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Operator: This is Totally Hyped, a marketing podcast for today’s SMB leaders.
Cale: Let’s face it, marketing is one of the most important functions of your business. You’re a business leader, so this podcast won’t waste your time on marketing buzzwords or overhyped tactics. Instead, we’ll focus on topics like optimizing ROI, building brand equity, and increasing sales and market share.
Operator: Totally Hyped is brought to you by Pure Marketing Consultation, the most cost-effective way to get the results you want.
Cale: On today’s episode, I have a very special guest, Natalie Forward, EVP of Business Development at Felix Global. We’ll discuss how SMBs can compete for top talent and such topics as how to compensate for compensation, how the cadence of your hiring process is key to success or failure in recruitment, and how do what employees want to keep them happy. It’s all here on today’s episode. Stick around.
Operator: This is Totally Hyped with your host, Cale Guin.
Cale: My guest today is Natalie Forward, EVP of Business Development at Felix Global. Felix Global is a top-tier North American talent and organizational consulting firm backed by 30-plus years of proven success. They specialize in helping companies excel through a full range of integrated solutions aimed at boosting talent and organizational performance. As EVP at Felix, Natalie helps clients tackle tough talent challenges and push their organizations forward.
Her areas of expertise include workforce planning, talent selection, employee engagement, emotional intelligence, leadership development, and modern recruitment strategies. She’s the go-to for making sure the right people are in the right place and that teams are designed to grow. Thank you for being here, Natalie. My first question for you is how can SMBs compete for top-level talent against anybody?
Natalie: What we’re finding is when we’re working with smaller logos, not the household name, the impact, influence, the ability to change, lead, be a true leader actually has a lot of value. if you think about just the numbers, if you’re working in an organization that’s 10,000 versus 1,000, your scope of influence, impact, change drastically changes just on the size.
That doesn’t necessarily speak to compensation, which I’m happy to address, but many executives, especially as they move into mid or senior career, want to do work without as much red tape, want to have the opportunity to sit next to their CEO and know that their voice matters and have impact, wider and more vertically throughout the organization. That’s worth tens and thousands of dollars sometimes to individuals that are looking to make a move at that level.
Certainly, we’re always a healthy base salary because that’s fixed and something that they can depend on. There’s almost always an annual bonus, long-term incentive, so things like stock and some unrestricted stock. Again, that most likely means that we’re looking at publicly traded organizations when there’s stock involved, so most likely a larger company. We are seeing some creativity around perks. Things like professional memberships are often negotiated and included. Even executive coaches. You’ve had a coach for a long time. Instead of that coming out of your pocket, a new organization will pick that up.
At that level, things like PTO are just– they just don’t come into play when you’re talking about negotiation because there’s always room for flexibility. I will tell you, even at small to medium-sized organizations, there’s usually flexibility around comp. Whether that’s a sign-on bonus or a retention bonus or they just find money from another budget, typically they can make a deal work for the right person.
The other thing I’ll say is, candidates are smart, executives are smart. When they’re chatting with an organization that isn’t Fortune 100, they know the budget is different. Even as they start that process, potentially they have realistic expectations. Then I’ll just end that with when we’re talking about nonprofit, or even when we’re talking about mission, the almighty dollar loses its power because there’s just so much more to our work than the money.
Cale: In other words, while you can probably finagle some finances to help the compensation aspect of it, some of the compensation is going into or coming from these other values. The more impact the ability to be closer to your CEOs, those types of things are compensating for the compensation.
Natalie: Absolutely. We need to trademark that.
Cale: If I see it in your marketing materials, by the way [laughs].
Natalie: Then we owe you. I think exec some executives have been maintainers and now they have the opportunity to transform or change, so that has value. Working with a former colleague, that has value. There’s lots of different factors that executives and for that matter, any employee looking for a new gig is going to take into consideration, as they enter into a new job.
Cale: My guess is there’s some technology involved in here, but walk me through this. How do they get to go through their process a little bit more quickly so that they can get a candidate as soon as they find them?
Natalie: If we talk hiring process, it’s what’s the cadence of hiring. If you’re doing hiring on a regular basis, you probably have a well-oiled machine where all of the stakeholders know what’s going to happen in what order, where they’re going to have impact, and the timing of all of those activities. Whether that’s initial reach out, or we’re going to do an assessment or now it’s your time to interview, or we’re going to do a panel business case. If you’re hiring on a regular basis, then hopefully all of those things are well-defined and tweaked along the way, either from candidate feedback or hiring team feedback.
Cale: If I could just interrupt, can that get a little bloated though? A well-oiled machine, can that get to the point where that’s the thing that slows everything down?
Natalie: Oh my gosh. We are working with a private equity firm. They’re the best in the business. They know how to buy and sell organizations. 11 interviews later, the candidate is like, “Is this job worth it?” Now they will tell you it is. From their results, people want to work there. Oh my gosh. If you think about 11 people, you’ve got 11 opinions, weighing in on is this a hire or no hire?
I think in terms of success, the more information you can give the candidate at the start of the process about what’s going to happen to them over the next two to three weeks, or unfortunately two to three months, the better your chances of reeling them in. As I think about everything we’re going to talk about today, Cale– This is your business, not mine. Communication is key. Whether we’re hiring folks or whether it’s time for them to move on. When we’re talking about performance or when we’re talking about promotion. It is all about how am I communicating.
From an acquisition perspective, it’s, how well and how clear am I with the candidate about what’s going to happen to them over the next, insert timeframe. For the hiring team, what is my role? What are my responsibilities? What am I assessing for? What is our feedback loop? The tighter you can get on those two pieces, what’s happening with the candidate and what’s happening with the hiring team, the likelihood of success increases drastically.
Now we were working with the CPG company, who was hiring ultimately a brand manager. They called it a marketing manager. This was a highly critical role. The CEO was on the panel. They had their act together. To the tee of, after a full day of interviews, which we recommended, please give the candidate water and pizza along the way, because this is exhausting. They had an offer ready to go by the time the candidate was on there in their Uber on the way home. The interview ended at 4:00. They were on the phone with the candidate by about 5:15 extending an offer.
Cale: I would also say that when you talk about communication, I’m a huge proponent of communication throughout the organization. It’s the authenticity and making sure that you say clear, but I say, make sure you’re being truthful and you’re not trying to overhype and oversell. You’re like, “Oh, it’s going to be great and it’s going to be easy and it’s going to be whatever.” If it’s not, those things can kill you.
Natalie: For sure. On that same search, there was an opportunity– not an opportunity, a requirement that the candidate took a couple of assessments and the candidates thought the assessments were going to take 10 minutes and they ultimately took a couple of hours. That could have derailed the process because it was a surprise and people don’t like surprises unless it’s your birthday, right? When you’re asking a candidate to take that much time unexpectedly, it can, it can really derail you. You’re right. Not just, is this clear? Is it authentic? Is it true? Is it real?
Cale: It’s a huge component in all of marketing, but I can’t even imagine you’re starting off on such a bad foot. I’m starting with this company and– That wasn’t really how they said it was going to be. You’re already [unintelligible 00:11:15] before you even start.
Natalie: Right. Remember, we’re evaluating candidates and candidates are evaluating us. They’re taking notes and they’re checking lists and they’re putting you in a pros or a cons category of how it’s going. They are starting to imagine how’s it going to be to work at company X, Y.
Cale: You and I talked right following the pandemic last. How different is it now in that specific regard that the candidate– We talked about having the upper hand now right after COVID. How much has that changed and stayed the same since COVID where the candidate is like, “I remember a day when it was like, oh, I really need this job. I got to have–” The candidate was more desperate to get the work and it’s not like that anymore.
Now you, like you say, they’re like, “I don’t know that this works with my work-life balance as much.” It seems so different to me. When you say that they’re evaluating, of course, they are to an extent, but it seems like the urgency and having to get this job is different than it used to be.
Natalie: Yes. September showed us unemployment was at 4.1%, and although I know there are many folks looking for work, and I know this because I have a bunch of them in my network that say, “Can you help me?” There’s been certain roles that have been hit harder than others based on different business factors. Much of the time, we’re looking at passive candidates, candidates that are happily working like you and me at our jobs and don’t really have intention of leaving until they get a phone call either from an internal corporate recruiter or for a search firm saying, “I’ve got this opportunity.”
Cale: Right. That’s an interesting marketing–
Natalie: I don’t know if I answered [unintelligible 00:13:23] [crosstalk]
Cale: You did, 100%. That’s an interesting marketing thing that I think companies struggle with a lot is, how do I get in front of that person? Of course, you’re on LinkedIn and you’re looking for these candidates that fit some sort of profile or some sort of a categoric, these guys check these boxes. I contend that even then it’s still like that’s your only option really is LinkedIn.
There’s not a ton of options out there to get in front of and disrupt somebody who’s already in their job, already doing a good job, already content with their job, and saying, “You might like this better.” It’s hard to do that. I say that you have to think way outside the box with recruitment marketing because you’re just one of everybody else in all of those LinkedIn searches and all the Indeed profiles. You’re just one of everybody else. You have to get in front of people where they weren’t expecting to be gotten in front of. I don’t know that you guys deal with that much or not, but.
Natalie: We do. When we put recruiting strategies together, obviously we’re using LinkedIn. It would be silly and almost criminal for us not to use the biggest tool out there right now. We’re also looking at where are these candidates networking? What associations do they belong to? What groups are they on LinkedIn or Facebook? What Instagram followers? Where are they following on Instagram? I would encourage everyone to build your network and cultivate your own network because so much of the time– Even when we’re doing recruiting, I’m calling Cale, I have this CMO position available, just his dream job at whatever industry lights your fire, and you’re not interested, but you may know somebody that is. Now I need to leverage your network, very professionally, of course, to start to meet new people. Cale, people love to talk about their jobs and their careers, even if they’re not in the market.
Cale: It’s amazing. It really is. Even way back in Benjamin Franklin’s day, he was describing the difference between Americans and Europeans. He said, “In America, you ask people what they do.” It’s really how you– What do you do for a living? That’s always part of the very first part of every conversation with every human being in at least America, as far as I know.
Natalie: Which is maybe a sad state of affairs because we are more than our W-2. We are more than our paycheck. I’ll tell you, I never [unintelligible 00:16:15] at a cocktail party. When people know that I’m connected to work, they–
Cale: You’re holding court all of a sudden, right?
Natalie: Yes. To hell with me. Thinks about how many hours were dedicated to our craft.
Cale: You’re like a doctor. “I’ve got this rash.” You’re at the party and you’re like, “I don’t really want to– Not now.”
Natalie: Where’s the bar? That’s not what I’m here for. [unintelligible 00:16:38] [crosstalk]
Cale: You keep talking, I’ll be over here. Yes. I can imagine. When it comes to talent development and insights, what methods can SMBs particularly, use to identify and nurture a high-potential employees for future leadership roles? This is interesting to me because I hear my significant other talk about this all the time, future leaders, and things where they’re trying to identify these future rock stars. I’m always fascinated by, I wonder who– I would like to just be a fly on the wall and just see who these people are. How are you determining that? Explain that to me.
Natalie: There’s formal ways to evaluate emerging leaders. You and I chatted a little bit about assessments. Many sophisticated organizations have talent reviews and succession planning, and they can plot us on charts in terms of if we’re high potential, but also high risk. We currently not have all the skills, but we’ve got a big upside and you can use data to figure out all of that.
For a long time, I personally did not want to have any more direct reports. I’d been a leader of people. I’m a leader of people now, but in between that, I loved the individual contributor role. I was a high performer and hit all my metrics, but I often thought to myself, “Where do I fit on that box?” When the executives are talking about somebody like me, where do they put me? I don’t want any one-on-ones every week and I don’t want to do performance reviews for others.
As your listeners are thinking about their teams, we have A, B, and C players and there’s room for everyone. We really need everybody with different skill sets that have different career journeys and different career aspirations, because we can’t all sit at the executive spot. There’s only four or five chairs or six, so we can’t all get there. Even if you’re not at an organization that has all of this structure– Many organizations are flat and on purpose.
Now we think about career journeys and high potentials and, oh my gosh, I just don’t have that many spots for this person to go. There are really simple things that you can do. You can start to invite people to meetings that they typically wouldn’t be invited to because their title doesn’t match everybody else’s in the room. Yet the opportunity for them to have access to the content and access to the people. I just got the chills. That can be really rewarding for somebody early to mid-career.
Not only rewarding but there’s a benefit to it, to the leadership team, right? That there’s this new perspective, a fresh perspective, as long as they allow that to participate in any way, shape, or form. To see a younger, fresher, different point of view, the value in that has got to be off the charts. Maybe not always, but every once in a while, there’s got to be, whoa, that changes everything. You just didn’t think about it. You didn’t see a trend coming up that a newer, fresher, younger, more recently educated person might see.
Natalie: I think you and I chatted a little bit about emotional intelligence. The ability to be self-aware. The ability to manage ourselves. We didn’t talk about unconscious bias, but as senior leaders, it’s how do I take the, I’ve done this, I’ve been there. I know it all hat off and-
Cale: You can’t tell me.
Natalie: -open ourselves to new perspective. I don’t want to get deep into technology today, but we could learn some lessons from our early to mid-career folks about how to work more efficiently and how to use tools that are at our fingertips to look at something in a new way. When you’re talking about high potential, if you have a very sophisticated performance review system and a path, and you’ve built emerging leader programs because you have the budget or you have the capacity, great, full speed ahead, keep doing what you’re doing.
If you don’t, if you’re not at that size organization, is there a meeting? Is there a conversation? Can the leadership team take somebody out to coffee and just get their opinion and listen authentically? That stuff matters. I would encourage you just to think about what you can offer someone, even if you don’t have all the bells and the whistles.
Cale: I once read, I think it was an entire book on ways to compensate people that weren’t always with money. Some of the things you’re talking about are exactly what they were talking about. That idea that I have access to leadership. I have a say. Those things matter as much, if not more than money in many, many circumstances. There’s that. Then I think that also seeing how they play in those, not only getting maybe information but how do they play in there? I think then you can start to identify these people pretty easily without, like you said, a lot of technology. You can really just witness it.
Natalie: Really, we’re looking at behavior. When you ask about ROI or metrics, yes, all of that is important for many reasons. There needs to be a measuring stick. I need to know what’s expected of me. I want to understand if I want to be promoted, what are the things I need to do? It really comes down to behavior. What are we witnessing on a day-to-day basis about how I communicate, how I influence, how I handle rejection? Am I showing you that I have resilience and grit when things don’t go my way?
These are all things, if you have children, please be working with them on that. Our future leaders need these qualities. I have a new idea that I could implement. Am I being creative with customers? There’s lots of different ways to see this and recognizing it, whether that’s joining a meeting, sending an email, a CEO writing a handwritten note to somebody that he or she notices. My goodness, again, that’s worth a lot of money.
Cale: When we talk about small, medium-sized businesses, oftentimes we’re talking about numbers of employees. I hate that as a reference. Because I would say if you’re a three-person shop and you’re making a billion dollars a year, not all that small of a company really. You could also be, barely getting by with a thousand people. I always think about when we call sizes of organizations, I don’t know, there’s got to go be some more balance there between your impact in the world and how many people you have working for you. Sometimes I think in good times you have too many and sometimes in bad times you don’t have enough.
I don’t know if that necessarily speaks to– I don’t know. I think we hold those sizes in some regard. Oh, I’m a big business. I’m a medium-sized business. I’m a small business. It just feels different no matter who you’re talking to.
Natalie: Yes. I think you’re better at this than anyone else, but it’s like, so what’s the story that you’re trying to tell by saying I have this many employees or I have this revenue? A lot of times when I’m talking about Felix, I say we’re 34 years old. Maybe nobody cares. What or what? I try to say that you’re working with an organization that over the last three decades, we’ve impacted talent.
We’ve seen it all through all the different ways and that has value. Let me tell you why. Sometimes organizations want to know your revenue size because it’s stability to them. You don’t know, but I’m with you. There’s a lot of ways to carve it out. I think you got to go think about what’s the intention or what’s the story I’m trying to tell when I talk about the size of my company or the impact.
Cale: How can companies utilize or get started utilizing data and analytics for talent decisions and measuring ROI when it comes to development initiatives? This is a marketing thing all in one question here because marketing, we have all these analytics, but it’s really hard to then tie those directly to ROI or a meaningful impact on the organization. This is that same question that we get all the time in marketing aimed at you. How do you determine things like performance and measure ROI on development initiatives?
Natalie: This has evolved. When you talk about we’ve been in business for 34 years, I’ve been doing this not quite that long, but a couple of decades under my belt for sure. I remember within the last 10 years, every time I’d be talking to an organization about development or what used to be called training, they would say, “Yes, I get a lot of soft costs, but what are the ROI? Can you come back here and show me the numbers?” That didn’t work.
What really had to happen was there had to be this shift, which there is today, that the employees are demanding some type of development and the opportunity to get better at my craft. There are absolutely things that you can look at that you already know, which are, have my retention numbers improved or has my turnover declined once I have implemented some development program? Am I seeing changes to internal mobility, which is ultimately current employees moving throughout the organization into different roles?
Sometimes if you’re in a revenue-generating role, you can say, have sales increased or have I gotten more profitable? There’s lots of different ways to measure it. If we’re talking about sales, am I able to get more meetings? Have I overcome objections? Has the size of the deal increased based on professional development? If we’re talking about leadership, is my team leading less? Have I been able to hang on to my teammates longer than I was before we introduced development?
Cale, development comes in so many– We talked a little bit about this. I would encourage you to, when you’re doing career planning, whether that’s informal or formally, ask the employee what they want to do. Sometimes we think we need these robust programs and all they’re saying is, “Can I go to a conference next week?” Then [inaudible 00:28:05] $200 or $20. We don’t even know because we don’t even ask. Let’s not make assumptions. Let’s get our teammates to be co-creators of their development plan. Sometimes there are expectations. If they want to go to a conference, yes, let’s support that. Then, hey, can you bring back some of that content to our next team meeting? Let’s have a one-on-one after that conference and talk about some new ideas and things we potentially could implement, or you can be very creative.
Cale: I can’t even tell you how many times this plays a role in my day-to-day. You have this very complex and this very well-thought-out journey that you want people to go on, but you never even ask them what they want. Then you’re like, all they wanted to do is go to a conference and you’re offering them like all this craziness. Can I just learn more? Can I be a part of other things? That, it’s such a great point to always keep your ear to the ground, I guess, your finger on the pulse and what have you.
Natalie: We’re doing a book club right now at Felix. Let me tell you, we’re reading a book called Give to Grow. I don’t know if you’ve read it yet. It’s by a guy named Mo Bunnell. I would highly recommend it. It is all about building relationships and that let’s give first, let’s just give. Let’s just be good people and give to each other. It’s a little bit more complex than that. Get the book, Give to Grow, Mo Bunnell.
We’re just doing a book club every week where our leaders get together and discuss the different chapters and that’s development. We’re starting to implement little things every week. Some of us have done this for years and just need a reminder and some of it’s new. I would just say, don’t get too complex. Ask your people, co-create those career journeys, be creative, and you might find out they don’t want anything. Remember I said I didn’t want those direct reports? Just let me be a high-performing individual contributor and we’re in it to win it. As individualized as possible without letting your– that could also drive HR teams nuts would be my recommendation.
Cale: What strategies can businesses use to foster high performance? Obviously, a lot of the SMBs are at least hoping to grow if they’re not already growing. It’s a busy world out there when you’re growing and how can you also be making sure you’re developing this and you’re probably– Skeleton crew. You have everything pile up against you, how do they do it? How do they help still foster high performance?
Natalie: You reward it.
Cale: You have to recognize at first because sometimes you’re in it. You not always looking around and I think that you have to plan this out a little bit. You have to know when high performance is happening.
Natalie: Yes. I think high growth and high performance can also come with a little chaos.
Cale: Sure.
Natalie: When we’re talking about high growth, and I think let’s just talk about high growth and it’ll get into high performance, often our organizational structures aren’t prepared for high growth. Our technology isn’t always prepared for high growth. Our leadership isn’t always prepared for high growth. To recognize that there could be chaos. I have to have patience, even though I’m running as quickly. if you think you’re training for a race, you still got to hydrate and refresh or else you’re not going to get the race done.
First of all, I also think rewarding it. If we’re in a high-performance culture, to find what high performance and then let’s reward it, which could be monetary or could be a different office or it could be many, many things.
Cale: Could be an attaboy.
Natalie: Could be an attaboy. Literally there’s all, you go on teams and all our different annotations, there’s definitely ways to recognize it. The thing that Give to Grow has shown us, we also still need to remember relationships. Just getting to the top without any costs or checks and balances, that’s not good behavior. It’s really important that leaders stay true to their values, even all along the way. If you’re seeing values being jeopardized on the way to high growth, you want to catch that as quickly as possible too.
Cale: We’re running out of time a little bit here, but I want to touch on something you just said in the sense that you talk about mission and values and things of that nature. Are the leaders sticking to their values? Are they veering? How important is it to people who are considering working for a company that they have believable missions and values and visions?
Natalie: A lot of it matters when you entered the workforce. I entered in the early ’90s. I took the job, which ended up being a great job. It didn’t even matter what it paid because I needed a job. I agree. The generation currently graduating right now, values, purpose, mission, sustainability, volunteerism, all of those things. We have ESG now because people care about sustainability. It is like, after I make this product, what happens?
Cale: Right, good.
Natalie: I don’t just sell it. What happens? What happens to the environment? I think a lot of publicly traded companies are being measured on ESG.
Cale: The C-suite advisory, what skills should C-suite leaders develop to address the unique challenges of a growing organization?
Natalie: I think the growth mindset– You’ve heard about growth mindset versus fixed mindset. We touched on this. Just because this is the way you did it for three decades or four decades,-
Cale: Doesn’t mean it’s the way to do it.
Natalie: -doesn’t mean it’s the way to do it.
Natalie: We just have too much disruption and change is happening more rapidly than ever before. I’m sure you’ve seen those studies. There’s been more change in the last seven years than in the last 70. Don’t necessarily quote me on that, but the change is so rapid that if they don’t have a growth or open mindset, that could be a big detriment. I would say, make sure C-suite leaders are surrounding themselves with people with different opinions. That one is tough.
Cale: How hard is that really? When I talk to a lot of people or when I read things, it sounds like everybody’s wonderful people, and everybody is this open-minded. I don’t know that I see that with that much consistency. I see a lot of leaders who are like, it’s my way or the highway. I know what I’m doing. This is where we’re going. That’s that. I’m not saying everybody, I’m just saying that I see more of that than I feel like is being given credit to through things that I’m reading today. How hard is it to get other people in the room and get that leader to listen to other voices and other opinions?
Natalie: This could take another 45 minutes. There’s this concept of psychological safety. The ability to say something or do something without fear of repercussion. I don’t know that we’re there yet in all the boardrooms with people feeling psychologically safe. I think you can be intentional about bringing people with different experience, different talent, and different mindset to the team.
You still can have guardrails. We’re not going to allow bad behavior. We’re not going to let our profitability fall to the bottom of the floor here, or we’re not going to have jobs. There still needs to be some guardrails. We’re still going to treat customers with dignity and respect even though it’s new ideas. Gosh, Cale, it comes down to communication. Have I clearly defined what’s expected of folks at work and their tolerance for change?
Cale: Thank you so much for your time. You’re just the best, just the best.
Natalie: It was really great to spend time with you, Cale. I’m sorry it took me a minute to get us scheduled here. I look forward to chatting again soon.
Cale: EVPs got stuff to do, man.
Natalie: All right, see you later.
Cale: See you later, bye-bye.
Natalie: Thanks, Cale.
Cale: As always, feel free to reach out to me directly at caletotallyhyped.com or call 877-477-1452.
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Operator: This has been Totally Hyped. For more information about this episode and to find supporting resources, including cited content, links, downloads, and forms, go to totallyhyped.com. Totally Hyped is brought to you by Pure Marketing Consultation, the most cost-effective way to get the results you want. Learn more at puremarketingconsultation.com.
Cale: On next week’s episode, we’ll talk about the fastest way to move the sales needle. It’s easier than you might think and quite cost-effective. It just requires a little of your time to get the content in front of your prospects and customers that you want. Until the next time, make it a good one.
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