Episode 10

People, Process, Performance

Robb Hoyle joins Joshua Maddux on this weeks episode of In The Bunker to talk about People, Process, & Performance. Robb talks about how he got consistent as a company and moved away from the roller coaster effect. This was overcome by People, Process, & Performance.

Our episode highlights:

  • Keep going! Have some blind faith. Work harder for some time.
  • Working on the business vs in the business.
  • Your "Not To Do" list.

Bio: Robb is a passionate leader with an intense focus on building strong personal relationships with colleagues, candidates, clients and industry leaders. Over 15 years’ experience in business management, operations, and business development. An uncommon work ethic, fanatical discipline and winning attitude are the guiding principles that have allowed for continued career and life success.

As CEO of GTS responsibilities include the overall recruiting program, business development, marketing, finance and operational functions. In this role, critical focus has been placed on client relations, requirement fulfillment and employee career development. Success in this role has been accomplished by building next level personal relationships, tailoring the overall recruiting strategy and providing the highest quality candidates allowing for clients to achieve dramatic company growth.

Specializing in the recruiting and staffing industry including full life cycle agency and corporate recruiting in both contract and permanent placement recruitment. Expertise in creating and improving recruitment processes, leading and developing high performance recruiting teams. Subject matter expert in the areas of scientific, engineering and technical recruiting for niche industries including: biotech, pharmaceutical, medical device, chemical, engineering, environmental, food & beverage and healthcare. Extensive work partnering with companies varying in size from start-up to fortune 100 companies in the U.S. and Globally.

Why Robb loves what he does:

  • Building Deep Personal Relationships
  • Team Building, Training & Development
  • Connecting, Networking & Helping Others - "Pay it Forward"
  • Big Picture Vision & Leadership

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Transcript
Joshua Maddux:

Today we have Rob Hoyle on with us.

Joshua Maddux:

Rob has over 16 years of experience in recruiting and staffing.

Joshua Maddux:

He's helped countless companies find the right staff member.

Joshua Maddux:

Rob was faced with a challenge in his business.

Joshua Maddux:

Like many of us are.

Joshua Maddux:

Getting consistency and getting consistent as a company and moving

Joshua Maddux:

away from the rollercoaster effect.

Joshua Maddux:

You all know what I'm talking about, that, fulfill the first client and then find

Joshua Maddux:

the next, then fulfill the next and then find the next it's that rollercoaster

Joshua Maddux:

effect that we're talking about.

Joshua Maddux:

There's so much to learn here and unpack, and I'm super excited to jump

Joshua Maddux:

in and learn how he and his company and team have overcame this issue.

Joshua Maddux:

Rob, great to have you on the show today.

Robb Hoyle:

Thanks for having me here, Josh.

Robb Hoyle:

Appreciate it.

Joshua Maddux:

So let's get started.

Joshua Maddux:

Let's dive in and what is your 90 second background?

Joshua Maddux:

Who are you?

Joshua Maddux:

How'd you get here?

Joshua Maddux:

What do you do?

Robb Hoyle:

Sure.

Robb Hoyle:

Rob Hoyle, the CEO of GTS.

Robb Hoyle:

Founded the company back in 2013.

Robb Hoyle:

What we do here today, nine years later is very similar

Robb Hoyle:

to what we do when we started.

Robb Hoyle:

We are a life science and engineering search firm.

Robb Hoyle:

We provide a couple of different service offerings.

Robb Hoyle:

One is more of your traditional retained search at the executive C-suite levels.

Robb Hoyle:

And then the other is more of your staff and management.

Robb Hoyle:

Search work that we do.

Robb Hoyle:

We do a lot of work in life sciences even specific niche

Robb Hoyle:

areas like cell and gene therapy.

Robb Hoyle:

In terms of the final service offering we do offer.

Robb Hoyle:

An outsourced recruiting model where companies will come to us

Robb Hoyle:

and we will take the place of their internal recruiting team.

Robb Hoyle:

If they're a larger company where we will generally do all of the

Robb Hoyle:

recruiting, everything from helping the hiring managers create job

Robb Hoyle:

descriptions up and through when the right candidate starts with the company.

Robb Hoyle:

It's really a niche and challenging work, but it's a lot of fun for sure.

Robb Hoyle:

As a company here, we have done work now in over 30 states

Robb Hoyle:

Canada, Europe, south America.

Robb Hoyle:

So we're global in scope, although we don't necessarily go out to the rest

Robb Hoyle:

of the world to find those, this, most of it's here in the U S and we've

Robb Hoyle:

worked with companies that are small to mid-size on up to the world's largest

Robb Hoyle:

companies in the form of biotechs.

Joshua Maddux:

And I imagine over the past, two years with COVID and everything

Joshua Maddux:

else just craziness in the medical field.

Joshua Maddux:

I imagine that has been a huge, probably growth point in the business

Joshua Maddux:

a little bit with the sense of so many companies looking for new

Joshua Maddux:

talent, expanding, closing, shifting, just changing gears all the time.

Robb Hoyle:

Yeah.

Robb Hoyle:

Yeah.

Robb Hoyle:

It's been really interesting over coming in pre pandemic and thinking

Robb Hoyle:

about the way the business world was before that, and threw away all of

Robb Hoyle:

your traditional business knowledge that you had and Hey, we're going

Robb Hoyle:

to have to do things differently.

Robb Hoyle:

So we adapted very quickly but for us, we, we were fortunate that we, over

Robb Hoyle:

the last six or seven years here, our focus has been that life science scopes.

Robb Hoyle:

We have clients who are making the antiviral drugs, clients who are

Robb Hoyle:

making the vaccines or developing new vaccines, and luckily for the industry.

Robb Hoyle:

And I think for all of us investment didn't stop during that time.

Robb Hoyle:

So companies were still getting funded and still bringing, your

Robb Hoyle:

traditional cancer therapies, rare disease, therapies, and cures.

Robb Hoyle:

We were very fortunate.

Robb Hoyle:

That continued.

Robb Hoyle:

And then, some of the things that I was preaching with clients for years

Robb Hoyle:

and years about interviewing candidates quickly being able to offer them the job

Robb Hoyle:

quickly, that all came to fruition because executives and management team weren't

Robb Hoyle:

traveling across the country and we didn't have to fly candidates in for interviews.

Robb Hoyle:

So we're able to schedule things more quickly and actually get people

Robb Hoyle:

hired a, at a much faster pace.

Joshua Maddux:

I will definitely say the number of companies

Joshua Maddux:

who've adapted technologies, such as zoom, Skype or others.

Joshua Maddux:

Over the past few years is incredible.

Joshua Maddux:

I know as we were talking before this.

Joshua Maddux:

We were talking about some of the challenges that your business

Joshua Maddux:

has faced over the years.

Joshua Maddux:

And one of them as I noted in the intro was getting consistent

Joshua Maddux:

as a company and moving away from that roller coaster effect.

Joshua Maddux:

And as I alluded to that sort of find the first client then fulfilled and find the

Joshua Maddux:

second then fulfill and that, that sort of up and down a little bit in the sense of.

Joshua Maddux:

Really shifting directions as a business to a sort of fulfillment team and then

Joshua Maddux:

a marketing and then film it and then marketing love to dive into that and hear

Joshua Maddux:

your perspective a little more on that.

Robb Hoyle:

Sure.

Robb Hoyle:

Yeah.

Robb Hoyle:

And it's funny because we'll be in business nine years here and each stage

Robb Hoyle:

of your company, there's going to be different ups and downs and, getting

Robb Hoyle:

stable and getting away from that roller coaster effect, it looks like a different.

Robb Hoyle:

Each year that you grow.

Robb Hoyle:

So back in 2013, 2014, I only had one employee and then two employees.

Robb Hoyle:

So it was literally, you bring in some business, you bring in a new

Robb Hoyle:

client and you've got, four or five positions to recruit on for them.

Robb Hoyle:

And it doesn't make any sense to be out doing more business development because

Robb Hoyle:

you need to fill the five that you have.

Robb Hoyle:

That's how we, that's how we make money.

Robb Hoyle:

Each time you grow, you have to deal with those challenges.

Robb Hoyle:

And it's a different thing.

Robb Hoyle:

Each level that you get to right now we're doing 30 person projects versus

Robb Hoyle:

five person projects, and really what I've found at the end of the day, the

Robb Hoyle:

biggest issue inside of that roller coaster effect is people and the process.

Robb Hoyle:

We, fast forward to 20 18, 20 19 we were able to bring on a

Robb Hoyle:

COO who actually my brother, who was in recruiting for a decade.

Robb Hoyle:

And one of the things that Greg has been focused on has been the process,

Robb Hoyle:

improving the process that we had internally here to be able to deliver

Robb Hoyle:

for our clients and also managing that.

Robb Hoyle:

And it's funny because even at each level, we've doubled in size in 2020 this year.

Robb Hoyle:

We're probably going to have close to 30% growth on top of that.

Robb Hoyle:

So it's awesome.

Robb Hoyle:

But the thing is each step of the way, there's a new process that you

Robb Hoyle:

have to put in place and make sure everybody's trained properly on that.

Robb Hoyle:

And it's funny how many of you now we're getting pretty well-disciplined

Robb Hoyle:

that making sure there's a process for everything and nothing gets.

Robb Hoyle:

And, the process itself, we're being able to train people correctly.

Robb Hoyle:

So it really, those are the two things that, you know, having the right

Robb Hoyle:

people on the team has been huge for us and also driving those processes

Robb Hoyle:

in the right direction and making sure you're not just doing one thing

Robb Hoyle:

where it's a quote unquote, best habit that doesn't become a process.

Robb Hoyle:

Once you start, Hey, we've got one recruiter over here doing things this

Robb Hoyle:

way, but then there's this recruiter over here doing it totally differently.

Robb Hoyle:

That's going to start those inconsistencies and you're going to

Robb Hoyle:

be running in that hamster wheel of why isn't this person able to perform.

Robb Hoyle:

That's the last piece to, our kind of motto there is performance.

Robb Hoyle:

If you don't teach them the right way, they're not going to be able to perform.

Robb Hoyle:

If it is the right person in the right seat on our team.

Robb Hoyle:

And if they are following the process, the way we've done it and that's our

Robb Hoyle:

job as the executive team now, or it's to make sure there's a process behind

Robb Hoyle:

everything, make sure that the management team is training people properly on it.

Robb Hoyle:

And if they are, they're able to perform.

Joshua Maddux:

I'll say, owning my own business.

Joshua Maddux:

As you scale that up, there's a difference between hiring someone,

Joshua Maddux:

that first employee that you mentioned, you would sit down with

Joshua Maddux:

them and walk through some stuff.

Joshua Maddux:

They may shadow you.

Joshua Maddux:

But now if you want to go hire five new employees or 10 new employees to have

Joshua Maddux:

all of those employees shadow you and do the same type of stuff that you did with

Joshua Maddux:

the first employee, it's not scalable.

Joshua Maddux:

And not only that.

Joshua Maddux:

I know with everything over the past few years with, a lot more

Joshua Maddux:

people are working from home.

Joshua Maddux:

A lot of companies have gone more remote or satellite offices.

Joshua Maddux:

And so that type of stuff in addition has created even more of a need, I

Joshua Maddux:

think now than ever for, processes.

Joshua Maddux:

Our own team has talked about these challenges.

Joshua Maddux:

We would all be in the same office and, two people be having a conversation and

Joshua Maddux:

a third person would jump in and go no.

Joshua Maddux:

Remember we do it this way now.

Joshua Maddux:

Oh, yay.

Joshua Maddux:

Yeah.

Joshua Maddux:

And so it's if that third person isn't a part of a zoom call, then,

Joshua Maddux:

two team members may go down a huge rabbit trail and waste, days or

Joshua Maddux:

more of work before we ever realize that, oh, we were doing it wrong.

Robb Hoyle:

That's one of the things that.

Robb Hoyle:

You can easily lose track of that stuff if you're not paying attention.

Robb Hoyle:

And that's, our goal where, you know, three years ago we would have lost three

Robb Hoyle:

or five days worth of productivity.

Robb Hoyle:

Not realizing somebody just didn't know how to do it the right way.

Robb Hoyle:

Now we're trying to cut that down.

Robb Hoyle:

We put a process in place to make sure that anybody on a research team or a

Robb Hoyle:

recruiting team doesn't get to date.

Robb Hoyle:

Doing it the wrong way, essentially.

Robb Hoyle:

And then they're going to struggle and you're going to struggle because they

Robb Hoyle:

didn't know, a piece of the process there.

Robb Hoyle:

So that's, that's imperative and that was also one of the

Robb Hoyle:

big things that shifted too.

Robb Hoyle:

We used to think, Hey, we have to be in the office five days a

Robb Hoyle:

week to see the team to make sure everybody's doing their jobs.

Robb Hoyle:

Correct.

Robb Hoyle:

We very quickly realized that's not the case.

Robb Hoyle:

The cool thing for us is, a bunch of our employees wanted to be back in the office.

Robb Hoyle:

So we did that as quickly and safely as we could, but there's

Robb Hoyle:

no more mandate on office time.

Robb Hoyle:

We tell everybody we like to have you in on Tuesday and Wednesdays, if

Robb Hoyle:

you can make it, it's not required.

Robb Hoyle:

And there's no rhyme or reason to who's coming in those days and who's

Robb Hoyle:

not, most of the team comes in.

Robb Hoyle:

But there's days where nobody's there on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Robb Hoyle:

My whole thing is communicated to me, so I don't come in to see

Robb Hoyle:

people and then nobody's there.

Robb Hoyle:

That's always fun, we also have a couple employees now that.

Robb Hoyle:

Fully remote, one of them Sarah she's up in upstate New York and she comes in

Robb Hoyle:

maybe once every six months or something.

Robb Hoyle:

But we realized that we can do this as long as we do it the right way.

Robb Hoyle:

And again, if you're not doing it the right way and you're remote it, it

Robb Hoyle:

does, it gets even trickier to make sure you're training everybody the right way.

Robb Hoyle:

So having those processes in places it's huge.

Joshua Maddux:

Yeah, absolutely.

Joshua Maddux:

I think our team is a, at a similar dynamic.

Joshua Maddux:

We were actually pre COVID.

Joshua Maddux:

We were in office Tuesdays and Thursdays, and it was flexible the rest of the week.

Joshua Maddux:

And now, or pretty much our whole entire team is relocated, whether

Joshua Maddux:

it's, I moved during COVID, but it was five miles roughly.

Joshua Maddux:

Some of our team has moved further than that.

Joshua Maddux:

But it's it's really an interesting shift, I think, to see how, some of this type of

Joshua Maddux:

stuff as you scale and dealing with some of that type of stuff works out as you get

Joshua Maddux:

into the aspect of remote work as well.

Joshua Maddux:

I think there's a huge piece there.

Robb Hoyle:

Yeah.

Robb Hoyle:

And the art, there's an Arabic DCE being in recruiting.

Robb Hoyle:

If you're not offering that flexible work schedule anymore.

Robb Hoyle:

Where people can work remote as much as they want.

Robb Hoyle:

You're not going to be able to compete in the market for talent.

Robb Hoyle:

It's funny in life sciences that, the war for talent has been here for a

Robb Hoyle:

very long time, but now it's across the board in every industry and

Robb Hoyle:

every company everybody's looking at.

Robb Hoyle:

For great talent, let alone any talent just to run their business.

Robb Hoyle:

And the other piece to just mention is that, inflation is a real

Robb Hoyle:

thing in order to compete as well.

Robb Hoyle:

I think the whole $15 an hour minimum wage conversation, just

Robb Hoyle:

going to go away because companies won't be able to hire if they're not

Robb Hoyle:

offering much more than that now.

Robb Hoyle:

So it's been, really interesting to watch for sure how the

Robb Hoyle:

nature of business has changed.

Joshua Maddux:

Yeah.

Joshua Maddux:

And I think it's going to continue to change a little bit as things level

Joshua Maddux:

out over the next, few years I know in California, we they signed a basically

Joshua Maddux:

allowing for restaurants to continue to have their outdoor, temporary structures

Joshua Maddux:

and stuff for another two or three years.

Joshua Maddux:

And so they just passed that recently, which is crazy to

Joshua Maddux:

think that, these businesses.

Joshua Maddux:

They're still in recovery.

Joshua Maddux:

I know of a restaurant locally that they're paying two to three

Joshua Maddux:

times what they did pre COVID for, chicken and, not having to

Joshua Maddux:

just gouge the, the end customer.

Joshua Maddux:

These are just massive challenges that all businesses are dealing with.

Robb Hoyle:

Yeah, for sure.

Robb Hoyle:

At the end of the day, everything's going to go up it.

Robb Hoyle:

Just roll up.

Robb Hoyle:

Stop.

Robb Hoyle:

Yeah.

Robb Hoyle:

Yeah, I see.

Robb Hoyle:

Good services, everything across the board.

Joshua Maddux:

Yeah.

Joshua Maddux:

So what are other elements for you guys, getting consistent with inside of the

Joshua Maddux:

business that really helps, flatten that sort of roller coaster effect?

Robb Hoyle:

The biggest thing outside of the processes is the people.

Robb Hoyle:

And I mentioned that earlier, diving into that a little bit

Robb Hoyle:

here, it's, having the right team I think, Is the biggest difference of

Robb Hoyle:

companies that are going to make it.

Robb Hoyle:

And when I say make it right, whoever's version of making it is different, right.

Robb Hoyle:

For us now it's to get to 10 years, we've got to three years.

Robb Hoyle:

Great.

Robb Hoyle:

We're still in business.

Robb Hoyle:

I figured out that, I can make a good living for myself that

Robb Hoyle:

wasn't that interesting to me.

Robb Hoyle:

Could we.

Robb Hoyle:

As a team, could I bring other people on board and create opportunities for them

Robb Hoyle:

to grow in their careers as I have, right?

Robb Hoyle:

And now we get to do it as a company, but, whatever the benchmark is for,

Robb Hoyle:

your fan base out there, it's getting to five years, 10 years now, my next

Robb Hoyle:

vision is how do we get to 20 years?

Robb Hoyle:

And, really turned us into a long lasting company.

Robb Hoyle:

In order to do that, I need.

Robb Hoyle:

You need a baseline of good people that can do the work, but in order

Robb Hoyle:

to really grow and be a dynamic company, you have to have great people.

Robb Hoyle:

And in order to have great people, you have to take care of them and you have

Robb Hoyle:

to make sure that you are training them properly, showing them how to do things

Robb Hoyle:

well, showing them that there is going to be a real opportunity for you to

Robb Hoyle:

grow your career to the next level here.

Robb Hoyle:

So this all speaks to consistency, right?

Robb Hoyle:

Because if I don't have a great team, I can't do that.

Robb Hoyle:

And that's everything from, the management team on down to, the junior staff members.

Robb Hoyle:

And we've been doing a lot of cool stuff here in terms of not just

Robb Hoyle:

showing them opportunity, right?

Robb Hoyle:

That's what drives me every morning.

Robb Hoyle:

I wake up and I say, Hey, everybody here needs the

Robb Hoyle:

opportunity to feed their families.

Robb Hoyle:

And we've got some people who've been with us five, six years now.

Robb Hoyle:

People are having babies.

Robb Hoyle:

People are different stages of life.

Robb Hoyle:

And it's really cool to see.

Robb Hoyle:

But that's, the responsibility on me is to make sure that everybody has an

Robb Hoyle:

opportunity to grow and not just feed their family, but be really successful.

Robb Hoyle:

So we've been doing some really cool things, A, what we're calling

Robb Hoyle:

a next generation leadership team now where we're having some of our

Robb Hoyle:

junior team members who, it's pretty apparent that they want to be leaders.

Robb Hoyle:

So this is a great way for them to get involved and talk with us about what's

Robb Hoyle:

going on in their world, how things are going, what problems we can solve

Robb Hoyle:

for them, cause the biggest thing I can do for my team is making sure that

Robb Hoyle:

there's nothing that's getting in there.

Robb Hoyle:

Preventing them from gains, being able to be efficient and successful.

Robb Hoyle:

So hearing those ideas from the junior team, and then, we

Robb Hoyle:

have a senior leadership team that we meet with every week.

Robb Hoyle:

And I know you're involved with the, the the tab stuff, but we'd put

Robb Hoyle:

basically an EOS meeting in place for all of our senior leadership meets

Robb Hoyle:

once a week, if there's any issues.

Robb Hoyle:

We resolve them.

Robb Hoyle:

And it's funded to do that quarterly meeting where we see how far we've

Robb Hoyle:

come with anything that was an issue.

Robb Hoyle:

And how far, we're able to go as a team.

Robb Hoyle:

But again, having the, the number one thing that comes up is, do we

Robb Hoyle:

have the right people on the team?

Robb Hoyle:

Are they in the right seats?

Robb Hoyle:

Is this a job that they want to be in?

Joshua Maddux:

And I think those are elements that.

Joshua Maddux:

Oftentimes people forget about and I love the fact that you guys

Joshua Maddux:

include both of those, the people and the process, both as elements

Joshua Maddux:

and not just look at, the process.

Joshua Maddux:

So many people say, they'll talk about, have a process in your business, make

Joshua Maddux:

sure you have checklists and to-do lists, but if you don't have the right

Joshua Maddux:

people, the processes don't matter.

Joshua Maddux:

And if you don't have the right, you can have all the right people, but if they

Joshua Maddux:

don't know what the heck they're doing, it's gonna, it's gonna have a problem.

Robb Hoyle:

Yeah.

Robb Hoyle:

And it's making sure that they're doing the right thing, right?

Robb Hoyle:

Like I'm no longer the best person to be managing the

Robb Hoyle:

day-to-day recruiting operations.

Robb Hoyle:

That process is evolved.

Robb Hoyle:

And what we need is somebody who does it more efficiently than I would.

Robb Hoyle:

Cause it's not my thing.

Robb Hoyle:

It's not my.

Robb Hoyle:

My strength is to be doing business development and leading that team

Robb Hoyle:

and the general business operations.

Robb Hoyle:

So it's just being able to look at who the folks are on your team and what

Robb Hoyle:

they're doing and what they want to do.

Robb Hoyle:

A lot of companies will just push people into roles because that's

Robb Hoyle:

the best thing for the company.

Robb Hoyle:

Not necessarily the best thing for the employee.

Robb Hoyle:

So what we try and do is say, Hey, I can see this person would be a good

Robb Hoyle:

business development person in the future.

Robb Hoyle:

But I don't want to push them into that.

Robb Hoyle:

I want them to have a conversation with me and let me know what they want

Robb Hoyle:

to do as their career and continue to follow that path and then show them

Robb Hoyle:

how to get into that versus just trying to push them into something that they

Robb Hoyle:

don't want to do and know vice versa.

Robb Hoyle:

If they are a really great recruiter and they want to be in recruiting longterm.

Robb Hoyle:

Great.

Robb Hoyle:

We can take you to just higher levels of doing that.

Robb Hoyle:

That's my whole, I have a whole thing about, not trying to push people into

Robb Hoyle:

careers that they don't wanna be.

Joshua Maddux:

And a lot of what you're talking about and you

Joshua Maddux:

alluded to tab a little bit So for those who don't know what tab is

Joshua Maddux:

basically a business peer group.

Joshua Maddux:

And it really is something it's something that Rob and I are both in different

Joshua Maddux:

groups and it meets depending on the group meets typically on a monthly

Joshua Maddux:

basis with other business owners.

Joshua Maddux:

And it's a board of directors basically for your business,

Joshua Maddux:

if you don't have a board.

Joshua Maddux:

And so one of the things I know, With a lot of this is

Joshua Maddux:

just the aspect of feedback.

Joshua Maddux:

What you're talking about with people is you're not saying,

Joshua Maddux:

Hey, here's a new job role.

Joshua Maddux:

This is what you're starting next Monday, you're sitting down and having

Joshua Maddux:

a conversation with these people and saying, Hey, where do you see

Joshua Maddux:

yourself in the company in the next.

Joshua Maddux:

Two five, no, two years, five years, 10 years.

Joshua Maddux:

And how can you grow with the company?

Joshua Maddux:

Not necessarily something as much of this is the task that you're going

Joshua Maddux:

to be doing for the next 10 years.

Joshua Maddux:

And that's it.

Joshua Maddux:

In reality, if the company is going to be growing, those people have to

Joshua Maddux:

grow with it, or you got to figure out another way to grow the business.

Robb Hoyle:

Yeah, for sure.

Robb Hoyle:

And it's funny too, being I'm assuming most of your audiences, going to be

Robb Hoyle:

small business owners or, folks that work in a small business, that feedback

Robb Hoyle:

is not always there right there.

Robb Hoyle:

Weren't a whole lot of people for me to go to that were running executive

Robb Hoyle:

search firms and get advice from them.

Robb Hoyle:

Those folks are usually my competition.

Robb Hoyle:

Having that board has been great because it's, you're

Robb Hoyle:

getting an outside perspective.

Robb Hoyle:

It was also great to be able to bring my brother onto the company back in 2018,

Robb Hoyle:

because when you're running a company by yourself your team, your people,

Robb Hoyle:

aren't going to necessarily, Rob you say, Rob, you're doing this their own way.

Robb Hoyle:

Greg had no problem telling me that there was many things that we needed to

Robb Hoyle:

improve, which is really what I needed, even though it was uncomfortable because

Robb Hoyle:

for seven years, nobody was telling me, Hey, you're doing this the wrong way.

Robb Hoyle:

It was.

Robb Hoyle:

A new, old feeling.

Robb Hoyle:

I felt like I was back in that entry level seat where you're learning

Robb Hoyle:

and getting feedback constantly.

Robb Hoyle:

So that's, I would encourage your, your audience to be able to get

Robb Hoyle:

some sort of peer group, whether, you're in something organized like

Robb Hoyle:

tab or EOS or whatever else, or just really, a good group of advisory peers

Robb Hoyle:

that can help guide you and mentor.

Robb Hoyle:

And give you some feedback and throw some ideas your way it's extremely important

Robb Hoyle:

for small business owners to understand.

Joshua Maddux:

I definitely agree.

Joshua Maddux:

I'll second that for sure.

Joshua Maddux:

I know for me, it's been a huge success for the business and for me

Joshua Maddux:

just personally as well, having that sounding board and then also having a

Joshua Maddux:

group of people who don't have a problem with saying that's a stupid idea.

Joshua Maddux:

Yeah, like having a group of people that are not on your payroll that

Joshua Maddux:

have no problem telling you that's dumb and you should not do that.

Joshua Maddux:

Or you should really reconsider and poke holes in your idea.

Joshua Maddux:

It is nice.

Joshua Maddux:

To be able to have that, and also have people who, some of the people in the

Joshua Maddux:

group that I'm in have been there for.

Joshua Maddux:

We've been in business for 30, 40 years.

Joshua Maddux:

And some of them are newer companies as well.

Joshua Maddux:

And so it's not necessarily always the person who's been in business 30 years.

Joshua Maddux:

That's got all the right, perfect ideas, but it's also nice to have people

Joshua Maddux:

who have quote unquote, gone before you a little bit and get it as well,

Robb Hoyle:

which is nice.

Robb Hoyle:

Yeah.

Robb Hoyle:

That was one of the coolest parts about my tab experience.

Robb Hoyle:

These were folks that were just generally in different levels of the business.

Robb Hoyle:

We had a member that was, growing by whatever revenue percentage.

Robb Hoyle:

We had another member that was out there getting acquired by a PE firm.

Robb Hoyle:

And then his job was to go out and look for new deals for new

Robb Hoyle:

companies, for them to acquire.

Robb Hoyle:

These are conversations that you normally wouldn't be exposed to either.

Robb Hoyle:

They're just not general business conversations that

Robb Hoyle:

I'm getting the inside scoop.

Robb Hoyle:

So it's really great to, to have been able to hear from some of these guys who were

Robb Hoyle:

know a little more senior than I am as well, or their company has generally been

Robb Hoyle:

around five or 10 years more than mine.

Robb Hoyle:

But it's also fun now to help, some of the.

Robb Hoyle:

Newer companies, the founders or whatever that come in and be able to give back

Robb Hoyle:

to them and, say, Hey, I've been there, where you're at with those challenges.

Robb Hoyle:

And usually it's about the same exact thing, right?

Robb Hoyle:

We're setting up a business process, getting the right people in place.

Robb Hoyle:

That happens to be my area of expertise.

Robb Hoyle:

So I'm able to add a lot of value to them.

Robb Hoyle:

So it's fun to be able to have that given.

Robb Hoyle:

Yeah.

Joshua Maddux:

Yeah, it definitely is awesome.

Joshua Maddux:

I've really enjoyed having you on the show today.

Joshua Maddux:

Before we part ways I would love to walk through what is your

Joshua Maddux:

advice to someone who is facing one of these challenges right now?

Joshua Maddux:

Facing the challenge really of that rollercoaster effect.

Robb Hoyle:

You could, two things I would say is, number

Robb Hoyle:

one, you have to keep going.

Robb Hoyle:

You have to have blind faith in the fact that it's going to happen for you.

Robb Hoyle:

If, you believe in your your vision and you believe in what you're

Robb Hoyle:

doing you're going to have to work harder for a little while.

Robb Hoyle:

But there is, that light at the end of the tunnel, as long

Robb Hoyle:

as you can fight through it.

Robb Hoyle:

And that was the best part about being.

Robb Hoyle:

Getting to different levels of our business.

Robb Hoyle:

It's Hey, we've been in business five years now.

Robb Hoyle:

It's not we're building a brand and continuing to build that brand.

Robb Hoyle:

It's not, Hey, calling somebody with this crazy idea that Rob started a company.

Robb Hoyle:

So really it's just keep going.

Robb Hoyle:

And it's amazing to see what can happen after you get to, 5, 6, 7, 8

Robb Hoyle:

years in business, and people start to know you and you can move forward.

Robb Hoyle:

And then the other piece too specifically the roller coaster

Robb Hoyle:

effect is you have to be.

Robb Hoyle:

You hear people say working on the business versus in the business, if you're

Robb Hoyle:

in that day-to-day grind in the bunker, sitting there and you're not able to step

Robb Hoyle:

outside of it and take a breath and say, let me look at what the heck is going

Robb Hoyle:

on here versus just continuing to grind and completing tasks and doing things.

Robb Hoyle:

If you're not able to step outside of that and look at it and say, this isn't

Robb Hoyle:

the right way to do it, or this isn't the most efficient way to do that.

Robb Hoyle:

Then you're not going to be able, you're going to continually be in the bunker

Robb Hoyle:

in the grind, in the day-to-day hamster wheel, if you can't step outside.

Robb Hoyle:

But, and say, let me think about doing this a little bit of a different way.

Robb Hoyle:

And then coming in and staying true to that and implementing it and

Robb Hoyle:

actually following through on it.

Robb Hoyle:

I think that's extremely important for business owners to understand

Robb Hoyle:

it's that you need to be able to work on the business and not always.

Joshua Maddux:

That's really good.

Joshua Maddux:

I'll share.

Joshua Maddux:

One of the tab members in my group was talking and they were, we were talking

Joshua Maddux:

about that exact topic and he mentioned that he has a, not to do list on his desk.

Joshua Maddux:

It's all the items that he is a business owner should not be doing.

Joshua Maddux:

And he goes, when something pops up and he's oh, I should get that done.

Joshua Maddux:

And he goes, Bob can do that.

Joshua Maddux:

Bob is totally capable of doing this.

Joshua Maddux:

He writes down the name of the task and then he will make that list

Joshua Maddux:

and, hand those off to people who, maybe need to learn that task or

Joshua Maddux:

learn how to take care of that, X, Y, or Z, whatever that thing is.

Joshua Maddux:

Maybe it's also something that.

Joshua Maddux:

There's three or four things that add up that may create a new role

Joshua Maddux:

that needs to be hired against.

Joshua Maddux:

And that's the type of stuff that taking those things that you're working, in

Joshua Maddux:

the business and moving those to a task list that you can offload those

Joshua Maddux:

to someone else allows you to work on.

Joshua Maddux:

And that's really cool.

Robb Hoyle:

To that point there, it, as a business owner.

Robb Hoyle:

And I am trying hard to get far away from this while you're in it

Robb Hoyle:

every day for 5, 6, 7 years, you're pretty much controlling everything.

Robb Hoyle:

And whether you're a control freak or not, you've been controlling

Robb Hoyle:

the business for however long.

Robb Hoyle:

And you've been doing things the way you're doing them

Robb Hoyle:

when you've grown the company.

Robb Hoyle:

It is uncomfortable at times to be able to delegate things that

Robb Hoyle:

you should be delegating, but you need to do it in order to grow.

Robb Hoyle:

And if you haven't, my philosophy now is if I need to do it, I'm

Robb Hoyle:

not training my team properly.

Robb Hoyle:

It means that I'm limiting their opportunity because I'm taking this

Robb Hoyle:

cause I want to control it because I know how to do it the right way or whatever.

Robb Hoyle:

So my philosophy is very different on that now.

Robb Hoyle:

I, if there's somebody on my team, if there's a task that needs to be done

Robb Hoyle:

and they don't know how to do it the right way, that's why they're going to

Robb Hoyle:

call me and say, Hey Rob, can you take this call and talk with, a candidate

Robb Hoyle:

about equity or relocation or whatever.

Robb Hoyle:

Let me take this opportunity to talk with them and train them

Robb Hoyle:

how to have the conversation, how to do the test the right way.

Robb Hoyle:

And then that's how they get to grow.

Robb Hoyle:

They get opportunity from that.

Robb Hoyle:

And it gives me the opportunity to go focus on the things that I

Robb Hoyle:

need to do to grow the company.

Robb Hoyle:

Not being a control freak is huge.

Robb Hoyle:

Being able to delegate, being comfortable with doing it.

Robb Hoyle:

I got to tell you that's been a a huge factor.

Joshua Maddux:

Yeah.

Joshua Maddux:

And as a business owner, oftentimes you sit there thinking, this is

Joshua Maddux:

my business, this is my baby that I've, raised in and where it's at.

Joshua Maddux:

And I don't want to let someone else, this is a critical business task,

Joshua Maddux:

but you do, you have to step away.

Joshua Maddux:

And it's, there's a philosophy out there that some people talk about is

Joshua Maddux:

as a business owner, you take a 30 day vacation, no cell phone, no emails.

Joshua Maddux:

None of that.

Joshua Maddux:

And if you can step away from your business for 30 days, then it's a,

Joshua Maddux:

that's a huge success, a huge win.

Joshua Maddux:

And oftentimes a lot of business owners won't ever do that.

Robb Hoyle:

Yeah.

Robb Hoyle:

I got to tell you, I've been able to do that personally.

Robb Hoyle:

Not, I didn't take 30 days off for sure, but I, I was able to spend a

Robb Hoyle:

summer down the beach with my kids and.

Robb Hoyle:

Knowing that you have things at least to some level, but you're never

Robb Hoyle:

going to stop as a business owner.

Robb Hoyle:

You're always wanting to want to grind and grow things.

Robb Hoyle:

But just knowing that I could take two weeks off or be off, pretty much

Robb Hoyle:

every Monday or Friday during the summer, because my team's got it.

Robb Hoyle:

That's a big thing, that's going to give you the ability to grow in the future.

Robb Hoyle:

It means that you're doing things the right way, and you're still able to make.

Robb Hoyle:

If you're not in it.

Robb Hoyle:

And that's what, that's what people say all the time.

Robb Hoyle:

If you're not able to not be there, you don't have a successful business.

Robb Hoyle:

That's going to thrive.

Joshua Maddux:

True.

Joshua Maddux:

Awesome.

Joshua Maddux:

It's been super good having you on the show.

Joshua Maddux:

In the show notes, we've got links to your website and YouTube,

Joshua Maddux:

Instagram, and a bunch of others.

Joshua Maddux:

What is the number one spot for people to reach out if

Joshua Maddux:

they want to connect with you?

Robb Hoyle:

For me it would be my LinkedIn page.

Robb Hoyle:

Pretty easy to find, just Robb Hoyle on LinkedIn and I'm right there.

Joshua Maddux:

And that link will be in the show notes for

Joshua Maddux:

those who do want to connect.

Joshua Maddux:

Awesome.

Joshua Maddux:

It's been great having you on today.

Joshua Maddux:

I hope hope everyone listening got something out of this.

Joshua Maddux:

I know I for sure did.

Joshua Maddux:

And until next time,

Robb Hoyle:

thanks for having me Josh.

Joshua Maddux:

Thanks for listening to this episode of, in the bunker.

Joshua Maddux:

As always we can be found on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter

Joshua Maddux:

at, in the bunker podcast.

Joshua Maddux:

Be sure to share this episode and what you're going to apply from it.

Joshua Maddux:

And how that can affect your business, make sure to tag us in that post so

Joshua Maddux:

we can highlight your journey as well.

Joshua Maddux:

But before you go.

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About the Podcast

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In The Bunker
Exploring the biggest challenges in starting and running a business.

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About your host

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Joshua Maddux

Joshua Maddux is an entrepreneur who has helped numerous businesses grow and thrive.