1985 – Building a Culture that Attracts Talent with RedBeard Solutions’ Gerry Gadoury

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1:05With us right now, Jerry Goddory. Jerry, you are the founder, managing director of Redbeard Solutions. I wonder why you got that name. We'll talk about that in a second. You're also an author and speaker with Destination Employer, which is the name of your book and your website. The website is destinationemployer.co. Can't wait to learn more about what that means. Jerry, thank you for joining us. Thanks for having me, Josh. I really appreciate the opportunity. Yeah. Well, give us an overview of your work and impact in the world. Absolutely. So I'm a former United States Marine Corps SIG-Inter.

1:44Fell in love with technology early on. Moved out to the business world. Started my business career about, gosh, almost 30 years ago. This probably should have named my company Graybeard, not Redbeard. But I started off as a technical recruiter. Moved from that into management consulting and helping businesses grow. And it's really the hundreds of companies that have had the opportunity to work with that brought up Destination Employer as both a methodology and a book. You know, I just realized that you and I both work for the Department of the Navy. So thank you for your service. And by the way, hitting Sergeant within five years, you made rank pretty well.

2:23You must have been doing some good stuff back then as a kid. It was awesome. I'll tell you, I would have stayed the full 20 if not for the fourth knee surgery. I destroyed my knee, but I loved my time in the Corps. I'm one of those folks that got more from the Corps than they gave, I think, because it was a life-changing experience for me. I would trade it for nothing. Yep. It was my same experience with the Navy. Now, what I will say is that you had a busted-up knee. I got lifelong tinnitus, and it was only because of some exercises and drills we did with the Marines. I had a sergeant. They were doing paintball exercises.

3:00and they had some other elements involved in the training exercise as well. And what happened was, and I'll just share this story because I think you'll appreciate this. But so I'm out there, I was a journalist. I was doing broadcast journalism. I had a camera. So I had a big video camera on my shoulder. I was getting footage of everything, doing interviews and so forth. And this Marine Sergeant says to me, hey, you wanna get some really good footage, some really funny footage go in that little cement building over there this someone's gonna hit a tripwire they're gonna walk into this building check it out but you're gonna be in there with the camera and it's gonna surprise them it's gonna be so funny all right and it's apparently it was gonna not it was gonna hit this flashbang okay guess where the it's a little cement building it's about eight by twelve i'm inside this little cement building guess where the flashbang also I was just going to say that.

3:57You don't want to be that close to a flashbang. Oh, yeah. So listen, anytime. I mean, the Marines are just crazy to begin with, you know, so it was just part of the the culture or whatever. But yeah, that was my that began my lifeline tinnitus. So I got a little bit of disability today. So, hey, Jerry, tell me a bit about who you serve and what is the transformation that you're looking to create with your clients? It's a great question. So I will say this loud and proud to anyone that wants to hear. My passion is startups, early stage companies, and small business. We are the engine that drives the economy.

4:40We are the brain that brings the innovation and the disruption. It all starts with us. And yet, if I'm being honest, we're not the best leaders and hirers in the world. So I created the Destination Employer methodology as a way to help leaders to improve at being a leader and frankly, to be much better at attracting, recruiting and retaining top talent. Where do you see, Jerry, most leaders learning the skills and, you know, all of the aspects of leadership? I think we pull at it. We get it from so many diverse areas. But yet, it could be such a grab bag of what it is that we assemble over the course of our life.

5:25And that might be ultimately the best strategy and kind of making us who we are. But what I find about leadership, too, is there is no destination, as it were, from the sense that, okay, congratulations, you have now become, you have gotten to the pinnacle of leadership. It's leadership to me is this never-ending journey, truly never-ending journey. I wonder how you look at the typical life cycle of leadership development and where you see yourself embedding. That's a great question. So let me say this. The first challenge is this. Unfortunately, most people think that leadership is something that's automagically bestowed on them as they climb through their career.

6:13I'll give you a very quick example. My first job as a sales manager, my boss brought me into her office and said, Jerry, I think you're doing great work here. How'd you like to lead a team? I said, that sounds great. She handed me a box of business cards that said sales manager and said, go lead your team. That was the beginning and end of my trainings. Figure it out. Exactly. You got this. Go get him tiger. I know. So the first thing is to find a leadership style that resonates with you and then own it. Don't read a hundred books, read one and own the material. Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, obviously you talk quite a bit about, you know, kind of building and leading your teams of, you know, this leader people leadership.

6:59And one of the, you know, kind of the early things I know that you talk a lot about is attraction. And you talk about a very specifically a candidate attraction engine. So I think all of us, you know, as leaders, we want the best people on the team. And, you know, we may be constrained with what we can pay, you know, listen, I can't give you full, you know, full remote work or yeah, I know it's like, you know, we're, we have constraints that we have to work with, but yet we want the best people. So how does the candidate attraction engine work? Yeah, great question. First of all, every job is easier to fill with extra$100 ,000.

7:39They're just not really. Yes. So let me explain the destination employer methodology because attraction is the piece you're focusing on, but it's one of four pieces. So we define a destination employer as a company that's developed the reputation in the marketplace where top talent can go to 10X their careers. So if you're a technologist, think companies like OpenAI and Apple and Alphabet. If you're a business consultant, McKinsey, Deloitte, if you're an academic, Harvard, places like that. And the way that we break that process down is in the three phases, attract, recruit, and retain. And then the red thread that ties it all together is our EFG leadership framework.

8:20Now, the attraction phase that you're talking about, that's what you alluded to. It's how do I present my most attractive face to the marketplace? But much more than that, how do I represent my company accurately so that when people do come aboard, they stay, they don't just bounce out because they realize they're sold a bill of goods. where do I put that? What platform makes sense for my target candidate audience? And am I including the people that I want to hire? And as crazy as it sounds, for example, from a DEI perspective, if we're not showing the people that we want to hire in our marketing and they don't feel represented, they're not going to be inclined to engage.

8:59So that's that first piece. The second piece, the recruiting part is, you know, now that I've got their engagement, now that I've got access to talent that most of the market doesn't even see because they're getting crushed with garbage outreach and have no inclination to engage. Now that I'm engaged with these folks, how do I not screw it up? How do I get them aboard? That's what the recruitment piece is. And then retention, very simply, heck, it's easier to fill buckets than it is colanders. How can I make sure that these folks stay with us for as long as possible? And the answer very simply is engage with them so they feel heard and valued, make sure that their personal mission and values align with their companies, and make sure they're growing in skills and responsibilities and ideally can continue to do so once they've grown out of their current role.

9:47As long as those final three things are in place, people are disinclined to leave. Yeah, yeah. And so where do you think most employers get or most leaders get it wrong when it comes to retention? So if someone's listening and saying, yeah, you know what? We've lost some really good people over the past year and that just hurts. It sucks. And, you know, it sounds like you've got some opinions on that. Yeah, for sure. So the most important thing when it comes to retention is the beginning. Are you bringing people in where the job you're hiring for is a logical next step for them. Not they're 100 % qualified and they can do it, because if they're 100 % qualified, they probably have very little growth opportunity.

10:34The second thing is, do your cultures align? Does what makes Josh Elledge tick align with Redbeard Solutions? If they don't, there's going to be constant conflict. If those things are working for you, it's up to you as a leader to engage with them. As much as is possible, you need to understand their goals and aspirations so you can tie those to your company's success. A real, real quick example. Many years ago, I hired a salesperson that was recently married, looking to save up for his first house for his family. So rather than sit down with him, because I understood that, rather than sit down with him and go over KPIs that I needed from his sales performance, we aligned everything with the amount of money that he needed to save for a down payment and what that meant from a production level.

11:22And every week we looked at it from that perspective. he got that house in a year um and he invited me to the housewarming so i guess i guess i got some credit from him that but that's a very easy example because sales is easy to track but that's an example of how to engage with people he felt heard and valued he knew that i cared about his outcomes and i'm here to tell you if your team knows that you care about their outcomes they care about yours if they don't think you care about them why would they care about you Yeah. And you may have defined this and maybe I missed it, but tell me about the importance of the word destination employer.

11:59What does that mean? Exactly. When you think of, let me change venues for a minute. When you think of a destination vacation, you're thinking about the most beautiful places in the world, places we can really go and cut loose. A destination employer is a company that's established a reputation in the marketplace where top talent can 10x their careers. In other words, they know if they go there, they're going to hit their golden ticket. I know if I'm a technologist and I joined OpenAI today, that my career is going to explode. Heck, let me give you an example of this. If you look on LinkedIn, you'll very often see in people's bios, ex-Googler, ex-McKinsey, ex-Harvard, because they're letting people know right off the bat, I was at this incredible place.

12:46And you can catch some of that magic if you work with me. Yeah. And so the book specifically is called Destination Employer. And so it's on Amazon. It's everywhere else. And by the way, you have it in Kindle. It's on Kindle Unlimited. You have the audio book that's available as well. So thank you. And you have stellar reviews on Amazon. You're at a 4.7 with, you know, I mean, with many, many reviews here, Jerry. So obviously you're striking a nerve here. What would you expect, you know, for someone who's like, I'll read that. What would you hope that the, what transformation would you hope would take place when someone reads destination employer, attract, recruit, and retain the top talent in your market?

13:36That's a great question. This is not a book of philosophy and theory. This is a how-to guide. When you're done with this book, you'll have the tools to be able to consistently attract, recruit retain the top talent in your marketplace i know i keep saying the same words but i can't stress this enough the gulf between the top three percent of performers and the top even 15 percent performers is night and day and that top three percent they don't engage with just anybody you've got to do it right it's not rocket science i'm here to tell you i'm a former marine sergeant i've been hitting the head too many times to be too smart but but but there is a path and this this book will take you there.

14:16Yeah. Okay. So your website, destinationemployer.co, and you've got obviously, oh, and by the way, you're a podcaster. Your podcast is called Business Mastery. Sorry for not bringing that up earlier. And that's a really great, so for a friend that's listening, so what a great resource this is. For a friend that's listening to a podcast right now, just search for Business Mastery. And you should see, you'll see Jerry's smiling face right there on the cover. It's black background with yellow writing. But aside from that, Jerry, when someone goes to your website, what would you recommend they do next?

14:58For sure. So I recommend, much like the question about leadership in the beginning, picking a path and running with it. I have a specific way of doing things. And before you engage fully and decide that I'm your particular cup of tea, do some research, listen to the podcast on the podcast page, read my daily LinkedIn posts, go to my YouTube channel, Jerry Godori, get a feel for me. But on that page, there's a program that we have. That's all the information from the book, but in video format with downloadables that will allow you to implement this step-by-step. And heck, if you want still more help, there's an opportunity there to book a call with me and my consulting company can get involved as well.

15:45We work with everything from five-person companies up through Megacorps. Yeah. Jerry Goddory, your website, destinationemployer.co. It's been a great conversation. Jerry, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you, Josh. I truly appreciate the opportunity.

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