Company Culture: Does it Really Eat Strategy for Breakfast?

Scott Schaper: When it comes to running a successful business, some people will say culture is everything or the only thing. A and cohesive company culture isn't just about catchy values or team building activities. the foundation that fuels employee engagement, retention, and even customer acquisition. When people feel genuinely connected to the mission values and community of a company, they bring their best energy and creativity to the table. That sense of alignment not only drives productivity, but creates the environment where employees want to stay, grow, and contribute. But doesn't really stop at the office door. It extends outward and becomes a magnet for customers, too. ⁓ buyers are looking for more than just a product or service. They want to connect with brands which stand for something more meaningful. A healthy, engaged culture shows up in every customer interaction from the way employees solve problems to the authenticity of the brand. We'll deep dive into culture, why culture is a critical driver business success, how to intentionally build it, and ways you can give your company a true competitive edge. Let's get at it. do, All right, man, culture. So I wrote down this quote. ⁓ culture eats strategy for breakfast, which I heard a million before, but I'm not a massive fan of that quote. wanted to kind of use that as the hook, but.

Brian McMaster: factors.

Scott Schaper: It kind of sounds to me like the title of a business book that you're that you find at the airport bookstore. I don't want to minimize. I don't want to minimize the importance of killer strategy. Every company needs a great strategy. It's just aligning it like I think culture is really the guide rails, the framework for the whole company and strategy operates in that. think strategy is better when you have a killer culture in place, but it's kind of like saying customer acquisition should

Brian McMaster: Yeah.

Scott Schaper: Trump management. Why? Why not have great systems for both? There's two different things that you align differently. So anyway, what do you say?

Brian McMaster: Yeah. one and also people will focus on one more than the other. Right? I mean, you said it, you need them both, but a lot of times people will focus on just one. So it's strategy, it's strategy, it's strategy. Or to use your example, it's expenses. Oh, let's say, you know, we're having cashflow situations, so let's focus on expenses. But culture, I mean, as we're gonna talk about today, culture drives everything. And ultimately drives strategy too. you know, healthy individuals and a healthy team, I think, to nothing and arguably I think before you can have strategy you got to have a good healthy culture so I'm looking forward to getting into that.

Scott Schaper: What types of things have you guys done at M &M to have, just build that culture and how do you do it?

Brian McMaster: You know, one of the latest things, ⁓ think we've always taken care of our employees, but of the latest things we've been doing is we have a luncheon every month ⁓ where all our employees get together. ⁓ We do out here in the office area. We set up tables. ⁓ Rhonda does great job of putting all the stuff together. ⁓ But then recognize birthdays, anniversaries, any kind of significant accomplishments and that type stuff. And, you know, it's a simple bring in pizza, or we do potluck or you know, something along those lines. It's just a very simple thing. ⁓ think people avoid doing it because I think it's complicated. And it's it's really not, you know, in and the benefits the payoff to that is, ⁓ you to know your people better, ⁓ they to know you better. ⁓ And that's been it. And now what happens is people look forward to it. It's like, hey, what are we doing for the luncheon, you And lots of times too, can be themed. It might be a Halloween, it might be a Christmas or something like that. But recently we celebrated an employee that's been here for 22 years and the company's been open for 22 years. just ⁓ able to share those things. People enjoy that, they look forward to it. ⁓ that's really been a game changer for us. ⁓ How you?

Scott Schaper: I like what you said. Don't complicate it. like to say don't take yourself too seriously. Have a little fun. Enjoy a meal with an employee. Do something for their birthday. That's not the end all be all of culture, but they're just little things that it's a drip of positivity that can imbue in the entire culture. ⁓ Yeah, we do ⁓ one that's next month. Actually, we have anvil con, so our team is fully remote, so we can't get together for lunch like that, which

Brian McMaster: Get.

Scott Schaper: I do enjoy, but once a year we close the office for a week. It's right at one of our quarterly meetings. the, ⁓ everybody travels into Lenexa. We fly everybody in, put them up at a hotel. ⁓ prep that week by telling clients that we're on our annual retreat and let people know we have reduced ⁓ office availability. We don't schedule any, ⁓ you know, web, heavy into that week. That's coming up in one month from today, so around the week of September 15th. But it's three days of culture, but candor, action, and curiosity. Each day has a theme. Those are our core values. And we invite in guest speakers from our industry for lunch, and we talk to them. This time it's a panel. And then we're also traveling to a large roofer in town. having dinner with them. They're a client of ours. We're getting a tour of their plant and sitting down having lunch and cornhole tournaments with that client and coming back to the office. So that's pretty fun.

Brian McMaster: You just freaked out a whole bunch of listeners and you freaked me out too. Closing your company down for one week. sure you gave a whole bunch of people a heart attack. ⁓ ⁓ ⁓

Scott Schaper: no. ⁓ If you got a mission, if you got mission critical and people presence critical companies, you got to adapt. but know, as, marketing companies, we have, I always say there's no marketing emergencies. We can handle everything, the week before. ⁓ And, ⁓ also, ⁓ we also the week loosely. We don't schedule every single minute. So what we want people to do is get up out of their chair when they're in the conference room and for the next session, sit down somewhere else and be next to somebody else because we have work breaks. And so you can stop people will a conference, they're going to check their phone anyway. They're going to check their email anyway. There's always that one client they do want. They want to have a quick check in with. ⁓ so if they're going to do that, we schedule it into the day. So between sessions, we have a 15 minute work block and we ask people Hey, work with the person next to you because you'd never get to see them. So, and then we go through what conversations were started today that you never had before. So it just fosters that curiosity, candor and action that our core values.

Brian McMaster: Well, and what you said there too is important. Communication. Just communicate. Make sure your customers know. Make sure that you a good plan. ⁓ lot of people, think, and I've been guilty of this in the past, you have a great idea and you go in and you're like, hey, we're gonna do this, we're gonna execute this, and there's really no plan. ⁓ the fact that you're communicating to your customers, you're not booking a whole bunch of stuff during that week. There are ways and strategies. It's not like you decided to do this ⁓ week. you've been planning on it for a while. you ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ when it comes to these kind of things, and anything for that matter.

Scott Schaper: I found a stat researching for this episode. Organizations with strong cultures enjoy a 4X revenue growth over time compared to weaker cultural counterparts. Do you think you have better business that hits the balance sheet, bottom line, P &L, because of your culture?

Brian McMaster: Well, I- I don't know if this is a quote I heard somewhere or one I just made up right now, but happy people care. So, you know, if you're, if, people feel like you're investing in them and you are investing in them, I mean, in the long run, they're going to look out for you and they're going to be happy to be part of the organization. Um, you know, maybe they're not going to throw that, that pair of gloves away so quickly or, you know, something along those lines. So what I find is the more we communicate with our employees and the more we, we interact with them and understand them. the more they care about the business. And the more they care about the business, the more they're gonna watch out for the business. And that translates into profitability at the end of the day and happy customers, internal and external customers. it's absolutely, ⁓ know, can we pinpoint a number? Probably not. But I think overall just the feeling in the business been absolutely huge. you know, you, ⁓ I want to say it because there are no bad people, ⁓ but are people who just don't fit, ⁓ right? when you, ⁓ we've this on one of our other podcasts, when people exit the that really don't fit the business ⁓ and you're to do these things to foster interaction between your people, ⁓ you know, undoubtedly translates profitability. in the long run. So, how about yourself?

Scott Schaper: Yeah. Well, I would say go our labor expenses. ⁓ We've during the resignation of 2021, we had a whole bunch of people leave. They left for money. ⁓ Zoom was integrated into every company. ⁓ so a job was a remote job. And they could do that on the coast where salaries were much higher. And then they all came back and trickled back over the next few years. And they said, We want what you guys are doing here. Some people said, I'll take my old salary if you guys have that position still available. And we slowly brought them, them back. ⁓ of our hires this year, we're one for one months to hire. So every month we're bringing on a new people. Half of those have been bounce backs. And we have probably three more that have reached out. Their positions aren't available, but we have, it makes recruiting much easier. when people can talk about a culture their interview. ⁓

Brian McMaster: And know, ⁓ back to the P &L and the labor expense. You know, a lot of people don't know how much it costs them to actually hire and train an employee. ⁓ you, when you talk about bringing a team member on ⁓ ⁓ what it takes to get them up to speed. ⁓ then once they're up to speed to lose them and have turnover, turnover is expensive. And only is it expensive in the fact that you got to retrain and, and you got to go through the hiring process and that type of stuff, ⁓ but also, ⁓ you just expensive and stressful on your team. And, you I I think all that stuff translates into bottom line numbers. it's, and generally I find this too whenever we go into buy a company or whenever we look at partnering with somebody, people typically don't know what it costs to hire an employee. They'll guess, you know, five, $6,000 or something like that. But it turns out to be much more than that in the long run. So.

Scott Schaper: Well, then you go six months of training, six months of reduced productivity with your fingers crossed and a little bit of hope hoping that they really find a great fit into the company and really get you. ⁓ just cause that to happen. Snap your fingers and set somebody loose after training. ⁓ six months of care and feeding to really know are these people, are they going to be a great fit for the company? That's really expensive. That's a huge shot when you're paying somebody.

Brian McMaster: Absolutely. ⁓

Scott Schaper: you know, 60, 70, 80 or more half the year goes into that time. And sometimes they wash out. I want to go back to what you said about happy employees. We see this with our own social media. We don't require employees to, we have a social media posting schedule for our normal marketing activities for our business, but we don't require, like we don't say, you know, Hey Bob, ⁓ Post how it went with that customer post how it went with that arm, you know all these things We don't do that, but our our employees do their own accord talk about a particular win of the company ⁓ got this SEO result up for this plumbing company and I didn't cause that to happen I see it on LinkedIn because ⁓ posting as an employee and I'm just like nobody required this it's because ⁓ They did the SEO work. They did the blog article. And so they are posting about the wins of the client where they were involved. And so this phrase I wrote down, yeah, happy cultural aligned employees become brand advocates, extending your marketing reach through authentic word of mouth and social sharing. That is 100 % evident with us. And so we're getting just eight times the amount of social shares.

Brian McMaster: They're proud.

Scott Schaper: on LinkedIn because of a natural posting schedule that goes beyond what we do for ourselves.

Brian McMaster: Yeah, that's great. You know, hey, I got a question for you. Just something that popped up naturally here. What do you think about the name employees, team members, associates? How do you think that affects culture? mean, do you you? Because because because I have had, know, we just did a podcast on C level execs and, you know, leadership and that kind of stuff, you know, and every time you bring somebody in, they have a different term. It's no, don't call employees, call team members. No, don't call them and team members call them associates. I mean, You know, my first thing there would be to go to our people and say, hey, what do you like? do you think? And then maybe use a majority and kind of go forward from there. But ⁓ was curious what your thoughts are on that.

Scott Schaper: Yeah, it's almost like the phrase like it like at first watch. I was a manager first watch back in the prior life and they didn't call they didn't call customers customers. They called them guests. ⁓ that's wrong. ⁓ are people that pay you money for eggs and stuff. ⁓ ⁓ never charged a guest for eggs at my house. So you can't take them too seriously, but there is an attitude change that

Brian McMaster: Hmm. right.

Scott Schaper: you're treating them like a guest, even though it's still transactional. Everybody has a wink-wink around it. So it's really important as how does that get imbued in how they're treated? It goes to trust, psychological safety. And I think that's what you're trying to do is I treat my people like family members. You know, like to, when they come in town or I go visit them, I like to take them out to eat, see how their family's doing. We keep track of each other's birthdays, kids. ⁓ school events, all sorts of stuff. And that's about knowing what people are going through. I do not want my people struggling. If they're going through a serious problem at home, I want to know about it. And the rules go out the window, whether it be, they are, they already used up their accrued PTO. That doesn't matter to me. ⁓ ⁓ if they want, an early bonus or something like that, it's like, why, why are they asking for this? And so. Yeah, I treat my employees like family. don't want them to struggle. How about you guys? Do you call them employees?

Brian McMaster: Yeah, that's good. good, ⁓ I've called ⁓ people employees since I've been in business. ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ my first ⁓ in business with my uncle, who's my mentor, ⁓ it's always been employees. ⁓ here of late, you know, ⁓ we need to call them associates. ⁓ we need to call them team. I've gone through this in my career many, many times, ⁓ I have trouble getting off of employees because that's what they are. They're employees of the business. How you treat them, that's a different story. I don't think, there are people who treat their employees terribly and there are people who treat their employees very, very well. I don't think it's a matter of what you call them. I think it's a matter of how you treat them and how your culture is. That's really what it boils down to for me. But the 99 % of the world recognizes people who work of business as employees. I sometimes people try to use those buzzwords, know, it's like quality or service or, ⁓ you of those kind of empty words. ⁓ You say it all day long, but if you're not doing it, ⁓ then doesn't...

Scott Schaper: Yeah. They can't be a replacement for the actual treatment.

Brian McMaster: Right, exactly. Yeah, so no matter what. Yep, absolutely. And arguably when you do that, that puts people on guard. ⁓ we're gonna change this. ⁓ sorry to even cut you off there. ⁓

Scott Schaper: People will see through it. People will sniff it out so fast. I wrote down a... 100 % Undo undoing undoing a mistrust is so hard and takes so long Because you do get some trust automatically and so all you have to do is stand up and build on that When they come in the door, I wrote down a few Wrote down a few famous cultural examples of companies around Southwest Airlines has a fun loving culture luv They're I think that's their stock ticker symbol luv

Brian McMaster: Yep, absolutely.

Scott Schaper: So they imbue that cultural word into everything they do. they're quirky, employee first, flight attendants crack jokes ⁓ safety announcements, ⁓ celebrate milestones with costumes, music over the air. And you really feel a sense of, you people are kind of goofing off and laughing ⁓ a community on the plane, right? It's just low fares, but it's kind of the whole fun experience.

Brian McMaster: I believe it is. Yeah, absolutely. It's a different experience flying southwest than it is flying any other airline, for sure. You know what?

Scott Schaper: Yeah. Google has a 20 % for passion projects, 20 % on projects that they're passionate about, even if it doesn't fit their core job, which led to innovations like Gmail, Google Maps, and Google Earth, even though that was an acquisition. There's a lot of personal time. Can you imagine? 20 %? That's one day every business week. That's pretty cool.

Brian McMaster: Absolutely. Yeah, that is pretty cool. but also scary as well, you know, as an owner, it's like, woo, man, 20%. But they get the results. ⁓ absolutely. Hey, just backing up, funny story about Southwest.

Scott Schaper: That's great autonomy. They do.

Brian McMaster: I was on a plane one time and a guy sitting next to me asked the flight attendant, hey you guys wear sneakers and all these comfortable outfits and all this kind of stuff, know, it kind of doesn't look professional. And he goes, just help me out with that, help me understand it. And I was really intrigued and curious as to what the answer was going to be. And she didn't even miss a beat. She said, well, if we had an emergency situation on the plane, would you want me to be in a miniskirt and high heels?

Scott Schaper: Hahaha

Brian McMaster: Perfect, beautiful. No, I'd want you to be in sneakers and comfortable clothes. Put khakis on, get me out of this plane. yeah, that was good. Cool, ⁓ see.

Scott Schaper: Zappos at one point Zappos offered $2,000 to new hires to quit after training if they didn't feel aligned

Brian McMaster: So I knew this going into this, but I've known this for a while. I met Tony Hsieh. I don't know if you know or not, but he passed away. He passed away in a fire. Did you know that? Yeah, so they actually have not only that $2,000 to quit, but they actually have a culture book that they do every year. And I have one of his first culture books. They gave them to him in the seminar we were in.

Scott Schaper: No. No. Hmm.

Brian McMaster: And it was literally just a whole hodgepodge of employees writing things that they liked about the company and things that they did. And they had, you know, costume design winners and, all kinds of stuff. It was very, very fascinating. I think a lot of people are doing that these days where they create culture books. I mean, it's not hard to do. Yeah. So to good old Tony Shay. sometime we have more time. I'll tell you another story about him. ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ ⁓

Scott Schaper: What do you think if somebody asked your employees, what does culture look like at M &M? What do you think your employees would say? By the way, this is a great setup question that business owners who haven't paid attention to culture, that's one question that will get them thinking about how to do that. So what is it for you guys?

Brian McMaster: I think... Over the last couple of weeks, confused. Just being honest. And it just goes to show you how changes in the organization can affect the whole organization.

Scott Schaper: Hmm.

Brian McMaster: But we've gone on this of crusade or this mission. We've always been a 3PL. We've always been pick, pack, and ship and that type of stuff. we're starting to identify ourselves as health and wellness. ⁓ And the business that we're trying to go after, ⁓ supplements ⁓ exercise saunas, those kind of things. ⁓ So we've done is ⁓ we've to ⁓ add things in here and there. Like there's a teeter chair here that people can get into if they want to. ⁓

Scott Schaper: Yeah.

Brian McMaster: rebounders, know, if you have a headache, just rebound for a little bit. ⁓ I would that people would say that it's fun. It's fun to be here. They care about us ⁓ and there the busy times and there are other stressful times. I want to continue to build on that. I'd love to have an ice bath out here. Somebody wants to jump in the ice bath before a meeting or something along those lines. Just quirky and ⁓ just different. Someone told the other day, ⁓ Different is not better, or I'm sorry, better is not better, difference is better. So, you know, it's like, we just want to be different. And I think the bulk of our people would say that, we're different. Well, you gotta have the filtration, you gotta have the stuff, know, the, what do they call it?

Scott Schaper: Mm-hmm. A community employee bathtub. I love it. No, I don't need the filtration. just want to be in commune with my fellow employees.

Brian McMaster: You can only fit one at a time, Scott. I'm sorry to tell you that. You can only get in one at a time. Yeah, this is not a hot tub with wine glasses and that kind of stuff.

Scott Schaper: ⁓ okay, got it. I would say ⁓ I asked myself that question, somebody come to me with the answer and I didn't ⁓ solicit but they were being, I don't know if abuse is the right word, but verbally challenged or kind of over-taught, over-spoke by a client, the kind of know all. ⁓

Brian McMaster: Mm-hmm.

Scott Schaper: just kind of ran them over with their words ⁓ on a call, degrading an abuse are probably a little bit too strong. ⁓ it was constant. When you get some thank yous and you get some of that, that's kind of forgivable, but it was never that. It was always just this one-sided ⁓ trip for the client. And they also slow paid their bills, were difficult to work with, and so I'd let them go. And actually I gave them the choice. said, here are some of the problems that we're having being successful for you. This is all we want is to be more successful for you. These are the problems we have. And if not something that's in it with for you guys, then we'll invite you guys to leave. And they chose to leave 60 days later and they have a, and I offered them so much help ⁓ to say, If you want to keep your websites with us for a few months, those are notorious. We had five websites with us. Those are notoriously difficult. And he actually, the, contact was very, he was surprised that I even said it. but not mad at all. He's like, no, I get it. He's, goes, let me guess you're spending way too much time on these issues and you're not able to bill for them. Correct. And, but my employee called me and he goes, man,

Brian McMaster: we knew.

Scott Schaper: The account team and myself just want to thank you for having our backs on this client because guess what? I was getting ready to hire a new account rep for that team. And so now I made room for, kicked that down the road for at least 90 days because they were soaking up a lot of energy and time ⁓ that team. And now I could kick higher down the road, speaking of saving some cash. And then we offset that with backfilling with our ICP with new clients anyway.

Brian McMaster: And what a jolt to your culture there. mean, you know, you're, your employees are looking up to you and saying, look, thanks for having our back. I mean, that, and they, and they know in the next instance, they can come to you and they can say, Hey, look, we're having an issue with it. And they know it's going to get resolved. But you know, we, we always say we interview our clients just as much as they interview us. if you're not a good fit, ⁓ mean, ⁓ say that all the time. ⁓ look, if it's not a good fit, ⁓ let's part ways and let's, let's make it amicable and we'll move on from there. ⁓ there's.

Scott Schaper: Exactly. Yeah. Right.

Brian McMaster: There's really nothing better for an organization because if you're taking clients that are creating turmoil in your organization It's it's not gonna last long it's gonna just create more problems good ⁓

Scott Schaper: That's a good, ⁓ feels like a good point to take a break. You want to talk about a little product drop on what we're, what are we eating? What are we needing? What are we reading?

Brian McMaster: what kind of tech tool, right? ⁓ Yeah, mine's not gonna be health and wellness today, ⁓ it or not. Yeah, so ⁓ you heard of Remarkable? It's...

Scott Schaper: What kind of tech tool? Hmm. No.

Brian McMaster: So Remarkable is a tablet, just like an iPad or something like that, but you can write on it like a pencil. So it's a tablet, has no clock on it. It does have Wi-Fi so that you can, I tried to do this with my iPad and I'm getting emails and text messages and all this stuff, but basically it's a notebook.

Scott Schaper: Yeah.

Brian McMaster: and I saw a guy had one literally you can write on it like a pencil and it actually writes like paper ⁓ and you could just ⁓

Scott Schaper: And then what happens? gets, you send it as a PDF or what?

Brian McMaster: can ⁓ it to a file, ⁓ it's just basically for note taking. ⁓ like I found myself, I had all these Post-it notes all over the place and all these cards and all the scribble, know, scribble on notepads or ⁓ scribble on pieces of paper that I have on my desk. ⁓ was, there was just no organization to it. And I find what it's doing for me is it's helping me keep things organized. I into meetings without my iPad. I go into meetings lots of times without my

Scott Schaper: Right.

Brian McMaster: I'm just it's just like I have a notepad so I journal in it every day and ⁓ it and highlights it's got color to it but it just doesn't have ⁓ all the apps and all the distractions ⁓ so so basically go into a folder so it has memory in it ⁓

Scott Schaper: and what happens to the notes. Or they just get saved.

Brian McMaster: Yeah, exactly. then you can, it does have Wi-Fi and you can download it to your remarkable app and then you have all your notes in there. So like my journal pages, they just continue to update and if I want to go back and look for something I can. And if you want to highlight it and turn it into text, you can do that as well. So yeah, it's fantastic. So I'd highly, highly recommend it as opposed to an iPad or something along those lines. Yeah, it's really cool device. Remarkable,

Scott Schaper: Remarkable.

Brian McMaster: That's really helped me out tremendously.

Scott Schaper: Because you mark on it once, erase it and re-mark on it again.

Brian McMaster: Exactly. Look at that marketing. See, you got it, man. Tony Robbins was using one of these things when they first came out. I don't think it was remarkable. I think it was some other brand. But I remember probably 25 years ago when I went to my first Tony Robbins event, he had one of these things that he was actually writing on. It was really, really crazy. ⁓ ⁓

Scott Schaper: Well, I was actually about a year ago, maybe a year and a half, I was sitting next to you we had our we had our Visage event at Stevens Place and I liked ⁓ way you were you used a couple a couple ⁓ taking systems from Levenger. Yeah, that I finally have I finally have that system.

Brian McMaster: I remember this. Yeah, yeah. ⁓

Scott Schaper: I write down my sales goals, my closes and the quotes just because that keeps it upfront for the next five days for me. My overall intention for the year and for the next three years, I just rewrite them every day and watch how they morph. But that's, it's pretty cool. But yeah, this, this Levenger system is just on Levenger. It's, can't really see it. It's the Circa system. ⁓ Or you can go online and search for Circa or tool T ⁓ U L. It's the same system.

Brian McMaster: Yep. Yep.

Scott Schaper: And it's just bits and pieces of a notebook. But the nice thing is I had notes all over the place. I had some notes on my desk. I had some post-its. had some Vistage pieces of paper around. And it was driving me nuts. And so now I have kind of, can just flip to my Vistage section, flip to my sales section, and I can move the pages in and out and rearrange them as I see fit. ⁓ But it's nice. I can snap a picture of it, turn it into a text.

Brian McMaster: Yeah.

Scott Schaper: with my note app on iPad and then ⁓ them up to the CRM if I need to. ⁓ that's been kind of nice. ⁓

Brian McMaster: Yeah, it's beautiful. You know, funny story, one of my coaches one time told me, I asked him, ⁓ said, what's best note taking system out there for entrepreneurs? And he the one you use. So I was like, oh, okay, I got it. I understand. But I still do that five things. So I use a note card every day and I write five things that I want to get done that day and I don't add anything else to it unless there's a fire emergency or something like that. But if I do these five things today, this is a good day. They are priority order. They are.

Scott Schaper: Yeah. Are they priority order? And is that from, ⁓ who was that old guy who did our Vistage thing? The old guy, Boz?

Brian McMaster: Yeah, I know who you're talking about. He's like...

Scott Schaper: But he said that, write down five things every day, you're probably gonna get three of them done, so put them in priority order.

Brian McMaster: Yep, absolutely. And then just move them to the next day. I just flip the card over and then I can see, you know, what, but that's the only, right now, that's the only thing I'm writing unless I'm writing in in Remarkable. So just keeps me, my desk looks so much better and it just keeps me on track. So yeah, stuff.

Scott Schaper: Yeah. Cool. I'll drop those links in the show notes so everybody can enjoy those let's get back at it. ⁓ hopefully listeners have found this podcast because they don't have a good culture or ⁓ they've hustling so much they haven't slowed down to create a culture. Usually after two or three, four, five, six employees, you start thinking about culture. When it's you and a person, it hasn't really, you're just trying to get business but

Brian McMaster: All right.

Scott Schaper: get business done. But when you start getting people, that's when a culture happens. And so should people think about when they start thinking about, want to go to a culture ⁓ company.

Brian McMaster: Well, number one, lead by example. that's the, ⁓ know, ⁓ you don't deliberately create a culture, your will find you, right? ⁓ if constantly chaotic and ⁓ you're not things done and you're talking about a whole bunch of stuff, that's the way your team is gonna develop. ⁓

Scott Schaper: You have a culture of chaos.

Brian McMaster: Exactly. Absolutely. So it really does start with the leader. I think ⁓ think the thing we said early in the podcast and the thing that resonates with me is keep it simple. ⁓ know, just just ⁓ could be team huddles in the morning, ⁓ know, for five minutes, ⁓ everybody together, ask questions. And think your culture kind of develops from that. ⁓ But the leader, ⁓ the is the captain of the ship. ⁓ And the captain of the ship doesn't know which direction it's gone, it's going be hard for the people to follow. So I think it's really for me the biggest thing is lead by example.

Scott Schaper: Yeah, leadership sets the tone and also always defend the culture. So, you set the language of the culture, ⁓ like use three core values ⁓ and lot, ⁓ there's lot of, words ⁓ in our manual about those. So ⁓ we're just I always tell people, Hey, be curious. Hey, thanks for taking that action. It doesn't say get consensus. ⁓ It doesn't research until you're blue in the face and that never make a decision. The cultural value is action. I'd rather you take an action, make a mistake, backspace and redo that action because action drives things forward. ⁓ curiosity and candor is something we use every single cultural value is in every ⁓ system the company. ⁓ So could be an employee review. ⁓ Everything the employee review is around candor, action and curiosity. And we're like, ⁓ why you? ⁓

Brian McMaster: That's beautiful.

Scott Schaper: Ask any questions during that time. Right? That's required of you. It's required in our values. have been, I have fired people over cultural issues before ⁓ it's been something that you need to go straight to that person and talk to them about it. And you neglected to do so. That problem got worse.

Brian McMaster: Well, and you're hiring based on that as well. I that's how you're bringing people into your organization. Once you have a culture and you're headed in the right direction, person can change direction in a heartbeat. ⁓ So I hiring based on those values as well is important. ⁓ But other thing too,

Scott Schaper: Uh-uh.

Brian McMaster: you know, not just hiring, but you said you had three company values. You know, a lot of people, they make this so complicated and they have these pages of, you know, this is our mission, this is our goal, you know, all this kind of stuff. It really just needs to be simple. It needs to be simple so everybody understands what it is, everybody understands what it means, and everybody understands what the direction is. I think sometimes we overcomplicate. And that's a big, that's probably a podcast. topic right there over complicating things in business because we do it all the time and that I used to I used to make fun of these CEOs that would go home and read a book and then come in the next day and it was hey we're gonna go do this and then they go home and read another book and then they come in and they change everything around again you know it's just it just doesn't work that way so

Scott Schaper: Yeah, if you're not living those values, mean, you gotta leave the conference room and then view that into every action throughout. Why can't you live the values? If you can't do that, then you've overcomplicated it. Keep it simple so that everybody can walk and lockstep together. But the language of the company, if you're thinking of setting it up, the language of the company, like marketing requires curiosity in our book. So you're always looking for a way to be...

Brian McMaster: Yeah.

Scott Schaper: to be more active with the customer's brand. So are always in, even in our, ⁓ the language of the company, ⁓ language of your service should what your corporate values are. that's, just it natural. Like you said, don't overcomplicate it. Definitely don't use AI to come up with your mission statement. It'll, ⁓ it can give some ideas.

Brian McMaster: Yeah.

Scott Schaper: But make sure it really comes from the heart. because if it doesn't come from the heart, you won't live it. And then everybody will be like, ⁓ yeah, here's our once a month talk about reading the corporate values off the wall.

Brian McMaster: Not only that, but from your team. your team involved. ⁓ do they value? I mean, it's true that the ⁓ and the owner sets the direction of the organization, ⁓ I find that, especially around culture, ⁓ find that getting the employees more involved in developing those things, changing those things around, then there's a degree of ownership. ⁓ know, but hey, I helped create the values of the company, you know? ⁓ ⁓ it really is.

Scott Schaper: I wanted to bring up psychological safety, making sure you're bringing in a safe place to operate as an employee. Companies with high psychological safety experience 27 % reduction in turnover, 76 % more engagement, 50 % more likely to harness diverse ideas. ⁓ it's basically discussing the importance of creating an environment where employees feel safe to share ideas, take risks, and admit their mistakes, just like Just like the company, just like the group that had a problem with this one client, I would not have known that if they didn't come to me. it took us about six weeks to come to an action, but they knew that we were acting on their behalf to protect them. And ⁓ they know for a fact that we have their backs. It's employees first, and not always the client, the customer's always right. The culture's always right.

Brian McMaster: And how many? And how many times in your career, because I know it's happened to me many times as well, how many times in your career do you let a customer go or an employee go and then the rest of the organization comes to you and says, man, they were terrible and they did this and they did that and you know, all that kind of stuff. You know, it's like beat it to the punch. And the way you do that, just like you said, you know, we talk about this in EOS all the time. It's about trust. You build trust within the organization so that you can have these difficult conversations and then they're not difficult anymore. anymore, they're just conversations. Sit down, talk about it. There are always consequences for things, but it doesn't have to be detrimental. It can be like, hey, look, we want to move forward this way, or we want to move forward that way. But if everybody's on the same page, those conversations can be easy. And they don't have to be confrontational. ⁓ I'm finding that a lot as I grow as an entrepreneur and an owner. ⁓ You know, just sit down and have a chat. All it is is a conversation.

Scott Schaper: Also, we would say make sure you're asking your employees for their feedback the business. And so we do surveys throughout the year. Definitely the end of the year survey is a one. But I wrote down five questions that you should start with. Do you feel connected to your company's mission and values in your day-to-day work? And just hear what they have to say. Let them grade that one to five ⁓ and let leave a comment.

Brian McMaster: Mm-hmm.

Scott Schaper: Do you feel comfortable sharing your ideas, feedback, or concerns without fear of negative consequences? Do you recommend this company as a great place to work to your friend or colleague? That's a great one to know. That is the opposite of net promoter score. That's an internal net promoter score. Do you feel recognized in values for the contributions you make? And lastly, do see yourself growing and thriving here over the next few years?

Brian McMaster: Mm, yeah. Those are great questions.

Scott Schaper: And those answers yield so much insight into what your company's thinking about.

Brian McMaster: You know, it's also probably a good time to say when you do these things, when you do the surveys and you do those types of things, a big mistake that people made or make and I have made in the past is not keeping up with them, not answering those questions. I used to have ⁓ a picture. It was a suggestion box and it had a trash can underneath it. And the thing was open, you know, and it was a joke, but a lot of, a lot of leaders and a lot of owners will, yeah, we have a suggestion box.

Scott Schaper: Yeah.

Brian McMaster: and suggestions go on, you know, and then all of a sudden you don't have trust anymore. So we recently had our employees come to us and say, hey, can we get a suggestion box? ⁓ And remember sitting in the leadership meeting and saying, absolutely, I'm on board with it, ⁓ but want to see the process. I want to know how we're going to, ⁓ you we're going to have an employee team. ⁓ Are going to have, you know, what are we going to do to make sure that we're answering these questions? ⁓ So, you ⁓ the up and the follow through with those things is so important. because you destroy trust. ⁓ are great questions. ⁓

Scott Schaper: Yeah, very good. Yeah, there's a, the surveys come out, we spend two starts, ⁓ is our standup meeting on Monday, ⁓ of those, ⁓ a half hour each. We through the survey, what everybody how they responded, the successes, where did the best at. Like, do you have a friend, do you have a work friend at RSM Marketing? Because that ⁓ has a... It's a psychological safety question. Yes, I have someone I can go to and confide in at work. But we have, ⁓ we've developed programs. The next start is about the changes that the leadership team is going to take based on the top three things. And then we let them vote on those or have a say in them. How do you think this program can work? That started a lot of good programs in RSM. RSM cares or charity initiative. Didn't think we were doing enough community involvement. I thought that was great feedback. Let's do that ⁓ Stuff like that. mean it just ask your employees and you know what asking your employees leads to a greater sense of trust that they feel valued just ask

Brian McMaster: Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Love

Scott Schaper: see, ⁓ down to 40 minutes, 45 minutes already. Let's some challenges and talking points. ⁓ If are struggling with their culture at work, how can they get started? What are some advice we can give them going into the next couple of weeks?

Brian McMaster: as to what you said there. Sorry about that.

Scott Schaper: ⁓ that's right. I would say, ⁓ if you're struggling with your culture and you want some, you want to challenge on getting started, come up with a short employee survey. Yes, no rank one to five. Get moving on your culture. You cannot fake culture. That'll be sniffed out so fast. So start by asking your employees get document together and discuss it, dive in and discuss it with them. That's what I would say. Get started.

Brian McMaster: Yeah, and I would also I like what we had together here with some of the, you know, Tony Shay and Zappos and, you know, there's so much information on the Internet. It's like just, just go out and research some cultures, research some success stories and see what other people have done to, change their organizations and to lead their organizations down this road. And, and, know, there's, there's lots of good ideas in those things. So my challenge would be to just go out and to use your terminology, be curious, just be curious about what people are doing and, find successful companies, know, successful companies are going to have good cultures. And when you find that.

Scott Schaper: Mm-hmm.

Brian McMaster: You take something that means something to your organization and model it and it simple. Don't try and boil the ocean, ⁓ I've heard before. Just it happen naturally. ⁓ So that's stuff. ⁓ Love

Scott Schaper: I think the CEO's only job is building and maintaining a culture. Beyond that, it's where does revenue come from and why? And what's the company's direction and vision for the next five years? You can do those very quickly, but culture can't be done quickly. So it becomes your only job that have to get right. You got to get those three things right. Now, you could also do sales. There are some tasks that you can have on a week-to-week basis, supporting this, supporting that. but you got to do those three jobs and one of them is going to be culture. It's where you'll spend most of your time. ⁓ with a clear mission and values. A strong culture starts with clarity ⁓ a company's purpose and values are well defined and consistently demonstrated by leadership. Employees understand not just what they do, but why they do it. And best thing came from your example. We're turning into a health and wellness distribution company. So when you come eat lunch with us, we're going to show you some health and wellness.

Brian McMaster: Absolutely.

Scott Schaper: and come out in the lobby and enjoy health and wellness. I you're imbuing your services into the company. It's brilliant.

Brian McMaster: Yeah, and it's a lot of fun. know, at the end of the day, people to like to come to work, ⁓ because spend ⁓ just much time, if not more, at work than you do with your family. ⁓ So it's ⁓ It's key. ⁓ All

Scott Schaper: All right, that will wrap up this podcast. Reach out on LinkedIn or the spirit health hustle.com website and reach out to Brian or I with any questions, guest ideas or topic ideas you want to hear about. And we'll talk to you next time. Thanks a lot.

Brian McMaster: Awesome. Thanks, brother.

Scott Schaper: Thanks brother.