How Gossiping Kills Businesses

How Gossiping Kills Businesses

Sean: Having the right people in the right team is extremely important, but not a lot of entrepreneurs know that, especially when they’re starting out. I didn’t know how important it was when I was starting out. All I thought was I have to have this position filled because I can’t do the job anymore. And what that ended up for me is when I hired the wrong people, they would burn more of my stuff down and I had to fix that as well.

And it didn’t make sense for me to hire them in the first place. You mentioned the word gossip. How bad is it when people gossip, because it’s almost like a pastime culture here in the Philippines.

Sensei: I think that’s everywhere.

Sean: Pretty much everywhere. Right? Cause we’re human beings. You know, some entrepreneurs would just let it slide. They just think to themselves out as natural, that’s normal people, gossip, but you single that out. There’s something that you know about gossip that is dangerous for business. Can you tell us a little bit more about what you know, so we can learn from you there?

Sensei: Gossip is a killer. It’s a killer of business. It’s a killer of relationships. Business is all about relationships. And if you’ve got someone that likes to gossip in your business, you can expect to lose other employees or vendors or clients. Look, I nip it in the bud right away.

I’m not a boss. I’m terrible at being a boss, but I believe I’m a good leader. There’s a difference. People, fear bosses, people follow leaders. See? And so I have to lead by example. I don’t gossip. I’m very straightforward. Some people don’t like the bluntness of being either black or white in conversation. They want me to go around. That’s not what I do, but I’m not rude or crass or any of those things. I will approach you in a very professional, kind of a fun manner because I joke around and I love doing scare tactics to all my employees around here, but here’s a thing.

If I’ve got someone that is producing any type of gossip, I will always have the manager of the office. Take them off to the side and explain, this is something that we do not do under this roof here or anything wearing the logo of this business. Gossip is not allowed, if you do it, it’s in your own home.

We set the rules right away. We would draw the line in the sand. Don’t cross that line because if you cross that line, you’re in the wrong territory and we’re going to push you back. I give one warning, second warning, I’m sorry you’re done, you’re out. Because I cannot afford to pay someone that is killing my relationship.

And unfortunately, like I said, there’s no fail-proof system out there, but as a manager, as an assistant manager, as a leader, or as a boss, we must keep our eyes and ears open for these types of unwantedness in the office space.

And it must be nipped in the bud. Not what you said. It’s kind of normal. No, it’s not normal for Black Belt investors. No, it’s not normal for 360 Martial Arts Academy. What’s normal is being truthful and being helpful to our vendors and clients.

Sean: That makes two of us. I’m not sure if you got this, but I definitely got it from Dave Ramsey. So he says that, “yeah, I will warn you once and then I’ll fire you.”

And we apply that to our business because like what you said, gossip is insidious. It’s something subtle, but it’s going to grow and grow and kill your business like a cancer. So you mentioned that you talk with your managers to help handle the gossip problem. Now for you to be able to do that means you have a healthy culture because usually managers would think to themselves, “I might lose this person, but I need this person because he or she is working under me or with me. And if I tell this and I lose this person, oh, that’s just going to suck because I need to hire a new one.”

So having your manager do that means that you have a good, healthy relationship with them, which tells me that you have a good and healthy culture going on. How were you able to build this culture and how can we learn from this as well?

We want to learn from you.

Sensei: Yeah. I like to build communities. You know, whether it’s a community with my staff or a community that are my clients, communities commune, right. They come together and when they come together, there’s an old saying in the Bible, iron sharpens iron. Right? And so in order to, for iron to sharpen iron, you can be sharp, one edge can be sharp and one can be dull and they can still sharpen each other.

They can both be dull, sharpen each other. They can be sharp and sharpen each other. But that does say iron sharpens iron, isn’t say iron sharpens aluminum. Copper doesn’t sharpen iron. Right? So what that is saying in my mind is you must find like people, people that have the same passion, people that have the same ethics, the people that have the same value, people that have the same or similar goal as you, people that want to learn from you.

Well, if I’m interviewing, I don’t want to hear about your resume. I don’t care about the resume to be honest, because I’ll turn you into what I want you to be in this business and what you want to be in this business. Experience is important, but it’s not the most important thing. 

So when you say my manager, oh my God, that’s going to suck them to have to let this person go. The manager already knows that person’s toxic. But listen, I love team sports. And if someone’s not producing on the team, what happens to the team, they’re gone and they draft someone else in new and they cultivate them. They give them, surround them by this community, they culture him. They train him. And we do the same thing.

Sean: That’s awesome. And you mentioned earlier that you S you you’re horrible as OSS, but you are a good leader. I want to know, like, how many people do you have in your team right now and how do you lead them? What is your leadership style?

Sensei: In Black Belt investors, we have seven people inside this office that wor, right?

But then I have many independent contractors that can be local. That’s not necessarily an employee of black belt, they’re not an employee of Blackbelt investors, but they work for Black Belt investors. So they work nearby local and abroad using virtual assistance.

It all starts under the roof. This is kind of like the big umbrella, because this will become, my office becomes the hub of communication with anybody that’s outside of these doors, whether you’re local or abroad. And for us, it’s important that I have a set of standards. I don’t so much like policy. Policy kind of falls maybe towards the negative.

Although we do have some policy, but I have standards that I like for my employees to look as goals that they can meet as well. And they get rewarded for that. I think it’s very important, not just to give them a, you know, a weekly pay. But also reward them for something that they do well. That reward can come in many different forms that could be a pat on the back and thumbs up saying, hey, it’s awesome. Keep it going.

And that reward can come in a form of a gift card, that reward can come in front in a form of a bonus, or like my, one of my girls, I just told her the other day she’s doing well. She doesn’t ever complain. Hey, you’re getting a new computer. And if you ever depart that’s yours, you take it with you because she doesn’t have one.

It’s not uncommon for us to send someone away on a weekend vacation. Hey, take Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Go have fun with the kids at Disneyland. So we, so I like incentivizing people along the way so they have things to look forward to. And so they have goals that they know, gosh, if I get here, then I can grow here.

Or I can change a course and I don’t want to limit anybody to being stuck in a position because I want them to grow. And sometimes I will take them and put them in a position to where they’re extremely uncomfortable. Something that they’re unfamiliar with. And people hate that. People hate to be uncomfortable.

I put them in a position of uncomfortable and I tell them, get comfortable being uncomfortable. Well, because you’re going to grow and you’re going to grow quick. And I’m a sink or swim type of thing. You want to learn that swim, throw you in the pool. Here you go. Don’t worry. I’ll be here to reach you if you’re really going to hit the bottom.

But in the meantime, you might be choking a little bit, but you’re going to learn faster, right? I’m sorry. I think I got off topic and missed part of your question that you asked me.

Sean: That’s awesome. I mean, like there are similar experiences that I’ve had with just challenging people. So one of our core values at SEO hacker is challenger.

We only have six core values and with a challenger value, we have a quote there. And the quote is, “if you only recognize that life is hard, things would be so much easier for you.” But I remember doing that exactly like throwing people in the deep end of the pool, having them choke a little bit. But after that, Oh, man.

They just up and left.

Sensei: Yeah, oh my guy is like stuck in the heart after that, huh? Yeah. Or they just went away, started their own business.

Sean: So it’s tough, you know, it’s like you flip a coin and, and see, are they going to stick and grow or are they going to give up and leave?

Sensei: So what do you do about that?

Sean: Personally, I talk with them and I tell them, you know, look at how much you have grown. Yeah. You did show. Yeah you didn’t like it, but look at where you are now. You know how to swim in the deep end. That’s a lot of growth. And if they couldn’t see that, then I think we really should part ways. Cause there’s no way for me to open up their eyes there and tell them that, Hey, look at this.

If they can see it, then there’s nothing I can do.

Sensei: I agree with you, Sean. I talking to I’m a business consultant. So when I’m talking to people in business, I’ve talked to people that are just starting up, or maybe you had a business for four years, but you know what? They become a one man band stand. They do everything themselves. Because of the topic that you and I are discussing right now, they hate going through the process. And hiring someone going through the interview process. Hiring someone, taking the time to train that person and then train them as an apprentice to turn around and up and leave and go somewhere else because, and then they get discouraged and they get deflated and they won’t do it again. So they just say, forget it. I’m going to do everything myself. Okay,that’s fine.

Just to understand, when you make that decision to do everything yourself and when you make that decision not to hire someone because as you’re fearful of them up and leaving, you are no longer growing, you are not going to get to that next level.

You are not going to accomplish those goals. You’re on a very snail pace, marathon, race. And you’ll dry up and die before you ever get to the finish line.

Sean: Really a good analogy. I love that you are going to dry up before the finish line.