Manufacturing eCommerce Success – with Kelly Robinson

Damon Pistulka  00:03

All right, everyone, welcome once again it is Friday and that means it’s time for manufacturing ecommerce success and boy, am I excited here today. I am one of your co hosts here. Damon Pustaka. That pretty guy right over there as Curt Anderson. He’s going to be helping us today we are I can’t even get I can’t even point right. He’s so pretty. We were going to be talking with Kelly Robinson. Today we’re gonna be talking about recruiting top talent for retention. Kelly is longtime friend. Longtime guest couple I don’t even know man just it just feels like forever close. So close. You know,

Curt Anderson  00:44

you can vote of demon right? Yeah, yeah, just take a close road.

Damon Pistulka  00:49

Take it away. Curt.

Curt Anderson  00:51

Damon. Dude, I like I’m almost speechless. I’m just like, This is so long overdue. I’m just so fired up. I’m with you. God bless you please. Mrs. Robinson. Happy Friday.

Damon Pistulka  01:07

He pulled that one. Oh my goodness. He went there.

Curt Anderson  01:12

I don’t want to be that person. That’s a classic. So hey, Kelly Robinson. Happy Friday, my friend. How are you

Kelly Robinson  01:19

TGIF? Curt. Thanks for doing your hair for us today was really great. You look good. Yeah, I washed mine. Just for you. Yeah. Yeah, no,

Curt Anderson  01:32

I did my eyebrows just for you. Oh,

Kelly Robinson  01:34

nice. Yeah, me too.

Curt Anderson  01:36

So hey, guys, happy Friday. Thank you for joining us. Just thrilled and honored to be here with Kelly Robinson. Please note in the chat box, let us know that you’re here. You absolutely want to connect with our dear friend Kelly. Kelly. Let’s kick things off. We just we got Damon I believe like you guys go back before COVID. Man, right. Like yeah, it’s been like, like in dog years. That was like, a long time ago. Right.

Damon Pistulka  02:01

That was before buster. That was before Buster or flash. All right. We might get Odin. That’s conversation. We’re gonna go dog today. We’re gonna go to the

Curt Anderson  02:12

dog. Hey, my dog just got a bath today. So Kelly, let’s go. Kelly EO smell and release. smelling delicious. today have a big Rottweiler Kelly. So anyway, yeah. When you were little girl growing up. When you were a little girl growing up. Who was your hero?

Kelly Robinson  02:31

Oh, my dad.

Curt Anderson  02:32

Oh, man, boy. Drop the boy. What’s dad’s name? Frank. That’s your please share everything you want to

Kelly Robinson  02:40

Frankie. Frankie, his sisters and brothers and parents called him Frankie. Frankie Robinson. Let’s hear about it. Which is like a famous football player or something to Mr. Stacy Robinson. And that was a famous male. But yeah. And then Kelly Robinson, the famous PKR CEO. Yeah.

Curt Anderson  03:02

Robinson is here. Kelly, let’s hear about Frank. Why was Frank your hero as a little girl growing up.

Kelly Robinson  03:08

So my dad at home, we had a traditional family where my mom worked until she had kids. And then she had four of us. And then she stayed at home and my dad worked. So my dad worked for the man like corporate corporate job wioth for 40 years, right? No one does that anymore. But but he would come to after school, he would come to our sports stuff, our games, and or after work, sorry. And then an hour after school, and then he would go back. He had a he had a second shift. So because there were four of us, we were little and he wanted to be able to keep my mom at home. That’s that’s what we had to do. And so I just always saw him doing everything. Right. He was just always there. And then later come to learn like he started as a mailman like a mail clerk at wife when he was 19, just out of the army. And he started as a mail clerk. And then he was promoted to a janitor. Custodial, you know, today they call them environmental services. And eventually, when he retired, he was the director of facility services, which is all the labs cleaning all the labs and making sure they’re all set up and taken care of. And so he basically worked for the man but he was able to do that without a college degree. Just really hard work. Right. And I think it’s it certainly helped him that he had four kids at home and that gave him a good kick in the ass to like, keep going, right? Yeah, no, we grew up with not a whole lot just our family like for kids and parents and we were together and we did weekends and softball, baseball. My dad coached us, all of that. So that I just saw he was always there. Anybody’s always working in busy too, right? And the other thing is, you know your mom Um, my mom probably did a lot more than my dad did for us. So I always feel bad because I feel like somehow he’s like the hero. And that’s probably what my son thinks about his dad. Alright, I digress. So, no, no, no, that’s true. Like it is true. Yeah. Okay.

Damon Pistulka  05:19

Okay. I’ll just go there a second for you, Kelly. I’m going to empathize with you. I know what you mean. We’ve got a you know, my kids grew up with in a divorced family and their paternal father, you know, they go see him in the summertime, they’re going on vacation. So it’s always fun time. You know, they come back and live with us the rest of the time, but it’s like, oh, yeah, we’re making them do homework and stuff. I’m feeling. I’m just saying

Kelly Robinson  05:46

that’s it. That’s it. I met the homework and stuff. I let that go to his desk, so that he has a little bit of that over there. There you go. Good. The hovering.

Damon Pistulka  05:56

Yeah. Good stuff.

Curt Anderson  05:58

Well, this is fantastic, guys. And again, happy Friday. If you’re just joining us, we’re here with Kelly Robinson. She is a recruiting guru. And we’re gonna take a deep dive into like some recruiting tactics, strategies, you’re looking for a job looking for teammates, looking for staff, where you’re in the right place, if you’re looking for retention strategies, you are in the right place. I’m gonna give females shout outs here to a few people.

Damon Pistulka  06:22

Yeah, we got a lot of people stopped in with so guys,

Curt Anderson  06:26

let us know you’re out there. Maybe you’re looking for a job. Looking for some help here. Drop in the chat, Ahmed.

Damon Pistulka  06:33

It’s a great opportunity of recruitment. Hello.

Curt Anderson  06:36

Now each other. How can I see who’s here? Hit the comments.

Damon Pistulka  06:40

Up in the upper right in the comments there. We got who’s this? Oh, Kelly Robinson is here. Yes. Let’s

Curt Anderson  06:46

1. Let’s go. Yeah, so yeah, keep those guys fine. Guys. You want to connect with Kelly on LinkedIn. She actually you’re gonna have to follow her because she has 10s of 1000s of followers. Hate George’s here. We’ve got mkhaya Marcus here. So guys, everybody, Friday, happy Friday. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I Kelly let’s get this party rollin. Okay, Frank, I first saw Daymond as proud girl dads we love when you give Frank when you grow Daymond I love that answer. And just let’s do a couple of recap because I think is a great theme for our program today. Incredible work work ethic God blessed Frank are serving our country proudly. So please give a shout out to Frank comes in and takes care of his family relentlessly climbs a corporate ladder. no college degree and just what an inspiration what a hero. We applaud your dad We salute your dad and just he created this proud little girl that you know he’s so proud of his little girl here. You are a true powerhouse. Let’s dig into your background. You go away to college had a great college career and you have dedicated your talents yours superpowers really to make the world a better place with recruiting. Why? share with everybody why have you dedicated yourself to helping others be successful?

Kelly Robinson  08:05

Damon probably knows the story. I don’t know if you remember to come to you might even know to Kurt, but it comes back to my dad. So my dad. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. And I you know, I was like, I don’t know what I want to do. And my parents were like, well, you have three choices like you can get a job in go join the army, or you can leave the house like and you got two months to do this. Well. I was already really really driven, really driven to work like I just but I wanted to be excited about something and I didn’t really know what I wanted to do like most young kids. So my dad was like, Listen, why don’t you go to this company called Kelly girls which is now like this. You know, Kelly staffing? It’s gigantic Kelly Services. Why don’t you go to them? We we hire all of our secretary. Okay, so I went in and they said, I went in for my interview and they said you know what, you’d be great in recruiting. That’s what we do. And we have a client that’s looking for an assistant recruiter just temporarily for a few months. You want to click Yeah, I’ll try it. So I wanted an interview with my parents had bought me two suits. That was a two suits to wear. Get me my career started. It was like you’ve got two suits. So hopefully no more than two interviews because it’s coming back around again. So I went in and I went home and I sent a thank you note and email. So it was AOL. And it was very very new and we only had one email it was few skirt. Frank Emily Wendy Stacy Kelly randy@aol.com Nice still few skirt. My mom’s so has to skirt don’t email her but she’s got fuser and that was our email and I went in I sent a thank you because they had just started with some email there because this is 1998 Right? 1997 1990 So they were so like, impressed that I sent the thank you and I got the job and I was like this cuz I’m like, isn’t that normal? What you do you send a thank you, but I was I wanted to be like, an email. So, and I think that was like probably forward thinking, which I didn’t think it was, I just thought it was the Thank you. And that was it. I ended up getting hired there as a recruiter after three months. And that’s really how I learned the ropes. So I really didn’t choose it chose me kind of so to speak. And it is something that I’m, I was made for, like, I’m really, really passionate about it. I’ve really passionate about it. And and want to do it the right way. Want to do it the right way.

Damon Pistulka  10:38

That’s, that’s rare. That is very rare to be able to do that. That young and go, This is what I want to do. And you didn’t do it. I saw rare. People is like winding road until they get there.

Curt Anderson  10:54

And purely on a suggestion off of dead which How? How many kids you know, they get out of college and mom and dad don’t know what they’re talking about. I’m going to do the opposite. We get advice. You send out that email on your A on your family, one email that is classic. Yeah. Well, thank you note. So for folks out there looking for a gig, take Kelly’s advice, send those thank you notes. And you land the gig and you found your purpose at like fresh out of college? Yeah, like roughly. So let’s go there, Kelly. So you’ve been doing it for 20 plus years, Ben, you’ve seen it all, you know, we’ve gone through economic challenges 911 2008 course COVID. Walk us through a little bit like say go through the 2000s a little bit of your history, like some of the trends you’ve seen. And then what I want to do is I want to lead up to your entrepreneurial journey when you decide to go out on your own, but just share a little bit of what you’ve seen over the years from the recruiting side.

Kelly Robinson  11:45

Yeah, so here’s what I’ll say. I am, you know, I’m getting up to 50 now, and I started when I was, you know, 22 In this world, and I started in a very different way. So there’s lots of types of recruiting. And I started in that what you think about as a recruiter like commission driven contingency, if I do a body, you give me a fee on their salary. So I started in that way. And it was more like high level it contractors. So what’s interesting is when I was starting off my I was very goal oriented. But I was also very narrow minded. So like you’re asking what trends and things like that I can say like, I didn’t really pay attention to that stuff. I was like, focused on I’m a job. And I’m getting it done. And he and I got to learn this and blah, blah, blah, you know, and so I wanted to be top recruiter, I wanted to ring the bell, we had an office, we had a bell in the office and like I wanted to ring the bell. So I was more focused on that. Whatever I can tell you the time that I started in recruiting was Major. We when we started they had just implemented email, but our clients didn’t have email we’re faxing. Right. So are the

Curt Anderson  13:00

real quick, can you explain to folks what is the fax machine?

Kelly Robinson  13:04

The fax similarly, right. That’s right, yeah. We literally fax resumes. That’s what we did. Or tried to walk them in. Right, it was like trying to show up and walk them in. So it’s, it was an interesting world, but but also email was just starting to come out again, we were very shout out to Joel Adams, our CEO, and still in touch with him. But he, he was very forward thinking. And he was very culture oriented. And so I was very, very lucky. And I’m grateful now to have started in that environment. And he gave me a good kick in the ass that I needed in my 20s too. So, but anyway, they just started job boards job circle. I don’t know if anyone remembers the name job circle. That was one of the very first job board boards and then CareerBuilder like this is before, right? Yeah. And then you know, that’s the 2000 ish, probably like 1999 2000 like internet was kind of just like, in the workplace becoming right. So I’ve, I’ve seen all these crazy things where it goes from like, you guys have your 20 pound laptop now to your, you know, your phone, like you can work on your phone, you don’t need a computer anymore. So I did see an evolution of a lot of those things. And we went I went through the whole market crash. I mean, that was like that was that was tough. I’ve had the ability. I don’t know it’s it’s a I’ve had the opportunity. It’s what I want to say, I’ve had the opportunity to work in a format that’s more like a consultant. So even though I was salaried in my life So the role of the salaried when I started there, and I was able to work with lots of different clients, but in a real partnership way, and it’s similar to the way that we service our clients. So I was able to see different industries environments, flubs people, culture, I mean, you name it, I got to learn so much. And I grew up very quickly there. So, I was really, really, really lucky in that timeframe to learn all of that. And that’s kind of how I got here. Because I was in my last place for 13 years, and I was the managing partner when I’m when I was fired. So I just I have seen a lot. I have seen a lot, but it’s mostly the digital I would say the digital piece of recruiting and now AI, which is like, super exciting. And we’re starting to use it in ways which is Yeah, chat. GPT. Man, my my best friend. Best friend.

Curt Anderson  16:02

Yeah. So hey, we’ve got

Damon Pistulka  16:03

a few more. We got a ton of people. down the list, man. It’s going crazy here. We got people in here from Sweden.

Curt Anderson  16:11

From Sweden happy?

Damon Pistulka  16:12

Yeah. Well, yeah. I’m sorry. I can’t pronounce your first name. Yeah, we’re here from India. And then try Nigeria. I tried it are you did? You can hunt. Andhra. Yeah, you can on some crease and not n bigger. We got Whitney from Houston. Whitney Houston

Curt Anderson  16:33

is in the house.

Damon Pistulka  16:34

Yeah. We got Olgun lay out right now we got Omar.

Curt Anderson  16:42

Hey, hey, happy Friday, guys. Chuck those notes. We’re gonna keep those comments. Keep bringing questions, you definitely want to follow Kelly on LinkedIn. She is an absolute recruiting powerhouse. Kelly, let’s go there. So you’re sharing your whole career here. And now you take the leap into entrepreneurship. Am I want to go there, say there’s somebody out there where you were X number of years ago, you’re like, Man, I wonder if I could do this on my own. I wonder if I could take that leap of faith. And like believe in myself? What was it like when you made that transition to like, you know, throw up your own shingle shingle scary where you just just raring to go walk us through that? What What were you going through?

Kelly Robinson  17:26

I think it was all of the above. So I had always thought, you know, I had that opportunity where I’ll say I took the opportunity, right? So small company, and I was like, You know what? I was there for 13 years. I started as a recruiter. And I was like, You know what I’m gonna, I’m doing it. It’s a small company. And so I got him I learned so much. And I was running the business. So I always had thought, I’ll do this. I’ll do this on my own at some point, but there was nothing that pushed me right. And then you get fired. And it’s like, well, hot damn, this is what I’m going to do. So it’s Friday morning, and then Monday, I started my company. That was it. I had the idea over the weekend. And I was like, This is what I’m gonna do. Because I knew I could do it. I had complete confidence. And I just needed that cake. Like what What else was there for me now I’m like, now it’s now it’s here,

Damon Pistulka  18:22

right into it.

Curt Anderson  18:25

And you know what I love Daymond you’d like repeater. jucker fans, you know, Peter Drucker greatest, you know, business consultant of the 20th century. He has a book and he talks about the accidental entrepreneur. And so you know, hey, maybe coat you know, you’re gonna have a longtime corporate career, kind of digging it and then all sudden, COVID comes along, throws you a curveball, or for those of us that were hitting it in 2008, you know, real estate market, tanked stock market tanks, jobs, you know, tons of job losses. So, you know, you get thrown a curveball and kill I love what you did, you know, just had that you just have such a relentless inspirational character, you know, personality, that you just believe in yourself, and you’re like, I’m going to do this. Did you ever think like, Hey, maybe I should go get another job? Or were you just like, all in on just believing in yourself?

Kelly Robinson  19:10

No, I had one of our competitors was calling and like, we had some talks, but I was like, hey, my had a hard time with going to a competitor’s. Yeah. And I also had integrity issues. I wasn’t really Yeah, I wasn’t sure about that. Right, because it was a growing competitor. But all along, I’m building my own thing and like, I’ve going and then I, and then I finally told I had a call with him. And he then he, you know, I told him what I’m doing the competitor. And he said, So are you saying that you’re competing with me now Kelly? And I said, Yes, I believe I am. And I loved it. It was like I put it out there. I split it It gives me accountability.

Curt Anderson  20:03

I have to do it again, Damon. I’m sorry. God bless you Please, Mrs. Robinson, man. That’s an inspirational story. Absolutely love it. Guys. If you’re just joining us, we’re here with Kelly Robinson and Kelly. We’re gonna dig deep. And before we go there, Hey, are you sitting down or sitting down for this one Kelly? You know where I’m gonna go right here. I got a couple of things that I want to share with the crowd, guys. Dan bigger has a couple of great questions.

Damon Pistulka  20:27

I got some questions or videos up.

Curt Anderson  20:28

I want to share a couple of things. If you guys are like, Hey, who’s Kelly Robinson? I’m going to share a couple of things on what friends say and share less. Dear friend Kelly Robinson. Kelly is truly outstanding at her craft. Kelly is a true client centric, professional man, I can’t even say that five times fast even but I just love that line. Kelly shared her vast experience in a talent recruitment. Get this. It was a unique opportunity to hear directly from a leader and this one. I love Kelly ready. Kelly and her team were amazing to work with, they were able to market to 1000s not dozens, not hundreds 1000s of RNs during a very challenging time for recruiting during health care, I would say COVID was a very challenging time to recruit my friend Kelly. Working with Kelly was better than imagine. I completed a fantastic training with Kelly, I cannot recommend it enough. And last but not least, this is my favorite. What an amazing person. Kelly is. She is the demon you ready? She’s the definition of LinkedIn and helping others. Kelly Robinson, what is your secret? How are you just making it? You’re just changing lives dude, like, how are you doing this?

Kelly Robinson  21:44

I’m sending checks to people.

Curt Anderson  21:48

Your siblings, right?

Kelly Robinson  21:49

Yes, they say these things? I Yes. Like random people online. They just it’s great.

Curt Anderson  21:56

I appreciate your humility. Why are you so successful at what you do?

Kelly Robinson  22:00

Because I care. And I love what I do. And I want to do it the right way. Like I don’t, it’s very my my reputation. Our reputation is really important. Because anyone knows that once you screw that up, you’re you’re you’re done. Right? You’re done like so. And not that I don’t make mistakes. I make mistakes all the time. Like I find myself apologizing all the time. And I don’t know what I don’t know, you’ve got to learn, you’ve got to listen, because there’s a lot to learn. So I think it’s just more about being true to who you are like being genuine. And, and it’s okay for clients to see that you are not always coming with a box of tools. Sometimes those tools aren’t working, right. So but you’re going to make it happen, you’re going to figure it out. And you do. So it’s like humility. I don’t know, it’s listening. It’s under trying to understand, right? And thinking about the person like what is the objective? what’s the, what’s the relationship? What how am I affecting this bigger, like, when I was younger, I was focused on learning the craft now I’m like, so like, I’m away from that, like that gives me like stressful to me. I’m like you guys do that. I’m gonna do this, like, you know,

Curt Anderson  23:24

right? being customer centric as as you know, when these testimonials, say and what I’ve always admired through our friendship, Kelly is just your relentless drive. And just really put I felt have always felt that you have a great gift of putting yourself in other people’s shoes. Speaking of dear friends, we have a mutual friend here, Dan, bigger. This question right here. What does Kelly Robinson think of this current job market? Kelly, what’s your take? What’s going on?

Kelly Robinson  23:48

It’s fascinating. So we have I think I’ve talked to you both about like, I’ve built a real prospecting engine recently, because our business has really been through my network and connections and referrals. For me to grow, we need to sustain but then we also need to, we need new people. And so through that what we have seen, the summer is slow and that tradition before COVID. Summer was always slow, and then it got pretty busy and pretty steady. And it’s slow. Again, couple reasons we can talk about but what we’re what we’re learning is when we’re reaching out to people. The biggest response that that we’re getting through our prospecting is I’m now looking for a job. And we’re reaching out to executives in you know, like just executives, but like general executives, but also, you know, HR, corporate recruiters, so there are a lot of people that are being affected. And it’s not just tech. It’s not just right because everyone talks about the layoffs. in tech, and that’s not, it’s just it’s not that anymore.

Curt Anderson  25:07

You’re seeing it. So that segues right into Dan’s next question. How long is this job market mess going to last? In your opinion? What do you think of that?

Kelly Robinson  25:14

Oh, my God, I hope not long. Who wants to hire me? It’s a crystal ball. All right. I need a job. I don’t know. But here’s what I’ll here’s what I’ll say during COVID. There was all this over hiring and yeah. And hiring. And we both we’ve all talked about this through all the COVID we knew that this was coming right here, right? We knew because they would they overpaid. We talked about this, like they overpaid. And they would have to figure out how because it’s not like they increased revenue. Right? They’re losing their margin there because they have to overpay, and then people aren’t worthy of those positions. Right. So they have to adjust somehow. So we’re seeing a lot of that. And it’s not just tech. So I I don’t know how long. I mean, I don’t have a crystal ball. I wish I did. But it seems to me right now that not a lot of people are hiring nor we’re very lucky to have I am very, very lucky to have really good clients that I have relationships with that have. And they’re all all of our clients that I have right now or like, core two people I’ve known for a long time. You’re like my, my network, right? So I’m very lucky to have those people that even when hiring has dip, they said to me, don’t worry, we’re returning you. Very, very lucky, because they see that when they’re ready. They need us right. So we’re ready for them. But I don’t I don’t know. I I think give it at least we’ll probably have to wait until probably the end of the year to see what happens truly. And then we can figure that out. But I think this first year coming out of this, the there’s just you know, the economy there’s there’s a lot of people are unsure. Health care has been greatly affected. So not just during COVID, but is still extremely hard to hire. That’s one thing that we’re really, really good at. So we’ve honed in on that over COVID. So I feel very lucky in that way. But there’s still way overpaying because no one wants to work. There’s a huge health system in the Philadelphia area and they have a university Jefferson University you guys probably heard because it’s a really great school, but they have a huge health system here. And they are laying off or just did lay off 400 people. What now clinicians, all the support clinicians, but they lost so much money because they’re overpaying. Getting your nurses are getting 20 and $40,000 sign ons. Yeah. I mean, it is the, you know, X ray tax, Malmo tax eco tax, those people are getting $20,000 sign on $30,000 sign ons. I mean, because there’s the ins and then they’re kind of dictating their schedule,

Curt Anderson  28:16

right. Is that crazy? Well, hey, let’s let’s grab a couple of comments. So hey, if I’m saying this right, I think you said earlier, Damon ogen Leigh, he says, what she said sounds good, because I’m in the same state trying to start my own company. Boy, we wish you great success. Welcome to entrepreneurship and how our dear friend, Dan, bigger, Dan, keep the questions coming.

Damon Pistulka  28:36

Yeah, they’re gonna come in.

Curt Anderson  28:38

Here’s another one remote work. Is that going away? Or will it bounce back to people that they can work and want to want to work remotely? Thoughts about the remote future? What do you think?

Kelly Robinson  28:49

That’s interesting, because we were you know, we would always talk about that. That was the biggest conversation during COVID. Remember, like we would it was always at home work at home. This is the wave of the future. Yeah. Well, we have Comcast is one of our biggest employers here. And it’s a cable company. I’m sure you guys know who they are. And they just set back it is in your house.

Damon Pistulka  29:13

Yeah, that’s what

Kelly Robinson  29:15

I’m sorry about that. No, I’m just kidding.

Damon Pistulka  29:20

I actually, you hear horrible stories about but our servers are rock solid?

Kelly Robinson  29:24

Yeah, I think it’s changed over the years. Facebook Comcast started here. You know what I mean, their flagship here. And it was a Philadelphia business and now it’s

Curt Anderson  29:32

telling you this demon like they take special care of demon. That’s

Kelly Robinson  29:36

right. So he calls he said, The batyline

Curt Anderson  29:39

daemons and of course, we got to take red phone. Please continue.

Kelly Robinson  29:43

Yep, yep. So they just reinstated like everyone has to come back four days a week. So they still have one day, but that’s a lot. Yeah. Four days is a lot going from nothing. Right. And so I just had this I had an interview this week. Learning, I just had this this conversation. It’s like, how do you people need to assess for the people that can appropriately work at home? And just because they’ve been working at home for three years does not mean they could still work at home? And what if? What if their meaning they might not have the right skill set? Right? They were made to work at home, but maybe they’re not fit to do that. Maybe they do in the office, maybe they’ve had changes in their life since then, you know, distraction. So I’m allowed to work from home. So there’s a lot of these things, but how do we assess for that, and then I’ve heard of people being hired remote and told this is a remote job. And now they say, We want you to come back. Like we want you to come not back. We want you to come into the office, people are leaving those jobs. So we don’t know where we are yet with that. But there’s way more there’s a lot more things are just starting to change. Now. I see. So I think the next year or two, I think will we’re going to end up going a lot of people wind up going back into offices. Yeah. There’s a piece that’s missing when you’re not there. If you haven’t figured out how to do it, right. This, you know,

Damon Pistulka  31:14

yeah, it’s an it’s an I see. Well, my son got went from remote to hybrid, and my daughter the same way in their jobs in a different kinds of things are doing. But I really see the benefits of the hybrid. Right, because 100% remote in, in what you talked about too, though, be because I think the the getting to know people and just being around the office is good. Doesn’t have to be all the time but but the one thing you said that I think is super hard for companies to assess. And it’s super hard because it’s unique. I have an entire customer service division that could theoretically work remotely. But Damon, the customer service person, could be horrible working from home because of the way Damon is programmed. It’s an individual thing. And then Kelly can be awesome at it because Kelly’s organized or whatever and Damon’s kind of scatterbrained or whatever but great customer service, both gray scars from service people, but the Office gives them different the different things that help them. It’s it’s gonna be a challenge.

Kelly Robinson  32:16

People are different. And people change over time. I know people say they don’t change like people don’t change. Yes, they do. People do change your your environment, your life. The all of these things affect change for you in various ways. And over time, we could really be a different person, right? Yep.

Curt Anderson  32:35

Absolutely. Hey, we’ve got some more friends here. I’m gonna give us now. Richard, we’ve got Hey, folks from Nigeria, we’ve got Syria. We’ve got Ghana here today, guys, thank you so much for jumping these comments here. Hey, another question from our dear friend, Dan bigger. Why do recruiters oral interview you? And then ever respond? Dan, what’s going on? Kelly, what are your thoughts on that?

Kelly Robinson  32:57

I don’t know why they do that. I think you’re probably it’s mostly the contingency recruiters that do that. And I think it’s just because they’re incented. By placing someone they’re not incentive by building relationships. And that’s why I got out of that, because the two wasn’t enough. And I was so relationship building oriented. And it was difficult for me to do that. So I think it’s because they’re not incented to do the right thing. And I believe so they’re always on the move, and they don’t have time to follow up, or they don’t really care to follow up or they’re not taught to follow up. But it’s bad. And it gives the rest of us a bad name. We’re My company is required to follow up at some point. And the best thing that we do is I teach my team to tell someone on the phone, if it’s not a fit for something that’s appropriate to share, share. So a lot of people, a lot of younger recruiters, I did this too. It’s like, okay, yep, I will. I’m gonna go ask the hiring manager and I’ll get back to you. And then I would figure out a way to call them back. Well, what a waste of time. I would call them back and say, well, here’s what what a waste of time. Why can’t we just be transparent? You know what? This this I know this hiring manager is really looking for x. And I can see that you’re close, but I know them really well. It’s not going to be the right fit. You know, let us make sure we find the right match for you.

Curt Anderson  34:32

That first date and just there’s a deal breaker just let’s just get it out there and not go on that second date. Hey, boy, we

Damon Pistulka  34:39

had good dinner. Hey, James is

Curt Anderson  34:41

here. My friend. I like this question here. Kelly, what do you think about this one? Thank you for dropping these questions. Guys. Why is it so hard to give beginners a chance? What do you think of that one?

Kelly Robinson  34:53

It well, it shouldn’t be that’s like such. It’s so I just had this conversation. With My Sister weeks ago, or less, whenever I was in, I was in Miami, it was so nice, but I went with my sister. And we were talking about how when she got divorced and needed a job. She, the guy that hired her who’s now? My brother in law, he’s awesome.

Curt Anderson  35:28

Did that work out? Yeah. Job and husband.

Kelly Robinson  35:33

At the time, they’re like me for each other.

Curt Anderson  35:36

What a great, what a great story.

Kelly Robinson  35:38

I know. I know. And the kids have like a really, really positive like, role model. Oh, that’s great. It’s, it’s to me, it’s like amazing. It’s really good for her and for him and the kids and everything. But she went in and she didn’t like have experience in that job. And she’d been working like part time as like a preschool teacher for you know, and so we just had this conversation that him and the other two this, they were my client at the time. And so him he liked, he said, Let’s meet her and the other two executives said, No, she doesn’t have the right experience. And so, but he’s the CEO, right? So he met her and he said in the first five minutes, he’s like, this girl doesn’t she doesn’t have any experience. She has all the right skill sets. She has the right attitude. She’s got the right attitude. She’s smart, she’s resourceful. And of course, she’s my sister. So I see that firsthand. And I know that for sure. Like we’re not selling something that we don’t believe in. That’s the hard part, I think, is to try to get sometimes we know people are really good fit. But are you going to believe me, Kurt? Like if I actually don’t know this person that well, when I’m like, Oh, I spent 45 minutes on the phone with them. I think they’re really great like this, that happened to be my sister. So I was said to the recruiter, like what? Like, you know, she’s good. I know, she’s good. She was.

Curt Anderson  37:02

It’s a tough, you know, and I’m sorry to interject is very challenging, because, you know, what’s the expression, hire slow fire fast, because, you know, if you make the wrong hire, it’s very challenging. In the same regard. You know, like, you know, life is so short. You know, I was at a funeral this week, and just just kind of reflecting like, and like, we’re here for, you know, we’re here for a good time, but not a long time, right. And just it goes by so fast. Why waste a day, a week, a year, let alone a minute, on a job that we’re not going to be happy with? It gets very challenging. I’m going to pull a couple more comments here. Daniel, beautiful conversation. Thank you for joining us, Daniel eight, we’ve got Gail, they’ll be Friday. Gail, sending you tons of love. We love it. Let’s dig into I’m going to cover a couple of things here.

Damon Pistulka  37:45

I go ahead. as well. One of the things we kind of in this and in it’s really hit me hard in a couple of our clients recently is that hiring hire not getting value alignment in the people that you hire, I love what you’re talking about with with people with the right skill set the right aptitude, that may not have what you thought was this, you know, perfect career path. And that’s it. This is proven just golden in a lot of opportunities for for me and our clients. But the thing that I’ve seen recently that really in in people businesses, because we’ve been doing a fair amount of health care work is that if you don’t get value alignment, it is horrible. And are you seeing people spend more time to really understand and sit down with people and go listen, these are our values, and I don’t care if you match on you know, you got the credentials, you got the you know, you got the experience. Let’s talk about this. Not enough, you know, in herself bad.

Kelly Robinson  38:56

So the inner the interview that I had this morning a woman was she’s a writer, and she has a client. She’s in the UK, but she’s a client that does everything they do is like skills based assessments. And so we were talking about this like so how do you just to be able to change? Overall the mentality of like, how we hire who we hire, how we train and how we onboard is major. It’s a major it’s not, it’s not like you take a month and you got any set it up and you’re able to say this job needs these skills, and then for this person to get to the next step. These are the skills that they need. It’s not like that because it’s constantly evolving, right? You have to measure you have to have 360 feedback you have, you know, how do you know what’s working? Are your people on board? Do your people have buy in? Or the managers like I’ve seen people so many times say, like, you have to do you know what our clients Oh, you have to do this CBT training. It’s not that valuable, but you have to do it like, you know, that’s not what you want. You want people that have like, buy in, that are really trying to help people with skills, bring them up to whatever it is, you know, they came in here, and they need to be here. So there was a gap. But that’s a gap that’s trainable for us. And here’s how we’re gonna get you there. But then you’ve got to revisit that a year because it’s gonna change. And is it working? Is it not working?

Curt Anderson  40:26

So let’s go here. And I apologize if this is a redundant question in any capacity, couple things I want to hit, because we’ve got so much to talk about. But we got to be mindful of time. What are you seeing some of the companies that are most successful where the recruiting I like I want to talk about recruiting, successful recruiting, and then next. And so I want to hit you with two questions. But then I wanted to segue into successful retention. So let’s start with retention. What do you seen? You know, you’re like frontline boots in the streets. What do you seen successful recruiting Tactics Strategies?

Kelly Robinson  41:01

I’m using Pano nose recruiting. Yeah, use it.

Curt Anderson  41:08

Okay, guys, if you’re just joining us where you are with Kelly Robinson, Pata knows PK recruiting, so this she is a superstar. Connect with her on LinkedIn. Kelly, what are some of the successful? Well, that was it. Let’s move on to the next one. Just contact Kelly, just please.

Kelly Robinson  41:29

People that have people that are open minded and looking for an opportunity to make a difference, so they have to see a bigger picture. So I see, I just saw the the Dan said, like, is the hiring process going to, you know, be any better? And he’s, and he’s so right. And if people are not open minded, recruiting is just the last thought no one thinks of it. And it should be one of the first when you start a company, how am I going to eventually hire because your goal should be to hire. If you grow and you get revenue, you need to hire right? duplicate yourself all that stuff. So I mean, I had a conversation with someone yesterday. And literally he said, I use three agencies, and they’re not doing a good job and tell me about you. And I told him and he said, Oh, I was just looking for another agency partner. And I said, but they’re why they’re not doing a good job. And he goes, Well, they’re they’re experts in that area. And I said, but they’re not doing a good job. And and he said, Well, I wouldn’t be able to sell to my CEO. And I said, Well, let’s keep talking. Let’s have a conversation. And I’ll tell you how you can talk about he’s like, I don’t think we’re going to be willing to try something new and pay a flat monthly fee. And I said, Well, how long is that going to go before the CEO realizes how much revenue he’s losing? Yeah, because he’s not trying different things. And you’re just waiting for something to come along. Like we we have to be open minded, or you’re just stuck. You’re just not. So I do see a lot of people moving towards more tools, like different tools and using outsource companies like ours, but really partnering. So instead of hiring their own person, which is great, but you know, instead of hiring the wrong person, they’re hiring someone like us. We’re bringing all those tools and the management, the training for the recruiters.

Curt Anderson  43:29

Right? Well, we had I’m sorry, a mutual friend, Ira Bowman was on a couple months ago, Kelly, and you know, if you recall, when, you know, I was very, he just did a TED talk is matter of fact, on your way. And, you know, very powerful speech that he gave talks about when he was downsized during COVID thought it was going to be his lifelong career, and how He parlayed his social currency with his LinkedIn community, his LinkedIn presence, and he was the accident, accidental entrepreneur, and built his business off of that. So that’s, you know, those of us on LinkedIn, all of us are here, friends because of LinkedIn. That is why LinkedIn is such an important tool for our friends out there. Hey, let’s give us a giant of ugliness here today. Oh, happy. Dan. I’m trying to keep up with your comments and questions here. Let’s see. How can you how can you determine how an employee will do a position after looking at the resume for six seconds? You know, if it’s if it says Curt Anderson on the resume, like they know pretty darn quickly, Dan, they know in six seconds that it’s not gonna work out very well. Right Damon,

Kelly Robinson  44:31

but if it says Damian, he’s got the bat. We’re hiring him. He’s got that bat phone the direct line. Yeah, he’s got

Curt Anderson  44:37

to direct these get the direct path. Let’s slide into

Damon Pistulka  44:40

hireable and just tell everyone

Curt Anderson  44:45

talk about retention. What are you like you are just fierce advocate for not only on the recruiting side, but hey, you get that quality talent. How so for entrepreneurs manufacturers out there? What advice do you have to how you know outside of just like throwing money at people? What are Some tips strategies that you have for on the retention side.

Kelly Robinson  45:02

So I really, really believe that retention starts with recruiting 100%. So when I’m when I’m in with a client, a lot of times recruiting recruiters want to say like, it’s not our job, like, it’s not we just hired them. You got to onboard them, I get it. But it’s a it’s a, it’s a team, right? It’s a collaboration. So when we start with a new client, I need to, or even anything, any new job, like, you know, we have a client and they give us a new job, we need to understand the position, how does it fit into the organization? What are the opportunities for that person who’s been successful in that position? Who hasn’t? And why? And we want to see their background. And then when we’re talking to the candidates that were screening that we’re going out and finding and screening, we want to understand their background, why did they make certain moves? And it’s not about it’s not just about jumps, right? If there’s too many jumps, like, okay, maybe someone had bad luck, but probably that’s just not someone that I want to move forward with right now. Right. But if they’ve had moves, you want to understand why, oh, well, because I learned my passion was here, okay. And then you went over here, but then you went back to the industry. So you’re trying to understand the psychology of the moves too, right? Because that’s actually really important. It’s just as important to screen that candidate to make sure that wherever they have been, and wherever they are now and feel passionate about because people change, like we talked about doesn’t mean just resume, they didn’t like the job that they had five years ago, doesn’t mean they’re not going to like your job. It’s similar. It could be the environment, it could be a different level, it’d be all different things, different industry. So you want to understand where they are, why they’re there, and what they really want to do. It’s not about that five year question. I hate that question. Sorry. I think it’s the dumbest question ever. I don’t know where I want to be in five, I look, I’d like to be on a beach in five years, right? But do I really know? No, no, because I’m learning about myself every day, like I like to, I like to work really hard. So you need to understand that so that you can make really good matches, because let’s say I’m interviewing Dan, and Dan’s like, I want to go in and I want to be the CMO Chief Marketing Officer of this company. But, you know, I don’t know, I don’t even have an example. But if that they if they’re hiring a director of marketing, and his goal is to go in and eventually take over. But I know that’s not going to happen there. Because they just promoted someone, a CMO, or they don’t believe having a CMO, whatever it may be, it’s not the right match, like a traditional agency might say, we’ll just go there for four or five years, maybe you can get it right, because they’re like they need the commission. So for us, it’s like, it’s got to be that retention starts by understanding the job, what’s happening in that job? Are they going to have opportunity? Or are they not going to have opportunity, which is fine. Sometimes you need people to just stay in jobs, but you need to find the people want to stay in jobs, not the person that wants to run the world and be the manager.

Curt Anderson  48:14

Right? Well, I love that. And David, I want to go here for a minute. We had an amazing, incredible guest a few months ago, Don schmucky. And he what he did, Kelly is he is like a research scientist. He’s studied the world, and, you know, history of man and woman kind. And like where were the were the folks that like the most inspirational Why did the Vikings leave a country? Like, take off? Why did people go to Antarctica to discover it? And he said, There was Why do some companies just thrive versus others? So he looked at folks history, so on and so forth. He said one word, it was like people believed in the saga. People believed in the cause and believed in a saga, you have such a contagious enthusiasm. You know, you’re just you’re just a magnetic personality. Do you find for yourself or for your clients? I do. The people that can really sell their cars or that saga, you feel like there’s do feel people buy into that, or people are that aren’t going to buy into Seiger? Like you can read those folks out? Are any any comments about like, pursuing your cause? Or that saga?

Kelly Robinson  49:17

Yeah, I mean, I think I, the word selling just as always bothered me. And I don’t know why because I know there’s a piece of recruiting that is like selling the opportunity, but I don’t believe you can sell the opportunity until you know, it’s the match for the person. Yep. If that makes sense, right. So it’s all about making really, really good matches, but it’s about digging into the psychology of the person like I could probably sell you guys on something. But it doesn’t mean it’s gonna last because you just thought I was a great salesperson and you just believed in whatever I was selling, right? That’s, that’s great. I’m gonna sell you these knives but they’re crappy knives and In three months, like, you know, you need to, like, it’s just whatever I don’t even know. You understand the point like, yeah, it’s got to be a match. It’s not about how good someone sells something. It’s does it make sense? Or does it make sense? Someone says they’re willing to move for the position. Okay? So really, you’re willing to move your kids in school? Right? Right. They’ve been in that school, the wrong sports team, your wife has a job there you really like really? Yeah, some of those recruiters are like, let’s just get them in front of the hiring manager. And let’s get them going. And maybe we’ll make that decision. But it’s our job to really understand everything that surrounds that and make sure that the person understands and the client understands.

Damon Pistulka  50:46

That’s a great example. You just did a great example there because that person can be tucked in to move in that this is a greatest opportunity. And three months later, they’re their family is unhappy, they’re unhappy, and they’re down the road. Right? You just wasted all that time and effort

Curt Anderson  51:00

and it’s a bad fit. And I didn’t even barely Dan bigger was talking to my wife this week, because she just said to me, she’s like, you know, I never got a resume from you. When we first met. So, Dan, I don’t know if you’re talking to my wife or not. But anyway, I’m having a tough time Kim over the comments. She says, hey, it sounds like online dating. Gail. Whitney says I hate the five year question so much, Josh. I was gonna ask Whitney that too. I’m sorry. What is your what you’re doing in three years, but anyway, and I think I saw a beach comment. Dan’s gonna be at the beach. He lives in Hilton Head. So John Kelly, let’s take it home. We’re coming into time. I want to be respectful of your time. First off, thank you, everybody for joining us today. We’re in an absolutely incredible Kelly is a powerhouse any if you have any recruiting questions, tactics, strategies that you’re looking for, you want to check out Kelly connect with her on LinkedIn. Follow her she’s just a fierce advocate for folks hitting their goals. Kelly, take us home. Any final words of wisdom, any thoughts that you want to share with everybody as we wrap up our day?

Kelly Robinson  52:01

I just want to give a shout out to Jennifer you see Jennifer Harrison Rafa. Yeah, yes. She’s one of my managers. She’s phenomenal. Hey, Sam bigger, she came to me with zero recruiting experience. And she is now our manager, she leads the recording function. She manages all of our clients. She is phenomenal. Okay, that’s like that is it. And I have a lot of that at my all, actually, all of my leadership team have never done what they’re doing. But they I knew they were the right people. And they had the right skills. And they’re crushing it. And when I went to Miami, sorry, I’m like, this is way longer. But when I went to Miami, let me tell you something. This time was the first time that I did not open my laptop other than in the airport on my way there because I had two invoices to send which we’re going to get sent. Right. I’m opening two invoices. And then I was off for the week. And it’s the first time that I only had this I have my laptop with me. I had it plugged in. It was at the table in the room, but I never opened it. Yeah. Others Jennifer, that’s awesome.

Damon Pistulka  53:11

Thanks.

Curt Anderson  53:14

So, Damon, how about a moment of silence right here for our dear friend Kelly Robinson because who is a great leader, those that creates great leaders. So Kelly, our hats off to you. We commend you. We applaud you. What Hey, you know what, Damon, if anybody if you guys have been sitting around for the past and thank you for joining us. You’ve been sitting around, it’s a great time to stand up, get a little stretch. And how about we give it a huge standing ovation for our dear lovely guests. Our bestie man Kelly Robinson in the house, Kelly, thank you. Thanks

Damon Pistulka  53:48

so much.

Kelly Robinson  53:49

You guys. I love you guys. I’m so glad that you guys like do this together. And you’re still doing this Dave and like that’s crazy. You started this during like, I started some shit that kind of just

Curt Anderson  54:06

you know what we’re just to? Yeah, we just have nothing better. We just Yeah, it’s like a bromance. We don’t know what else to come back. Well, we’ll geek out hard. And I have one last question. Curious, Mike. No, I have one last question. You know, in a famous song for anybody. I love Simon Garfunkel. You know, Mrs. Robinson, great song, great movie, you know, we won’t go there. But in that movie talked about Joe DiMaggio. Right Damon? Right. The other gone Joe Johnson. Joe. All right. Joe DiMaggio. So Kelly, you’re a baseball fan and your family’s big sports fans right Philadelphia Phillies my right Phillies. hypothetical question. This is just I’m just asking for a friend total hypothetical question. And for those of you who come around the other countries baseball Americans pastime, Kelly is sitting on the bench at the Philadelphia Phillies baseball game. It’s a bottom of the night and there’s a person on second base person staying on second base by Monday night. And there’s two outs and they need that run a score because it’s a tie score right now to win the game. The bet the manager turns on the bench and looks and says hey Robinson get up to the plate and put that runner in. We got to win this game. I need to get home. You walk up to the plate to hit the game winner What’s your walk up song? What song do you want on your loudspeaker? This is hard. Why? Time? Because Oh boy. Now is that maybe Ice Ice Baby Vanilla Ice.

Kelly Robinson  55:45

Listen, there’s a new song. Did you guys hear Britney

Curt Anderson  55:48

Spears? New song? Britney song? Let’s hear it.

Kelly Robinson  55:52

No, no, it’s terrible. I was getting my nails done on Saturday and it came on and the nail lady and I were laughing our butts off. It’s it’s her and some will i am or something and they’re like, and she says mine your business? I was like, Uh, no. It’s like my new favorite song. But I don’t know why. But I would be like, I would get up there and I would hit home run. And we would get to we would win by to win by. There you go.

Curt Anderson  56:21

Oh, hey, we need Taylor. That was awesome. That was a great answer. Absolutely love it. So Dan says hey, why can’t we be friends? That’s a that’s a great song. We’re gonna wind down. I know you’re busy out there just driving success for other people. Guys connect with Kelly on LinkedIn. You will thank Daymond I later, Kelly. God bless you. Thank you. We appreciate you. We applaud you. We just salute you. You are just such a hero. So inspiring guys, and thank you for joining us in the chat to catch us on replay. If you missed some of this, go back and hit rewind and catch all the inspiration from our dear friend Kelly Robinson. And as Damon I’d love to say just go out and be someone’s inspiration just like our dear friend Kelly Robinson. Daymond. Take it away, brother.

Damon Pistulka  57:08

Well, thanks, Kurt. And I want to thank everybody that man the comments, the chat was going crazy today. We’re getting them from all over the world. And it just we’re so pleased that that we can do that. And we can bring great guests like Kelly with us today and old friends and be able to talk about things. But thanks, everyone, if you had dropped a comment, thank you so much. If you’re listening, like I said, encourage that if you miss something go back. There’s a lot of good stuff in here. And thanks once again for being with us. We’ll be back again next week everyone. Have a great weekend.