From Toxic Workplaces to Culture-First Hiring: How Erin Built Zephyr Connects to Help Teams Thrive

Business Insights, Free Agent Podcast, General, Women In Business

From Toxic Workplaces to Culture-First Hiring: How Erin Built Zephyr Connects to Help Teams Thrive

Does this sound familiar? You’ve worked in a place where the stress didn’t come from the work itself, it came from the people, the pressure, and the way leadership handled conflict. Maybe you’ve had a boss who berated employees, a workplace that tolerated harassment, or a team where negativity spread faster than solutions. And if you’re a business owner today, you may carry a quiet fear: What if I accidentally build the very environment I once promised myself I’d never tolerate? If you’re ready to create a company culture that people want to stay in, one that supports performance and respect, this episode offers the kind of grounded, real-world perspective that makes change possible.

My special guest is Erin Longmoon

Erin Longmoon is the founder of Zephyr Connects, a nationwide recruiting and people-first hiring firm built on a mission to eradicate toxic workplaces. Erin’s path into entrepreneurship came through years of working in small businesses, many of them, by her experience, deeply unhealthy environments marked by sexism, harassment, or toxic leadership behaviors. After later finding what a truly supportive workplace could look like, Erin transitioned into coaching and eventually launched Zephyr Connects when she noticed a consistent pattern among small business owners: hiring was being rushed, misaligned, and treated as a last-minute scramble instead of a culture-shaping decision. Today, Zephyr Connects supports clients through recruiting and is expanding into HR services to help companies not only hire well, but retain great people and build workplaces where teams can thrive.

You can’t build a healthy business on an unhealthy culture—people are the core of everything.

In this episode, you will be able to:

Discover how Erin’s experience with toxic workplaces shaped her mission to help business owners build cultures rooted in respect and safety.
Learn why “matchmaking” hiring matters more than resumes—and how alignment with values prevents costly mis-hires.
Gain practical insight into how high-performing teams are built through psychological safety and honest communication.
Understand how a leader’s mindset shapes the workplace, including how blame and pessimism can quietly spread through a team.
Explore how to “dig deeper” in interviews using curiosity-based follow-up questions that reveal true motivations and core values.

Culture Is the Brand—and Hiring Is Culture-Building

Erin describes Zephyr Connects as a culture-first company where people can show up fully, speak honestly, and feel respected. That foundation guides how her team hires—looking beyond resumes to understand values, motivations, and true fit.

Meg and Erin discuss how leadership shapes culture, noting that leaving a toxic workplace isn’t enough—owners must intentionally build something better. Erin’s people-first approach, shaped by lived experience and personal growth, helps break unhealthy patterns before they repeat.

The episode also highlights the high cost of misaligned hires and the importance of deeper, curiosity-driven interviews to uncover core values. Erin closes with a balanced view of “hire slow, fire fast,” stressing coaching for the right people and timely decisions when alignment isn’t there.

The resources mentioned in this episode are:

Learn more about Zephyr Connects and explore recruiting and HR support for small businesses nationwide.
Consider reading The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership to better understand “above the line” leadership and the shift away from blame.
Explore Who Not How by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy for a leadership framework focused on building teams around the right people.
Revisit Simon Sinek’s work on Start With Why to clarify motivation, purpose, and alignment in business decisions.
Subscribe to FREE Franchise Insights to receive new podcast episodes and educational resources directly in your inbox
Listen to the Free Agent Podcast with Meg Schmitz for real stories of self-employment and business ownership.
Contact Meg Schmitz to schedule a free, no-obligation call for insights into entrepreneurship and franchise opportunities.
Use the form on the Free Agent Podcast page if you’d like to be considered as a guest on the show.

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Click to Take the Leap into the full interview transcript of the Free Agent Podcast, Episode 8.6 with Meg Schmitz and her guest, Erin Longmoon

Free Agent Podcast with Meg Schmitz – Guest: Erin Longmoon, Founder of Zephyr Connects & Culture-First Hiring Expert

Meg Schmitz:
Hello, everyone, and welcome to or welcome back to the Free Agent Podcast. My name is Meg Schmitz, your lovely hostess. If you’ve been here before, you know that the discussion here is all about free agency and taking control over your future. The mission of my show is.

The mission of my show is to share inspiring conversations with real people who took the leap into self employment, business ownership, sometimes franchising and freedom from corporate refugees and executives tired of the desk job. To entrepreneurs and investors looking to share camaraderie and inspiration through their own business journey. My podcast aims a spotlight on real people who stepped into the unknown, took control over their destiny, and became their own boss. And today I have the pleasure of having Erin Longmon from Zephyr Connects come to the podcast. We’re doing this totally impromptu, totally spur of the moment today.

We first met, what was it, about a week, 10 days ago? Yeah, something like that. The week before the holiday. Yeah, Jennifer Fry introduced us, and we just hit it off and talking about this, that, and the other thing. I remember leaving the conversation saying, two questions.

One, Aaron, I want to know about your last name, Long Moon. And second, would you like to be a guest on the Free Agent podcast? Because I think you’ve got a great story to tell for my listeners. So with that, we can start wherever you want. But I am curious about your last name.

Erin Longmoon:
Yeah, we can start there. Okay. So my actual maiden name is Long. My husband’s family name is Moon. And when we got together and got married, we decided we want to honor both sides of our family equally.

But I really hated the hyphen thing. Sorry to anybody who did the hyphen thing. Nothing, you know, it’s just my, My, my preference. I didn’t want the hyphen thing. And so we decided to create a brand new last name, and we legally both changed our names and we became what we do believe is truly the only Long Moons that we can find.

We’ve googled it and we cannot find any other Long Moon. So that is how the Name was born.

Meg:
I love that story. I was figuring that somewhere in the past there was an Indian. Indian ancestry or.

It’s very evocative. And if you look around my office. Yes. That’s where my brain gotcha. Yeah.

Erin:
And it is very common. People do ask us that, and we kind of knew that going into it, but, you know, there’s just so much history on both sides that we really wanted to honor. So we figured, even though it imply Indian heritage, as far as we know, neither one of us actually has any Indian heritage. We’re both pretty German, Irish and English through and through, so. But there you go.

That is how it came to me.

Meg:
The beautiful thing about creating a name is that you get to create the narrative. Right, right. And it’s a great narrator, it’s a great story, just as it is in. In truth and in reality.

But I suppose you could really mess with some people like me and say. Oh, yeah, my great grandfather was chief, you know, whatever. Long know. Yeah. Think about that.

Then tell me. Tell us about Zephyr Connects. Okay. And you’re kind of the lead in to, to creating this company and, and the mission of your work. Yeah.

Erin:
Thank you for asking. So without going into the long, long, long story, as an employee, I was never in corporate. I know your little intro talks about, you know, people who, who have survived corporate America. I never did corporate. I was always into small businesses.

But for, for better or for worse, I often seemed to manifest, I guess, if you will, very toxic workplaces, like places where. Yes. And I mean, I’ve got some doozies of stories that I don’t know, you know, up to you, if you want me to go there, but I can at least things like, oh, let’s do it, let’s do it. Yeah. I mean, everything from, you know, just your typical sort of sexual, like, sexist type of things where maybe I was looked down upon because I was a woman or a girl.

You know, they would often say that about me. This is my early 20s, by the way, you know, so I was young and certainly naive and certainly inexperienced, but, you know, just treated. Just treated differently than my male counterparts all the way through another workplace where I did have true, pretty severe sexual harassment.

I also worked at a place where I was not targeted by a specific boss, but I had a specific boss who loved to corner people, literally in a corner and, and just scream at them and use profanity at them and call them bad names.

Meg:
Oh, my gosh.

Erin:
And, oh, yeah, and one time I caught her doing this in a in a stairwell to. With one of my colleagues. And I’m just the kind of person who’s like, excuse me, like, what are you doing? You know, you really shouldn’t be yelling at someone like that. And of course, she turned right around and started yelling at me.

And I was like, okay, peace out. You know, And I was never one to tolerate it for very long because of the way I’m wired, but I just kept kind of going for this weird, toxic place to another toxic place until I finally found a company. This was, you know, years later and long, long, long story of different. But I ended up working with a company that was amazing. And I’ll give them a little shout out.

They’re called Aging Wisdom, and they’re in Seattle, Washington, and they do senior care for people who want to age in place in their homes, and they do casework and stuff like that. And I was their office manager, and they had an amazing place to work. They had a great culture. They had people who really cared. They had leadership that really cared.

They. They treated everyone with equity. And it was just like this wildly refreshing experience. And. And I.

And I just kind of was like, wow, that’s. That’s amazing. But now cut that off. I ended up going off and becoming a business coach and very entrepreneurial. I was wired to be an entrepreneur.

Without a doubt. I’m a much better, like, leader than I am a follower. And so I had to do my own thing. So I eventually became a business coach, and then that this morphed into Zephyr, because my clients were small businesses, was very small teams, and they would really struggle with hiring. They would.

They would struggle to either, you know, take the time because it’s extremely time consuming, or they would make very fast, swift hiring decisions because they just need to fill the role right now. So the first person with a good resume, but then that person wouldn’t end up working out well because they didn’t blend. They didn’t. They didn’t align well with the core values and the mission and the culture of that company and of that owner.

So I started doing it for my clients as an. As an added service, as, you know, doing the recruiting, taking off their plate. And I was getting really good success. And I realized that, like, I had this knack for kind of matchmaking, you know, and seeing the bigger picture and not just looking at the resume, but, like, being able to uncover who that person kind of is as a person and what their intrinsic motivations are and what their true core values are, and then aligning Them. Right.

So I started after a little while. The writing was just on the wall that this was the service that was most needed by clients and by small businesses. So I pivoted after about three years, became Zephyr Connects, and then, I want to say maybe less than a year, but definitely over six months.

Somewhere between that six months to a year moment or time frame, I just kind of like, did that. Woke up one moment, I was like, oh, my gosh. And I had this aha minute, aha moment of realizing the connection between what I was doing, which was aligning the right people with the right employer, and all of my experiences in the past of toxic workplaces.

And then this new right. It’s like it all kind of pulled together. And then my mission was born in that moment. I was like, my mission is to eradicate toxic workplaces. That’s.

That’s what’s the core of what. Of what we’re doing here. I know. I just. And I still.

Every time I say it, I still get chills. I still feel like it’s a calling, you know, for the. And I’ve done a lot of things in my life, but I’ve never felt like it was the calling, like it was my life’s purpose until. Until that moment, I was like, this is what all of that was about. This is why my experiences of all the things that I had is pulling me to this place.

And this is going to be much bigger than what I even imagine it’s going to be. And, you know, it’s eight years later. We just had our eighth birthday literally last week.

Meg:
Nice. Which is very exciting.

Erin:
And we are doing recruiting. That’s what we’ve been doing for years. But now we’re expanding into hr, which is going to just allow our mission to just, you know, have a farther reach and a deeper reach, too, with our clients, because we’re going to get in there and we’re going to be very culture focused with our HR services and helping people build great places to work. You just to not just hire great people, but help retain great people and create a great place that people want to stay and thrive. So I’m just.

That that’s. That’s at the core of what Zephyr Connects is all about.

Meg:
So many questions. So thank you for. For that whole thing.

The. The audience that I have can absolutely relate to the toxic work environment because so many people will come and just as you know, with matchmaking, they’ll come and tell me their. Why. Why are we having this conversation? Oh

Oh, I work for terrible boss.

I’ve always wanted to be the boss, not work for the boss I want. And so getting down to the bottom of why takes a lot of prying and digging and trust building. Do you have a, do you have a psych degree or. Tell me about, about your emotional intelligence because that’s really where it comes from. That’s a really wild.

Erin:
No one’s ever asked me that question before. I absolutely love it. So no, I do not have a psych degree at all. I have what I would living psych psychology experience. Right.

So my degree is actually an interior design. Totally related to any of this. Just crazy. But I do have and always have had a very deep passion for personal growth psychology and sociology, all of those topics. So I guess you could say I’m somewhat self taught through the amount of reading that I have done.

But I also, you know, if we’re going to get really personal, I mean I came up from a very toxic childhood as well and you know, had to do a tremendous amount of healing work around that. And when you take on that healing journey, you really do become somewhat of a master of psychology. Right. And, and emotional intelligence, you have to, you know, you really get called to grow and to expand and to heal the wounds and to change who you are.

Almost like I literally think I’ve rewired my brain to be truthful through all the work that I have done that has allowed, allowed me to go from like where I was with my toxic, you know, childhood and then of course these toxic workplaces stuff and the way I saw the world, the way I felt about myself, the way I, you know, my whole belief system and I had to rewire it through counseling, you know, breath work, various body work modalities, reading tons of books.

I mean it just became my mission to heal because I knew that that person was not me. You know, that person was like the product of having to survive the way I had to survive. But if I want to thr and create a life that I really love and not continue to be a victim, I had to truly take on this like pretty powerful and very intense healing, healing journey.

And so that’s really where the emotional intelligence has come from and the like understanding of human behavior and, and even just leadership, like I pull all of that into my, into my leadership of my team as well.

Meg:
I think it’s fascinating when I’m talking to people who have come from a toxic upbringing how, what is that saying?

We all go fishing from the pond. That’s familiar. So if you’re You. You recognize an alcoholic because you came from an alcoholic. You recognize the drug addiction and other sexual issues that come along with toxic upbringings.

Right. But because that’s what’s familiar. That’s the gravitational pull that makes it so easy to continue, not even revert back. It’s hard. It’s hard enough to switch gears.

It’s easy to revert. Right, right. It’s hard to. It’s hard to truly get off that track and get on a whole other set of tracks that it’s going in a different direction. It is hard.

Erin:
It is hard, but it’s worth it. It’s so worth it.

They’re part of an accountability group with Franchoice, and we were meeting this morning and talking about how was the last month? November. And a bunch of us had a really tough.

Didn’t make quotas. Not that I have a quota, per se, but I have one in my head. How many. How many new introductions do I want? And it was actually a pretty good month, but it was a bad financial month.

One of the other guys said, oh, it’s just. I realize how many people I’m working with. You know, I just want to fire them. I don’t want to work with them. And he pulled back and he said, oh, I think I know why.

I can hear it in my voice right now. I am that pessimist, and I’m fostering pessimism in my people.

Meg:
Oh, wow. What a huge aha moment. Wow.

Erin:
Powerful. And we’re matchmakers, just like you are.

Meg:
Yes, you are. You absolutely are. Yep.

Yeah. And so every day when you come to work, how many. How big is your. Your. Would you call it a firm?

How. How big is your company that you’re eight years old? Ten.

Erin:
Ten people. We’re actually 11.

Excuse me. I just hired my 11th person. So we’re at 11 people now, and we’re nationwide, so they’re all over. I actually have one who moved, who’s kind of like nomading it digital, nomading it in Brazil at the moment, too. So he’s from North Carolina, but he’s touring, which is one of the beautiful benefits of having a virtual company like ours is people can do that.

But. But anyway, that’s not what you asked it. Eleven of us, is it?

Meg:
So coming from toxic workplaces where like that. That woman who’s screaming and yelling and belittling, literally cornering, you can’t do that in a virtual world, is how.

How would you describe the culture that you’ve created for Zephyr and Then how does that translate with all of your people into the work they do to foster the elimination of the toxic workplace?

Erin:
Right. So that’s a big question. I describe our culture as highly, highly respectful and honoring of the individuals and the team as a whole. Right?

And people, it’s a very, very safe place. I’ve created that very, intentionally. Zephyr is a very, very safe place to bring your whole self to work. So if you’re having a bad day and we’re in a meeting and something brings you to tears, you can cry here. It’s fine, you know, and if you are frustrated, you can talk about your frustration, and you can state ideas, whether they’re outlandish or really extremely logical.

Like, it’s very safe to speak your mind. It’s very safe to show up and be who you are. And I think that kind of sets that foundation for that high level of respect and honoring of each other, too.

So knowing that it is a safe place to do that, we can extend that respect when somebody does have that kind of a day and going, hey, man, I have those days, too. You’re cool.

You’re good. Take your moment. Take your moment. I’m here, know, and that kind of thing.

And I think there’s.

And I think my team would say that we just did an annual cert. We do an annual anonymous survey. And I don’t remember every answer because it’s quite extensive, but I do remember, you know, that’s one of the keys, is people really do feel that they can be who they are, and that’s a very safe place to bring up, you know, anything concerns, ideas, whatever.

And I think that’s. That’s probably one of the most key component, important pieces of the culture, that it then allows people to bring their whole self into their work.

They can bring the passion into their work. They don’t have to separate that. That. Right. They can bring their compassion also.

For, like, the job seekers, especially my team, we love our clients so much that we have great clients and we attract the best clients who care, but we also deeply care about the job seeker, too. Right?

So they bring that compassion for understanding that what they’re going through right now trying to find a job is hard and it sucks, and there’s nothing about it that’s fun. So our job is to have that compassion for them and that understanding, see them as their whole self, too. Right.

Which is such a key part of matchmaking. You have to be able to see the candidate as that whole person, not just the part that they’re trying to show you in the interview.

And you got to know the client in the same way, who’s the whole client, the good and the bad and the struggles and the, and the wins and all of it. And you. And then, you know, when you know both of those things, you can decide if they’re a good, a good fit.

So by allowing that to happen in Zephyr, then it gives permission for the, you know, my recruiters to do that with the candidates and with the client as well, if that makes sense.

Meg:
Absolutely. It’s triggering all sorts of things in my, in my head.

One of the, one of the lessons that took me a long time to learn is I don’t have to work with everyone who’s referred to me. I have the right to, to screen.

And I only work with referrals now. I used to buy leads and, you know, you get whatever you’re paying. Remember we talked about that?

Erin:
Yep, yep, yep.

Meg:
And so now I’m only working with referrals.

And so for you, with your BS meter. Oh, yeah. With either your, your client companies or the individuals. How, how do I ask that question? It.

It’s how, how long did it take you to, on the client side to move from, oh, my gosh, I’m building this thing and I need the business and I’ve gotta, I’ve gotta prove myself.

And when did you feel like you hit your stride and you could begin to say to people, no, I don’t like your culture, I don’t like your attitude. I don’t. Because you have that BS meter built in.

Erin:
Yeah, definitely.

I would say so. The very first time I ever fired a client was only about two years in, but it was, but it was so obviously bad that it was an easy decision.

But to truly start looking at client, you know, prospects and in sales conversations or just in networking, whatever, and to be able to determine, okay, they’re going to be a great client, we’re aligned or not. Probably took another one to two years of like, year three or four.

Probably is right around the time when I was like, all right, we get to be pickier one because we have a track record.

We have great case studies, we’ve got great results, we’ve got great retention rates with the people we play. So it’s like we could, we could really stand behind our, our model and our methodology. Right. And, and so that obviously makes it easier. Right.

As you probably know, to say, you’re not, you’re not quite right for our methodology. You’re not quite right for the approach that we take.

And so. But it’s easy. It’s easier to see when I get on these calls or whatever.

This is such an alignment with what your. What your friend, you know, with this accountability group said just earlier today.

If they’re being. If this prospect is being very negative, like, oh, my team is terrible. They’re always screwing up.

They’re always doing this, they’re doing that. And they’re constantly just blaming everything outside of them. I know they’re not going to be a good fit. They’re just. They’re not going.

Because they haven’t had that aha moment like your guy did in the moment in his call where they’re like, oh, wait a minute, because I’m being this way. I’m actually.

Man, if I’m. I’m attracting these people, it’s all I see. It’s the only lens from which I am looking at the world.

And if I want to make this a better place to work, I got to start with me. I got to start with the leader. It always has to start with the leader, you know.

Erin:
And there’s this book called 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership. Fabulous, fabulous, fabulous book. But it talks about being.

Whether you’re living below the line or above the line. And this idea below the line is blame game. It’s everybody else. It’s all on the outside. And the above the line is when you realize that you really are at the cusp and the core of everything you’re creating.

And, you know, to kind of circle it back to the toxic workplaces. After I sort of realized, okay, wow, this is really my calling. This has so much to do with this toxic workplace. I also had to stop and realize I was the common denominator. I was at all those toxic workplaces.

And it wasn’t because I was necessarily toxic myself. It was that it was a total reflection of how I felt about myself. Right. It was a reflection of my personal value.

And the moment I changed that and the moment that I healed that piece, like, that’s how I was ending up at aging wisdom.

Because I had done all this work and I’d gotten to the place where I actually valued myself and that I have value. And then my next workplace was this incredible place to work.

So the reason I stopped the pattern of toxic workplaces was because I had to do work. Yep. Not because I just somehow got lucky and found a place that wasn’t toxic.

It’s really not. It’s so connected. So as a leader, you have to do the same all the Time.

Meg:
Absolutely. And not only is it hard, but for the benefit of your clients, but also the health of your business.

You said something that was really key and that is at, at those points in your development of your company, you could tell when a client wasn’t the right fit for you.

That’s because you knew your mission, you knew your value, you knew you had that confidence. I can’t tell you. And you probably see how many people begin to question, okay, I’m not, I’m not attracting the right people. I’m going to change my business model or I’m going to do this differently.

And they start to compromise their core values and their value proposition into something that’s less worthy.

Because now they’re chasing the client versus the people who have the confidence, like you did, to say.

And it helps. Absolutely. When it’s an obvious, we gotta break up.

Erin:
Yeah, it makes all the pretenders so much easier to identify when you have the obvious. Right, right.

Well, it gives you the courage. I don’t know if you feel that, but like that first one, it was so obvious that I was like, oh, yeah, we’re not, we’re not, not, we’re not working with that person anymore.

And.

But then that gave me the courage. I was like, okay, wait, I didn’t fall apart. She didn’t trash me so much. Where I never got a client again.

You know, those fears, you know, I was like, we survived that.

We actually thrived because she’s no longer a client. So, okay, I now have more courage to do it the next time and then more courage to do it the next time, the next time, the next time.

But I do think you are right, especially when you’re a startup, you’re so willing to compromise and you are so willing to take whatever you can get.

And I do think that’s a part of the, of the formula of business development. Development, you know, like the stages of business.

Because you do have to take time. It’s like, I always think of it as stages of like human.

You know, you’ve got. You’re a toddler business, an infant business, a toddler business. You go to elementary school, you’re a high school, a middle schooler.

Like, you have all these different phases and when you’re in that like, infant toddler stage where it’s all awkward and weird, you just don’t even know who you are yet.

So it does take time. You got to make all those mistakes, you got to accept all those crappy clients and say yes to them before you can really realize you know, who you really are, what the business really is and who is really your right fit clients.

You know, I mean we’re eight years in and we’re now going to finally niche into an industry.

It’s taken me eight years to really figure out which industries really get us, really appreciate us and really benefit.

Meg:
Oh, good for you.

And it’s, it’s, yeah, it is. I’m really excited about it. I’m really excited about it.

And it’s an industry that needs us and, and we love them.

Erin:
It’s just all the things, it just, it’s kind of like what happened initially, it’s just all pulling together so nicely.

But I wasn’t ready prior to this because I didn’t really know. I needed to test different areas to see which one fits, you know, which one really fits.

So I don’t know. It takes time to figure those things out.

Meg:
And Grace, I see it with my new franchisee placements, especially if they’ve never owned a business before, right?

Like it’s like going into a dressing room and trying on a bunch of suits and going, oh, okay, well I wanted, I’ve always wanted to own my own business and so here I am.

I think we found the right concept and they get in go, oh, wait a minute. This isn’t like the C suite.

I’m not, not the rock star big guy anymore or the one, oh, here’s your cup of coffee, here’s your newspaper in your morning briefing.

Hi, welcome to work today. Right now you’re just trying.

Erin:
Yes, it’s shocking I think, especially in your situation in that, in that scenario where if it’s somebody who’s coming from either just a corporate or a stable job and going and trying to become a franchise owner for the first time, a business owner for the first time.

Because it’s interesting with franchises but like I ground up my company, right, So I was able to take it from, oh, it’s just me and I’m okay and I can stay small until I’m ready.

But when you go into a franchise, you can’t do that. You own a business like from day one, right. Like it’s a full blown business with a model and processes and procedures and all the things that will make it wildly successful.

But it’s probably like I would imagine drinking from like the fire hose for a bit to shift, to shift that.

Meg:
You know, I’m a perfect case in point. I don’t think I’ve told this story for a while, so I don’t think my listeners are tired of it yet. I don’t know if they’ve even heard it yet.

But when I first got started with Take the leap, I was that owner. I’d been in sales.

I was wildly successful. I was not quite 30, so I was still pretty young.

Really? Yeah.

But I got in there and now we own Take the leap.

I had never cut hair, so I was nervous about that.

I’d never been someone’s boss because I was in sales skills. Right. I never had anyone be accountable to me and I had to learn.

The only person who was ever accountable to me at that point was my two year old son.

Right.

And so I got in there and I was like, okay, Meg, you’re the owner. You’re. You consider yourself the top dog here.

And you, if you’re big and brave, then they’ll, they won’t see through you.

Erin:
Yeah.

Meg:
Yes, totally busted on that one.

And then some people know the whole rest of the story.

With the first one, it was. I wasn’t paying attention to the right things and I was posturing more than I was leading.

By the way, great book for. To introduce at this point.

Tim Spitzer wrote a book called It’s a who, Not How. It’s about leadership.

Erin:
Oh, yes.

Meg:
Oh, yeah. Yes. Great book.

Yeah, we were laughing about that yesterday. I was telling him the story because.

Because that’s not who I am now. Now I’m the who.

But that back then I was the how and the what and everything except creating a culture that was correct and inclusive and hiring the right people.

And next next topic kind of is the cost of, of hiring the wrong people because you, you aren’t paying attention like you and I both do now. Right.

If you don’t pay attention to the flight of the Bumblebee and how they got to be who they are, then you don’t really know the subcontact, the subtext of what motivates them and what kind of environment they’re going to do well in.

So I imagine you and your team dig deep into.

Erin:
Correct. Yeah.

Talk about, talk about that. That is what we do.

We dig deep. I mean, you know, we’re in an HR kind of world. There’s compliance and things. And I always need to preface that.

You know, we’ve got to be careful about what we dig deep in.

But we’ve, we’ve taught all of our recruiters to kind of take.

I think of it a lot like coaches, we, we show up as if we’re kind of like your coach a little bit.

Even in our interviews and our goal is to be super hyper curious.

Above all we are to be curious.

And the next one is to be, you know, create that safe environment for the candid candidates especially will not they’re going to be shut down and just show tell you everything you need.

If they don’t feel safe seen or heard, just like all of us, they need to be safe, seen and heard.

So we have to set that stage very, very fast.

So you know, we teach them some techniques on how to do that.

Just building a rapport and trying to get them to be at ease.

But you have to do this kind of approach of asking questions where you peel away layers of the onion, right?

And that’s how you’re going to get deeper.

So if you ask, let’s say a behavior based question, you know, I don’t tell me about a time when you had disgruntled client, right?

Like that’s such a, such a ubiquitous question that people ask how do you handle it?

And they go, oh yeah, I had this time. This person was really mad because we were late on the, you know, like with the deadline.

And, and you know, we ended up giving them 20% off to kind of help them through it.

And yeah, it worked out great.

And then they go, okay, great.

And then they go to the next question.

It’s like, well, wait a minute, let’s step back a minute. Tell me more.

Why did you guys choose that approach?

How did it make the client feel?

Do you feel like it had the desired result?

How did you feel about that approach?

Was it your idea or not?

Your idea, whatever.

How did you feel about that approach?

If you could have done it differently now, looking back, what would you do differently?

Right?

So you want to like just dig into those answers a whole lot more and you’ll start seeing patterns over the course of an interview of, of things that are more intrinsic and authentic of what motivates them.

And again, core values. You go to a candidate, you say, what are your five core values? They’re like, what are you talking about? They have no idea.

Because, because, you know, individuals don’t typically do core values work, but everybody has them.

So your job in an interview process is to help unveil what they are through their, through their stories.

And you’ll find them. If you look, you will find them.

And then it’s very easy to then know, okay, this person really does align with our core values. Or they don’t.

Meg:
Yeah, you know, yeah, digging, digging, digging. And why, why, why? Simon Sinek and knowing your why is another favorite favorite of course, yes, of course.

Getting to the bottom of. Why are we having this conversation?

It’s so funny when you’re talking about core values, some of the people I talk to, well, I value a paycheck and I, I value the stability of that paycheck. I value, like, Ah, no, no, no, no, no.

Yeah. Talking about a whole different set of who you are.

Not what do you value.

But when you show up today day for your kids, for your spouse, for your. For your job. Right.

How are you going to handle yourself in adversity or.

Or creating a great outcome to your.

The point of your, Your little snippet there.

Yeah. Giving somebody 20 off.

Okay, well, is that really going to keep your client sticky?

Erin:
Right.

Meg:
Did you solve. Did you solve something for them that then is satisfactory, or are you giving money away that you didn’t need to give?

It doesn’t really resonate with them for getting the job done. Right, right, right.

Erin:
You know, and that’s why digging deeper in those interviews is so important, because it could be, you know, maybe they did it because that’s what their boss told them that they had to do.

You know, but maybe they had a better idea. Right.

You know, like. Yeah, well, that’s what, that’s what my, you know, my supervisor said I needed to just do that.

Well, what would you have done?

Yeah. You know, if you could have done it your way, what would you have done?

Yeah. How can I make this right?

Meg:
And let give the other party time to process that question?

Erin:
Yes. Because in reality, the reality is the first thing you’re going to hear if they’re frustrated is frustration.

Right. How are you going to make it right?

You shouldn’t have done it wrong in the first place.

Yeah, right.

And give them the space to let them continue to process.

Because if you’re coming from a place of really purely. I want to solve this.

This. I want to make it right.

Yes. From your heart.

Then keep, keep saying that, and at some point it’ll get through and the other person will be able to tell you, okay, I’m done being pissed off now, and let’s work towards a solution.

Meg:
Right, right, right, right.

See, we could work together, of course.

We would do great, Meg. We could take over the world.

We could.

Maybe after I’m done with Zephyr, if I’m ever done with Sephora, it can become, you know, Francois.

Is it called Franchoice?

Erin:
Franchoice is the name of the company.

Meg:
Yep.

Franchoice is headquartered in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, which is basically Minneapolis area.

Erin:
Yeah, I’ve heard of Eden Prairie? Actually, yeah, it’s a, it’s a beautiful place outside of Minneapolis.

And 25 years ago, franchoice was founded by the gentleman who was the vice president of franchise development at Take the leap where I was an owner.

Meg:
Yeah, gotcha.

And so I was the co op president in Chicago and owned five locations.

And he, he said to me, Meg, you’re, you’re really good at what you do and getting to the heart of people and helping them figure out what.

I’m starting a consultancy.

We’re no longer going to be doing the fog up a mirror and write a check and you’re in. Right?

We’re not doing that.

We’re going to take the intelligent approach.

You’re wired up for it.

We’re going to get companies who want our help and we’ll be able to help people find the right opportunity by comparing and contrasting and digging deep into their motivations.

Not just, oh, you can write a check.

Okay, well, it’s not.

Buying a franchise is not like going to a 711 and grabbing a can of soup off the.

Erin:
Yeah, not at all.

Meg:
Right. Right. Yes.

Like you, what you do, it’s, it’s much like what you do. What I do.

Success means a franchise owner fits into the culture of the company just as much as they understand the value proposition of how to make money with the product or the service. Right.

Erin:
Right.

Meg:
Yes.

And you put the wrong person in the wrong.

Erin:
Yeah, yeah, yep. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it.

Meg:
So I, you know, even with franchises, I’ve seen that. And when I was looking at your website earlier, the, the cost of, of the wrong hire.

Erin:
Yeah. Yes. We did create a new calculator, but I haven’t released, I haven’t put it out.

We’re rebuilding our website and we’re going to put this little pop up there and it can tell you what the cost is from the financial perspective.

But there’s so much more, as you know, that go into it, you know, you bring in the wrong hire and you could lose your best employee because they don’t want to put up with that wrong hire’s behavior or, you know, your clients.

It could ruin your reputation. It can secretly, slowly and secretly hijack your culture, you know, and you don’t even realize it’s happening.

We’, heard, of course, with all of our clients, we’ve just heard every possible story that that’s out there that, you know, they’re like, you know, they seemed really great.

They were showing up, they were talking the talk and the next thing I know, like, they were secretly kind of getting people out mad and. And, you know, upset because of.

I don’t know, it could be maybe because they don’t offer benefits yet.

And they’re like. And next thing you know, my entire team is like all really up in arms about it and I can’t afford it.

And now I’ve got three people who are quitting because of this and that, you know, and it was all because of this one person who was, you know, kind of gossiping in the background or whatever it was, and they didn’t even realize it.

So it’s, you know, which is. I know. I’ve heard the horror stories.

I also just don’t want those horror stories, though, to scare anybody.

Don’t let that scare you.

From. Not from, you know, not hiring.

I see that too.

And that’s, you know, you can’t grow without people.

You just, you cannot grow a business without people.

So you just.

But there are ways to do it, right?

You know, I’ve got clients who have amazing cultures and they hire amazing people and they thrive.

Everybody thrives.

The owner can take major vacations.

The team members are thriving and feeling fulfilled.

Their client, you know, like, they’ve got five star reviews.

Like, it all feeds into the ecosystem.

It is having the right people.

Like, it’s at the core.

You can have great processes.

If you have bad people, whatever.

You can have great people and bad processes and you’ll be okay.

Do you know what I mean?

Meg:
Totally.

Erin:
Right.

But you can be okay.

But you’re, you know, so the people are at the core of it all.

Meg:
Talk about a lot with my husband and, and my listener will. Will know this reference, and you probably do, too.

The jockey and the horse.

Erin:
Oh, tell me more. I don’t know.

Meg:
Oh, okay. Well, there’s.

There’s a great horse, great lineage, great bloodlines, great training that baby can run.

You put the wrong jockey on that horse and you do not have a winner.

Erin:
Wow.

Meg:
Now you take a mediocre horse that is familiar with the racetrack and just needs the right encouragement, you put the right jockey on that mediocre horse and you’re going to have a winner.

Erin:
Wow. That’s amazing getting.

Meg:
Yeah.

As I’m listening to you too.

Some of, some of my listening, as we’re talking, is bigger companies who have anywhere from 10 to 100 employees.

Well, my producer will be smiling when I talk about this.

With my Image Studios business, I technically have no employees.

I have 40 beauty professionals who are renting space and I’ve got two people who help me to manage the process of leasing, collecting rent, and then maintaining a positive atmosphere in the building with 40 individuals who are all running their own business.

Erin:
See, but that’s amazing.

That’s still people.

It don’t have W2s. Right.

But.

And that’s what’s amazing about it, is between the two of them, in my absence, they are creating.

Meg:
We have figured out the culture that we want to foster. Right.

And are doing a much better job.

The cost of bringing the wrong beauty professional in plan, it’s the same thing as bringing the wrong person into a company culture.

It can be toxic, it can be damaging, it can be expensive.

Everything.

Erin:
Yeah, absolutely expensive.

When you start losing the wrong.

The.

You start losing the right people over the wrong.

The wrong person.

Meg:
Right, Right. Yep.

And so.

Yep.

Whether it’s the colleagues, the peers or the clients or the vendors or you know what, Whoever.

Whoever it is, is.

But you’re right.

I mean, W2.

It doesn’t have to be W2.

Even if you work with vendors.

They need to be the right people.

They need to represent your brand.

Right.

They need to align with your culture that you’re trying to grow, develop, because your culture is your brand.

I mean, it’s.

They’re synonymous.

Right.

So, you know, if you bring in people who don’t align with that, like you’re saying your beauty is a beauty salon.

Tell me about that.

I don’t even know that you had this.

This is kind of exciting.

So what is it?

Erin:
But yeah, so it is a franchise.

Meg:
Okay.

Erin:
And in the franchise model, think of it like a we work space or like an apartment building.

Think of it like an apartment building where everyone is renting their own space.

Yeah.

You close the door.

What happens behind closed doors?

They control the pricing, they control the products or the services that they are selling.

And when they open their door, then they’re close.

Client walks out and can see all the other spaces that are operating.

You can get manicure, pedicure, barber, cosmetologist, esthetician, tattoo nice, massage artists.

We’ve got all sorts of professions that are represented in that space.

And so from the collective standpoint, we’re giving each of these pros, clients the opportunity to go and get other services done from other professionals.

They’re not all barbers.

They’re not.

Not all cosmetologists.

Right.

So we’ve got this great collective, but we’ve.

We have had some people who were immature, they were irresponsible, they were not the right fit.

And so rather than uphold a one year lease, we’re happy to let people go.

If it’s not, if it’s not the right, that’s great.

And that’s the attitude that employers and business owners have to have.

Just like you said, you’re.

Meg:
Oh yeah, your reputation, your brand depends on your ability to identify and release.

Erin:
Yeah.

Meg:
Or identify and make sticky the people that you do want.

Right.

So that your, your business will continue to thrive and, and be profitable.

Erin:
Yeah, yeah.

It’s interesting about the release.

There’s the saying hire slow, fire fast.

And heard that.

I actually just did talk recently about that because I definitely believe in that mantra but with a caveat.

Because what we’re noticing is that a lot of people are giving up on people who are a good fit too quickly.

And what they really needed is up leveling skills or coaching or development.

And it’s like if you’ve got the right culture fit.

But then, you know, like, let’s say maybe their skills aren’t exactly where you want them to be or you know, maybe they just need to understand the way you do things here.

Like maybe their last place of business, business people complained.

Let’s just say it was like this guy.

You know, everybody’s pessimistic that maybe that’s part of their culture.

And then you get somebody who’s left that to go to a new culture.

And your culture is totally opposite.

Well, if they complain a little bit, it’s probably habit, you know, it’s probably just what they know.

So coach them first.

And if they’re not coachable, if they don’t make the change, then fire them.

Right.

Then let them release them.

Because you’re like, okay, you really are more wired that way.

It is just a learned behavior and you can’t seem to unlearn it.

And, and I just really like.

So we, so we have a little bit of a different take on that.

But it is still quite important to not let it go too long.

You know, if you don’t, if you’ve got someone there you’ve hired, if by month 4ish, you’ve been working with them to coach them on, on, you know, whatever it is that maybe they need to work on and they’re really not making strides, then it’s, then it’s probably time to really consider letting them go.

Because if you let it drag on for even another four months, then that’s where you’ll start getting the ramifications.

The like the symptoms will start to show up.

Right, right back to the Tim Spiker book, Be the who.

Meg:
Yeah.

Which is where I have to really give a nod not only to my Image Studios people, but the legacy business that we’ve built.

My husband and I have a business called Tall Grass restoration.

More than 20 years old now, started from scratch.

It’s my husband’s idea and former Wall street guy who loves being in the earth.

Erin:
On the earth.

Meg:
Yeah.

Tall Grass Restoration does prairies, wetlands and woodlands.

Erin:
Oh, cool.

Wow.

Meg:
And so the people who, who want to do that work, not like right now, we’ve got not a foot of snow on the ground, but it gets tough this time of year.

And not everybody is cut out for mosquitoes in the summertime.

Right.

But the culture is what keeps our employees and our clients.

Clients.

I mean, just some of the rave reviews that we’ve gotten about the work that our people do and how much different it is from some of the other competitors who are out there.

Work towards culture, everybody.

Bottom line, Aaron.

Erin:
Yeah, bottom line.

Because it isn’t just about your future or your people.

Right.

It’s.

It really will make your business thrive.

I mean, think about it.

Costco, great culture.

Trader Joe’s, great culture.

Right.

Like there are businesses out there that have really invested in creating great places to work and they are least successful because of it.

You know, it’s, it’s not just the business model.

It’s.

The culture is at the heart of why some of these businesses are so great.

So it does totally affect your bottom line profit.

It does.

You know, so it’s, it’s very much worth investing in.

And no one here is getting into business in order to not be profitable.

Meg:
Right.

So those of you who are listening, listening, everything about this, Aaron, has been just exactly what I wanted, exactly what I wanted to cover.

It’s so important for new time business, first time business owners to hear from someone like you, best practices and, and what needs to be done.

And then that said, you work nationwide.

So if anyone needs help with, with HR and staffing, then call Aaron.

And going in the right direction.

Erin:
Absolutely.

Get people who are, who are wired up for the business you want to own.

Maybe not necessarily the one that you do own, but the one that you want to own is really bringing in the right people.

Yes.

Meg:
It really is.

Yes.

Thank you, Erin.

Thank you.

Such a delight this afternoon.

And I will let you know, this will be coming out next year.

It will.

We’re coming into.