E4: How To Build A Successful Team
Struggling to get your team aligned with your company's goals?
It's probably because your mission statement feels more like an empty promise than a clear directive.
Find out why most mission statements fail and how to craft one that not only communicates your vision clearly but actually drives results and team engagement.
📒 Show Notes and Resources 📒
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Kellen Ketchersid
Kellen is a co-founder of Stag Business Coaching, business strategist, and a systems thinker. He leverages his extensive experience in biotech and consulting to empower entrepreneurs to navigate complex challenges with strategic growth solutions.
Albert Gillispie
Albert is a serial entrepreneur, business efficiency expert and co-founder of Stag Business Coaching who has founded several multimillion-dollar companies. With expertise in optimizing operations and innovative systems, he mentors business leaders who want to unlock their business’s full potential.
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BUSINESS GROWTH MASTERCLASS PODCAST
Introduction
[00:00] Albert Gillispie:
Hi, welcome to the Business Growth Masterclass where business growth is made simple. Listen, as we discuss best practices to streamline your operations, increase your profits, and ultimately create healthier and more stable and more valuable companies. Hear from experts on how they grew their businesses, learn from their wins, their losses, and everything in between.
How to Build a Great Team from the Ground Up
[00:22] Kellen Ketchersid:
Here we go. All right. And so today we're going to be talking about how to build a great team. So everybody who's been in business for long enough and had to grow their organization a little bit knows that. That's not an easy thing to do. Building a team is a blend of things, right? It's hiring the right people and building the right culture and just continuously improving on those dynamics and positions and, and responsibilities change over time. So that's what we want to talk about. How do you do that? How do you build it? So I'm here with Albert, you want to introduce yourself,
[00:56] Albert Gillispie:
Albert Gillespie. I am the co-host here on the business growth masterclass. Also a partner with Kellen in Stag Business Coaching. And yeah, let's, let's roll into it a little bit. You know, that building a team is one of the, one of your, You know, hidden talents that I've always admired that, you know, I just, a lot of the relational aspects of that, I feel like I, you are so gifted in that. And so I guess to get into that, uh, you've done this several times, but let's just jump into it.
[01:32] Albert Gillispie:
Yeah. How do you build a team?
[01:36] Kellen Ketchersid:
Well, from scratch is, I mean, that's quite a thing to think about, but that's where most business owners start. Right. At first you're, you're probably a solopreneur, you're just doing it by yourself. And I think one of the questions is what kind of person do I want to be my first hire, you know, and kind of what order do you go in?
[01:54] Kellen Ketchersid:
And I think just in terms of the categories, we like to think in, you want to, you want your early hires to be generalists. You want them to be the kind of people who can wear lots of hats and just kind of do whatever. So you're not necessarily needing to fall in love with a specific skillset or degree.
[02:15] Kellen Ketchersid:
What you're looking for is a type of person and really action-oriented. Fast learner, ideally somebody in and also somebody who knows how to follow your lead with enthusiasm. Cause if you're getting constant pushback for that first hire. There's a good chance you're probably going to get stuck. If that person is overly perfectionistic or just unable to keep moving, you're probably going to get stuck.
[02:42] Kellen Ketchersid:
If this person only has one narrow skill set, and they really aren't interested in trying other things that the business needs, you're going to get stuck. So specialists come in later, but in the early days, Building a team from scratch, you're looking for those generalists and, and then you, you know, there's a lot more to unpack there, but I guess, but I don't know.
[03:03] Kellen Ketchersid:
What are your thoughts on that? I mean, you've, you've done some of this too, so I'm curious to hear, what do you think about it?
[03:09] Albert Gillispie:
Yeah, the generalist and more of like the want to the hunger. Yeah. The self-starter is what, what I'm hearing you describe, how do you find those people?
[03:19] Kellen Ketchersid:
Well, you know, the great thing about looking for a generalist is.
[03:23] Kellen Ketchersid:
That's often a young out of school person, right? Like, because a lot of young professionals haven't had the time to build and hone a specific skillset. Maybe their degree has put them in a, in a specific place, but a lot of people who've come out of college are just looking for some early experience.
[03:41] Kellen Ketchersid:
So really, like I said, you want that, you, you want the kind of person more than the kind of resume when you're looking for a generalist, you want enthusiasm, you want somebody who, but not just enthusiasm, somebody who's action-oriented, so they, they're at, if when in doubt, they're inclined to act. They're not sitting around waiting for you to constantly hold their hand and tell them what to do.
[04:06] Kellen Ketchersid:
So sometimes. Someone who moves forward with low information, that's a pretty hard thing to find. And you want them to do that with some intelligence, otherwise, you're just going to break a bunch of stuff. And then that's not good for your business either. One of the frameworks that we used in the past when I was in other companies was the ideal team player framework.
[04:27] Kellen Ketchersid:
Which is, you're looking for someone who's humble, someone who's hungry, and someone who's smart. So hungry, humble, hungry, and smart. Or you could say ambitious instead of hungry. But humility, you know, if somebody has humility, then they, they can take input. They can take, Constructive criticism. They want to do a good job and to do a good job for their employer.
[04:52] Kellen Ketchersid:
So the humility is obviously key. Hungry, they're ambitious. They're going to, they're going to work hard. They're going to put in the hours and with a small business owner. You know, if you're bringing on your first hire, first few hires, you need people who are hungry and they're not afraid to put in the work that it takes to make a business succeed.
[05:11] Kellen Ketchersid:
And then obviously smart, it kind of speaks for itself, but it's funny. You would think a degree would be insurance against, you know, making sure somebody's smart, but. I think there's a lot of degrees out there that are a little bit empty. And, you know, some of the mistakes that we made with some hires in the past were they looked great on paper for a role and not to say they weren't smart in other ways, but maybe they weren't the kind of smart we needed for that particular role.
[05:39] Kellen Ketchersid:
So you really need to think about all the. Those three components is the way I, I think a simple way to boil it down when you're trying to build a team from scratch.
[05:50] Albert Gillispie:
Okay. Help draw me a roadmap here. What, you know, at what stages do you need what, you know, so initially in a, in a startup stage, is it the first couple of years?
[06:02] Albert Gillispie:
Is there a certain revenue target? You know, at what point do you need generalists? And then at what point do you start to hire specialists and what, and what are the first couple of specialists?
[06:15] Kellen Ketchersid:
Yeah, I think it depends on what business you're running, what kind of business you're in, but I think one that's across the board, an early hire is somebody who's more in the administrative side of things, because that tends to buy business owners down pretty fast.
[06:30] Kellen Ketchersid:
So an administrative assistant, I might even be a VA, like a virtual assistant, somebody who isn't even on site, but if it's, if the price is right and you feel confident that somebody can do the job well, then
[06:49] Kellen Ketchersid:
And if you don't have sales, you don't have a business. So I think a sales person or sales and marketing skillset, somebody who can do both of those, again, we're looking for generalists here, not specialists, that's really key in those early days, so I think that's a good Someone who can do administrative work.
[07:06] Kellen Ketchersid:
If you, as the business owner are really skilled in the sales and marketing side of things, maybe you do the administrative assistant first and you focus on the relationship building with your customers and the marketing and that sort of stuff. If that's not what you're great at, but you really love ops and you really love the administrative side of things.
[07:24] Kellen Ketchersid:
And, you know, you. You've kind of got some of those nerd genes that we have to, you know, that's fine, but make sure you've got somebody who's able to really get out there and get some sales and do the marketing that your business needs to generate leads. So that's where I would, I guess my initial thoughts would go with it.
[07:41] Albert Gillispie:
That, that reminds me of the book, buy back your time. That, that, that's one of the, the first hire he describes is an administrative assistant or executive assistant. And, and the number one job they need to handle is. Take complete 100 percent ownership of your calendar and your email, your inbox. And you know, the leader or business owner needs to be spending their time on things that generate revenue, that they grow the business rather than those administrative things.
[08:13] Kellen Ketchersid:
I mean that I love that because there's so much time you can waste in your inbox.
[08:19] Albert Gillispie:
So, so important and urgent in the moment, but, and it's not, it's, I'm creating revenue.
[08:24] Kellen Ketchersid:
Yeah. And it ends up being full of distractions too. Cause how many of us have thought, I'm just going to quickly get through my email for the morning and then, you know, wound up in who knows what kind of rabbit hole, because you have, you get these emails that have some interesting stuff in them and, you know, start chasing things.
[08:42] Kellen Ketchersid:
And if you're not focused going into your day. There's so much that can just get left undone. And I think you're right. Having somebody who can help you kind of weed through all of that and make sure that your, your time is spent on the things that are most valuable. So yeah, your calendar and your inbox.
[09:01] Kellen Ketchersid:
That's awesome. I think that's a great piece of advice for anybody who's out there listening.
Common Mistakes People Make When Hiring
[09:06] Albert Gillispie:
Okay. Next question. What, what are some common mistakes that people make when hiring?
[09:11] Kellen Ketchersid:
Uh, I think I've mentioned one of them a minute ago, falling in love with a resume instead of the person who's sitting in front of you.
[09:18] Kellen Ketchersid:
I think that can be a mistake that people make. I think if you rush a process and just hire the first person you interview, you know, interviews are tough. It's a balance of. Getting to know somebody enough that you feel confident that what they bring to the table is what you're looking for. And usually in the past, I used to just do single round interviews when I first started hiring.
[09:45] Kellen Ketchersid:
And we went to two and three rounds whenever I was with the previous company I was with, depending on the hire, I would always like to have someone else in the room with me.
[09:59] Kellen Ketchersid:
And then after the interviewee is gone, just have a little bit of a debrief and say like what stood out to you from their answers and just give feedback. Cause you'd be amazed what you can get from just having someone else in the room. Especially if, if you have a team, uh, more than just yourself, having that extra set of eyes to say, well, I don't think they're going to be good at, you know, You know, this thing that we need them to do, or I noticed this, this comment that was made that, you know, might not be what we're looking for.
[10:31] Kellen Ketchersid:
And we think what else, some other, I don't know, are you, is anything coming to your mind? Have there ever been any hires that you guys have made?
[10:39] Albert Gillispie:
Well, this, this well for mistakes for one hiring well, is any of the properties we own or assets that we owned. Once we get the right team in place. Everything falls into place and, and, you know, the business runs, runs like it should.
[10:58] Albert Gillispie:
Right. I kind of jumped into, into this a little too quick. I mentioned how much I've admired your ability to be, to build teams. Give us a little bit of your, your background building teams. Cause you, you've done it over and over. And so. Tell me a little bit about that.
Signs of a Healthy vs. Unhealthy Team Dynamic
[11:14] Kellen Ketchersid:
Okay. Well, thanks. Yeah. So our early career biomedical company, the first time that I was able to work with a team, there was an existing team that I ended up managing.
[11:25] Kellen Ketchersid:
But there was an embedded culture that was sort of an us against them mindset. So there was a management team and that had been kind of a revolving door of managers that had been over this one area of production and it was in a clean room. So that was even harder to manage because in the past, and when I inherited the position, the manager was outside of the clean room and the staff were inside.
[11:51] Kellen Ketchersid:
So one of the things that I think is really important and that I. Had a good mentor that helped me to realize I needed to do was go to the, you know, in the Kaizen lean world, they say, go to the Gemba. That's the Japanese word, go to the place where the work gets done. So spending time in the room, doing production with the team and the guys that worked back there and learning from them, hearing the conversations.
[12:16] Kellen Ketchersid:
Being in there long enough where you, you're, people aren't filtering themselves anymore, you know, and, and you get to know people on a deeper level and build real relationships that way. So that was really helpful because later on. Once you have that rapport built and somebody knows that you, you care about getting the job done and also about them as your employee, when the hard conversations need to happen, you can have it in a way that sounds reasonable in earnest.
[12:47] Kellen Ketchersid:
So if I had somebody on the team that wasn't doing the job, I would– And we had reasonable expectations for them, but they still just, you know, we had people that just couldn't show up to work on time. It was just the way, for whatever reason, they just couldn't get that together. Or sometimes people would make mistakes and cover them up because they didn't want anyone to know.
[13:08] Kellen Ketchersid:
And when you find that out, you can't just let that slide as a leader. So when you have those hard conversations with somebody who you've actually been in the work area with and. Uh, you have a relationship with, you say, you know, you can have that conversation in a real down to earth way, but still hold somebody accountable.
[13:26] Kellen Ketchersid:
So I'm giving you a really long answer here, but in the early days of managing that team, we had a lot of turnover and some of them were terminations that we had to do because there were team members that were just stuck in an us against. Them kind of mindset towards the management team. And even me, even though I come in and tried to change the way I managed the style, but once we had a team in place that saw the importance of doing the job right and viewed management as, and me as an advocate and someone who wanted to help them make sure they could do the job right and would give them the tools that they needed or You know, hear their feedback and take it up the, you know, to the other levels above mine, then there was a synergy there and, you know, we were more than the sum of our parts and our department thrived and the people who worked in that area loved it.
[14:23] Kellen Ketchersid:
I loved working with them. So that was my first instance, getting that experience and then moved on from that company and joined a small fledgling biotech company and I was, was like number four on the team and we ended up being about 30 people when I left. So that was a fun ride.
And really when I'm talking about going from generalists to specialists, that was something that I got to see firsthand in that experience, you know, and, and those people in the early days of the company who were such great hires at that stage may not have been the perfect hires for once we were, you know, close to a 30 person team, but, you know, you, your businesses kind of move through cycles and move through stages and you really need.
[15:14] Kellen Ketchersid:
To think about what stage your business is in and what that translates to in terms of the talent that you want. But I can't say enough about building a rapport with your people, being there in the place where the work gets done. And then, then also having hard conversations when needed, because if you don't do that, then.
[15:34] Kellen Ketchersid:
Everything will start to kind of deteriorate when people see that you're not serious in your leadership role, you know?
[15:40] Albert Gillispie:
Yeah. So you build teams at multiple different companies. The two most recent, you know, you, you completely changed the culture and output of what, you know, 10 to 15 in a production line of a, of a, you know, over a hundred million dollar company.
[16:02] Albert Gillispie:
And then most recent was at a startup where you basically built the team from scratch and, you know, more than 10X the value of that business by creating a team who can create, produce. You know, and lead the various different tranches of a business.
[16:23] Kellen Ketchersid:
Yeah. And I mean, when you say 10X the business or, I mean, that was the team, you know, that's, it was that group of people who did that and it was amazing to watch how a team can do so much if you've got the right people. So yeah. It's been fun and it's fun to help business owners try to do that now. And,
Handling Conflicts Within a Team Constructively
[16:44] Albert Gillispie:
and we've, we've touched on, on some of these that this one's interesting, cause it's just hard. How do you handle conflict with the team? Like how do you deal with someone who's hiding things or isn't doing what they should be doing?
[17:01] Albert Gillispie:
How do you do that? Well, oh man, that's, that's, that's the part no one wants to do. That's the, that's the people part, you know, being friends with people, but then when you got to hold them accountable and deal with conflict, That's the part, yeah, I mean, that's
[17:14] Kellen Ketchersid:
so I, I just think of stories whenever you ask me that question, cause it's, yeah, you can talk in generalities, but there was a one manager that I had in a, in an area who had been in that area.
[17:28] Kellen Ketchersid:
This was the first time, the first company where I was a leader. So this was a manager, like a mid level manager, guy under me that had been there before I started leading this team. A great guy, really liked him and just as a person. But one thing I kept noticing was there was not buy in whenever we would talk about new ideas.
[17:51] Kellen Ketchersid:
There was always this, since this manager would say yes, and he would, he would say the right things, but I could just get a sense from talking to him that he really wasn't bought in. And. I just knew because of those times that I had spent in the area where the work got done, that the moment I left the area, there was kind of this sense of like, okay, we'll do it the way we want to do it.
[18:13] Kellen Ketchersid:
And the work will still get done. It's kind of the mindset. So I really struggled with that in the beginning as a new manager and knowing what to do and had a lot of inner doubt about, you know, I thought this would, there was a better way, but the fact that I kept getting pushed back, you know, Did that mean that I was wrong?
[18:34] Kellen Ketchersid:
So I spent a lot of time trying to understand the perspective of the staff. And in particular, this, this foreman is what his title was to just make sure I wasn't missing something. Honestly, I probably spent too much time trying to make sure. And if I had to do it over again, I don't think I would have been as patient now, but there came a point in time where a conversation, hard conversations had to be.
[18:59] Kellen Ketchersid:
I had to take place and I think the approach that I've taken in the past has always been to be as thorough as possible. You know, we would do a writeup, but I would always make that writeup into a conversation. And so we'd detail what had happened and make sure that I was documenting and writing things down exactly how we said that we were going to do X, Y, and Z.
[19:27] Kellen Ketchersid:
By this day, we agree on that. Right. And, and yet we're not seeing that in the work area. So based on that, this is a first warning and. I want to let you know, if you correct this and we, you know, get things lined up in the, in the work area, we can forget this ever happened, you know, but any more of these, and we're going to be talking about other consequences.
Handling Underperformance in a Team Setting
[19:51] Kellen Ketchersid:
And you just kind of have that escalate over time. I mean, those are hard conversations. I don't enjoy that, but nine times out of 10, somebody is going to correct their behavior whenever you have a tough conversation, I think a lot of times. People test you just to see if you're willing to show that you really mean it as a leader.
[20:09] Kellen Ketchersid:
But I think if you. If you are someone who's already listened and you already know their perspective, then there's no objections that there's no room for an objection, right? Cause they can't claim you don't understand something or whatever, like you've already done that. So both sides are important.
[20:27] Kellen Ketchersid:
Don't, don't listen so long though, that you let everything break into a fire. Like there's a point in time where you just have to act and have a hard conversation and maybe, maybe it even leads to a termination. You have to be willing to go down that road. In this particular individual's case, I ended up having to let him go.
[20:45] Kellen Ketchersid:
And I was so worried when I let him go because he's the most experienced person in the work area all the other operators in that room, look to him as soon as I let him go, things got better. So it was confirmation to me that I took forward for the rest of my career was, uh, at least to this point is like, when you've got somebody who's a bad influence and a cancer, you really have to, you have to do something about it, or it's just going to eat you up from the inside.
[21:15] Albert Gillispie:
That's great. Okay. So summarizing what you said is, you have to get in there and you have to know the people, they have to feel seen, heard, and understood. And then once the relationship exists, you can have the hard conversations. Oh, sorry. And you need to have the hard conversations sooner, as soon as possible, given that relationship is established and then be willing to see it through, you know, the good, the bad and the ugly, make the hard decisions.
[21:48] Albert Gillispie:
So that's. There's so many stories of that happening over and over and over that, that I'm thinking about as, as you tell those stories.
[21:56] Kellen Ketchersid:
Yeah. All right. We had one, I'll tell one. We had a person caught lying about what their time was. They had a time card that they were punching when they weren't actually showing up to work and they were doing it on the weekend.
[22:08] Kellen Ketchersid:
So their manager typically wasn't coming in during those hours on the weekend. Anyway, I don't have to get into the weeds of how we figured it out, but we did. And so I had this person. In, and this is, I mean, in my mind, that's immediate termination. Like this isn't like you get three strikes and you're out kind of thing.
[22:27] Kellen Ketchersid:
Like it happens, but it's pretty, pretty malicious on that. So, yeah. So the manager and I, I guess it was Monday morning or however, soon after we found out what was going on, had this person in the room and, and gave them an opportunity to say what was really going on and, and. And they, they were gaslighting us just acting like we were making this up.
[22:52] Kellen Ketchersid:
And, you know, those are some of the most frustrating times whenever as a business leader or owner, people are, are acting like you're being the unfair one or you're, you're handling yourself wrong. And we had camera footage of this, so it was, there was no doubt. And, but it's just kind of funny how. You have to have those hard times every once in a while.
[23:16] Kellen Ketchersid:
And, and again, no regrets. Oh, whenever you have to do that, it's, it's for the best. It's for your team. It's not just for you. And I think you earn respect with the people who remain in the organization. You have to think about that too. Like once you deal with the problem, it sends a message to the rest of your team that you take the work seriously, that you have a standard that you're going to uphold.
[23:39] Kellen Ketchersid:
And a lot of times you'll be surprised how many people who you thought, you know, maybe were friends with that person or, or didn't want to see them go. They understand that it was the right thing to do. So,
[23:51] Albert Gillispie:
All right, as a millennial, yeah, I hear that, you know, I hear this about us all the time that they, they constantly need feedback.
The Role of Feedback in Team Development
[23:59] Albert Gillispie:
They constantly need to be told how they're doing. How do you handle feedback as a leader? You know, how often do people need it? What form do they need it? How do you handle that?
[24:10] Kellen Ketchersid:
Well, I think we at Stag business coaching have a really good framework that we show business owners of having weekly meetings and check-ins depending on the size of your organization.
[24:21] Kellen Ketchersid:
Those can be more or less frequent. So when you're a small team, I think you need to be checking in daily, at least a few times a week. And, or one or the other, and, and I would lean more towards the daily. We used to have what we called huddles and it was just first of the day, 10 minutes, 15 minutes of just running through the big things that we're chasing after right now and everybody's assignments.
[24:48] Kellen Ketchersid:
And is everybody clear on what they need to be doing? Does anybody need help or any obstacles to get out of the way? All right. Ready break. And that was always a great way to start the day. As a leadership team, once you get past that, like intimate couple of people, you know, not quite solopreneur, but just a few people running the business, then you need to have weekly leadership meetings just to make sure that everybody's on the same page and rowing in the same direction.
[25:17] Kellen Ketchersid:
One of the things that we like is the entrepreneurial operating system kind of framework of, you know, having those quarterly meetings as well, where you're looking at the big picture. And you're seeing how, how well you've done in pursuing your quarterly goals and, and, you know, breaking that down into, into bite-sized pieces that you're even down to like the level of each day or each week where you're, you know, what you need to be doing, that's going to be making an impact on the bottom line and the big picture goals.
[25:51] Kellen Ketchersid:
So I know I just ran through a lot there, but I mean, it depends on the size of the organization, but you also don't want to have meeting fatigue. So they need to be well run. They don't need to get bogged down in the jokes and conversation. I like a business meeting that's very succinct and sets a tone.
[26:14] Kellen Ketchersid:
For the day, if your meetings feel like it's all over the place and anything goes, then that's probably the rest of the work day too. So
[26:23] Albert Gillispie:
Yeah, the, the. I do appreciate that about the curriculum that we teach that there, you know, there's a handful of very prescriptive meetings that you have each week, whether it's, you know, with your leadership team or with the all staff meeting, um, and then, you know, the department stand up meetings, you know, that is more of that daily check in that you're, that you're talking about.
[26:44] Albert Gillispie:
Yeah. And all of that, it, it really flows down from. What is the vision of the company? You know, where are we looking to be, you know, one, two, 10 years down the road. And then what does that look like over the next quarter? And because of that, what are we going to do this week? Absolutely. And you have very prescriptive meetings that provide that opportunity for feedback of, Hey, this is what we're trying to get done.
[27:08] Albert Gillispie:
This is what we said we're going to do last week. Did we do it? If not, what happened? And that it, that prescriptive meeting time really helps people, you know,
[27:24] Albert Gillispie:
And I, I've, we've, we've used that in our business for years and years. And, and that just works. Yeah, it works. It works. People, you, you get to the heart of your biggest problems and you get a lot more done, bigger picture for the business deal, being that intentional,
[27:42] Kellen Ketchersid:
Absolutely. And that has to start with the leadership, right?
[27:45] Kellen Ketchersid:
It's not, if you're somebody who reports, you You know, you report to someone, you can't force them to, I mean, you can try to advocate for that kind of a system and thinking. And you probably should if, if it's not happening, but you can, as a leader, you know, just make whatever, whatever you're responsible for, whatever team you have reporting to you, just try to make that shine and, and use these kinds of principles there.
[28:15] Kellen Ketchersid:
And if you're a business owner, make sure you're doing it with the whole business. So everybody knows kind of what's hitting the bottom line and what's going to really make, make a difference. Cause people stay busy, but you don't want just busyness. You want productivity towards the goal.
Technology and Tools in Building and Managing Great Teams
[28:29] Albert Gillispie:
Let's talk about technology and tools. Do you have, I guess, I guess first, you know, what, what is the role of technology given the various stages of building a team, you know, if it's a small business versus, you know, a medium or well established businesses business.
So, you know, what's the role of that? And then do you have any specific tools that, you know, if you had to tell a small business owner today, Hey, you need to check out this tool. What would that be?
[28:56] Kellen Ketchersid:
Yeah. Okay. So I think you definitely need to have a good CRM. I mean, I think nowadays everybody knows that if you're going to have sales and marketing going on and effectively in your business, you need to have those tools. As far as specific tools that are, you know, you need a project management.
[29:15] Kellen Ketchersid:
Yeah. Either software or platform or some way that you're keeping everyone's tasks organized and aligned. There's a lot of, you know, platforms out there that could be used for that. We use Asana. I've used monday.com and I really like it. So those are both good tools. You know, everybody in terms of CRMs that are out there, I think most people know that HubSpot and Salesforce are the big ones.
[29:37] Kellen Ketchersid:
And then there's other small ones that, uh, that are useful and maybe a little bit more economical depending on what your needs are, but I, you know, Canva is really nice if you're looking to make things, you know, look pretty for marketing and, and kind of have some good graphic design quickly. So even, uh, even a guy who doesn't know anything about it, like me can, you know, every once in a while whip up something that looks halfway decent to throw up on social media or whatever it needs to be.
[30:07] Kellen Ketchersid:
So yeah, I mean, tools are, and everybody's talking about AI now. And I think AI has its place, especially when you're trying to word things a certain way or come up with. Maybe brainstorm ideas for, for texts or copy that you might put out there. I think those large language models are especially good for that.
[30:29] Kellen Ketchersid:
They're not good for creative thinking or actually thinking about a specific situation. I don't care how good you are at writing a prompt. It's probably not going to solve your problems to spend. You know, an hour or two on a ChatGPT or something like that. So just know the limitations that at least currently exist with those.
[30:50] Kellen Ketchersid:
But yeah, I mean, those are some of the tools and, but as a, as a leader, I think you just need to know what your needs are, what your business is trying to accomplish, and then, but project management and CRMs are pretty universal to most businesses.
