, your book a call here, use this link. It's like me telling me what to do kind of. So I always use this line in every single one of my communications where there's an appointment or a meeting to be scheduled, right? So I say, Hey, Gresh what would be some times that are good for you for us to connect this week?

Right below that I put, if it's more convenient for you, I have this easy scheduling link as you can use. So I reposition the, Hey Gresh, use this to book an appointment with me, to put it into your terms. Hey, if this makes your life easier, so that we don't have to go back and forth and you don't have to ask me a bunch of questions, or I send you three times and you're not available.

This is to streamline your experience of working with me. Opposed to this is making my life easier. And ultimately makes both our lives easier if they use it.

Gresham Harkless 11:43

Nice. So, I wanted to ask you now for what I call CEO Nuggets. So this is a little bit more word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It could be around, all the awesome work that you do for clients, what you've been able to do with acquiring a company or anything that you might tell your younger business owner.

Fletcher Wimbush 11:56

Wow, that's a good one. Again, I think people first is definitely a big one. But I think focus. I mean as I've gone through my entrepreneurial journey, every time we have refocused, sometimes, we have focus, we have direction, a clear path, the course of action that we're going down, but sometimes that can begin to fade and become more murky, right?

So anytime we've done that where we've said, okay, this is what we're focusing on. This is the problem we're gonna solve for people, this is how we're gonna do it, and we're gonna avoid distractions. Revenue just skyrockets every time we've done it. We've had to do it a few times over our evolution of work of our company, right? I think that's a key piece. I think as a young entrepreneur, we wanna do all sorts of things and there are lots of shiny objects, right?

But we have to work on putting the blinders on and just point the direction and keeping laser-focused on.

Gresham Harkless 12:50

Awesome. Fletcher, now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're hoping out different quote and quote CEOs on the show. So Fletcher, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Fletcher Wimbush 13:00

Wow. I think of the e-myth we're visiting, right? Technician, the manager, the visionary, right? In the early days and even today, I still wear many of those hats. As the business evolves and it grows, it becomes much more difficult to be the technician.

I really think that it's setting the directions, it's coaching and enabling others to be successful in what they do and to a degree of staying out of their way right.  Now, It doesn't mean that there's no like guidance or accountability necessarily, but again it comes back to that focus, like the more focus we can give for each person, each role in our company, right? Then the more successful they can be in that role because we're not distracting them with the things that are unnecessary.

So it's our job to be that visionary, to set the course and to continue to reinforce and then support people with the tools and the education and the things that they need in order to execute on their course of action, right? So, that supportive aspect of it, it's never done me much good to meddle too much in the details. Again, this doesn't mean that I'm perfect. I'm definitely far from perfect in this area, right? But I'm constantly figuring out how to. I just need to let them do what they do and stay out of it to a degree and just give and provide the guardrails and then the tools that they need to be successful.

Gresham Harkless 14:29

Awesome. Awesome, awesome. Fletcher, truly appreciate that definition. Of course. I appreciate your time even more. So what I wanted to do now was pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know, and of course how best people can get ahold of you found about your books, all the awesome resources and platforms and technology that you've been able to create.

Fletcher Wimbush 14:47

Yeah. Awesome. You can definitely check us out at thehiretalent.com or thehiretalent.io. So, pun there, but so thehiretalent.com and thehiretalent.io are great sites where you can check out some of our different tools and services. Each of those takes you to kind of the different platforms that we offer.

Yeah, we have a couple of books on Amazon, so hiring talented team players. Just type that in. Last name, is Wimbush. You can find that on Amazon. And then you find me on LinkedIn or Facebook. Always happy to connect there as well.

Gresham Harkless 15:25

Fletcher, truly appreciate that. We're gonna have the links and information in the show notes too, so that everybody can follow up with you. Thank you so much again, my friend, and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Fletcher Wimbush 15:34

Awesome. Thanks, Gresh.

Outro 15:36

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO podcast, powered by CB Nation and Blue 16 media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Don't forget to schedule your complimentary digital marketing consultation at blue16media.com.

This has been the I AM CEO podcast with Gresham Harkless, Jr. Thank you for listening.

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