My most hated phrase of all time is, “hey do you have a second to chat?” There is never ANY good news that comes with that question. If you ask any business owner what is the hardest part of owning a business, they will without a doubt say, employees. Whether that is attracting, retaining or growing them – it is really flipping hard. And without a doubt, they will leave at some point, believing otherwise is only going to leave you scrambling when it happens.

8THIRTYFOUR’s talent has always been relatively young, some first year grads or those with maybe a year under their belt. When we began operating on EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) we took a hard look at how we were hiring, the experience we needed and the growth we anticipated in the next 3 to 5 years. We brag about our culture a lot and it is pretty great, however, to really value it, an employee needs to have perspective. What I mean by this, is they have to have worked someplace else for them to truly appreciate what makes 8THIRTYFOUR different. When they truly see the difference, we can retain them longer and show them how they can continue to grow in their role.

As we continue to grow our team, there are valuable lessons to learn from employees when they leave. Here is my advice for when an employee leaves, I’d like to say I’ve always handled it like this but the truth is you tend to take things very personal as a business owner and it’s hard to step back and see the big picture sometimes.

Listen & Learn:

We hold exit interviews when our employees leave, and we ask them to be brutally honest. We ask questions like 1) What did you like about your role? 2) What were the hurdles you faced? 3) What could leadership do better? 4) What would you change about the role?

Be sure to customize the questions based on the position and who they report to. We have gotten really great feedback from former employees during the exit interview, which has resulted in changes company wide. The best thing you can do, is learn, analyze and adapt.

Analyze & Adapt:

Feedback is useless if you don’t do anything with it. It isn’t always easy to hear where you’ve stumbled or failed, but it’s absolutely necessary. Reflect on the positive, embrace the negative and change it. Think how awesome it is get honest feedback you can then put into practice.

Follow-up

Just cause their leaving doesn’t mean you’ll never see them again. Maintain the connection, check in periodically and follow their career progress.

Growth is hard and with it comes staff changes. It’s all part of the joy of business ownership.

It was time to update this blog, the original was written in 2018 and was recently trolled by someone who pointed out several spelling and grammatical errors (oops)…so I figured it was the universe telling me to bring it into the current year.

Plus we’re currently hiring for several positions, and Zoom interviews are a real thing and they’re uber awkward.

• Know your shit. If you’re interviewing for a company and genuinely want to work there, research. Follow them on social, review their website, and read the latest blogs. Nothing impresses a future employer like a candidate having insight into their company. It shows you are taking the interview process seriously.
• Feng Shui it. Now that we live in the age of Zoom, it’s important you give some thought to the area you’re conducting the interview. Make sure you have adequate lighting, a clean and tidy background with a bit of color, and double-check you have nothing embarrassing behind you…like dirty socks or a dildo.
• Relax. I know this is easier said than done, but take a deep breath and answer each question succinctly and if possible, tie back to the company. Be prepared to answer the go-to interview questions – 1. What is your greatest strength and weakness? 2. What’s one time in your career where you faced adversity? How did you overcome it? If you’re interviewing with 8THIRTYFOUR, we’re going to ask you for 3 words that best describe you. Have some fun with this question.
• Ask questions. Honestly, I find it super impressive when a candidate asks intuitive questions about 8THIRTYFOUR. If they’ve done any research they’ll know “culture” is a bit of a buzzword at our office, along with EOS. If they ask “What makes 8THIRTYFOUR’s culture unique?” or just ask about my dogs and you’re already winning.
• Follow-up. Even though most everyone is working from home, you can still send a handwritten note. People gotta pick up the mail at some point. You can also get really creative and write a note, take a pic of it and send it via email. We had a candidate do that and I thought it was quite clever.

Interviewing is always stressful. The best piece of advice I can give you is to connect with the interviewers on a personal level and to be brief, be memorable, and be gone.

Public relation professionals are required to abide by a code of ethics. You can read the entire code here, but for the purpose of this blog, I want to highlight the section that references honesty.

We adhere to the highest standards of accuracy and truth in advancing the interests of those we represent and in communicating with the public.

I read an article today on the Trump Administration staffers looking for their next career move, as the past 4 years come to an end (thank God). The article headline was Forbes editor warns companies that might hire Trump press secretaries: Magazine will assume everything they say is a lie. I laughed out loud. Apparently, a recruiter took on six publicists who were looking for jobs and they were unable to line up a single interview, not one. Good.

Most of us would think “well obviously, you spent the last 4 years lying about everything,” but I am sure these six individuals were just so surprised. As PR professionals, the PRSA Code of Ethics charges us with maintaining the integrity of relationships with the media, government officials, and the public.

Not a single staff member of the Trump Administration PR team can claim honesty or integrity. The mere fact that after the January 6th attacks on our Capitol they wallowed in self-pity worrying about future careers, tells you everything you need to know.

A Politico article quoted one administration official saying of Wednesday’s events, “this will hurt us in trying to get jobs.” Others in Trump-world spent the day itching to take their Trump White House experience off their resume entirely.

“You go to the White House to work there because you want to serve your country in literally the most amazing building and the most powerful place in the world with the best of intentions and then shit like this happens and you feel embarrassed by it, naturally,” said one of the former White House officials.

Every single PR practitioner commits to uphold the PRSA Code of Ethics, it helps ensure our profession is above reproach. Allowing individuals such as Spicer, Hicks, Conway and McEnany to continue to be employed in our industry is unacceptable. They chose their lies and we must choose truth.

PR seems like a sexy field, am I right? If your older like me, then you think of Samantha from Sex in the City and her high rolling lifestyle. She got into all the best parties and represented the coolest people. Maybe you’re thinking more along the lines of Olivia Pope, she was a wizard at getting her clients out of sticky situations – not to mention her wardrobe. If these were my only examples of publicists, I would pursue a career in public relations as well.

Let me introduce to you, Harried Harriet, a true representation of a PR pro. She was nice enough to spend a bit of time answering our questions.

Time you wake up:

I don’t sleep

Amount of hours on Twitter stalking reporters:

I stopped tracking at 10

Pitches sent during the week:

Is this even a legit question? Like there is a set amount.

Emails sent per day:

1,000 – is that a lot?

Media lists in Muck Rack:

55…for one client.

Last time you showered:

Luckily hygiene doesn’t impact my effectiveness.

Who is a realistic representation of publicists? Olivia Pope or Samantha Jones?

Hahahahahahahahahahahahah

How often do you have to explain how PR works to clients?

Every single day of my life. Get 2 pieces of coverage, they want 4. It’s never good enough, and they don’t seem to understand the time that goes into building a media list, researching reporters, reading past articles, engaging on social media and creating individual pitches for EVERY single reporter you reach out to. If you sent 50 emails in one day, how long would that take you? Now imagine having to customize every single email, track it and plan for follow-up.

What is one thing you want people to know about working in PR?

It’s hard, like really hard. This isn’t a new number but less than 2% of pitches are picked up and the current media landscape is COVID, election and politics, so it’s even harder now.

How do you stand out?

You hustle harder than anyone else. Is it hard as hell? Yes, is it rewarding? Hell yeah. If you are drawn to a 9 to 5 job, this ain’t the right field for you.

What is the current industry like?

Journalists have fewer resources to do their jobs and are pulled in multiple directions. PR pros are often not viewed in a favorable light and instead of treating us with respect, as we do them, responses are often argumentative, combative and rude. You need to have tough skin to work in this industry.

What are you reading?

I follow Gini Dietrich, Michael Smart and every major news source to stay up-to-date.

Any other words of wisdom?

Don’t give up, it can be frustrating at times but perseverance is key.

Still want to be in the PR field?

We have a saying at our office, “keep the monkey.” Yeah, it’s weird, but here is the point. You’ve heard people say, “I have a monkey on my back.” They’re referring to a problem or issue they can’t resolve that is hanging over their head. Human nature is to pass the monkey off to someone else so you get it off your back and move on. The issue is, the monkey is now the next person’s problem.

It’s also really f*cking lazy and kind of a dick move to just “pass the buck” or monkey, if you will. Basically you didn’t feel like solving it so you made it someone else’s problem. It drives me INSANE. For example, you ask, “hey so and so, where is the file for this?” Instead of looking where you know the file is, you are asking someone else to do it for you, cause it was easier to make them do it then to find the answer yourself. Stop it.

I was actually just chatting with some of my staff today about this! Someone reached out to us with a question, something they could’ve easily resolved themselves. In fact, they asked the exact same question the month before…let me repeat…exact same question. What do we do? We drop everything to respond and find the answer for them. Here’s the issue with that.

• Productivity for the day was thrown off to be reactive to another person’s “question.”
• Multiple team members also jumped into assist…cause that’s how we do at 8THIRTYFOUR. Now several people are working on this person’s issue ahem question.
• Now we’re all frustrated and venting to each other, so there’s that.
• And now I’m writing this blog cause I’m annoyed.

This is not an uncommon occurrence within companies, in fact, we’ve addressed it multiple times as a team. You might be asking yourself, “what’s the big deal, just find the answer and move on.” Sure, sure – fair enough. What if you receive 15 emails, chats, or calls like this every day? Suddenly you’re spending half your day “putting out fires.” Other people’s fires.

Here’s what you do.

• Don’t respond immediately.
• Set aside time in your schedule/calendar to dig into the issue.
• Respond to said lazy person with “I’ll check into this sometime this week and circle back (throw some passive-aggressiveness in there) once I’ve had a chance to look into.”
• Then wait…9 times out of 10, the person will solve their issue before you even have to do anything.
• If that doesn’t work, push back. Do it respectfully (that’s where don’t respond immediately comes in), give it a breather, and then deal with it.

The best thing you can do is to not respond right away, you have to set boundaries or you’ll continue to be derailed by these damn monkeys and before you know it, you’re running a f*cking zoo (and writing blogs about it).

So, 2020 has been a bit of a challenge. I believe the word tossed around frequently is “unprecedented.”

I’ve been talking to my small biz friends and we are all feeling a bit overwhelmed, now this isn’t a new feeling for any of us, but we are in uncharted waters and making decisions we thought we would never be presented with.

I talked about how I pivoted the business to ensure there was a business, but no one could have anticipated that 6 months later we would still be dealing with this and the mental health toll it is taking on all of us.

I’ve all but given up on sleeping since all I do is dream (more like a nightmare) about everything we’re dealing with. Here is just a sampling of what small business owners are dealing with.

• Work from home fatigue
• Going back to work safely
• Understanding liability around COVID-19
• Keeping employees protected
• Ensuring employees are happy
• Ensuring employees have all the resources to do their job whether remote or in the office
• Maintaining positivity at all times (until you can finish off a bottle or two of wine on the weekend)
• Supporting and listening
• Financial woes
• Unreliability of the USPS
• Business development
• Talent attraction and retention

That is by no means a complete list, but it’s what I could name off the top of my head.

The amount of crushing pressure business owners are under right now is ridiculous. We have had to become master EO interpreters, therapists, cleaning supply procurement specialists, negotiators, hypemen, half glass full people, mindreaders, master problem solvers, solution providers, Zoom prodigies…and the list goes on.

I guess what I want you to take away from this blog, we’re feeling really f*cking alone right now and quite frankly we feel singlehandedly responsible for keeping our doors open and our employees happy and it’s really, really exhausting.

Reach out to a business owner, or if you are employed by a business owner – maybe tell them you appreciate them because they’re doing the best they can.

I was privy to an email the other day that referred to another female professional as “sweet and young,” and it wasn’t meant as a compliment. It irked me, like a lot. Maybe cause it hit close to home and reminded me when I was early on in my career and was often dismissed due to my age, experience, or Forever 21 wardrobe. Listen, I still have a Forever 21 jacket, that shit holds up surprisingly well.

I was told I was “rough around the edges.” Another female professional I know was told she was a “diamond in the rough.” All of us have much to learn early on in our careers, but I can’t recall a time a male professional was critiqued in the same way as many of my female colleagues.

West Michigan is where I built my business, career, and family (dogs lots of dogs). It’s also where I’ve dealt with sexism and ageism for much of my professional life. We all have hurdles to overcome and sadly this is what a lot of young female professionals face, I can’t even imagine what it is like for a woman of color. Why does age or gender even play into the equation? It isn’t news to anyone that females are not on equal footing when it comes to our health care choices (what choice?), salaries, or job perks.

If we want change, we need to call out the behavior when we see it. It isn’t comfortable to do so, but easy isn’t where progress is made. If you’re reading this blog and are what might be considered a “young professional,” speak up. Have a respectful dialogue if you feel you are being treated differently due to your age, experience, or gender. Come to the table with examples and also a solution – not that ageism has a solution, but if you show you are willing to work together, perhaps progress can actually be made.

I do think things are slowly getting better, or perhaps I’m just getting older so no one cares anymore.

If someone refers to you as “rough around the edges,” say thank you because it’s what makes you who you are and you should never apologize for how God made you. And you know what, “rough” is what makes me a good business owner and communicator, it’s why I  always strive to find comfort in the uncomfortable and not back down when something is worth fighting for. I’ll take my rough over your condescension any day.

Now a personal story….

When Josh and I bought our first house, it was done only in my name and I solely financed it. The title company told me he needed to be there when I signed, I didn’t really think anything of it until we got to the signing and they asked him to sign. I politely (I really did) asked why when he wasn’t on the mortgage, the guy looked at me surprised and said “oh, well I can redo all the paperwork and we can reschedule.” Now, who in the right f**king mind is going to reschedule a closing on a house when it is always a clusterf*ck to even get to that point? I didn’t feel like I had the right to be enraged about it, because I didn’t want to cause a scene or make Josh feel less than. What a typical female response, am I right? We are slighted or wronged and we are the ones that feel bad.

If I had to do it all over again, I would ask him why he assumed when he had no right to do so. I’d then ask him to redo the paperwork while I sat and waited because I had every right to do so.

Moral of this story, don’t be afraid to make “good trouble,” as the great John Lewis would say.

I know we’re all sick of the word pivot, but I gotta finish the blog series so just hold on through this last part. If you’re new to this riveting blog series, read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.

Let’s wrap this sucker up and discuss the painful steps I had to take as a business owner to ensure my company survived and continues to survive this damn pandemic.

Step 3: Planning

Our office manager and I spent a lot of time on this phase, we sat through countless calls and webinars with the Grand Rapids Chamber and the Small Business Association of Michigan determining how to implement what we had learned in the education phase.

The key to our success, thus far, is absolutely the people and companies we surrounded ourselves with. Always hire people smarter than you and retain companies that possess the expertise you don’t.

The first thing we did was map out our priorities and the steps we needed to take:

• Finances: We knew we had to layoff staff immediately, apply for funds available through grants and the federal government, and cut expenses. We determined what grants we would go after, identified the information we would need to apply, and then reached out to our accountants at Hungerford Nichols to pick their brains on other options.
• Layoff: I pride myself on being very transparent and honest with my staff. Once we made the difficult decision to layoff two staff members, we set a date and asked other staff to work from home that morning to respect the privacy of our two employees. Our office manager sat down with each of them and assisted them in applying for unemployment as well as providing them the information they needed from 8THIRTYFOUR. We also checked in with them weekly to see if we could offer any other assistance.
• Staff conversation: We spoke with staff immediately and let them know the tough decision we made. We answered any questions they had and talked about next steps. I honestly thought they would think I failed them, I certainly felt like I did. They were amazing, I honestly could not ask for a better team, they were understanding, complimentary, and appreciative. It was an incredible relief the way they handled it.
• Work from home: I know of multiple companies that struggled with their employees working from home. It was definitely a transition for us. We wrote up a policy, purchased Zoom to stay connected, and adhered to our same hours…although I had to step in when staff was working too much. It’s one of the reasons we wrote the blog on working from home guilt. I was concerned they would become burned out.
• Staff morale: Our team thrives on togetherness, we all really like each other, and being a small team we are pretty tightknit, not to mention very social. To keep spirits up, I sent packages bi-weekly to their homes. I sent a journal with notecards, an inspirational book, and a coloring book and markers. It was as much for me as for them, I wanted them to know how much I appreciated them.
• Worst case scenario: My leadership team and I mapped out our worst-case scenarios to help us plan our steps to recover. We outlined milestones that if we hit we would take the next step in the plan. For example, if we lost another client, we would cut staff salaries or we would negotiate our office rent.

Step 4: Action

I’m not going to map out every action we took, but below is what we were absolutely consistent on which I truly believe set us up for success.

• Daily internal check-ins
• SBAM daily briefings, including the weekend
• Calls and emails with our banker, accountant, and lawyer
• Research, research, and more research. We read every piece of information out there – PPP, EOs, and every other acronym.

We also worked around the clock, we had calls on the weekend and were in constant contact. Well, things have started to settle down, we know returning to work is our next big priority.

We lost revenue, employees, and a lot of peace of mind…but we survived. Years from now I will reread these blogs to give myself some much-needed perspective when things seem dire for a completely different reason.

Let’s get back to where we left off in Part 1: Pivot!, I wanted to go into more detail about the steps we took, the organizations that stepped up in a big way and how we set 8THIRTYFOUR up to move forward.

To say life changed overnight for us would be an understatement, it was like all that we knew was turned on its head and we had to start rebuilding immediately. What I’m going to share with you below, we outlined in less than 24 hours and implemented in less than 48 hours. There are 4 phases – assess, educate, plan and action; we’ll cover the first two in this blog. We are still in the action phase, which we anticipate will last us for a while.

The reason we were successful, was because we acted quickly, we had tough, honest discussions as a leadership team, we each had a role and we took ownership and because our culture was built on honesty, transparency, and empathy. If we were not an EOS company and we didn’t have the existing culture we had, I can honestly say we would be one of the businesses that closed our doors forever.

Step 1: Assess:

As soon as we lost business, we took a hard look at our finances, current workload, and asked ourselves the following:

1. What $$ was anticipated within the next 30 days? What did we actually expect to receive?
2. With that revenue number in hand, we then took a look at expenses – utilities, rent, salaries, technology, and more. What could we cut? Where could we negotiate? What could we delay?

We had our numbers, we had our projections and now we needed to anticipate next steps:

1. If we cut staff, would the workload be manageable for the remaining staff? What slack would leadership need to pick up?
2. If cutting staff isn’t enough, how much could we scale back salaries temporarily and still retain employees?
3. What other clients would we lose? How would this impact us on a monthly basis?
4. What options are out there for us for financial support?

We imagined the worst-case scenario and then we planned back from there.

Step 2: Educate

I honestly believe this is an area where a lot of businesses dropped the ball, and it caused a lot of anger and ultimately some pretty disgusting protests at the capital. At the end of the day, you can only control what you can control and you gotta suck it up and move forward. This shit is hard on everyone, I have zero tolerance for whining and anger. It is your job as a business owner to educate yourself and explore every possible resource out there, instead of sitting around bitching about how unfair life is. Do that by yourself with a bottle of wine, your employees deserve better.

In the beginning, no one had any idea on how long this would last, how our businesses would be affected, or what we could even do to offset the inevitable hurt coming our way.

The following organizations, associations, and companies were our lifeline.

1. Small Business Association of Michigan: Each day at 3:00 p.m., SBAM held briefings to share the latest news, resources, and what small businesses could expect moving forward. Every single day, including weekends. It was invaluable, they pivoted their entire operation and all staff was focused on COVID-19 and helping small businesses navigate the new normal. This was how we got the much-needed clarification on the PPP (paycheck protection program).
2. Grand Rapids Chamber: I wasn’t personally on these calls, but our office manager was. The topics ranged from laying off employees, PPP, financial assistance, insurance and safely reopening. I have never been more grateful for my membership.
3. Hungerford Nichols: Our accounting firm is a bunch of badasses. They checked in, just to see how we were and answered the countless questions we had around taxes and PPP. Heather, their marketing person sent me messages each week with words of encouragement. I love this company.
4. West Michigan Law: Our lawyer Adam is funny, sarcastic and blunt – it’s everything you could ever want for legal representation. I had the most random questions for him and texted him at all hours. In response, I got sound advice and some pretty great memes.

Let’s be honest, anything the government put out was unclear and difficult to navigate, these organizations stepped up in a big big way, working around the clock to help us. It wasn’t just companies, it was the countless people that reached out to me and the list is long. I had the support of other business owners, friends, colleagues, and family. I wrote a note for these peeps, I’ll share access to soon.

In part 3 of this riveting blog series, I’ll tackle the planning and action phase.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted, been a little busy ensuring we survive this damn pandemic. Priorities, I suppose.

The first week, we lost over $15,000 in revenue a month, which does not include the clients who simply couldn’t pay but would when able. This happened on a Tuesday, by Thursday I made the difficult decision to lay off 2 employees. This was all within 3 days. As a small business owner, you don’t get the luxury to debate a decision for weeks or months, you have to make the shittiest decisions in days, if not 24 hours.

I’ve always been the individual that identifies the worst-case scenario and then plans for it. Quite frankly, it’s why 8THIRTYFOUR has been around for 13 years. It isn’t exactly the most pleasant way to live your life, but it has made me a survivor in both my personal and professional life.

After employees were laid off, I sat down (when you could still do so in person) with my leadership team and we took a hard look at finances. What was our projected revenue, actual revenue and revenue lost and what did we anticipate losing in the future. Once we had the worst-case scenario mapped out, we came up with a plan to retain existing employees ideally at their current rate of pay – we had another plan if that wasn’t possible. We then strategized on how to communicate the need for marketing at a time when everyone was hurting financially, and then we put some money behind it and then launched the campaign.

So, we took action, made a plan, and then starting implementing. In other words, we pivoted…we hella pivoted. I saw a lot of business owners being hit hard, I knew some had to shut their doors indefinitely. There were two groups with two very different mindsets: 1. This f*cking sucks, but it is what it is and I gotta pivot; 2. We will never recover, how could the ____ (insert name) do this to us, it is everyone’s fault. I will now rant and rave on social media. The one thing they agreed on, it sucks, what set them apart was how they chose to respond.

I’ll map out the steps we took as a company in the next blog, but simply put it was assessment, education, planning and action.