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The Generation Gap & Risks

now part of a lot of teams these days are jen wires and millennials, and those of us they're not Jen wires or millennials were kind of wondering, How the heck do we work with Jen wires or millennials? Because it really is different. So our special guest now is Schemm a hider. Shamari there. Hey, Mary, I'm here. How are you? Good. How are you? I'm doing fantastic. Welcome to Creativelive and tell us a little bit about yourself. In your experience to my name is Shama Hyder. I'm the CEO and founder of the marketing and group. It's a full service with Mark Digital PR agency. I am a millennial, so that means I can speak from both sides of the table, being a millennial and running a 30 person company. But we also hire a lot of millennials, add to that consulted and helps many organizations figure out how to retrain them. How to really understand the generation, Of course. You know within the next day it will be the majority of the It will be so. It's really kind interesting, Shamma because y...

ou have people are millennials. They're saying, Listen, the people I'm working for, they have no idea about what I'm all about. They don't know how to unset me. I don't want to work for them. And then you have people that are perhaps boomers or Xers. They say, Wow, those Melanie's and general wires. They're just lazy, right? They want they want award all the time. They want me to tell him what a great job they're doing. So how do you balance those two things? Because if it's really gonna work in a small business, we all gotta work together. Absolutely. So couple of things, you know, Gen y is the generation and I when I say this from used this and we interchangeably because I am part of this generation. This is a generation that we believe that values feedback and can feed back. You're not gonna get away with these guys by giving them, you know, an annual review. Because if you wait that long, the given that feedback, it's just not what they were accustomed to. And of course, that can seem challenging. If you look at it from a perspective, God, do I always up to keep raising that. That's not really they're just looking for constant iteration right. This is a generation that's used to getting their message out milliseconds and feedback from friends. And that's just that That's their oh, so far Businesses, air really gonna figure out. OK, how do I create mostly book back, right? That's something that's autumn E its regular, for example, with my employees, I use the service. Call it 15 5 which is very simple everything. Thursday, they said, spend 15 minutes talking About what? Well, with your job, what are their challenges and good ideas they have that we could implement in the organization to make things better. And what's more I look like, But I think that what you're talking about, this whole idea of 15 5 right in that you give people some time really to talk about really what's on their mind. Okay, we're gonna call and you give them consistent feedback, right? We're gonna call, we're gonna call shop. We're gonna call Shama back and to see if we can get her on the line. What? I find this most interesting. This is really issue because I think more than anything, millennials and Gen wires really do work differently. And if we can figure out how Jen wires and Millennials and Xers and boomers all work together. We really can stronger companies. Have you had any experience in this area trying to work with people from different generations saying, Oh, my God. What is going on there? Shane? Uh, I think it was only because her name is shaman. Yes, Yes, yes, I know. Um, I'm not that old, but I'm not that young either, if all sort of in the middle. But it seems just a continuation of gratitude towards the people that you're working with, at least, But the people that we work with, we get people like Karen who want to come in volunteer. Hey, can, How can I help out? Can I lend a hand and just showing appreciation? Thank you so much for the work you did today. We really appreciate it. A swell Azaz, Um, the older, you know, older people. Just making sure that thank you. It's so important. If you don't say thinking, you assume that they know that you're gracious and, you know, grateful for what they've done. Then they walk away feeling really hurt. But with the younger people, it is important to make sure Oh, well, you did a really great job sweeping the bathrooms. The bathrooms look great or something of that nature. Just making sure that you continually just notice that you've noticed that they've done something right. You don't have toe go over the top with praise or give them an award or certificate. But just again saying thank you and you did a good job. And I appreciate it and one of my biggest issues, especially with Jen wires, because I may look like a gen wire. But I'm not. Is that when I buy something from someone a store, I say thank you, right? Thank thanks for me. And, of course, what did they say? No, they don't say you're welcome. What did they say? What are they saying? They say, No problem. And of course, my first reaction is I understand. I just bought something from your store. Why should ever be a problem? But it's more just like a flip kind of thing. So I think this is really important because different generations expect a different kind of behavior. Some people would say, Well, I'm using a smartphone in the store as long as it's not affecting me working with customers. That should be okay. Of course, The boss, I may say, Well, I really want you focused on this. So what has been your experience with people working different generations again? That's really what this conversation is about. Is how do you build a team that's different generations? Not who's to work better with Jen wires or Xers or boomers or anything like that? What experience have you had? You must work with a lot of folks that are older than you, Yoko. And so how does that really come together? The one example I can think of is I had to do a proposal for a non profit organization board and I was ready to renew. And because English is my second language, I didn't need arise during the presentation. I used the word you guys and they found that offensive because I was younger, much younger than them. And they thought I should reference them in a much different weight. And, uh, you guys being Teoh, they prefer to be called. I have no idea. Um but I guess the lesson I idea rises, you know, I just can't take it too personally. And also, um, I just said with that lesson learned that I can always improve. Um, I just want to let you know that we were trying to get Shamma back on the line. Unfortunately, it is not cooperating with us right now, but we want to thank her for her insights. We got to hear a little bit of it, a little bit of a taste, and now we can discuss kind of some of that. But unfortunately, we're not able to get her back on the line right now. We do have all the details up in the chat room because she's Titley switched onto this very issue. Frustrated. And this. This is really critical because the awareness off the way that different people want to work in the way that different people want to get feedback right, they may not want to Hey, guys or whatever, whatever it is, depending on your industry, you may have different. So, for example, if you run a retail store or, for example, next week, I'll be speaking at the Bowler Center so that Bowling Center Association, they work with a lot of gen wires in their bowling centers, so it's very important to learn how to work with different. Different. So why don't we go to our workbook, right? So go to part for that's where really are. And I want you to take a minute right down. When was the this question number two went? And of course, Chris, we can't go through every single question but which has had some highlights. Right? So we can do that at the after party, maybe. Yeah. We're gonna go through a mall. Yeah, Well, time was the last big risk that you took in your business. And what was the result? All of you that are listening out there. Think about what was the last really big risk you took in your business. And what was the result? Take a moment. Because, remember, a lot of people think that business is about taking big risks, and we're talk about Do we re actually need to take big risks in or building our companies? So who has an answer? Yes, Marina. Well, I had invested more than I had available, Like pulling credit out two in a mentor ship program which going through the first week of it was just not the right thing for me. And so, um, you know, try to get myself out of that situation, and they're like, Oh, well, you know, Sorry. We're gonna, you know, keep like, $500 of that and yeah, sure, we'll give you the rest. But it was like, I don't know, It just didn't. I felt kind of sort of betrayed because what they were promising when they were selling me was something that I thought that I need. But when the results came back, it was like, That's not exactly what I need. All right, So that's where you took a bigger 12. Maybe risk. And what was the result? The big risk that I'm gonna put down because it's so young was just starting it, right? Starting it was. And starting in the big risk Waas. One person is in California. Two people are in Montana. That that was a big risk. Anybody else? Yeah, I know. I was looking at your next Shaner. I was competing for a 41 K business And from talking to the owners, it has 200% Parise. We already knew it was going to require that off hours from us. We were competing with several providers and we decided before going to the meeting what the price will be and we will not discount on the price. And that was a big risk because others could easily coming at the lower price. We got the job and and we provided excellent service and we feel good and that community feel good because they know that they are getting the value go there. That's good story, Shannon. I'm taking a risk and thinking outside of the boxes faras vendor terms for credit for product. Um, so, um, I don't know if you probably understand what I mean, But, um, most places, you know, you think of your going to get credit and its 30 day terms and things like that, But when when the economy was not doing so well, we still had to think, OK, we still have to have product in the store. So opening up the lines of communication with different companies and vendors for us, well saying, Hey, can we do other types of credit with you where we give you post dated checks, make it 30 60 90 so we could do a bigger order, still have product but still be, you know, reliably carrying your stuff but still have revenue coming through the store. So and that was sort of a big risk because they could easily just say no. But But it worked out because we we have been able to open up a lot of communications with a lot of companies and have a lot more stuff that we may not have been able to have at that time did allow us to grow in the time that was difficult. So there's a good examples. I want to switch gears. What was a small risk that you actually took actually had bigger benefits than you thought. He just took a really small risk, but it really worked out well, is actually a method to this madness. But think about a small risk that you took that you were surprised by the results or you took a small risk and you had a small failure and it was really no big deal I had on my thinking. I have premium memberships so I can actually save who is looking at my profile. And I saw this long each other elector was checking out my profile So I went to visit him and I said, Hi, you know, just a short message. Um, and then Darla to, um, over a $1,000,000. So you took that small risk of that little that subscription, and then it actually turned into something. Anybody else take a real small risk and actually turning something you carry are small. Risk was allowing to non tech people to run the equipment and lie stream. And it went really well. And now we're streaming two and sometimes three classes a day. And it went really well. The point that I really want to make here is that people really think that building successful business is about taking a lot of large risks. But I don't really believe it is. I think that building a business is taking many small risks. And really what you want to dio Let me erase this for us here. Really? What? What you really want to do is you actually have you actually have a decision to make and you go here, right? It's a very, very small step. And then you decide what went well, what didn't get well and then you making the decision to go here and then you make a decision and it goes here. What progressing in small business really is about is sailing across a very windy lake. Now that we have any sailors here, people that sail on boats were in San Francisco. That's got Sally. It is so suddenly what is attacking Oh, taking is when you whipped to the side and then you whip to the other side to make your way right. Because sometimes if I want to go straight ahead, right, I can't go like this right with the wind. So really, what I have to do is I've got to go toe one side, have gone to the other side. Then I'm going to go the other side duck and you get a duck and wait. Yeah, duck, duck and weave right. That's really important. That's really what small business and making progress is all about. Have a decision. Learn what you can let go, and then take a small risk and move on. The smaller risk you take, the better you'll be off. But you can take a lot of action. A lot of small risks. Most people that successful is world. Don't take these huge and giant risk. Now, sometimes it seems like they did, but they took a lot of smaller steps, really, to really Teoh get there. So that's the whole area in small risk. Now the other one is, What do you do inside your company or people you work with actually to train people? So, China, what do you do actually to train people? Because a lot of small business owners are really not good at that. I know when I had my own business people when they came in the first day, they even had to build their own desks. That's how I don't have any training. Just take the time as the day progresses, because again, every day can be different, depending on what walks through the door, whether that be setting up for a P A system rental, where I have to walk into the steps of making sure that the contracts filled out correctly, where the gear is, how to pull it out, how to show the customer how to use it versus just the day to day stuff. Vacuuming, sweeping the front, the back cleaning the bathrooms, making sure the lesson rooms are clean um, so it just kind of depends on what's needed that particular day. But if it's a totally new person and they're gonna be coming in fairly regularly, I just generally start with what's needed that day and just kind of go from there. And there is a lot of reiteration of Don't forget. We have to make sure we get this done and we try to make lists of These are the things that checklist checking off of each job. But sometimes you have to just drop what you're doing and take over on a totally new thing, which is something you kind of have to teach to some people, especially young people who expect if I tell you to do this, you're gonna finish us until it's done. But if I have to pull you to go do something else, I need you to be able to come back to that and still finish the job. So sometimes that's a little bit for him, because they get distractive easily. The important point here is that we don't train people on what the result we want. We should expectations that they're actually going to do it correctly. Anybody else What does anybody else are you training people like when you hire someone? Knew you haven't had anybody knew yet right now. All right, All right. Well, what about in your area when you hire new assistant some time, Um, for, uh, to help us. And we had him for three months, and I created a kind of step by step. What needs to be done? What's expectation is he was very eager to learn. So I had checking in the morning the five minutes and then check out the five minutes and give him feedback. And so Kim opted on training is very, very important. There's also another word that we haven't discussed yet, which is of critical importance to every single company. I'm gonna write this word down, and I'm gonna ask you to write what it means inside of your company. All right, so this is the word. The word is culture because everybody has one, right? So what is the culture inside of your small business? And you have a culture believe they're not even for just a solo preneurs. Even if it's just you. Everyone out there write down. What is the culture inside of your business now, there could be a culture you wish for and a culture what it is. We can always tell here what the culture is like here. A creative live right. It's very welcoming, is very friendly. And I gotta tell you on breaks the food is really good. And so you get that sense when you come into creative alive that they watch to be here, that they care about you. So what's that? What would you say? The culture when people walk inside your store, What is the culture, Raina? Okay, so So it's safe to say something about that Shane. A community, Shane. Oh, yes, community about, um, being a part of all the people who love music and using music for the positive things and learning and landing. Okay, Daddy. And what would you say in your business? What's the culture? Just Rita Nature. First nature first. That's really what you care about. So if someone doesn't respect nature in the eco system, they really should be working with you. Yeah, they just, you know, at the car window. No. Okay. What about in your business? Diversity. A good flow. Accommodating. Okay, So talk about accommodations, combination, a good thing or a bad thing as a culture. At this point, it's It's turned out really well in our situation because accommodating if one person can't do a particular job like if I'm not there to film this week, someone else Charlie's picking it up for me. Well, I'm not there. I've learned how to do some of the editing of the videos. So if Stephen can edit a video, I committed a video now. So that type of accommodating has really been very beneficial. What would you say Meal go? I know that we all have this vision of what the financial industry is like. But in you and your partner in your particular segment, what do you tried the cultured, really to be crying client. First thing I do is that right by the client? We don't see ourselves as kind of brokerage capacity, more of the adviser food, um, do right by the client and provide all the options and transparency. And so, Chris and Sally, you work here at creativelive, right, doing a bang up job. What would you say the culture is because again, ah, culture is something every company has and it just is, and we have to really work on it all the time. If we're gonna build a team that lasts, yeah, I mean, I think you hit it. We try to be friendly and accommodating everyone who comes in here, you know, and especially with our students. We talked a little bit earlier, but it's a big commitment to come in here and be part of these courses and the instructors as well. You know, you guys take a lot of time out to come and be part of this. We want to make you feel at home. We want to make you feel comfortable. We want to make you feel, you know, happy to interact with us and be part of this great experience for a couple of days. I think I think a big part of it is, and that whole camaraderie and the thing is, is about being open and inspired. So I think the whole thing about Creative Live is where it's inspired. Learning says not just that classic rote learning, but it's like super enthusiastic and it really is resonates for the whole building. You've seen it. The whole culture is it's that inspired learning thing is very friendly. So in your culture there's always things that people want to change, right? So if you could change one thing about your culture and maybe changes in the right word, if you could add one thing your culture think about right down for a second here, what's one change or one addition you'd like to make? Culture is constantly evolving, and every person that comes everybody that is part of this team creates the culture. Because remember, culture again is not just employees but the freelances we hire. It's the vendors we do business with, the customers that we choose business with and the advisers it is in effect. It's the company that we keep. The culture is also have creative lives created by every in structure that comes on the stage right and every event that we really dio. So what's one change you would really like to make or add to the culture we have? Shannon, would you like to go first? More acceptance of new systems and ways of doing things. So So how can you affect that change? Do you think I will be the first step? Because remember I'm always about the one thing, right. What's the first step? Where do you start? Make the suggestion. Just open your mouth and say it. I'd like to try this and hopefully it will lead to the second step. Okay, what does that involve? What do we got to do? Right and maybe have to make the suggestion more than once, right? What's one change you'd like to make? I think for my business, it's about adding to people's awareness and sensitivity. So how do you think that? Is it on Lee doing business with customers and vendors that are like that? Or do you hope to change them just a little bit? Well, for the my customers, who are my clients, who are who I'm working with on stage with its It's about sharing that awareness that they have that their their ah ha moment and their ability to to tap into their sensitivity of what's happening in the world. But for my audience who watch on television or online, it's about having an awakening. We're realizing, like those works now, Karen, when you started this business, yogi stream dot TV. Now everybody knows Yogi stream dot tv right when you start that you have a hope of what this culture in a company or creating was gonna be like, What do you think? You still have to accomplish her ad. We always love to add increased communication among ourselves with our customers with the vendors that will be working with just developing that model of what the communication will be so that it's clearer. I know that the ultimate clear communication is in the eye of the beholder, but clearer communication, more consistent communication that can help everyone Miyoko you again. You're in an area which is really fairly rigid, right? And so how you hope to evolve the culture within your organization? Um, increase educationally apartment a lot about crying, Do understand what we're doing and they appreciate it. But some Sometimes we get surprised by what they don't understand, because financial can be very complicated. So I think there's always room for improvement. Educating and empowering them way were talking over lunch, one of things. The culture thing that you were trying change. You said you rather ask for forgiveness than permission, right? So you want people to be a little more aggressive and kind of stretching, as John says, kind of stretching the boundaries of what goes on. All right, of course. Now the final question. Right? And of course, the CEO of Creative Life is listening to this right, because I know that they watch every single one of these, right? So what's the one thing you'd like to add to the culture here or increase? That's a good question. I mean, for me. I think that we want to take this culture that we have here in studio and help sort of amplify it out there to all the viewers. Because, you know, we say, like, Oh, they treating us really well. We're getting food. We want people online to feel that, not the physical thing. But we want them to feel sort of that togetherness with us, even when they're on the other side of the world. I think that's the next step for the culture here. Nicely pull it because it is. It's all about this inclusive learning things, social class room, the and we get that with the chat away chats going high. Why now? Why, when the Aussies join chat just guys into the theme, more inclusive that you really can be really the better. Yes, Well, I think that's a great way to really wrap up the day, because if you can really include the people that really want to be passionate about your mission, you're really gonna build a team that can last a very long time and divide you leverage when you're building a business, not just having a job.