The Fabulous Learning Nerds

Scott (00:01.874)
Hey everyone, thanks for joining us to another fantastic episode of your Fabulous Learning Nerds. I'm Scott Schuette, your host. And with us, my friend, Dan Coonrod is here.

Scott (00:17.33)
Hello Dan, how are you today?

daniel (00:18.756)
Sup Scott, I'm fair to Midland, you seem very subdued.

Scott (00:23.314)
I kinda am a little seduced, not too bad, but you're saying you're howling again?

Scott (00:34.994)
Got it. OK. I got it. OK. So I have to I have to tell everybody why I'm a little subdued. I'm actually practicing some patience and I love you very much, Dan. I hope you know that, which is great. I was talking earlier to Julia, a friend of the show, and she and I were chatting just a little bit about last week's episode. You remember last week's episode?

daniel (00:36.292)
Yep, yep, yep, yep.

daniel (01:00.406)
I do.

Scott (01:02.45)
Yes. And what was it about?

daniel (01:06.788)
Failure is awesome. Are you about to tell me about an awesome failure?

Scott (01:10.578)
Yeah, apparently there was some really awesome failure. So one of the things we talked about before the show, everybody, we were talking about AI. And I'm a huge proponent of AI. It can do a lot of great things, but we both agreed that AI cannot be trusted. It can't. So one of the things that AI does for us is, for at least in my world where I choose to edit, is it can enhance your speech. So.

Dan Fantasia - Treeline (01:23.918)
So, if you sound like you're talking in a garbage can, it'll make you sound a whole lot better, like you would in a studio.

Scott (01:37.618)
If you sound like you're talking in a garbage can, it'll make you sound a whole lot better, like you're in a studio, which works out really, really well, unless you didn't do any edit or preparing whatsoever and you just took a bunch of tracks and mushed it all together and put it in hand speech, because then what happens? You know what happens then? Dan.

daniel (01:58.02)
I'm so excited. What happened, Scott?

Scott (02:00.114)
What happens then is you get a mixture of tracks that I repeated something like 100 times throughout the episode. It became a little unlistable. Of course, I didn't check it because I didn't edit it, but I was told by Julie Phelan, a friend of the show, that that was an opportunity. That episode has been edited now, everybody, and you can now listen to the episode and get good nuggets out of it, and you don't have to hear me say, oh my.

Dan Fantasia - Treeline (02:20.43)
So that episode has been edited now everybody and you can now listen to the episode and get a good sense of it and you don't have to hear me say, oh my.

Scott (02:29.81)
like a hundred times for about five minutes, which was kind of what happened. So my apologies to everybody. Um, that was failure. Yeah.

daniel (02:35.524)
Wait, wait, wait, time out. Time out. So you took the episode and you dropped it in the machine just to do some like cleanup. So you did some edits, right? Because the machine does the cleanup, right? And the machine doing the cleanup introduced the oh my. So what you're saying is by editing it, you introduced a mistake.

Scott (02:49.01)
Nah.

Scott (02:52.53)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Yeah. Now, what I'm saying is that if I had edited it the way you're supposed to, the way a human being would, that we would have been fine. That's what I'm saying. So I need to apologize to anybody that, like Julia, turned off the show. Go listen to it. It's a great show. Failure's awesome. We do get to hear Zeta sneeze at the end. So if you want to hear Zeta sneeze, which was also picked up...

Dan Fantasia - Treeline (02:58.158)
The thing is that if I had edited it the way you're supposed to, the way a human being would, that you would have been. It's only an alternative to the way that like, you would have turned off.

daniel (03:04.58)
Ahahahahah

Scott (03:18.098)
by Riverside and dumped in via AI, that'd be fantastic and great. Speaking of Zeta, she's here with us tonight. Let's hear what she's got to say.

Scott (03:38.034)
Zeta!

Zeta (04:59.078)
I wouldn't have missed it. I wouldn't have missed it. Now, usually I try to be on the ball and I wasn't, but I feel like I missed out. I feel like that would have been a moment to go, oh my.

Scott (05:10.034)
Oh my, a hundred times. Something like that.

Zeta (05:12.614)
Was it 100 times? Like, seriously? Oh. Oh. Oh. Sorry.

Scott (05:15.506)
It was a lot. Yeah. Yeah, anyway. Hey, folks, we've got a special guest with us tonight, and I'm super excited to talk with this individual. We're going to learn a lot from him in a little segment that we call What's Your Deal?

Dan Fantasia - Treeline (05:32.27)
Hey Scott, how are ya?

Scott (05:33.586)
Dan!

Scott (05:37.81)
What's your deal, my friend?

Dan Fantasia - Treeline (05:39.95)
My deal is I work for a company by the name of Tree Line Incorporated. We are a search firm. We help change the lives of individuals as they explore new opportunities and consider, you know, career options.

Scott (05:57.97)
Cool. So how did you get from where you started out to here? Talk to us a little bit about that journey of one day you woke up and said, I want to do this. So how did you get there?

Dan Fantasia - Treeline (06:09.582)
Yeah, it's a long journey. I'll tell you that. For all of us, it's a long journey, right? I went from being a ski bum and living in a van to trying to get a career started and working night shifts to slowly proving myself and becoming the manager of a small company. Unfortunately, the company just

Scott (06:17.393)
Mm hmm. Sure.

Dan Fantasia - Treeline (06:36.398)
It was just too small. It's time to move on. So I went to a recruiting firm and they said, Hey, have you ever considered recruiting? And I was like, what the heck? Like, does anyone want to be, have a career in recruiting? I was like, I don't even know what this is. Right, Dan? I'm like, Oh man. So, uh, I ended up, I thought the culture was right and the company was right. And, uh, I took a shot and I was horrible.

Scott (07:01.458)
You weren't horrible like you got better right so That that's all I have a question. You lived in a van Down was it down by the river perchance?

Dan Fantasia - Treeline (07:03.854)
Yeah, talk about failure. I did. I did.

Yeah.

daniel (07:14.724)
Oh my god.

Dan Fantasia - Treeline (07:15.182)
Yeah. At one point it was actually, yeah. It was an old 78 Ford Economine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was cool. It was, it was cool. Great experience.

Scott (07:19.954)
All right.

Zeta (07:24.102)
Nice!

Scott (07:26.834)
Yeah.

That is so awesome. We're really glad you're here. We're going to talk a little bit about recruiting. We're going to talk a lot of training and how we can best utilize both in a world to make your organization sing. Without further ado, everybody, let's go ahead and get into our topic of the week.

Scott (07:55.378)
All right, Recruiting the Lab. See, this is why we're going to edit this show, Dan. So it's recruiting versus training here in the modern world. Dan, talk to us a little bit about how we go and identify top producers, either in your organization or outside of your organization. What do we look for? How do we?

How do we identify that? Where are we going to pour our resources in or what are we going to do when it comes to searching for those people that can help us win the Super Bowl?

Dan Fantasia - Treeline (08:29.614)
Yeah, that's a great question. You know, it's funny, I think that's the same question every company probably talks about when they're looking to grow. And the first thing, the first thing we would do, Scott, is we would try to learn more about the company, like the company, the culture, what they do, what their top performers and most effective employees are.

Because a lot of times what's so crazy to all of us is everyone thinks there's a silver bullet. There's a person out there that's gonna change the entire trajectory of a company. And many times, if you ask them what that person looks like or who on their team has that skill set, they'll tell you none of them do. Meaning, I know this might sound confusing, meaning that they hired someone at one point, like myself when I first got into recruiting, I didn't know what the heck I was doing.

daniel (09:24.74)
Ha ha.

Dan Fantasia - Treeline (09:26.03)
And now, you know, we're running a very successful search firm. The person, the people didn't know what they were doing. They hired them based on core values, you know, personality, culture fit, drive, ambition, things of that nature. And they continue to grow and show success and prove themselves in an organization. So when I sit down and I talk to a company and say, well, let's talk about your top producers. The company many times says, well, you know what? The top producers really aren't what we're looking for.

We're looking for people that have our industry experience, that have seven years coming from our competitors, but they forget the basics. They forget the people around them that have helped them grow and what their skill set looks like and why they become top producers. So there's, they get confused. So the first thing I would do is stop for a second and just say, let's look at the current team that you've assembled.

And why are these people so talented? It's not always about going to your competitor and finding a, you know, basically recruiting from the competition. It's what understanding the core values, right? And the key characteristics that make your employees so strong and why your company has been so successful up to this point.

Zeta (10:31.59)
Mm -hmm.

Zeta (10:40.518)
Oh, definitely. I agree, Dan. It's almost like you have to mirror the values. The agent has to mirror the values of whatever company they're working for and not only their skills and their talent or the knowledge that they have, but they have to have that motivation, that passion, that drive to be energetic and to push the line, right? It's more than just a, yeah, I love that.

daniel (10:41.444)
That's.

Dan Fantasia - Treeline (11:00.654)
Yeah. Yeah. I think it's just you underestimate the talent on your team. And there's always a thought that there's someone better out there. And by the way, we do help find top talent. But first, we have to understand who is the top talent in your organization and why have they become the top talent. And then from that, we can assess and brainstorm and strategize to figure out who we're recruiting next to be your next top performer. And by the way,

that could, to your point Zeta, that could be a person from a competitor that shares the same characteristics of your other top producers in your firm. Does that make sense or am I just, am I adding, am I just confusing?

daniel (11:41.284)
No, no, that makes perfect sense. And no, it's awesome. I love what you're saying that like, oftentimes as people are looking for like that next person, that next role, they start building up the myth of what that next role is rather than like a reality. That's awesome. That's not awesome, but it's awesome to hear.

Scott (12:03.346)
Yeah. So if I heard you right, there are like two components here. I want to make sure that I'm cracking with you. One is this idea of, is it a culture fit? Right. So I don't want to bring in, you know, somebody that's way high energy in a pretty mellow environment, right? Cause that could be oil and water. It could be, maybe it makes things better, but I want to make sure that there's that fit culturally. But if I also heard you right, like there is that opportunity from a gap perspective, like if.

Whenever I'm looking for somebody, it's really all about like, where are my gaps and how do I fill those gaps? And then finding that right fit culturally and also from a talent gap perspective.

Dan Fantasia - Treeline (12:44.366)
Yeah, like one of the things I can just talk personally about the tree line. So one of the things we do is we interview on a few different measurements. One is core values. We have four core values. And if they don't share those same core values,

Right? If we're interviewing based on those core values, if they don't share those same core values, they can't live those same core values when you're working with them. And so unfortunately, what happens at times Scott is you might have a really strong producer, but they're not that strong because they're cancerous to the culture of the organization. So one is core values. We have to understand the core values and make sure they align with our core values. Then two, we need to understand their hard skills and their successes.

What have they done? What's their track record? Can they add value? Do they fit the requirement in the job scorecard that we've created so that we know that they're going to come in and be successful? So then if we have the high production and a really good fit when it comes to core values, it's a really good, sustainable, you know, connection and relationship that lasts for many, many years. And so I think sometimes where companies go wrong,

is the only higher based on accomplishments. And you could have a top producer that's incredibly negative. So while they're selling or doing very well on the front end, on the back end, they're kind of slowly tearing down the culture because they don't share the same core values. And managers struggle with that. What do you do with a top producer that is actually somewhat negative in the environment, you know, that brings the environment down? And so companies struggle with that. Do you keep the person?

because you know they're producing, but they don't fit. And so what we do is we not only interview and hire around core values and productivity, but our talent assessments are around the same thing. So if someone has, if they're not showing core values, we coach them up on why and where they're missing their core values, right? Do the right thing. That's one of our core values. If we think that you're not, we would coach you up on that. And if we can't coach you up on that, Scott, we'd have to coach you out.

Dan Fantasia - Treeline (14:58.446)
It's just not a good fit. And it's, you know, and people are in agreement. They understand and they know when it's a good fit and not a good fit. Right. So with honesty and honest dialogue, you can get there.

Scott (15:10.674)
Right, right. How often, I'm a manager, right? So let's say I've got a team, got a team, you know, we produce whatever, whatever we're gonna be producing. How often should I be thinking about my talent? How often should I be assessing who's on my team and what I need to meet the needs of the business?

Dan Fantasia - Treeline (15:26.894)
Quarterly. Yeah, quarterly. Every three months or so. Maybe four months.

Scott (15:32.242)
Every three months, wow. Okay, in your experience, how many people are doing that?

Dan Fantasia - Treeline (15:40.238)
Probably none. I mean, we do it, but I bet you most companies, we do it.

Scott (15:41.17)
Hey, at least you're honest about it. I know I'm not. Usually when I'm thinking about it is when there's either I've been granted an opening, like here's a big bag of money, go hire somebody. Yeah. Woohoo. Yeah. I complained enough. I'm going to get this seat. I'm going to go ahead and fill it unless I'm going to go ahead and assess. But I help me understand like, why quarterly? Why is that so important?

daniel (15:41.7)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Zeta (15:43.334)
Other than Treeline, of course.

Dan Fantasia - Treeline (16:05.166)
Yeah, accountability, functional accountability. So empowerment is one of our core values, right? If you sit with a person on a quarterly basis and they're struggling, maybe they're struggling with empowerment. In other words, they're not taking charge. They're not going for it. They're not thinking on their own. They're not taking chances. They're not making mistakes. If a person's not empowering themselves, then we want on a quarterly basis, you want to be able to coach them.

Scott (16:12.114)
Mm -hmm.

Dan Fantasia - Treeline (16:33.006)
So if in the first three months of the year they're struggling, you want to let them know that, that we know that empowerment is important to you, but you're not showing it. And if you're going to show it, you've got to live it, right? You've got to live the core values. So how will you empower yourself moving forward in the next quarter? If you're not helping them on a quarterly basis, they might be on a slow decline right down until the end of the year if they make it that long. But by that point, instead of coaching them up, you just let them go.

And so now by holding them accountable, they have insight, they have insight into their own behavior and they can choose to change it. And when they choose to change it, they will empower themselves. They'll make themselves a stronger person, a stronger colleague, just a better person in general. And so if you don't let them know that they're off, how the heck are they going to know that they're lacking on empowerment or...

doing the right thing, you know?

daniel (17:33.38)
That's so awesome. Too often, too often I hear places and businesses and like the only time somebody learns that they're not doing well is their end of year review. Like, okay, hey, let's do a quick end of year review and hey, taking a look through this past year, I really think you missed A, B and C. And it's like, whoa, you know, what do you mean this past year? And so it's awesome. It's awesome to hear that focus, you know, on like just coaching development, consistent pressure to grow.

to get better. That's awesome.

Scott (18:07.826)
Yeah, I know we've talked about the engagement matrix from Gallup, the triangle, right? The triangle engagement. I can't remember what it's called. Q12, I like to call it, right? But on that baseline level, what's on the bottom? Do I know what is expected of me at work? If I don't know what's expected of me at work, or if what's expected of me at work changes, oh, hourly, which I've experienced that too, um...

Zeta (18:07.878)
It's like having a.

Scott (18:36.754)
why or how should I produce my best work? So I think that that's really important. But I want to piggyback back to your quarterly assessment. So I think it's really great, this idea of empowerment. I had a mentor boss one time ask me a really important question. And if your boss hasn't asked you this question, like you should ask it yourself because it was really eye opening to me. His name is Chris and he came up to me and said, hey, Scott, how's your team going? And I said, we're doing great because I love my team. I love my people. We were producing lots of stuff.

Fantastic. Do you have what you need to win the Super Bowl?

Scott (19:14.738)
What? Do you have what you need to win the Super Bowl? Well, we're meeting needs a bit. Do you have what you need to win Super Bowl? And I thought about that a lot. And the answer to that question after thinking about it a lot was no, I didn't have what I needed to really take it to that next level. And I think that's where the real opportunity lies when I'm thinking about my talent. It doesn't mean that I don't have good people. Jocko Willink in his book,

Extreme ownership says one of the hardest things we do as leaders is we have to be really, you know, we have to take care of our people, but it can't get in the way of the mission. Right. And if I want to constantly innovate, move forward, what not great. So if I've got people that are either falling behind, or maybe the job has evolved, having those hard conversations, maybe finding them a home, like I would recommend that first, like let's find somebody at home first. Um, and then go out and get talents really great. I would love your thoughts on this. I know I rambled didn't mean to, but it's really important to me.

Dan Fantasia - Treeline (20:14.798)
I think you have to find the foundation first. Everyone has to be in agreement on what the core... Well, you need some leadership, but you ultimately need to identify what are the core values to the organization. So you can't just start this process, what I'm suggesting, out of the blue and say, oh, by the way, everyone, this is the core values and from now on, this is what it is.

You guys aren't following them. You need to have a discussion. It needs to be a collaborative event where you understand and you figure out what's important to the organization. What are those core values? Once you have them, then it's about functional accountability and coaching so that if everyone is in agreement of what the core values are, and this is how we're going to live our core values on a daily basis, then why aren't you living them?

on a daily basis. Like one of our core, we have four, one of them is grit. So if something doesn't go your way and you're pissed off and frustrated in the office, well, you got to snap out of that. That doesn't, that's not displaying grit. Like that's not grit. Are you trying to bring, I understand you might want to try to bring others down, but that is a point of weakness. You said you had grit. You got to work on that. Next time something doesn't go your way, you've got to work on.

You know, showing grit, live it every day. So the first step, I think Scott, it's hard. It's like, it sounds, some of this stuff may sound silly, but it actually does work. It's really hard to break down an organization, come up with those core values. So everyone's in agreement. And once everyone's in agreement, everyone moving forward, you hire based on core values and skill and things of that nature. Um, but also you're coaching on and holding people accountable to those core values as you move forward as the division or business or.

company moves forward, everyone's on the same page. And if you can't live by the core values, we don't fire people. I can't remember the last time we fired somebody. Because you know. Somebody will be like, yeah, you know what? Last quarter we talked about empowerment. This quarter we talked about empowerment. I'm on empowerment. I'm really struggling. Is this right for you? Maybe it's just not. I know you love the company. I know you love the culture.

Dan Fantasia - Treeline (22:41.614)
but maybe this isn't the right organization for you. I'll keep coaching you, but is this what you want? And usually if it's not what someone wants, they'll make the decision. You won't make it for them.

daniel (22:58.98)
That's good. I like that. I feel like too often people get really focused on managing up or out. You know, you'll hear people say like manage up or out, manage up or out. And to talk about like, no, like, hey, like it's don't manage up or out, but manage to your core values, like get people in alignment and then make sure that they want to be there.

rather than like this up and out mentality, this focus on like, hey, are you happy? Are you happy with what our values are? Cause those aren't going to change. And like, how do we help it? If you are happy, how do we help you fit them better? How do we help you fit that mold, that shape better? I like that. I got a question. Maybe it's a little off topic, but I'm super curious just with like so much automation happening in like the sales world, cold sales, stuff like that.

Are you seeing an impact in the level of skills and talent kind of like in that like entry level sales mentality, sales group as you guys are looking for best talent?

Dan Fantasia - Treeline (24:07.47)
I don't know if it's skill or talent or disconnect. I think it's, you know, new talent, awesome. You know, kids are awesome. They're smart. They bring so many new things to the table. But they are disconnected. I've never seen a generation blow off interviews more than the generation coming into the workforce.

daniel (24:12.804)
Okay.

Dan Fantasia - Treeline (24:36.942)
I just, if I had an into you, I would always make sure I went to it. Would any of you just blow it off randomly? Yeah. Yeah. It's just a different...

Scott (24:43.41)
No.

Zeta (24:43.558)
Nah, now let's have like a really good reason, you know, all right.

daniel (24:44.068)
No. No, that's...

Scott (24:48.818)
I've canceled some interviews. I have, but I always like, Hey, I'm going to cancel because maybe after thinking about it, I'm like, yeah, probably not for me, but I would just not like not show up. So is that what we're seeing? Like they're just like, nah, I'm not going to show up.

daniel (24:53.924)
I showed up to an interview.

Dan Fantasia - Treeline (25:03.79)
Yeah, yeah, not showing up. The communication, it's just different. It's changed. And so that's the younger talent. We work with that younger talent, although our largest market share is really with more senior level individuals. But everyone needs coaching and everyone needs help. And the challenge with the recent college grads is that...

Scott (25:12.21)
Oh yeah.

Dan Fantasia - Treeline (25:32.334)
They're unpredictable and it's just how they've grown up. They're unpredictable. They communicate differently. It's just different. Matter of fact, a lot of times the best way to confirm an interview, we have to do it by email, phone, and text. Nine times out of ten, text is the best way to get their attention. It's not like you might think it's email or...

daniel (25:56.164)
Hmm.

Zeta (25:56.23)
text is king. Yeah. Yeah.

Dan Fantasia - Treeline (26:01.326)
So it's just a disconnect. It's changing. We're helping. We're just trying to coach and help people figure it out on both ends, the client side and the candidate side, just trying to keep them all together.

Scott (26:15.026)
That's really interesting around around the alphas and what they're doing. Probably a little bit of Gen Z as well, right? The bottom end of Gen Z as we see those people come in or does does this tie into as you see it like the whole? How is he? How does this affect their onboarding process and or our talent assessment process?

Dan Fantasia - Treeline (26:35.918)
Yeah, I mean, well, so if you're right, depending on the industry, most companies, especially tech companies, if you're not offering a hybrid environment, you just can't compete. You just can't compete. If you're expecting people in office every day, all day long, you just you won't be able to compete. And so it's either hybrid or it's virtual. And so that's a challenge. You know, you got.

We all started our careers in an office, meeting people, learning all the different personalities and the... You know, you learn a lot. Well, these kids, even when they do go to the office, not everyone's there. Some people come in on Mondays, some people come in on Tuesdays, sometimes they're in the office and they're still doing the Zoom or Google Meet. They're in the office, but half the people that are supposed to be in the office aren't in the office. So it's...

the environment, it's changed so much and everyone's just adapting to it.

Zeta (27:38.79)
Oh, definitely the technological landscape has changed a far degree and very quickly. One of the challenges is, especially like in city living, is the rising cost of how much it is to actually have a place, either it's a home or an apartment. So those struggles are definitely impacting that. I think that's where we're seeing a little bit of that. Yeah. I wonder where it's going.

Dan Fantasia - Treeline (27:59.95)
Mm. Agreed.

Dan Fantasia - Treeline (28:06.222)
Well, you know, if you can work remotely, you know, you'll find more people more rural, you know, it's, you know, but, but still for, for, I think we're talking about early college, you know, recent college graduates, um, they're usually at home and maybe they're just in their first apartment. They're really just, they're just trying to figure it out.

daniel (28:06.372)
Hahaha!

Dan Fantasia - Treeline (28:32.91)
I mean, it's almost like they just they were never. They just weren't taught. They just don't know. Big gap. So they get to us. I mean, I then again, I feel naive when I say that because I'm sure when I was getting out of school, I was living in a van. So yeah. Right. Yeah.

Scott (28:33.49)
Yeah, no, I get it. Yeah.

Zeta (28:34.406)
Oh yeah.

Zeta (28:50.342)
Perspective is a thing, definitely. Oh yeah.

daniel (28:51.332)
I'm just saying, remote work would have been pretty great. You in the van?

Scott (28:56.69)
Down by the river! Yeah, for sure!

Dan Fantasia - Treeline (28:57.774)
I was eating spaghetti out of a frisbee for Christ's sake. So I can't be judging, you know. It's changed. The world's changing. We change with it and just try to coach and help people along.

Scott (29:11.666)
Yeah. Now I know that you specialize in sales, so I want to talk a little bit about incentive programs, but I also want to see if we can go a little bit more broader. As long as we're talking about the next generation coming in and you've got some of those on my team, what's important to them? So a two -step process around the question. If I'm thinking sales professionals, what's the right incentive plan for them? But in a broader case, what are some things we should be considering when we're hiring?

Zeta (29:12.646)
That's true that.

Scott (29:39.986)
people outside, you know, aside from the, which I love the whole culture, do they fit? Right. So I think that that's good. What are some of those considerations we can leave with our audience?

Dan Fantasia - Treeline (29:50.126)
The best thing to do is ask them. Because everything that we think is an incentive, everything that you think is an incentive for them may not be. It's like, what is important to them? What is important to you? What do you, what is everyone, what do you, you know, what do you, we do something called a stop, start, keep every quarter. What do you think the company should start doing? The company should stop doing what it should the company keep doing.

daniel (29:56.772)
solid.

daniel (30:04.516)
You know?

Scott (30:14.77)
Mm -hmm.

Dan Fantasia - Treeline (30:19.246)
Just keep asking them what they want, what needs to change. By the way, those are tough. When you get those answers, you're not always going to like them, but you should, you know, if you have an open mind, you can kind of go through it and figure it all out. But yeah.

daniel (30:33.156)
Years ago, I was working a job and a small company and the owner was like, Hey, we've thought about it long and hard and we're going to give you a dollar raise. And at the time a dollar is a pretty big deal. But I remember looking at him and saying, Hey, as long as we're talking compensation, I would rather just have an hour paid lunch. And he was like, what? And I was like, yeah, I'd just rather have like an hour paid lunch. I'm willing to give up the dollar for just an hour paid. And he's like, that doesn't make any sense.

And I was like, it makes plenty of sense to me. Like, you know, like I just don't want to like look at my watch when I run over to the place next door. I want to be able to go and eat and sit and detach for a second before I come back. And I remember to this day, he was like, I don't trust people who don't work for money. And like, it was such a weird disconnect, but you talk about like, Hey, like just ask, just ask people like, Hey, cause man, like we get so focused. I can, it just didn't like that business.

Dan Fantasia - Treeline (31:19.694)
Yeah.

daniel (31:30.692)
like leadership thinking that like it's all dollars and cents and it is, but so often people are looking for more than just that extra dollar an hour. They're looking for a perk. They're looking for recognition. They're looking for a mission for purpose. And it's, it's awesome to know that you're just like, just ask. Like that's awesome. That's awesome. That's not where I thought we were going. And I'm so glad that's where we went.

Dan Fantasia - Treeline (31:55.566)
I mean, everyone's different, right? So what is the team? You know, my team might think something for my team might not be important to your team. And what I think is important might not be important to the team. So I just, you know, it's like, what's important to them?

daniel (32:16.516)
That's awesome.

Scott (32:18.738)
Really interesting, and I think that's pretty wise. Like, hey, what's important? Like, it could be so many things. Like, Dan just wants to have the quiet lunch. Just give me a quiet lunch. And I don't know what a quiet lunch is anymore because I eat at my desk every single day. And you know.

Dan Fantasia - Treeline (32:30.51)
Mmm.

daniel (32:31.396)
true story.

Zeta (32:37.862)
You shouldn't do that. That's terrible. You need a disconnect between work and play. It's important. Oh, necessity.

Scott (32:41.714)
I know. Yeah, I understand that. But I'm also an ENFJ, which means that all my work has to be done before I can have fun. Yeah.

daniel (32:46.212)
Yeah, I understand that.

Dan Fantasia - Treeline (32:51.566)
Maybe they should ask you, Scott, what you need.

Zeta (32:54.214)
They should. Yeah.

daniel (32:54.916)
Yeah.

Scott (32:55.506)
I do we have an hour do we have an hour to talk about what I really need?

Dan Fantasia - Treeline (32:56.942)
You you'd be surprised man, you'd be surprised you ask them what they need and they and you just say what I need I just need everyone to give me an hour off at lunchtime. Just can I just you know, I don't know.

daniel (32:58.148)
Hehehehehe

Zeta (32:58.758)
Is it a paid lunch hour?

Scott (33:15.538)
I have a standard answer as to what I think most people want and need. Would you like to hear it?

Dan Fantasia - Treeline (33:20.366)
Yeah, yeah.

daniel (33:22.372)
Is it safe for this podcast?

Scott (33:24.434)
It is totally safe for this podcast. Here's what I think. This is just what I think. What Scott thinks. We should name this show today. What does Scott think? Yeah, I know, right? I was having a discussion with a peer of mine. We were talking about work, life balance, all that good stuff. I can't remember where I picked this up, but I think it's true. Like, I think that all of us kind of want the same thing. Some of us want lunches, some of us want parking spots, some of us want ...

Zeta (33:32.198)
What Scott thinks.

Scott (33:52.146)
you know, that extra dollar or two, but I really believe that everybody at their core, I just want to show up, add value in my own unique way and be appreciated for it. That's all I want. That's it. That's all I want. Do I get it? Sometimes I should, but I think that's it. And the person I was talking to agreed with me. I don't know, maybe they were.

Zeta (34:11.622)
You should.

You should. Everybody should.

Scott (34:21.778)
getting ready for their quiet lunch. I don't know. But I think that's kind of that's just my opinion. Anyway, that's kind of what we all need. I want to make sure that we get the most out of you, Dan, because I really appreciate our time together. And I've learned so much just listening to you. I think it's great. As we begin to kind of tie things up, what are some things that you wanted to talk about tonight that you haven't gotten the opportunity to?

Dan Fantasia - Treeline (34:23.822)
Yeah.

Scott (34:51.89)
or maybe there's an opportunity to kind of wrap up all the really important things, all the really good golden nuggets that you brought in today and kind of leave on a high note. So I'll leave the floor to you, my friend.

Dan Fantasia - Treeline (35:06.702)
Yeah, well, that's a big floor. I guess there is when you're building an organization, there's no silver bullet to the success. You need a team of people that you can really trust to grow an organization. And so recruiting and finding those people.

is a lot of work. It's heavy lifting and it's frustrating and it's hard. But if you don't invest in finding the right people for your organization, it's nearly impossible to continue to scale or grow it. And so, and even harder for small businesses, you know, for entrepreneurs, many times they're so caught up working.

in the business, they don't carve out that hour of lunch to work on the business. Like time to work. You know, you almost need to be forced to work on, like think about the business. And so it becomes even more of a struggle many times for companies that are trying to grow because they're so, and I know for a fact, because it happened to me for, we've been in business for 23 years. We've been exclusive to the recruitment of sales professionals and it's a...

It's a very difficult business. And we've gone through the grind and we still continue to go through the grind, but I can, for most of those years, I worked in it and not on it. And that was a mistake and I'm thankful that I look back.

Now, and by the way, I couldn't have done it by myself. I, I, we have a coach, his name's Herb, Herb Cagliano that really helped us as a company, you know, get past a lot of those, those challenges and issues that we just couldn't get past without an external perspective. So hiring, you know, top talent takes time. At some point you have to work on the business to figure out, you know, how to grow the business. And many times that includes hiring really good people.

Scott (37:27.922)
Dan Fantasia everybody, his company is Treeline. Really appreciate you coming and dropping some really amazing things. This is a great discussion. I really appreciate it. Could you do me a favor, Dan? Could you let our audience know how they can get in touch with you?

Dan Fantasia - Treeline (37:41.614)
Best way to get in touch with me is on LinkedIn. And it's, you know, Dan, it's just basically Dan Fantasia. So do a search on Dan Fantasia, message me, connect with me, brainstorm with me, ask questions. I'm always happy to connect.

Scott (38:00.946)
We're certainly glad that you chose to spend some of your valuable time with us. I really, really appreciate it. Mr. Coonrod.

daniel (38:10.02)
Yes, Scott.

Scott (38:11.89)
Could you do our audience a favor? Could you let them know how they could connect with us? And could you talk a little bit about episode 100, which is coming up?

daniel (38:23.652)
Absolutely. All right party people, if you haven't and you don't know the drill, email us at nerds at the learningnerds .com. Email us any questions you might have, join in on the discussion. I think for this week, why don't you tell us about a time where you have struggled to bring in talent onto your team or watched as leaders in your organization have struggled to bring in talent. If you're on Facebook, you can find us at learningnerds .com.

for all of our Instagram peeps, Fab Learning Nerds

daniel (42:16.676)
Alright party people, with episode 100 coming up, what we really need from you is to email us any questions that you may have about the podcast, about us, about Scott's amazing nerd collection that you guys can never see. Just really any questions that you want to hear us answer on the air. We're excited to hear from you. We can't wait. Scott, right back at you.

Scott (42:38.546)
Thanks, Dan. Hey, everybody, do me a favor. Could you hit that like button, hit that subscribe button, and most importantly, share this episode out with your friends. Use that social media and say, this show was great because we had Dan Fantasia on and he talked all about recruiting. It was fantastic. Do me also another small favor. Leave us a review, either on iTunes, Stitcher, wherever you hear the podcast so we can not only improve what we're doing, but hey, it helps bring more people just like you to our show.

Dan Fantasia - Treeline (42:46.03)
Share this episode out with your friends. Use that social media and say, this show was great. We had Dan Fantasia on. He talked all about reviewing this fan pattern. You may also, another small favor, leave us a review. We did an iTunes Stitcher review here in the podcast. So we can not only improve what we're doing, but hey, help bring more people.

Scott (43:08.178)
And with that, I'm Scott.

daniel (43:10.436)
I'm Dan.

Zeta (43:12.966)
See ya!

Dan Fantasia - Treeline (43:13.422)
I'm Dan Fantasia.

Scott (43:16.21)
And we're your fabulous learning nerds and we are out.