The Hiring Filter That Changed Everything — Nicholas Ho

0:00 [SPEAKER_01]: I think the most important thing when it comes to company that wants to grow fast is that they need to accept that failure and testing experimentation is the big part of moving you from point aid to point B really quickly and I say the key would really quickly because I think one of things that kills a lot of businesses that they're moving pretty slow. [SPEAKER_00]: Plug into the mind of the world's cutting edge innovators, visionaries, and thought leaders, who are rewriting the rules of sales and success. [SPEAKER_00]: It's your time to make an impact. [SPEAKER_00]: I am your host, Jason Mark Campbell, and this is The Selling With Love podcast.

0:43 [SPEAKER_00]: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Selling With Love podcast. [SPEAKER_00]: It is an absolute privilege and honor that I bring a dear friend, a colleague, a mentor. [SPEAKER_00]: Someone I've looked up to for all the impack that he's done in the world and some of the impack he's done directly with clients that I have personally worked with, where I called upon his knowledge, his resources, his intellect, and his way of seeing businesses from a lens that truly move the needles for more success, more growth, more sales, even if you're not directly looking at sales. [SPEAKER_00]: So if this is sounding like a lot, well brace yourselves because we're going to cover a lot of cool things today. [SPEAKER_00]: If you're somebody that's in a growing organization, you're trying to understand what are the levers you can play with that really optimize growth allows you to see clearly with the focus on.

1:25 [SPEAKER_00]: If you're feeling any kind of overwhelm in your business, thinking there's a thousand things to do and you need that kind of focus. [SPEAKER_00]: He's usually the man that I call to help bring that clarity, so through the episode today, I'm hoping you're going to be inspired to think of things differently, focus on the right things, and allowing you to grow in the process in a beautiful way. [SPEAKER_00]: Nicholas Ho is the guest I'm bringing today. [SPEAKER_00]: We've had a chance to work alongside for many years at Mind Valley, where he was doing optimizations, [SPEAKER_00]: also was growing an entire department to a million dollars within a year while he was there. [SPEAKER_00]: His work with founder has helped develop coaching programs, worked as head of product marketing, head of strategy and operations. [SPEAKER_00]: He's worked with 500 global where he works with small organizations that are looking to get mentored to grow fast, reach profitability and be able to develop some incredible results in the process.

2:12 [SPEAKER_00]: a background in e-commerce that is a lower group as well, and from the clients we've worked together, which is, for example, Teele Swan, helped them launch an entire new product and record time to working with Somal Breath and helping align the leadership team developed discipline and right KPIs. [SPEAKER_00]: He's always been an incredible individual. [SPEAKER_00]: I resource whenever the need is a rise, and so I'm glad that I get to resource him and have this incredible conversation that you will all get to peek into today. [SPEAKER_00]: Nicholas, welcome to the show. [SPEAKER_00]: It's an [SPEAKER_01]: Jason, thank you so much. [SPEAKER_01]: I just want to let the audience know that Jason, and I go way back, we work together in person is not just an interview. [SPEAKER_01]: Like we have collaborated on projects way back then, and right now we still collaborating.

2:54 [SPEAKER_01]: So the things that we're gonna talk about are not theories, there are things that we really put our hands on it. [SPEAKER_01]: and we're in the battlefield every single day working on things together so there's no theory that we can talk about and also Jason is far too kind with his words. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm also like other people where we're just trying to figure it out and I'm here happy to share some of my experience and also looking forward to learning from you and also from Jason as well. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I'm going to jump right into it because you said something in that statement that I think is worth expanding. [SPEAKER_00]: You talked about how we've both been in the trenches together, which basically insinuates that being in business can sometimes be like war. [SPEAKER_00]: And I just want to talk about that like when you work at organization, are we seeing that to grow?

3:38 [SPEAKER_00]: It is requiring us to be so prepared mentally to work hard and that things really get tough in the grind. [SPEAKER_01]: I wouldn't say that you have to prepare mentally that things are going to be hard because you know that things are going to be hard. [SPEAKER_01]: I think business is also just like life. [SPEAKER_01]: Like you don't anticipate the hardship. [SPEAKER_01]: You know that will be hardship. [SPEAKER_01]: But you're just there, you know that it's gonna come. [SPEAKER_01]: But it is how we act to that hardship that really matters. [SPEAKER_01]: And when we talk about for example, businesses war, like this is the narrative that a lot of people are just linking business and war together. [SPEAKER_01]: I think it works for them, specifically if they have that narrative, I wouldn't say is wrong.

4:20 [SPEAKER_01]: For me, it's like one of my leadership coach, which is saying that you've got a distinct between business and war, because in war, there's a lot of things to be lost, and some of the losses are permanent, lives, blood, whatever, but in business is actually not the case. [SPEAKER_01]: If you're feeling one business, or you're feeling one campaign, you're not going to lose your life. [SPEAKER_01]: So I think the magnitude of the impact is a little bit different, so again, [SPEAKER_01]: If you want that narrative that, you know, business is brutal or it's a war, it's up to you. [SPEAKER_01]: For me, I see it more like a passion, like I really like helping companies to grow and really like working with people. [SPEAKER_01]: I have a passion of working with people and seeing how they can help me grow at the same time, how I can help them grow as well.

5:00 [SPEAKER_01]: So, I think the story that you're telling yourself with the narrative is actually important. [SPEAKER_01]: For me, business is fun, it's passionate, it's exciting, it is going to be tough, but just like anything alive, I do not know anything in life, there's not tough. [SPEAKER_01]: But knowing that toughness is not the same as trying to perceive it negatively. [SPEAKER_01]: I think for me, you can still perceive it in a positive way, as you try to make the best of that situation. [SPEAKER_00]: You know what I find very funny, Nick, is knowing through the years I've always expected you and seeing you in roles where you're very numbers driven. [SPEAKER_00]: And you are, like you often just focus on P&L, focus on results. [SPEAKER_00]: But I feel like underneath it all, you actually have a lot of mindset work that goes into play.

5:43 [SPEAKER_00]: And I'd be curious to know how much of your time or your developing yourself is dedicated toward understanding numbers more or to actually work on your mindset to operate within the realm of business. [SPEAKER_01]: I wouldn't compartmentalize the whole thing. [SPEAKER_01]: I wouldn't say like 50% this and 50% that. [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's a merger of both. [SPEAKER_01]: I don't see it as mutually exclusive. [SPEAKER_01]: I think both are really important. [SPEAKER_01]: Because sometimes when you put your hands on doing the work itself, you're looking at the numbers. [SPEAKER_01]: But when you're trying to analyze the numbers, [SPEAKER_01]: you're also looking beyond the numbers, you're looking at, for example, operations, you're looking at a team profile, you're looking at the talent, and you're trying to dive deep into who these people are, like, what does the SKU set?

6:25 [SPEAKER_01]: And most importantly, how do they think about stuff, how do they perceive about things, right? [SPEAKER_01]: So if I would put in differently, [SPEAKER_01]: I think that's a frame we'll call leading in a kidder and lagging a kidder in business. [SPEAKER_01]: And if you put it from the perspective of numbers, lagging a kidder or something like revenue, things that you get later on after you do something, and revenue something that you cannot predict, you can't project, but you cannot predict. [SPEAKER_01]: And most people are focusing on the laggy-necated revenue, but the leading indicator are the things that you do right now that leads to the revenue. [SPEAKER_01]: For example, in some of our business model, in the coaching industry, like leads are the leading indicator, right? [SPEAKER_01]: The book calls.

7:06 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, when we have more book calls, we would have hypothetically more revenue. [SPEAKER_01]: So we'll look at that from the lands of leading versus lagging from the lands of numbers that said, right? [SPEAKER_01]: don't really think about is, if you take a step out and you look at business as a whole, and ask yourself this question, what are the leading indicator in business and what are the lagging indicator? [SPEAKER_01]: So lagging indicator, again, is simple, it's running, okay? [SPEAKER_01]: All business has to work towards a certain target. [SPEAKER_01]: But leading indicator, if you think about from the perspective of your organization, is actually the amount of talents that you have is the people. [SPEAKER_01]: And if we go a little bit further, people might be the lagging indicator from that human resource perspective.

7:50 [SPEAKER_01]: But the mindset is the leading indicator. [SPEAKER_01]: You can't have a lot of people, but is the mindset leading us to a better place. [SPEAKER_01]: So I would say that the mindset and the numbers are intertwined. [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think they're mutual excuses. [SPEAKER_01]: And if you speak to different type of people, [SPEAKER_01]: They tend to try to micro in a certain narrative and they tie the narrative to the own identity. [SPEAKER_01]: And that's the biggest thing I discover. [SPEAKER_01]: For example, if you talk to the numbers person, you'll be like, I only care about numbers. [SPEAKER_01]: I don't care about the mindset and all these BS stuff. [SPEAKER_01]: If you talk to a person that is born mindset driven, they'll tell you, mindset is important because how do you produce the number without the mindset?

8:31 [SPEAKER_01]: So, then you have people on the left and people on the right and they're constantly tussling with each other with their own narrative, but it's not about the narrative that matter, it's about how do you actually have both, so they're both correct in their own perspective of things. [SPEAKER_01]: So the question for us is how do we use both to our advantage? [SPEAKER_01]: So you want to have the numbers, you want to analyze, you want to be numbers driven, but you also will need to have the right mindset to analyze the numbers, and you also have the right mindset to look beyond things beyond the numbers. [SPEAKER_01]: That's how you look at things in the deeper way beyond just my coin to one thing. [SPEAKER_00]: I have a beautiful example of our work together that seems to demonstrate that because you're always looking like in conversations we've had you look at numbers to see trends to see exactly what's happening but I've also seen you reframe whenever there's been a failure which for some people again we're not dealing with war we're dealing with business failure didn't mean a loss of life it could be a campaign that failed but you reframe that in a way that each of these failures are quite a learning opportunity and that actually changes the narrative of [SPEAKER_00]: I'd be curious to like where that mindset come from from reframing these failures and what benefits does it have when you start looking at them as learning instruments.

9:44 [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely. [SPEAKER_01]: I would say probably let's go way back then. [SPEAKER_01]: I think when we were working together with mind-value at the time, one of the biggest learning that I had at the time because we were working with vision this year at the time. [SPEAKER_01]: And in my four years, four and a half years there, one thing I really learned from him and it's stuck to being right now is he move on really fast from failure. [SPEAKER_01]: I still remember that was a story where I was launching a campaign. [SPEAKER_01]: It was like an online summit campaign and at that time, it made like 200 grand, which is relatively lower to other campaigns that we were running. [SPEAKER_01]: 200 grand might be an amazing number for a lot of companies, but relative to what we're doing at that time, it was a failure.

10:24 [SPEAKER_01]: So naturally, I wanted to do more. [SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to improve the campaign. [SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to take it the next level the next time. [SPEAKER_01]: And what he told me at the time was that Nick is done. [SPEAKER_01]: Let's move on. [SPEAKER_01]: That's like five seconds. [SPEAKER_01]: And I was shocked. [SPEAKER_01]: I was like, what are you talking about? [SPEAKER_01]: Why are you asking me to move on? [SPEAKER_01]: I just want to improve this. [SPEAKER_01]: But later on, as I was young at a time, I think when I left, I was 26 years old. [SPEAKER_01]: So from my 23 to 26, I was working with one of the top CEO at that time. [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm not afraid to give credit because there's a lot of things that I inherited from working my value and specifically all the smart people at that time in the formative years of my life in my career.

11:07 [SPEAKER_01]: and I extracted that lessons and I brought it to the other companies that I was working with. [SPEAKER_01]: And I was then much more mature and less emotional about failure. [SPEAKER_01]: And as I grow older and recently, I'm 37 right now, recent years and the last two years, I started doing a lot more on health optimization. [SPEAKER_01]: I wouldn't say a biohacking but health optimization. [SPEAKER_01]: And the more I do it, the more I've like, actually, it doesn't really mean anything if it fails. [SPEAKER_01]: For example, if you try out a supplement or like you change your macros or you change your workout, you go into that with a mindset of experimentation and experimentation or mental fail, because failure, according to my coach, is actually not a failure.

11:51 [SPEAKER_01]: A failure is actually an information that you get from it, that you can carry forward to inform your next decision. [SPEAKER_01]: So the mindset reframe from what I just talked about from help perspective and also from business perspective is that [SPEAKER_01]: People place a lot of like emotional baggage and are so grief on us from failure of something, but failure are not meant to tie you up. [SPEAKER_01]: It's meant to be a lesson for you to move forward. [SPEAKER_01]: So that reform is actually critical. [SPEAKER_01]: And if you think about it, most people will be focusing too much on the failure. [SPEAKER_01]: And the time from failure to moving on is longer. [SPEAKER_01]: But once you move on, most people then forget about the failure, and this is why this is again comes in.

12:34 [SPEAKER_01]: That you shouldn't forget about the failure because you technically paid for that lesson with a lot of money, your time and also the effort that you put in. [SPEAKER_01]: So from operational perspective, when campaign is done and is done generating the results that you want, that should actually be a post-mortem to learn other lessons just so you can analyze and bring the lesson forward. [SPEAKER_01]: And if you do that enough times, you can replicate successes pretty quickly at a lower cost. [SPEAKER_01]: You can also take the failure and turn it into successes that as time goes by, we actually pay you back more that just the failure itself at a time. [SPEAKER_01]: So it really depends on how you see failure.

13:16 [SPEAKER_01]: And for most people, failure is like, end up the war, it's actually not. [SPEAKER_01]: If you do a mental weight frame, it's actually wanting to leading to another. [SPEAKER_01]: So there's no such thing as failure. [SPEAKER_01]: It's this information leading to the next action. [SPEAKER_00]: To me, this is such a great takeaway because when you see that a failure is an investment in your learning it's such an easier way to navigate it and something I really retain from you and I see this fear of failure or fear of rejection and [SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot that's on the line and you don't want to appear as someone who failed. [SPEAKER_00]: It seems more personal, it seems more high anxiety when you're doing all this testing and you're running these campaigns, you're putting yourself out there as a business owner.

13:58 [SPEAKER_00]: So any of the failures you have, [SPEAKER_00]: The public gets to see and I'm curious to know if this is a personal thing that you work with new founders and people who start up taste ages to overcome because I see so many evidences that when you get started that fear prevents you from actually doing bold moves, taking risks and actually putting yourself out there to ask for the sale to follow up with somebody because that resistance exists. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, everything is mental because I'm not afraid to admit that when I was younger, failure is a big thing for me. [SPEAKER_01]: So I see failure as death and as I go on more therapy work, the mental reframe came in now.

14:43 [SPEAKER_01]: It's like failure is not really death. [SPEAKER_01]: It's death often idea, but it felt like a death in the body, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And a lot of people that fear is bigger than anything in life. [SPEAKER_01]: And as time goes by and I read something on X yesterday, and that person sees something like this, perfection is self-pubuse at the highest order. [SPEAKER_01]: When I learned about this, I was like, man, this is completely different perspective because I was and still am a perfectionist, but as time goes by, maybe you got a lot more mature, maybe life is showing you a different path and etc. [SPEAKER_01]: when I was younger everything has to be perfect and the failure felt like death and the failure felt like that you cannot recover from it and it felt stuck like it's almost like you stop but as time goes by I see failure as okay it's an information and what is the next best thing the next best thing is you take immediate action to rectify it because once failure happens momentum can basically overcome that fear pretty quickly [SPEAKER_01]: Because if momentum's are not there, action is not there, you're then consistently stuck in the failure with the failure, the feeling of failure.

15:56 [SPEAKER_01]: That mode, you're stuck there, because there's no action. [SPEAKER_01]: So the best way to overcome it is to actually think about the next thing that you can take immediate, even if it is a small thing and move on from there. [SPEAKER_01]: So that's what I'm like. [SPEAKER_01]: Second thing is that you also want to [SPEAKER_01]: Basically, surround yourself with people that are almost like you like they go to the next level and they're willing to test and they're showing you a completely different perspective about testing. [SPEAKER_01]: And how testing actually helps you to move forward. [SPEAKER_01]: And failure again, it's just one of the information. [SPEAKER_01]: So testing equals action, action equals momentum momentum equals getting yourself out of that failure mode pretty quickly. [SPEAKER_00]: Nick, I'm so glad you opened up around that because this fear is in so many people, and we've had the luxury of working with individuals from around the world, whether they're from Asia, Europe, North and South America, and God, I have to say one of the things Americans do right.

16:53 [SPEAKER_00]: is they are so action-oriented with such less fear of failure than any other culture I've seen in the world. [SPEAKER_00]: And I remember listening to an audio book and ah, I feel heartbroken that I cannot credit the right source. [SPEAKER_00]: But if you use a sales... [SPEAKER_00]: incredible sales American sales person who really spoke about how a lot of the world has American products in their hands because they're so good at selling. [SPEAKER_00]: They have no fear of putting themselves out there. [SPEAKER_00]: But I've seen Europeans have a lot of fears of rejection, fear of failure. [SPEAKER_00]: Southeast Asia, oh my god, this need to have good grades and the way that we raise people through the education system almost makes a strife or perfection, right?

17:34 [SPEAKER_00]: Aside from the therapeutic work that you've done, have you seen business be a mechanism that helps you break patterns to be able to be more comfortable with failure in the process? [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely, and I think it stems from, more often than not, it stems from the CEO or the founder themselves. [SPEAKER_01]: I think that's the saying that the CO is 80% of the company's culture. [SPEAKER_01]: And if the company's culture or leadership team has a fear of failure, what that means is that limiting belief is then capping the potential of the team. [SPEAKER_01]: So you can have a team where, you know, they are adventures that they want to innovate and want to try new things and etc.

18:17 [SPEAKER_01]: But in the leadership team or the CEO himself or herself, like a fearful of failing, basically there's no way out because they are the final decision maker, they are the culture, right? [SPEAKER_01]: So that's that. [SPEAKER_01]: So I think the most important thing when it comes to company that wants to grow fast is that they need to accept that failure and testing and experimentation is the big part of [SPEAKER_01]: moving you from point A to point B really quickly and I say the key would really quickly because I think one of the things that kills a lot of businesses that they're moving pretty slow. [SPEAKER_01]: So they have an idea, they implement it, they do not adapt, they do not learn from the failure, they're consistently stuck there.

18:58 [SPEAKER_01]: versus a lot more companies right now. [SPEAKER_01]: We're seeing a lot of big billion dollar companies. [SPEAKER_01]: I do not think that they get bigger just by pure luck. [SPEAKER_01]: It's a lot of testing and a lot of failure, right? [SPEAKER_01]: So company culture to me is number one in helping people to express their potential. [SPEAKER_01]: I'll give you another example. [SPEAKER_01]: And I say this with a very loving heart. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm a big fan of, for example, Japan. [SPEAKER_01]: And that's a lot of things about Japan where they do a very well. [SPEAKER_01]: For example, the culture of respecting people, space, cleniness, being precise with things, and caring about other people's feeling, and etc. [SPEAKER_01]: But one of the things that I would say played them in the past 34 years in the economy, and you can see the numbers go down, and how the optimism of the populations are no longer there, is the fear of failure.

19:52 [SPEAKER_01]: right? [SPEAKER_01]: It's almost like if you talk to someone they are there regardless of whether or not they're Japanese or their non-Japanese. [SPEAKER_01]: If they are the type where they're adventurous, they're innovative, they want to try new things. [SPEAKER_01]: And because that is outside of the form of the general population, they are considered different and different to the masses are [SPEAKER_01]: foreign and when the ideas foreign they fear and when they fear they start rejecting it, right? [SPEAKER_01]: So after World War II and this is some history after World War II with the help of Americans they actually built the country pretty quickly and there were a lot of innovations that came from Japan. [SPEAKER_01]: All the games, consoles and all the culture, [SPEAKER_01]: that they exported all the enemies and stuff like that when I grow up at the time in Southeast Asia, they are the biggest economy at the time in my teenage years and out of a sudden and in only the last one years, things started to flip because there's another competitor that came up and it was China.

20:56 [SPEAKER_01]: and they learn by copying and they copy and then from there they improve upon it and they go out from there and I think the governance structure there is basically encouraging a lot of innovations. [SPEAKER_01]: So you're seeing two civilisations and again I really like history and I observe people. [SPEAKER_01]: So this is in a context of country but it applies to companies as well. [SPEAKER_01]: That the culture that's being created doesn't enable innovations [SPEAKER_01]: there's actually no way out and you can see that manifest as numbers in terms of GDP or in the context of company in terms of growth where it's either stagnated or that is ghost all the way down and if you're on the ground again I have all the love for my Japanese friends and the country but if you go on the ground there's a compounded effects [SPEAKER_01]: that skills to the masses where if people are trying to fearful, every people, every one they're stuck to fear.

21:51 [SPEAKER_01]: And when that fear is overwriting the whole population, you're actually stuck. [SPEAKER_01]: That's no way for you to innovate. [SPEAKER_01]: And it's a downward spiral from there. [SPEAKER_01]: And like you said, the Americans are like, they try everything out. [SPEAKER_01]: And failure is just part of the game. [SPEAKER_01]: And you're not afraid to sell data, not afraid to innovate. [SPEAKER_01]: And you see in the start market, [SPEAKER_01]: a lot of Americans, regardless of how they get there, that's a lot of innovative products. [SPEAKER_01]: If we talk about AI right now, it's an arm race between the Americans and the Chinese, but what about other big countries too? [SPEAKER_01]: That's a lot of countries in the world. [SPEAKER_01]: What about them? [SPEAKER_01]: So for me, the culture is critically important. [SPEAKER_01]: It's actually number one, [SPEAKER_01]: And if you're part of the culture you are by default absorbing a certain way of thinking and certain way of doing things from the masses, can you break free from it?

22:44 [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely. [SPEAKER_01]: Does it take you more courage to break free from it? [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely, yes, as well. [SPEAKER_01]: So if you don't want to, then you've got to go or position yourself in an environment where a half the values that you want, and that makes it easy for you to try new things and go beyond what you already know. [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, that was absolutely lovely. [SPEAKER_00]: So I want to dig a little more on this because, you know, we talked about how number of leads, number of calls booked in some sort of coaching business are great leading indicators. [SPEAKER_00]: And so for anybody who's numbers driven wants to drive revenue to like, okay, well, when I do activities that gets me better marketing to get more leads that are qualified and they, I, I set up systems, they book more calls, the sales team, we can optimize to get people to actually book.

23:29 [SPEAKER_00]: We've done this. [SPEAKER_00]: We do this a lot. [SPEAKER_00]: what you spoke there around culture and around mindset being some of the leading indicators for the other part of the question that's just as important. [SPEAKER_00]: I'd be very curious to know like what is the types of is it values or mindset that would indicate a healthy culture [SPEAKER_00]: Versus ones that could indicate that ooh things are maybe not going in the right direction and I think this fear failure We've already kind of poked around a lot that that's probably a negative one, but it'd be curious to know what are we striving for here? [SPEAKER_01]: I think the word is values, and I talk a lot about it in my social media posts. [SPEAKER_01]: If we talk about a company setting, right, we just talk about country setting, let's go down a level and let's talk about a company setting.

24:18 [SPEAKER_01]: A company setting, a company means you have a group of people trying to achieve a certain thing, whatever that thing is, right? [SPEAKER_01]: for a lot of companies and if they have leadership coach or that they have bintuan leadership programs who are coaching before one of the things that they will define is I have a mission, I have a vision and I also have values like these are pretty standard along the years what I figure out is that people will spend a ton of time trying to define all the sting in the most fancy way possible and they will debate it up [SPEAKER_01]: But once they've finished debating, it doesn't first it doesn't go to anywhere in the company's wiki or the knowledge base, so there's nothing solid about it.

24:59 [SPEAKER_01]: So that means there's no way to implement or execute. [SPEAKER_01]: The second thing is that living the value itself requires a lot of discipline and also belief that you are really believing in those values. [SPEAKER_01]: And in a company that you are recruiting people in, [SPEAKER_01]: and they might not share the same value with you, they have different mindset and that's totally okay because you're one diversity in opinion diversity in mindset. [SPEAKER_01]: But I think that at the most fundamental level, the people that you recruit should share the same core values that you're striving for. [SPEAKER_01]: For example, I tend to help companies to define the values and top three values you can have five you can have ten is up to you.

25:40 [SPEAKER_01]: I would help them to define top three because it's easy to remember. [SPEAKER_01]: And let's say one of the values is about innovations. [SPEAKER_01]: And if you use that in your day-to-day, how does that look like? [SPEAKER_01]: And if a lot of people don't know, right? [SPEAKER_01]: So let's go back to the case of what we were talking on the sales team. [SPEAKER_01]: If we define innovation as company's value, [SPEAKER_01]: And when sales are not going to the path where we want it to be, so none of them are not reflecting. [SPEAKER_01]: As we go into sales meaning, we're trying to promise self. [SPEAKER_01]: And if people don't speak up, there'll be some, there'll be different type of profile. [SPEAKER_01]: Try people to speak up, have a lot of ideas. [SPEAKER_01]: People that don't speak up, and then people that don't care.

26:20 [SPEAKER_01]: Hopefully you don't have that type of people that don't care. [SPEAKER_01]: Okay? [SPEAKER_01]: But if the value is about innovations, the question we can ask the team is that if our values are innovations and we should be innovative, what is it that we're not doing? [SPEAKER_01]: That is causing us not to be able to hit the target that we want. [SPEAKER_01]: So with that type of question, [SPEAKER_01]: It helps us to start thinking about solutions. [SPEAKER_01]: So the value itself is actually a tool to govern. [SPEAKER_01]: It's a governance structure, but it's also a tool to bring people together to problem solve. [SPEAKER_01]: So it's not something where you just define. [SPEAKER_01]: And one or two hours with a leadership coach and you just put it out, just put it there or for a lot of people, they just don't put it anywhere.

27:03 [SPEAKER_01]: It's actually an amazing governance tool. [SPEAKER_01]: So let's link back to, for example, what we taught our country. [SPEAKER_01]: You might not have the values clearly written in your, for example, constitution, but by large, people that goes to a certain group, they must share a certain values because that's how people gravitate with each other, right? [SPEAKER_01]: They might not have something written, but they do share the same value. [SPEAKER_01]: And if there are innovative, that group will be innovative. [SPEAKER_01]: And if they value something else, that group will value something else. [SPEAKER_01]: So it's no different than in company setting. [SPEAKER_01]: The only difference is that actually income is setting, you have control, which is the great name.

27:44 [SPEAKER_01]: And control means that if you value innovations in your hiring process, in your vetting process, during hiring, you can actually ask questions based on the value that you have defined. [SPEAKER_01]: For example, if you're hiring a salesperson that you want a salesperson to not own equals sales, but to come up with innovative ideas, [SPEAKER_01]: You can ask the person doing the hiring processes. [SPEAKER_01]: They say, tell me some of the biggest innovations that you have done in your sales row in the past five years and that gets talking and if they don't talk about it and they don't know about it, that means that they don't have that value, they don't share the same value as you. [SPEAKER_01]: They might have it, they might not implement it.

28:25 [SPEAKER_01]: Right, but if they do have some stories in K-30, that is actually one of the ways where you can start betting people and bring in the best people that share the same value as you. [SPEAKER_01]: Now, that is about value, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And we top our filtering and recruiting some of the best people using value as a filtering tool. [SPEAKER_01]: That's also what I call the negative list. [SPEAKER_01]: In a company setting, resources are scarves. [SPEAKER_01]: Doesn't matter how big your company is, how rich your company is, your company always have resource limits. [SPEAKER_01]: So what that means is that if you have a certain resources, you can only hire two salesperson. [SPEAKER_01]: Ideally, you want to have more, but you can only hire two.

29:05 [SPEAKER_01]: The question is, how do you basically find the best two? [SPEAKER_01]: For a lot of people, [SPEAKER_01]: They look at the resume and the CVs and like districts and have this Q sets, that's Q set, whatever this experience comes in. [SPEAKER_01]: I find that not to work. [SPEAKER_01]: In fact, in some of my previous rows, we hiring based on technical skills. [SPEAKER_01]: It almost feels most of the time. [SPEAKER_01]: And we will wonder why we will like, how can we hear someone that shares the same value and still perform at the same time? [SPEAKER_01]: We were questioning it. [SPEAKER_01]: And we were working with a leadership coach at that time. [SPEAKER_01]: And it was a game changer. [SPEAKER_01]: And he asks, what is your value? [SPEAKER_01]: And then we figured that part out. [SPEAKER_01]: And we'd like, why not be used value as one of the few twin two during the hiring process to get the best people that shares the same value as us?

29:56 [SPEAKER_01]: So, we are basically increasing the probability of hiring success by using value as a filtering tool. [SPEAKER_01]: And this was not talked about, I've never heard anybody talking about it. [SPEAKER_01]: I just never heard about it, but once we implemented it, it works like amazing. [SPEAKER_01]: So that's how I figure out that actually values a still number one-two in hiring. [SPEAKER_01]: And again, going back to the things that we talked about, it's a leading indicator. [SPEAKER_01]: The downstream impact is a lag indicator. [SPEAKER_01]: So people focus mostly on the downstream impact, the lag indicator, hey, did you hit this December? [SPEAKER_01]: Did you do this? [SPEAKER_01]: Did you do that? [SPEAKER_01]: How can, if you don't, how can I manage you in a way that you can do that? [SPEAKER_01]: How can I lead you? [SPEAKER_01]: But the most of the heavy lifting is actually in the beginning.

30:38 [SPEAKER_01]: It's in the type of profile that they're hiring. [SPEAKER_01]: If you hire the right profile, downstream impact will be fun. [SPEAKER_01]: You'll get the results that you want. [SPEAKER_01]: There'll be lesser problems. [SPEAKER_01]: But if you're hiring people that doesn't share the same value, downstream impact will be a lot of work. [SPEAKER_01]: management. [SPEAKER_01]: Not even leadership is management, and also trying to get the person to perform and more often than not is about performance managed at percent out, which is the switching cost for the leader. [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I follow a lot of news in an industry that I think is quite mature and has some of the most sophisticated marketing and sales departments and PR departments and this is the video game industry and there's a recent and I forget the name of the studio, but they released a game called war dogs, but what I find very interesting is they're quite transparent with how they communicate, so transparency seems to be a value in how that they they operate.

31:26 [SPEAKER_00]: And one of the things they shared is some of the values that they use when it comes to the hiring process. [SPEAKER_00]: And one of them is they talk about how, if you're a part of this organization, we work really hard. [SPEAKER_00]: You will have over time, you will have crunch time when we're about to ship a product. [SPEAKER_00]: If you're not somebody that wants to do any of that, this is not a company to work with. [SPEAKER_00]: And what's interesting is you combine the transparency, you combine the declaration of the value and they've attracted an incredible team and they've had a very successful launch recently. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, that being said, they've also had some negative press of people that went and being like, oh my god, they're demanding over time.

32:10 [SPEAKER_00]: negative press about it, and they came up and being like, what the hell are you doing? [SPEAKER_00]: Like, this is our culture. [SPEAKER_00]: This is what we're being honest about. [SPEAKER_00]: We know, and then it started attracting more of the kinds of people that want to be proud of the product that they ship. [SPEAKER_00]: So even that negative press ended up being great for them. [SPEAKER_00]: And that could have been very scary if you weren't prepared to understand what that means being transparent. [SPEAKER_00]: The fact that [SPEAKER_00]: you're doing something different and you gotta be kind of prepared for that, right? [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely, but I think this is something that I felt is unfortunate in this world right now and I think this goes out to your audience on YouTube and I'm just gonna say it in the most loving and honest way possible.

32:56 [SPEAKER_01]: That [SPEAKER_01]: Having the freedom of having opinion doesn't mean that you're correct. [SPEAKER_01]: So I think the Western world, to some extent, and a lot of part of the war right now, because the value of being politically correct became something where people felt like it's a correct thing to do. [SPEAKER_01]: And in the case that you're just talking about, where some of people are bashing and disagreeing with the company, [SPEAKER_01]: And this is what one of my role model, Capon mentioned in his name is Mr. Lee Kwon, you the founder of Singapore. [SPEAKER_01]: And he says something like this, I'm not interested to be politically correct.

33:38 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm interested in being correct. [SPEAKER_01]: That's one. [SPEAKER_01]: and turn out, being politically correct doesn't always mean that you're correct, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And being politically correct is correct in the context of the narrative that's driving the trend at a time, but trend is always, I wouldn't say always, but trend is not necessarily correct, okay? [SPEAKER_01]: And something that is actually correct more often than not counter-innovative [SPEAKER_01]: But that's the downside. [SPEAKER_01]: The upside is that it's good for you, right?

34:18 [SPEAKER_01]: So that's one thing. [SPEAKER_01]: And who is it to say that if this company is going to go down, let's say, if this company is going to go down, will these people be accountable for the narrative? [SPEAKER_01]: They won't. [SPEAKER_01]: So that goes to the next thing. [SPEAKER_01]: that people have to understand that your opinions has to be paired with accountability. [SPEAKER_01]: I kept mentioning to the people around me that your opinion don't matter unless you are accountable for it. [SPEAKER_01]: So if you're not part of that organization where you're in the trenches, where you're trying to survive, where you're trying to do good work, where these people are happy, and you're responsible for the well-being. [SPEAKER_01]: After people are in the hospital, your opinion actually don't matter.

35:01 [SPEAKER_01]: But in the modern world right now, with emergence of internet and everything, everybody has an opinion. [SPEAKER_01]: And the worst thing is that everybody felt that they are correct. [SPEAKER_01]: But you're not correct until you're accountable because unless you're in that situation. [SPEAKER_01]: And you are forced to make a certain decision. [SPEAKER_01]: Because life is not perfect, but your force makes them in the decision, and your forced away to pros and cons. [SPEAKER_01]: You are not qualified to comment, you can have your own opinion, you can comment, but you're not in the person's shoes. [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm going to say this in an open, but the more loving way that being politically correct, based on transit narrative is not necessary correct.

35:41 [SPEAKER_00]: Probably the result of a lot of the crap we have to deal with in the world today. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Nick, we've explored a locked on this conversation and honestly, I'm just in all, I'm inspired, we've touched on history, we've touched on culture, we touched on numbers, and we touched on a realm of fears that really can hold people back, whether they're in a position where they're leading a team, want to join an organization, or they're personally running their own company. [SPEAKER_00]: And one of the things I wanted to [SPEAKER_00]: kind of mention is going back to your history around, you know, Japanese and some of the values that might not drive the innovation that they're looking to create in the country, moving an entire country pretty tough because everybody opted in.

36:25 [SPEAKER_00]: Everyone is hired. [SPEAKER_00]: If you're in a large organization, there's a lot of leading indicators that can allow you to filter the kinds of people with a line values that can bring results and build the culture, which is a great indicator. [SPEAKER_00]: You're maybe a solo printer or maybe you just have a couple of hires, you probably have a lot of advantages today on your side to be able to shape your culture, shape your emotional maturity and even use the tools that are at our disposal now to make greater impact with more ease than ever before. [SPEAKER_00]: What do you feel about a statement like that? [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's almost correct, but it's also contextual.

37:05 [SPEAKER_01]: Again, I think it depends on the profile of the founder and the Odyssey or Himo herself, because what you mentioned on the resources, the advantages. [SPEAKER_01]: If we compare what we have relatively right now then to say 20 years ago, it is a vastly different world. [SPEAKER_01]: We have abundance of information, we have abundance of opportunities, we have abundance of connections. [SPEAKER_01]: And one thing that I read online again, I'm not too sure it is true, but it seems like it makes sense. [SPEAKER_01]: Someone says that, why is it that we're much more connected right now in terms of technology at this age? [SPEAKER_01]: But how come we're much more disconnected as a human being? [SPEAKER_01]: And that's the contrast.

37:47 [SPEAKER_01]: right, we can't contact anybody in the world right now when we didn't one second, but the human and human relationship is not, you know, as in the past. [SPEAKER_01]: Again, I'm not sure if that statement is correct, but it got me thinking that you might have more resources right now and option use connections, whatever routes you've did 20 years ago, but that resources and option are also in other people's hand. [SPEAKER_01]: So, there's someone else like yourself that have access to the same resources. [SPEAKER_01]: So, the differentiator right now is more of, again, without sounding who or anything like that, how you think about stuff, you remind that, right? [SPEAKER_01]: Two people will look at one thing and have ten tons of different perception about that one thing.

38:30 [SPEAKER_01]: Second thing, which is the most important thing, is implementation. [SPEAKER_01]: So we can have all the resources, but if you don't implement, you're not going to know what works for you, and hence you're not going to know whether or not you can adapt from that failure or that whether or not that's failure in the first place because most people don't even get started. [SPEAKER_01]: So for me, the key right now is more, again, how you perceive and think about stuff, second thing is all about implementation right now. [SPEAKER_01]: The knowledge to connection anything, it don't meet anything unless they're being implemented and the depth of two euro context. [SPEAKER_00]: Nicholas, we get the pleasure of working together on a regular basis, but getting to have you come on the show and share with the audience is absolutely wonderful. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm so glad to have had this conversation with you.

39:12 [SPEAKER_00]: For everybody tuning in, we're going to put a link to Nicholas's LinkedIn. [SPEAKER_00]: And here's my invitation to you. [SPEAKER_00]: If you've enjoyed the conversation we've been having today and if this is something you want to go deeper with, I promise that if you go and connect with Nicholas and add a note that you heard him on this podcast, you'll be able to follow all the post that he brings up, the wisdom that he surfaces on this channel. [SPEAKER_00]: It's one of the best places that you can get some additional resources from him, connect with him. [SPEAKER_00]: And honestly, if you are working as a leader in an organization, you're looking for support, direction, alignment of your leadership team, increase of your revenue and profitability, he has been someone that I've always had a success bringing into an organization and bring the results that we need, because he doesn't look at things in one dimension, he steps back, assess and does beautiful work.

39:53 [SPEAKER_00]: And it's always been a joy. [SPEAKER_00]: So it's my strongest recommendation that I encourage you to go connect [SPEAKER_00]: And if you see that the services that he provides serves you, you are definitely going to be enjoying a conversation with him and reaching out to him. [SPEAKER_00]: Nicholas, again, it was such a pleasure to have you. [SPEAKER_00]: Would you share any closing words before we bring the conversation to a close? [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I just want to say thank you for having me on your show. [SPEAKER_01]: It's such a pleasure to be sharing some of my thoughts. [SPEAKER_01]: This is actually the first show that I got on to and you made me feel very comfortable and I'm glad. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm able to share some of my thoughts and knowledge with your audience. [SPEAKER_01]: So thank you so much, Jason. [SPEAKER_01]: Pleasure to have you, brother. [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to the podcast world. [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.

40:37 [SPEAKER_00]: I am your host, Jason Mark Campbell, and this is The Selling With Love podcast.