The Home Service Expert Podcast
00:24:38 · Tommy Mello, Becca Erdmann, Kyle Erdmann
[00:24:38] S0: And when you ask them, Becca, if they're interested, like, why did you apply? What are you looking for them to say? Like, they do their research Yeah. On [00:24:49] S1: I mean, there's some people who are just saying like, oh, I saw your, you know, down the street from where I live. So, there's some responses that are kind of outrageous you wouldn't expect to get, but I'm not going to waste my time bringing in somebody who the reason that they want to work for our company is because we're a mile away from their house. Right? So I'm more looking for people to avoid rather than what they're actually saying. I mean, my time is valuable. I don't need to waste it with people who don't really want to come work. So yes, I'm looking for somebody who knows about our business, obviously did, even if it's five minutes of research, showed some effort. Show that they're interested. Show that they know anything about us. It's not just like another random job that you're trying to apply [00:25:32] S0: Where are finding these? Where are you putting ads? Indeed, Glassdoor. [00:25:35] S1: Only Indeed because I've never had luck with [00:25:37] S0: --. [00:25:39] S1: Nothing else. [00:25:39] S2: We've had back like we we used a recruiter at one point. We had terrible luck with the recruiter. We had terrible luck on LinkedIn. [00:25:46] S0: Nothing social? Facebook, we used to...
00:25:46 · Tommy Mello, Kyle Erdmann
[00:25:46] S0: Nothing social? Facebook, we used to... [00:25:48] S2: We ran sales ads from... We ran sales ads on Facebook for a little bit and we ran carpenter ads on Facebook. And carpenter ads, we still run all over the place. Yeah. Because carpenters You're [00:25:57] S0: still trading, you're trying to recruit. See, the problem is what I have with Indeed sometimes is it's mostly people that are unemployed or looking to leave and they hop around. But look, Indeed is our number one source by far. I mean, it's great. And if you pay, there's AI that does a lot of stuff. But now the AI is working in their favor too. They're applying to a million places. It's like the applicants are coming in way higher, so it's harder to kind of screen. Yep. And they'll spend, you know, a couple 100 to $500 a pop. Mean, you got to really be impressed before you're inviting them to take it. [00:26:27] S2: Yeah. [00:26:28] S0: Yep. Okay. So what do you guys do? I want to spend a little bit more time on this. What do you guys do to make people feel like really valued? Like, what do you do? Do you do community stuff with them? Do you invite them out to like... What are the things that you feel like build the culture? [00:26:46] S2: So, we do big quarterly outings with our whole team. Now we're doing them both locations. So, I think, next month you guys are doing a murder mystery party with the entire team. Just anything that we can do to get the entire team in a non work environment so that we're all just hanging out feeling more friendly with each other, more like a family.
00:26:46 · Kyle Erdmann, Becca Erdmann, Tommy Mello
[00:26:46] S2: So, we do big quarterly outings with our whole team. Now we're doing them both locations. So, I think, next month you guys are doing a murder mystery party with the entire team. Just anything that we can do to get the entire team in a non work environment so that we're all just hanging out feeling more friendly with each other, more like a family. [00:27:07] S1: We also do cookouts like Labor Day, Memorial Day. We'll, you know, pay for all the food, of course, and, like, have somebody grill out at the office. [00:27:16] S2: Usually, it's me. [00:27:18] S1: He likes to cook. [00:27:19] S2: I do like to cook. Went to culinary school, so... [00:27:21] S0: Very cool. [00:27:22] S2: So yeah, just a lot of the inter department stuff. So managers will take their people out. So we try to do team segmented and then entire company. And how many employees? We're up to like 75 now. [00:27:37] S1: Yeah. Both locations. [00:27:39] S0: What's the one rule that you never break as a couple in business? [00:27:45] S2: We will never not... Communication is the big rule we never break, is we'll never let a lack of communication bring anything down. So, she's a lot better at it than me. She's a very good communicator, and she won't let me... A lot of times, I wanna sleep it off, and she won't let me go to bed until I communicate it through with her. So, some of it's a little bit on her end, really making sure that I communicate everything out. But it ends up being a very helpful thing to keep our relationship healthy inside and outside of the workplace.
00:27:45 · Kyle Erdmann, Tommy Mello
[00:27:45] S2: We will never not... Communication is the big rule we never break, is we'll never let a lack of communication bring anything down. So, she's a lot better at it than me. She's a very good communicator, and she won't let me... A lot of times, I wanna sleep it off, and she won't let me go to bed until I communicate it through with her. So, some of it's a little bit on her end, really making sure that I communicate everything out. But it ends up being a very helpful thing to keep our relationship healthy inside and outside of the workplace. [00:28:14] S0: So how'd you figure this out? [00:28:18] S2: Because she's a great communicator. But I mean, it's not... We've always had great communication between us, and that's always been kinda what I would say has been the backbone of our relationship.
00:28:18 · Kyle Erdmann, Becca Erdmann, Tommy Mello
[00:28:18] S2: Because she's a great communicator. But I mean, it's not... We've always had great communication between us, and that's always been kinda what I would say has been the backbone of our relationship. [00:28:30] S1: It's I feel like I've seen so many relationships where one of the people are angry and they hold on to resentment, and then they'll go talking to their friends, and they'll be complaining. But they'll never directly just talk about the problem to the person that caused the problem and talk through it and find a solution. And I am extremely solution oriented. I don't really see problems. I only see solutions. It's kind of like, this is what's going on. Okay. What are we going do about it? And it's not bad or good. It's not positive or negative. It just is. But I want the solution. I don't want it to happen again. I'm very just, what's going on? You did something that bothered me. What happened? Let's talk about it. I don't want this to happen again. Move on. Like it's not negative or positive. That's what we... We're just always very open communication with everything. [00:29:14] S0: I've always heard the best thing to say to a significant other, even at work, if it's not even a significant other, could be a partner or whatever is, this is how this made me feel. Not that you're this type of person because that's an absolute. Yep. Like if I said, Becca, you always do this. You're always like this. Instead of saying, Becca, you know, when you do things like that, this is the way it makes me feel. [00:29:36] S1: Yeah, right.
00:29:36 · Becca Erdmann, Tommy Mello, Kyle Erdmann
[00:29:36] S1: Yeah, right. [00:29:36] S0: Because you can never get upset about how I feel. You can never say, That's not true. You don't feel like that. Yeah. So, you know, I think there's certain things I've learned. And by the way, they never come into my head at the right time. Always say something stupid. [00:29:49] S2: No, and being really good with communication, it allows for openness and feedback. So, when we do hold meetings with leadership or with team members, one of the first things we ask each other is how'd we do? And we're always just open to feedback on how we did, how can we get better, how can we make it better the next time, just to ensure that it just always keeps getting better. [00:30:07] S0: When you are getting feedback, do you feel like feedback is easy to get or do you feel like, hey, my direct supervisor's in here. If I say anything, I'm not going to say it in front of them. So, it one on one? Is it in a group? How do you guys like to get feedback? [00:30:21] S2: I like getting feedback one on one. [00:30:24] S1: Yeah. Mean, we've never really had too much feedback from a group setting. [00:30:27] S0: Because there's always those few guys that will be like, this sucks and this sucks and it's like, let's talk about that on the side. That's just you. [00:30:34] S2: Yeah. I mean, that's the sales team that does that. Yeah. They like they like to gang up and talk about how everything sucks for them. Yeah. [00:30:41] S1: Badly.