[Special Episode] The Mindstate Marketing Hour #14 with Will Leach - The ROI Online Podcast Ep. 74

Welcome to the ROI online podcast. And this is a special series of interviews with Will Leach. He's the author of Marketing to Mindstates, the practical guide to applying behavior design to research and marketing. And I'm your host, Steve Brown, the author of the funniest book on marketing, The Golden Toilet, stop flushing your marketing budget into your website and build a system that grows your business. And in this series of conversations, we're going to explore everything about marketing, your messaging, and connecting with your clients, your customers, your employees. So come on, and join us. And let's have some fun. Hey, welcome everybody back to another excellent episode, the episodes I look forward to with Will Leach. It's The Mindstate Marketing hour, where Will's going to blind us with science to help us connect better with our clients, Will, how are you?

I'm doing great today. It's just before the big holiday next week, and I'm looking forward to a little bit of a holiday break. So all good things, hey, there's that book. I've seen that book before.

So Will's the author of Marketing the Mindstates the practical guide to applying behavior design to research and marketing. And this is where we have great conversations all around the in depth topics of how to apply mindstate marketing to better connect with your clients, the clients on the other end, they're humans, they have lives. And they're in the states of mind when they're evaluating what you do. And what a wonderful way to figure out how to connect better with them to help them feel understood, and to help them feel safe. Will you wanted to talk about today, this topic about managing two personality classifications, I can actually hurt you and your staff, what do you mean?

Yeah, so you know, for the last couple of weeks, we've talked about since it was Halloween, we talked about alter egos. And we talked about how you know? That we all have a hero inside of us. And it got me into thinking a lot more about that, you know, when I was in Corporate America, personality tests were important. And if you go on Facebook, and LinkedIn, all these different things, right now, personality tests are really engaging, they're fun for people to take, they could tell you a lot about your personality and who you are, and some of the things that you know, make you who you are. The problem with personality tests is that you should not manage two personality tests. And I wanted to kind of talk a little bit about that, because you're in reviews are happening now for a lot of people. And I want anybody out there who is thinking about using one of these personality tests to review one of their employees, or to, you're using these things to manage your employees personality, I'm gonna tell you why I don't think that's the right thing for you to do, or certainly not the only thing that you should do.

So when you say manage, you mean as far as the manager taking, the these insights and trying to apply them to better manage their employees?

That's right. So let me give you an example of what happened to me. So I was over at PepsiCo, and we wanted to of course, build leadership and train each other to work better together. And we took a disc profile, there's a whole bunch of these different companies that come in, and they have you take a survey of some length, and then they do an assessment and then they come in and they train you on how different personality types should engage which with each other. And I from the personality profile that this disc assessment gave me, it must it categorize me as a deep thinker, which is actually not that different than what I really am and different personality tests tell me I'm a deep thinker, I'm thoughtful and I'm driven and you know me, driven by competence as my motivation meaning I seek skills I'm constantly trying to learn new things, I'm trying to get as much depth in a particular field of knowledge because I believe that knowledge is a core requirement to be successful. It's just something I grew up on. So this personality classifier, categorized me as a color there's these color things right? I'm sure there's others out there but I was a blue and so, we all talked about this blue and how we can communicate better with blue. Well then, about six months later an opportunity came up to drive innovation with a totally different group on and I was being sought after a bit well that would only be interested in his position but at the time somebody the people remember that was blue, they said, Yeah but is Will really aggressive enough? Is Will really the type of person that is going to be well, do well in this role? Because he's a blue, we need someone who's aggressive, we need somebody who's a red and a red will take chances and seize opportunities. And so that was actually going to limit me from this project from this group. And at the time, I had a manager who was smart enough who said, No, no, that's Will yeah, he's not like like that but I think he could step up to the challenge. And that if she wasn't there, in this meeting, I wouldn't have taken on this role and this role, was actually launching a series of new brands for free to lay in an incubator. And in the incubator I learned about behavioral sciences and 10 years later, I'm here today talking to you as a best selling author. And as a, you know, world leading expert in this field, and it would came out of this role. And I love how my manager had the foresight to not position me and package me into one little identity based upon some kind of a personality, personality profile. And you had it up there, Steve, they are notoriously inaccurate. personality test guides are fun, they give you insights in yourself. But there's a couple of things you should know about them. The first thing is that there is very little scientific evidence that tells you that a personality profile will actually dictate or predict a future behavior that like Myers Briggs has been out there for decades, Myers Briggs has been studied so many times, and there is no evidence, none at the academic base anyways, that suggests that that is predictive of who you are, or what kind of behavior you're going to take. So if you're going to be classifying somebody as a personality, then certainly don't use something that can't predict how they'll perform at a job. Second thing happens with personality profiles, is that they're not consistent 75% of the time. So if you take a Myers Briggs, and if you wait a couple of weeks and take it again, 75% of the time, you won't be in the same profile. So that just tells you right off the bat that they're kind of measuring how you are in that moment how you're feeling in that moment, just like a mind state, but they're not really predicting who you are. And you know, these Steve, we all change over time, like I ain't, the same person I was when I was 25. And I was different at 35 and different at 45. So we evolve, people and experiences change us, and they change our personalities. And so that's another reason why personality profile should not dictate somebody's career. And then the last thing I would say, and you know this from the book, is that we are influenced by contexts, like how I'm feeling in this moment, the room, I'm in who I'm with their social norms, there are times where I'm a little bit down, maybe or sometimes I'm elevated, and that dictates my personality. And if we don't take those things into consideration, then you're just going to pigeonhole people into a role that otherwise limits their potential. And that's what I'm trying to avoid with managing through these personality profiles.

So just right out of the box, you're saying that you can be in a state of mind when you take this test. But then you can be in a different state of mind when you're actually performing a role or actually going about your responsibilities in your job.

That's absolutely right. And I wouldn't say you could be, you are, I know you are, we all know we are right? And what's so funny about personality tests, anybody with any insight, when you're applying for a job, and if you're if your company asks you to take one of these tests, we're all smart enough to realize what they're trying to do. So what do you do? You change your answers based upon what you believe that job requires or what you believe that job or that manager wants. So the classic one are introverts versus extroverts. And that is a definite personality classification. Every introvert on the planet understands that nobody wants an introvert in their company, it's always you want an extrovert you want someone who can build relationships. So every introvert has been conditioned to always lie on these personality profiles. I'm an introvert. And I know I'm smart if you realize that if I keep saying that, I want to be by myself, and I'm not gonna be a team player, and I may lose a job. So I'm not going to answer honestly, anyways. And evidence shows that people do answer those questions, just honestly, because they're smart enough, especially in a corporate corporate job, they understand what their bosses are looking for.

So what do you mean, don't take into consideration people's roles to succeed?

Yeah. So this goes back to this idea that we all have roles. Steve, we've talked about it from a personal level, right? I'm a father. I'm also a business owner, I'm a husband. And so I'm an entrepreneur. So I have these roles in life. And because in different roles, I play a different part like I act differently, and I have different attitudes and beliefs as it comes to raising my son than I will with growing a company or scaling a company. So that's just human nature. We have different roles. Well, the same thing happens to your job. You have different roles that you have in your job. Sometimes it's about a team. You're a team builder. That's your role on a team. And your job is really to bring teams together and find commonality. Other times, you're the hard charger, you're the person your role on a team is to push a project through. So we have we used to have these teams that we used to work with at PepsiCo, where you had different people from different organizations. And then we had team leads who would drive initiative forward, well, that person needs to be very achievement minded focus, overcoming barriers constantly, because in a big organization, we have tons of barriers to overcome so you have to be that leader. Now, that doesn't mean I'm an achiever. And I had that personality all the time. But I understood in that role, I had to get to the finish line, or it would cost my entire team success. So what I want us to think about are roles, because roles are those set expectations in which people are supposed to behave in different situations. And we modify our personalities, we modify our strength and pull back on our weaknesses depending on the role you have for that team. So remember, let me talk about high school. I don't know if you've had this issue I love, I love talking to you about the past and see if you had the same experiences. So in high school, I had a set group of friends you know, you kind of find a click, in that click I was a little bit shy and I was also kind of the guy that, remember God this is gonna date us, remember Potsie? I was Potsie basically in my group, right? I'm not proud of it. But that because we had, we had this guy who end up playing division one baseball, he was the jock. And we had a guy who was really the funny guy. And then we had this guy we called Diablo, which, obviously Diablo's a guy that I don't know if he's in prison right now, right? But in our click, just like in a tribe, we're trying to find our role, we're trying to find our area where we can be unique. So I was Potsie. Now, take that same role, and tell you and think of this, think of yourself that role now, that changes, that changed when I'm in the military, in the military, I had a talk because I was at different group of people. So I had to fill in a different role. And so when I mean that, make sure that we understand that different situations or people around us, we're always trying to figure out where we stand in the group. That's why raising a teenager is so hard today, guys. My son is 11 now, gosh, can't believe it? He's 11. And sometimes he's trying to be the funny guy. And he can't be the jock because that that group is already taken care of, he's the computer programer. I know he's exploring because he wants to fit in, and how do you fit in? You create a unique proposition to enter into that group that's unique, but still feels like it should be a part of that group. So my point on that is roles are supposed to be, you're supposed to have different roles in different situations. And if you're not managing those roles, you're limiting, you're limiting the potential of your staff.

So how can? So personality tests, they give you a little bit of insight, but you know, you don't know what to take serious and what to dismiss. But yet, we still need to manage the people's natural motivations. And what that role is, what are some tips to help us be a little bit natural, more natural about this?

Yeah. So I think there are two things you should know about your employees. The first one is we do have personalities, right? I'm not suggesting we don't have personalities, they're just not consistent. But I have a natural, I'm naturally a little bit introverted. And like I told you, I'm motivated in many instances by competence. And in my book competence is our greater skill. So I I constantly read in depth and try to be very skilled on something just it's my natural desires in a lot of different things. So first off, you should know the natural motivation of your employees as best you can. So there are nine in the book, are they driven by achievement, belonging of maybe it's driven by steam, so they love that the respect from others, there's empowerment, which is desire for control. So there's nine in our book, you should understand one or two that seem to best fit with that person overall across their entire life. Some of its just love some people just giving people and that would be nurturance. So that's important. But the second thing you should do is you owe it to your employees to look at those same nine motivations. Nine motivations, those same nine Yeah, right, those same nine and think about the role that you need to be successful for this this job that they have and that job. You know, I think about I think you should be doing this work every 18 months, right? Because roles change, the company changes, culture changes, etc. in the company. So every 18 months, you should be looking at your employees job function and their role on a team and say, Well, in this role is belonging important? Um, or, you know, bringing a team together? Or is it really very focused type of mindset, right? So, which may be more achievement. Let me give you an example of how this worked for me. So I was on a team a couple of years ago, where I was brought in, I was brought in on a company it was PepsiCo, I was brought in because and I wasn't told this during my interview, but I was brought in because my boss wanted me to create a relationship between Frito Lay, which is a division of PepsiCo, and another division of PepsiCo. Now, they end up having a building, maybe two miles away, but they never talked, never, never talked. So we want to build this relationship. So my manager hired me because I came from the military. And she said, I want to get this done so I'm gonna hire this former military guy. Now, she didn't know this about me, but I'm driven by competence, right? I believe that the best way to find skill or find success is through knowledge. So I came in, and I was told, Hey, you got to go build a relationship with this team. So I came in saying, here's all the reasons why, it took me a couple of weeks to understand my role. But I went to the other team at PepsiCo and said, here's all the tools and resources, we can help each other out. So we get smarter in our jobs, and it fell flat, flat. Now I am driven by that I'm driven by like, Well, certainly you want more knowledge, because we can get to a better place like this is great, this, I'm going to share with you this knowledge, you're gonna share with me knowledge. And we're both going to succeed. What happened was two years before, there was another leader in this role, and in both roles. And there was a really bad relationship where the people at PepsiCo felt marginalized. They said, the people at Frito Lay are jerks. Like they basically, they don't invite us to their meetings, they take ownership of things that they didn't give us credit for when we did the work. So really that role does what we needed to do was try to create a tribe, belonging is the motivation in the book. And so what I realized very quickly is that they didn't, they didn't want competence for me, they wanted somebody to say we're all in this together and to start coming to me. So here's literally what I did. And I won a pretty big award, that first year I was there, or I had a high rating didn't win an award I had a high rating, because I ended up asking if I could sit in this building two miles away and sit with the people at PepsiCo two days a week, because to them, and then they were like, Well, yeah, we have an open cube, like I'll sit with you. Let me just say I just did my same job, but the fact that I chose to take my role and go over there for two days a week had nothing to do with my personal competence desires, I understood that by me sitting with them, we were forming a tribe, it was important for you to understand those dynamics as an employer and as a manager and helping them succeed. If it's something as simple as Go do your job in a cube, that's only two hours or two miles away, to go do that. Because based upon that, about six months later, they gave us access to something, a new technology they've been developing. And I was able to use that technology at Frito Lay to go and advance shopper insights dramatically. And it had nothing, no expense from our company at all. But they were using everything they never would have let us know if I wasn't a part of that tribe. So that's why you have to know your core motivation of the core motivation of your employee from us it was competence and the role, which is belonging, now bring those things together. And they can be very, very successful in that role, and hopefully do great things for your company.

So what do you mean by don't classify employees only into personality clusters?

Right. Don't fall into the trap of Myers Briggs and say, Oh, you know, he's a, I don't know, they are JKLM or whatever, like, because because here's what can happen. If my boss only looked at me through the lens of a blue type of employee, I would have missed out on this opportunity to be an incubator where we needed a hard charging, fast risk taker, because when you're going to launch a brand new brand, there are so many things that get in the way, politically, getting in the way, financially in the way operationally getting in the way and you have to have the ability to adjust to be flexible to constantly push through barriers. And if I was classified as a blue, which in this meeting, apparently I was, I was discussed for this role, and people said, but he's a blue. We don't think he's right for this role. And I was the most, It was the most successful project and the role I'd ever had at PepsiCo, and I was there for eight years. And it was it was a one and a half year role. So don't classify people on personality clusters, understand they have a personality, but don't place them into only that bucket. They're bigger than that.

You know, in my, in my past, I was always pushed or pigeonholed into a sales role. But until I started this agency, I didn't realize I was really good at all these other things that being an entrepreneur requires, I would have never known had I not been able to explore or experience those things. So when you say, identify two core mind states for your employee success, these are motivations or?

I think from the motivation side, to be honest with you, and understand those, and then if you can identify those, whether it's competence, you know, from the personal level belonging in the role or whatever, write those down, and then go into the back to the appendix of the book. And in the appendix of the book, you have these profiles. And those profiles actually are pretty good at understanding the psychology of the person, who they naturally are, and the psychology that's needed to be successful in that role. So take both look at those and start seeing where there's bridges. So if you identify those core motivations, look to see where there's commonality, and coach your employee to really express themselves in that way. And if you do that, if you do that well, they should be naturally more inclined to do better. In that role.

I want to pause here just for a moment and talk to you about a program that we have just released, called the ROI quickstart Academy for authors. Every day, I talk to business owners just like you who struggle with quickly getting their fundamentals in place, we want to create a great foundation, and we want to grow our business. But the things that are in our way, our lack of knowledge about the specifics, we should put in place, what kind of technology what kind of messaging and what kind of campaigns and that problem exists for authors as well. And we just chill so good with authors because, well, I'm an author, and I understand everything that you struggle with, you have a great idea, you have a great book, but what do you want to do, you want to get your book in front of more people, you want to make it easy for them to find you learn how they can schedule a time to talk with you hire you for a conference, or maybe sign up for the services that your book promotes. So what is the Quickstart Academy for authors imagining working with a small group of like minded authors, and the experts from the ROI quickstart team, it's a great way to get your messaging clear to be confident with the technology in your marketing automation, and how to run a strategic campaign to get you more of what you want from the investment of your book. To learn more about the Quickstart Academy for authors, you can visit roionline.com or click in the link in the show notes below. And now, back to this episode. Oftentimes, when I interview for folks, for our team, I'm not looking for someone to fit a role, what I'm looking for is like a good team member, that we can start to discern what their unique strengths are, and start to position them in the areas that they really excel in a natural way.

Yeah, unfortunately, that's just doesn't happen very often. Because there's so much money in the consulting space of identifying personality types and creating roles for that personality type. that most people still to this day aren't really doing that they're hiring to fit a job description in the moment. And then they wonder why in two years, their employees are desatisfied, or they leave ship? Well, it's because you hired somebody for a role as opposed to who they are. Are they a good fit for the culture?

So give us some examples on how to manage someone to a particular motivation.

Yeah, so I'll give you another example from my past, I was um, I was working on potato chips at the time. And I just got, just gotten promoted. And the person who was oversight of all potato chips for the company. I was their insights partner. And so I got this promotion, I was gonna go support her. And my second meeting that I was with her, so I got promoted and my first day on the job was on a Monday on, and I met her on Monday on Wednesday she said, Okay, will, I want you to tell me, what do we need to go different, differently in Ruffles. And I remember it, it took me aback. Because I'd only been in the role for two days. And you know, like anything else, when you transition from roll and roll to the next, you still have your old job, you're still trying to onboard the person is taking over for your job. So I'm sitting there and I remember she saw my face because I was taken aback, because I didn't remember under my competence. And I'm scared to death, that if you ask me a question, in fact, I'm cautious competence. I'm trying to mitigate any risk that you could ask me a question that I'm not prepared for. And that's what she did. What are we gonna go do with a billion dollar brand or a couple 100 million dollars that time, Ruffles. And so I kind of dodged the question. A week later, she said the same thing. Basically, we're doing a one on one at this point. And she said, Hey Will, what is your assesment on the Ruffles right now, at this point, I've been on the job for five days, okay? I don't have much of a better thing. But at this time, I said, you know, I'm going to do an assessment, I think I'll know pretty soon. I tried to buy time, then I was in a meeting on the following Thursday. So I'd been in the role for less than two weeks, she says it in front of multiple people, at least it was a small team. And I say, damn it, I, you know, that's one or two times in my career right? I said damn it, I'll let you know when I'm ready. That was an example of her not understanding that I am driven by competence. And for every moment, she keeps asking me to drill into something when I haven't had the time to dig into it myself. That was her actually pushing me farther away than from what motivates me. So because of that, it took us a solid six months to have a relation. Now we love each other. Like, we're still friends. I've left the company many, many years. But in those six months was very kind of there's a lot of conflict, because I felt like she just didn't understand me. So give somebody who's driven by competence, time to understand, because they're looking for new insights and discoveries, right?

That's funny. So you're telling me that Ruffles, that the situation with Ruffles was in your tent, you could have sent Ruffles and made them smooth? Had you just shout out an answer?

We're gonna call them smoothies. Yeah, I thought maybe do that. But nobody's thinking like that idea. I don't know, I don't get it. I get so much for that.

I mean, Ruffles are such a great thing with the sandwich at a particular time, because they have ridges in here, you were, you were potentially could have impacted the future outcome of Ruffles that's

By not being prepared, right? So. So that is a quick example, or let's say this, remember a role where, if you are the head of a project, or your employee is the head of an initiative of a group, it's a group of people have to come together to get to a different point? Well, if you knew that your employee is motivated by, we call it empowerment in the book, but they desire control like they see the best way to reach their goal is to have control over everything. I shouldn't say like, because it's not that's bad. It's just that's how they that's how they naturally approach a problem is giving greater control. Well, if I know that, and I know that the best way to get to my end goal is having this team reach their successful conclusion of the project, then I'm going to coach my employees. Okay, here's what I think you need to do, show up to meeting room a little bit early and sit at the head of the table. Because psychologically, when you sit at the head of the table, just like we're all going to be doing for Thanksgiving next week, whoever sits at that end of the table is generally the person in control of the meal, it's gonna be mom or dad or grandma, grandpa. So I sit at the head of the table. And I would say, I'll coach him have an agenda, have an agenda that's written out. Because the worst thing you guys know, right? When you're in a meeting, and there's too many personalities, the cult of personality kind of comes out and all of a sudden, you don't, you lose control of your meeting, because people want to talk about what's important to them. So what do you do? You have an agenda, you coach and have an agenda so they can maintain controls, Say hey, let's get back to the agenda. Small little steps like that, to coach them to come to the meeting with an agenda and make sure everybody understands that there's an agenda could help that person who is naturally inclined to desire control and to push, you know, towards their goal using control to give them more control. Or the last one I came up with was belonging, right Steve? Like, if you knew if you have this somebody who's just a warm, loving spirit in the office, and that's just who they are, well, then, of course, you're going to coach them to make, or you're going to coach them a different way. When you give them a review, you're going to want to talk to them and say, Well, tell me tell me about how you're feeling, right? Tell me about how you're feeling in the role, you're gonna use words like that, because they want to, they're loving, they want to feel nurtured, they want to give care. You want to give them assignments, if you can do to talk, to allow them to feel as if they are cared for in this role you want to you'd want to amplify that a little bit more, or find common goals of unity, find ways to bring people together on that team to be somewhat more successful. So those are just kind of things that if you understand what motivates them to the core, and what's important in that job, bring those together into an environment where they can succeed.

Yeah, you're making me really consider your book in a totally different level now, because I've been thinking very marketing centric, right? But obviously it would be applicable and make sense in understanding people and what's going on with them and why they think the way they think.

Yeah, no, it is a human behavior book that I pushed in the marketing field. But you know, when I, when I talk about the examples that I have, you know, with getting Nicolas to eat vegetables, or doing my first Iron Man, it's a human behavior book. And so, I mean, you could easily take the same concepts and write a book selling to mind states, you could easily do managing to mind states, you could do coaching to mind states, because it's all the same thing. If you understand somebody's goals, their motivations, the way they approach their goals. And then lastly, these these triggers, you are able to influence and we just choose to do it in this book through marketing. There's lots of different interactions outside of marketing that you have with human beings. Same thing, human experience, right? Same thing we keep talking about.

So now we've turned this into a series of books in this conversation.

Right? Is that is that commitment effect. Did I just commit to that?

Yes. Yeah, you publicly stated it now.

Dang it, I have to eat my own pudding, all right. Yeah. But no, it's very true. It's very true.

So in a relationship, not that we're managing our spouse or our partner or whatever. But in a relationship, this would be applicable, obviously. Give us, give us, some of us thick headed guys some advice here?

Yeah. So I will go with my wife, Melanie. Melanie is driven by belonging, meaning she seeks relationships that bring kind of a common tribe. She does that through Bible studies. She's done that through books that she's written herself. She's done that in her own projects in Corporate America. She sees the world as a better place and motivated by bringing people together. So I am an introvert. And I don't have a lot of friends. I got friends from high school, but she has hundreds of friends. There you go. Yeah, I got a few out there, right? Good. So she's the type of person when she says, you know, happy birthday on Facebook. Like she gets 200 people say happy birthday, or something, it's fine. I'm okay with that. That's who I am, too. So let me give you an example of early on in our marriage where we would get into problems. We would go to a party. And she at a party is in her element Steve. She wants to talk to everybody. She's a social butterfly, she brings people together, she can stay at a party for six, seven hours. Me, after about 45 minutes, I'm done. I'm done. My mind hurts. I don't want to talk about the weather. I want deeper personal connections with one person, I would go to dinner with one person for five hours long before I do dinner with six people for five hours. I just it's just too mentally taxing. So we would go to a party. And after about 45 minutes, I'm looking at my watch. And we just have this like little signal like, Can we get out? Can we get out? Like I want to go. And then she would get frustrated at me right? Because of course she eventually does know, sometimes he or she would do, she would know that I was getting first and she would look away, she wouldn't look at me right? Because she wants to stay. And if you got a little alcohol in her, then she was just like, Can we just stay? And I would end up going to a wall by myself or actually even go outside. Like you wouldn't believe how many parties I've gone to the outside in the backyard by myself, like I need a break. What we started doing is talking a lot more about how, if this is her natural inclination, belonging, I'm about competence. And you know, really focusing on the person one individual, we just made a deal and say, why don't we just take two cars, let me make my appearance, last date. And if I love it, I'll stay. But I'm totally happy Mel for you to come back four hours later. I'm totally cool with that if you let me leave in a half hour if I want to leave. Um, and because of that, we wouldn't argue anymore. Like we wouldn't be driving home. She's like, I wish we could have stayed. I'm like, Well, I'm glad we got to leave or vice versa. Like why did we stay at this party? I didn't know anybody. I was talking about the weather within 10 minutes. So I thought that small little thing not to manage, I just manage a situation. Let me create an environment where she can be her best and be where she wants to be and I can be my best and where I want to be. It's a simple thing to do. And then we're understood so she understands where I'm coming from. She's not mad at me for pulling her away from a party. I'm not mad at her for keeping me at a party. I just create an environment where we can both be happy and I'm watching TV An hour later.

So there you go. What an excellent way to do that. Not only should you buy this, it's maraging to mind states, right?

That's another one, and you said that one, not me. That's your book.

So when, in the, you know, we get caught up in the moment when we're working with someone and, you know, we're paying attention to the state, you know, the conversation, what are some good ways to kind of remind us to back out and pay attention to what the mind states are going on? Or to look at those?

That's a great question. And I think we all fall victim to this. It was great, I think we all fall victim to this, is that we become. You've heard me say this, 35,000 decisions you're making any given day and you're reacting most of the time, you're not consciously going through life, I mean, good. You can't get through the day. What it takes is a deliberate focus, like you said, if I'm going to have a meeting with an employee, I'm going to sit down. And before I have a meeting, especially if it's a weekly review, and just take the minute it takes to remind myself of who this person is, and their goals, like what are their goals for their career? And how does that fit? How does my role help them get closer to their idealized self, their hero within the perfect career, that they will look back on 30 years now say, I remember Will and that guy, he helped me get to the next level, just like I remember my managers, the good ones, that helped me get to the next level. So you got to be deliberate. If that means putting something on your calendar to say 30 minutes a week, I'm going to review my employees just do that. And what will happen is it'll become natural, you have intuition, you build associations, just like you do with brands, you build associations with people, if you keep reading about this person's, you know, kind of profile in the book, right? If you read a little bit more about the profile, you are much better able to create associations, you know that person intuitively who they are, it just takes deliberate practice.

All right, well, this is excellent. What are some other points that maybe we need to consider? And so if we're, How can we use this in the hiring process? I'm, you know, obviously, we don't know the person very well. But what are some tells?

Yeah, I loved what you just said is, you got to understand just like anything else, you have a culture in your company, I have a culture on my company, there are cultures, within companies and even within a company by department, frankly, there just are. So one is it's important to understand those if you're a boss or a manager, it's hard for you because you're kind of disconnected oftentimes, from the coffee, the coffee talk or the lunches that happen when you know, you're not there. But as best possible interact with your employees, at the small scale, have one on one lunches, I mean, we used to do one on one lunches with employees, where it was supposed to be just you and I, and we're gonna do nothing but talk about life. And it sounds corny, and it sounds a bit weird. But just knowing somebody at that level is important, really important. So once you understand the culture, and what's important to the people in that department, then you should be thinking about that when you bring in people as best possible. So you have a culture of, of, you know, team building, then of course, you are going to want to talk to people who you bring in to talk to them talk to you about examples of they've been on a team, they've successfully overcome challenges to a team, how they build teams, all that stuff's important. My point would be, don't only judge them on that, because if I don't have an example, because I've never had the opportunity to be on a team, that should not be enough for you to disqualify me, what I should now do is if they don't have a good example, then talk to them, give them scenarios, and if you can in the interview, to give them a scenario where they could show you how they would approach that to build a team. So knowing the culture of your company of the specific department that you're going to hire somebody in knowing the mind state that would most be critical in that role. And then, honestly, the best question you can ask, and is the end of chapter three, in the book is, what's important to you, and why? If you can get people to tell you their goals, what's important, and why those those aspirational, higher order goals. Sit down. I mean, that is almost word for word, Steve, you want to try to capture what's in their head and keep asking them why keep asking them why. And when you figure out that, you know, they for whatever reason is their career. They think that their goal is to become successful, why it's to make a meaningful difference in my community. If that was the why that is a totally different outlook, you now have to provide a different outlook of this person. And the environment, you know, that will help them get the most out of their career is helped them do something in the community or whatever that goal is for their career. So ask them that question, what's important to you in a job and why? Do that a couple times and higher to your ability to satisfy that in their life if you can't provide that you're not doing them a service by hiring them frankly.

That's excellent. I found that the more I can get them to ask questions instead of me ask questions and then worry about what's the right answer? If I can get them to go look, you just why don't you spend about 20 minutes in an ask me what you want to know?

Yeah,

I start to get a really good idea of how they think, how in depth, they think about stuff.

Now that's it. I don't think I've ever heard anybody say that. So rather than you interviewing them, give them a chance to interview you. And you're getting a lot more out of the questions that they ask. That's interesting. That's a great thing. I may try that. That's Yeah.

Because if they start off with Oh, okay, what are the benefits? Wow. All right. So we've, we've really cut to the chase, right there, like but if you start asking me really insightful questions, or you know, things that reveal that you're, you're very interested, you get so much more out of that, you get a better feel for people.

Yeah, no, I love that. That's a really neat, really neat tool you should put into your toolkit.

So let's talk about your workshop. When's the next one coming up?

We are taking a break in December because we're revising and revamping our workshops, based a little bit part by our comment about Texas A&M University. So we're actually providing a Certificate course in the center of human behavior, or the human behavior lab is what they really call themselves. And we're gonna be doing a certification because of that certification program, starting in January, we have a brand new course that's coming out called the master class. And it's going to be a video based course that you can take on your own, on your time. And what that'll do is if you go through the video course, you can actually go into our master core or master program, where it's a one day workshop, that one day workshop is happening in mid January more details to come on that soon, Steve, but it's in December, we're going to revamp everything so we can fit now, Texas A&M University, what we're doing over there, plus what we're doing on our master class, but ultimately, I want us all to gather in mid January. And we're going to do a one day master class, master program to make you mind state certified.

So start off 2021, all souped up with the mind state marketing mindset. Hmm?

That's right. Amen. It's we get, we're gonna do things differently, we're changing the entire marketplace for marketing is changing, and we're gonna change with it.

I love it. That's a way to connect with people, help them feel understood, and help them to feel safe by realizing that we go through all these different states of mind during the day, as whatever role we're playing, whether it's a husband role, whether it's a father role, whether it's a professional role, we're in these different states of mind. And that by categorizing people, by some personality course, or results is inherently inaccurate, because it just captured them in the moment when they were answering those questions. Makes perfect sense to me. And so personality profiles, they don't take into consideration people's roles to succeed. And roles are the set expectations in which people are supposed to behave in different situations. So we're in different states of mind in different situations. I love the conversation about you know, the Potsie thing you know? Then you go back to your high school reunion 30 years later, and it's like, feels awkward that you're expected to play that same role.

And you fall into it. I do play the same role. It's terrible. It's embarrassing, but you do we all do it. We all do it.

That's crazy. We change and go on. And and I love the, I loved the marriage, that what a great compromise after 45 minutes, you know, two cars. I love that. That's great. All right. Will, well, thank you. This has been excellent. We'll regroup after Thanksgiving and be sure to let us know what topics you're interested in. And thank you. Thank you. Will, for your time on here. I'm Steve Brown of ROI online. If you're looking to get your brand in front of people on a regular conversation like this, let me know we can set it up. You do this for others. It's a great way to start pulling out all this expertise out of your head like we do Will. It's a great conversation. People enjoy it. We get a lot of comments. So thanks again for another great episode of the Mindstate Marketing Hour. And we'll see you soon.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.

All right. That's a wrap. Thanks for listening to another fun episode. dove, the ROI online podcast. For more, be sure to check out the show notes of this episode. And feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn where we can chat, and I can help direct you to the resources you're searching for. To learn more about how you can grow your business better, be sure to pick up your copy of my book, The Golden Toilet at surprise, thatgoldentoilet.com I'm Steve Brown, and we'll see you next week on another fun episode of the ROI online podcast.