How to Create a Successful Internship Program—Robert Khoury, Agile Rainmakers

May 23, 2024

With summer around the corner, you might have interns getting ready to start at your organization this summer or in the fall. Are you prepared to set your intern up for success? Or maybe you haven’t even thought about it because you have been so busy. 

In today’s episode, we interview Rob Khoury, who has written two different books on internships. One for the intern, and one for you, the intern manager.

TODAY’S WIN-WIN:

Your intern is going to remember this internship for the rest of his or her life. What will they remember from your internship? 

ABOUT OUR GUEST:

 Robert J. Khoury is co-founder and CEO of Agile Rainmakers, a high-impact business development consulting and advisory firm based in Chicago’s Gold Coast. His 20+ year career in the financial industry has seen him in many roles: an equity derivatives trader, portfolio manager, corporate strategist, chief operating officer, recruiter, hedge fund executiv

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If you are interested in being a guest on our podcast, please complete this request form or email podcast@bigskyfranchise.com and a team member will be in touch.

TRANSCRIPTION:

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (00:00):

Before we jump into the episode, I wanted to let you know that if you’ve been thinking about franchising your business but you weren’t sure when the right time to start might be, we have the perfect motivation for you. Our franchise your business prices are actually going up on June 1st, but the great news is if you sign up for our Franchise Blueprint or another portion of the project by the end of May, by May 31st, you can lock in our current pricing forever. We’ll hold that price for your current company. You can take advantage of this offer by contacting us. You can email us, you can email me or someone on our staff. My email’s tom@bigskyfranchise.com. We haven’t raised prices in coming up on four years, so we’re doing that. So you have up until May 31st. So please contact me tom@bigskyfranchise.com, or you can reach out to us on our website, bigskyfranchiseteam.com and submit a contact form. And now let’s get back to the show.

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (00:58):

Welcome to the Multiply Your Success podcast, where each week we help growth-minded entrepreneurs and franchise leaders take the next step in their expansion journey. I’m your host, Tom DuFore, CEO of Big Sky Franchise Team.

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (01:11):

And with summer right around the corner, you might have interns getting to restart at your organization or possibly leading into the fall. And as you’re preparing for these potential interns, are you ready for them? Are you prepared to help them be set up for success? Or maybe you’re planning to get around to it and you’re thinking, “But I really don’t know what to do for that.” And if you fall into either one of those categories, then today’s episode is for you. In our episode today, we interview Rob Khoury, who’s written two different books on internships, one for the intern, and then one for you as the intern manager.

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (01:51):

A little background on Rob, he’s the co-founder and CEO of Agile Rainmakers, a high-impact business development, consulting and advisory firm based in Chicago’s Gold Coast. He has 20-plus years of experience in the financial industry, and he has served in many roles ranging from an equity derivatives trader, portfolio manager, corporate strategist, chief operating officer, recruiter, hedge fund executive, all the way to private equity investor. Rob takes great pleasure in supporting college students and recent graduates in making career and life choices that support the fulfillment of their life’s goals. His mentored and hired many interns over the years and has a passion for ensuring their success. He’s also led personal and professional developments for Landmark Worldwide. Rob has an undergraduate in electrical engineering from Princeton University and an MBA from Duke University School of Business. If you’ve got interns or thinking of hiring interns, this episode is for you. So let’s go ahead and jump right into it.

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (02:52):

I’m so excited to have you on the podcast today because you’re an intern expert and you’ve written a few books on the subject. And the one in particular, why I’m so excited to have you on is really to talk about how to better manage interns in a business. And speaking from experience, I know I’ve brought interns into our organization that I would say went at best, probably lukewarm. It could have gone a lot better in terms of providing an opportunity for the student to gain more out of it as well as an opportunity for the business to have taken more out of it. And so I know you’ve literally written a book on the subject on intern management. And just as an opening here, I’d love for you just to talk about some of the principles to help make internships and interns better or exceptional.

Robert Khoury, Agile Rainmakers (03:49):

Tom, thanks for having me on your show. I’m very excited to be here. I’ve broken it down into nine principles, and those principles include: transparency, harmony, empathy, buoyancy, respect, intentionality, discovery, generosity and empowerment. And if I were to boil it down to just… I mean, ultimately it’s really empowerment. Put yourself in the intern’s shoes and what would you want and have them be empowered, empowered to learn, empowered to grow, empowered to think, make decisions, et cetera. I think so many managers fail in the very basic of preparing for the intern that they know has been coming for weeks or months and having a mindset of, hey, we’re going to make sure they’re empowered because if they’re empowered, they’re going to do great stuff and it’s going to come back to the company or the organization. So the main principle I might emphasize today would be empowerment.

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (04:53):

It’s interesting you bring that up. I’ll say one intern, I can just speak from our own experience that we had in that I thought went well for both participants, for the students as well as for us. We had an intern in one summer and in fact actually helped build our whole structure and program for this current podcast. And he was empowered to essentially kind of figure it out and help us go through that. And I think he had a really great time with it and much of what he put together, we still operate under what he had recommended and that’s been four years ago almost. That’s a great way to break that down and describe that.

Robert Khoury, Agile Rainmakers (05:33):

That touches on another one, which is the discovery piece. So if you come to the internship to discover who they are, what they can do, today, you’ll absolutely be impressed. I had an intern I hired over the fall and he came to me after a couple of months and said, “I have an idea for an Instagram page.” He says he’s been studying it, he’ll create this Instagram page, Intern versus Manager. He’s expecting to have 10,000 followers in two weeks. I empowered him. I don’t know anything about Instagram and I have a lot of doubts, but I’m like, “Okay, well you see something, I’m going to empower you.” So he went to work on it. Two weeks later, he didn’t have 10,000 followers, he had 60,000 followers, and it’s called Intern versus Manager or Intern vs Manager. So you really, if you stand in discovering who they are and what they can do, like for you, Tom, you’re going to see things that are going to last four years and really have you excited about having had them in turn with you. It’s amazing.

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (06:39):

Interesting to hear you say tens of thousands of followers now in two weeks. That’s impressive work. Mind you, I just saw a post someone had been working for years and just was able to secure 500 followers and was enthused about that. So to see that kind of growth in just a short period of time is remarkable.

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (06:59):

As we think about bringing interns into our company, summer is fast approaching, so summer interns or even thinking next fall for fall interns coming into an organization, how can managers really start to prepare for these interns? And I think about our business leaders that are going to listen in, many of which are what we describe as very successful entrepreneurs that have a successful business. And they’re probably pretty busy, and so they probably like to get one but don’t know what to do. So how can they prepare for that intern?

Robert Khoury, Agile Rainmakers (07:32):

Best piece of advice I can offer is to schedule a 30-minute call with them before they show up and get to know them a little bit. What are they interested in? What inspired them to look at interning with you and all that? Really get to know them and get to know what they want to get out of their internship. And reciprocate, share what you are doing, share where you see they could add value, have some ideas of what they could do. You have to come to an agreement on the call. After the call, just state and think about what you can do from there to prepare for them to come, whether it’s in a week or two weeks or a month, whatever it might be. And I have found that extremely valuable because if I know someone has a certain interest, I can within my organization find a project that is suitable to them. And boy, if they have an interest and it’s something they are highly motivated to learn, they’re going to do great work.

Robert Khoury, Agile Rainmakers (08:33):

The best example is Instagram wasn’t anything I even cared about, but the intern was like, “Hey, I like it. I see it. This could go.” I’m like, “Okay, what do you need from me?” A little acting every week. “Okay, I’ll give you an hour every week. You tell me what you want me to do, we’ll do it.” But that only came about because of conversations that led to understanding who they are, what they want, knowing the organization, what we’re about, and having it match. I’m out to bring dignity to the internship discourse and whether it’s through books or Instagram or podcasts, whatever it may be, I want people to know there’s a lot more to internships than meets the eye. So that’s what I would recommend. Get to know them before they show up.

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (09:20):

You mentioned that word dignity and in preparation for this, one of the things that really came out is as the employer in this situation, why is it important for companies and leaders and that manager of that intern to be weaving dignity into that internship?

Robert Khoury, Agile Rainmakers (09:38):

If you think back to your very first internship, you remember everything. You remember who treated you well, who didn’t, who cared, who didn’t. You remember so many details. I mean, it’s amazing. And it might’ve been 15, 20, 30, 40 years ago. So think about that now, when you bring in an intern, you’re all going to leave an impression and that impression is going to be there for 15, 20, 30, 40 years. How do you want them talking about you and your organization? So if you don’t weave dignity into it, they’re going to think a certain thing about you. Who knows what that is. And they’re going to be thinking that for a long, long time. And it may impact potential opportunities that you don’t get in the future because this is someone who’s probably pretty bright and talented who’s interested in your industry. They’re going to either end up with you or somewhere else within your industry and people talk.

Robert Khoury, Agile Rainmakers (10:33):

So when you weave dignity into the internship, you are signaling that you care. You care about them, you care about your organization, you care about the future. It just makes all the sense in the world. Too often internships are folks show up, they don’t do real industry work, they just have something on their resume later to get the next job. That doesn’t have dignity. And later on, if somebody asks about the organization, “Well, I just sat around, they had me listen on the phone.” I just had someone say that to me a week or two ago. “Oh, I was at this big bank and they didn’t know what to do with me. They just had me sitting and listening on conversations. I was bored and felt like useless in a lot of ways.” Well, they wasted an opportunity and that’s how that person is talking about that big bank 10, 15, 20 years later. It’s uncanny. So weaving dignity into the internship is I think really smart business and sets the intern up and you as the manager and your organization for a far brighter future than if you don’t do it.

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (11:43):

That’s a really interesting story you share, especially about a large organization, it’s probably easy for an intern to get lost or just kind of put in a copy room or something. But for our small business leaders that are tuning in, seems to me it’s a lot harder for that intern to get lost there. And I would think that’s an advantage.

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (12:04):

I mean, I even think back to my very first internship as you described that. I vividly remember everything. And it was a small business that I worked for as an intern, and I did everything from just what you might expect part of an intern thing to be. Some just copy pasting stuff for some marketing and cold mailers that they were sending out, all the way to, it was an events company, helping organize and helping run part of this very large, very big event. So it’s kind of this whole gamut of things, that because it was a small business, I was able to work with the owner and I was able to work with a vice president at the company. At a big bank or a big company, I’m probably not able to do. So maybe talk about how a small organization, a small business might be able to provide some unique opportunities as compared to a larger company.

Robert Khoury, Agile Rainmakers (12:55):

Well, what you can do with a small organization is give them five projects. The students today, they’re multitaskers and you don’t want to give them projects serially. You want to give them in parallel these electrical engineering metaphors. That’s what I was trained as an electrical engineer. Give them many projects at the same time. That way they can bounce from one to the other and stay productive. That way when they’re waiting for feedback, they can go to the next one. That way when there’s a natural pause because they’re waiting for data to come back, they can work on something else. But think about it in terms of, if I were a college student today, how would I want my internship to look? Would I want to work on one project the whole summer? I don’t know that that’s typically what they want. I think they want exposure to a lot of different things. They want the projects to be meaningful and they want feedback.

Robert Khoury, Agile Rainmakers (14:02):

Well, weave that all in. It’s not that hard. In fact, it may be even easier to come up with five projects where each one might take two or three weeks versus to come up with one big one that takes 10 weeks and everything’s on the line to make something happen with that one project at the end. Give them five. Well, maybe two are outstanding, two are okay, and one of them is a real good learning opportunity.

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (14:33):

Maybe to just put you on the spot a little bit here. Are there any kind of examples for a small business? Let’s say maybe you’re a home services provider and you’re a painting contractor or a deck builder, or maybe you run a restaurant or a boutique retail operation or something like that. Maybe a few examples that you’ve seen that you thought were great or heard stories from interns that they really appreciated.

Robert Khoury, Agile Rainmakers (14:58):

Yeah. Well, the first one is always… I mean, this is low-hanging fruit. If you run a small business, when’s the last time you surveyed your customers or surveyed your clients? So I have the interns run a survey, but I have them take ownership of it, and we go back and forth and we do a lot of A-B testing on the fly to see what gets the most responses in terms of the subject of the survey. What about the questions themselves? So it’s a whole process. If you have a thousand customers, okay, we’ll break it up into pieces and we’ll get the survey out in pieces until we get the response rate we want, and then we’ll send it to all the rest. So that’s one.

Robert Khoury, Agile Rainmakers (15:42):

We’ve worked with a company that sells sinks and they hadn’t done a survey in 15 years. So they do a customer survey and the next thing you know, they’re finding out things they had assumed were a certain way or they’re finding opportunities they didn’t know were there. Why? They’re now more in touch with their customer. So that one’s to me, a low-hanging fruit one.

Robert Khoury, Agile Rainmakers (16:04):

Another one is to have them just go through your website. How does your website look compared to all the others? We had a client last summer and they looked at all the SEO, all the links, everything around the website to optimize it, and sure enough, lots of opportunities. They were like, “Well, these links don’t work. Do you realize that when we do a search, it doesn’t come up, et cetera?” So these are tech natives and again, go back to what they’re strong in, what they’re interested in, and they’ll fly. They could do a competitive analysis of your website with their competition. Look at the competitors’ websites, look at your own and let’s compare them. What does it show? How’s it different? And then they’ll happily update your website based on what you are finding. So they could do a survey, they could update your website, nevermind the social media stuff and the footprint you leave there because they’re always flying around LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok and all that. Okay, great. Let’s come back and find ways to add value in those areas.

Robert Khoury, Agile Rainmakers (17:18):

The other piece too though is what if you have returns? You’re getting all these returns on your product. Say, “Here’s a little research project for you. Why are these returns happening? I want you to quantify it, investigate it, and come back to me with some recommendations.” And sure enough, they’ll find stuff that you would never had the interest or time into digging into, but they did. And so that adds value as well. And each of these projects is a couple weeks, but you add up four or five of them, and the next thing know they’ve got a lot of different experience and various aspects of your small business are shining a lot brighter than they would’ve at the beginning of the summer. Now they’re moving forward into the fall, et cetera, and you’re looking a lot better to attain customers or do a better job providing service.

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (18:10):

The next question kind of gets back to these examples you were providing and really bringing that intern into the organization. So what can companies do to make their selection process or interview process better to make sure they’re matching what they’re looking for with the right intern, I guess? Because each intern is looking for something and matching all of that together.

Robert Khoury, Agile Rainmakers (18:34):

Step one is to align internally on what you are looking for in an intern. Step two is to create a job description that really accentuates all the positives of the opportunity. Make it an exciting job description when they first read it, they’re like, “I got to work there. This sounds fabulous.” Step three, have a consistent interview process. Same questions, same whether you’d give feedback or not, timeline, et cetera. That makes it easy for everyone to know where they’re at. It also brings integrity to the whole process. And then make sure you get back to them. I cannot tell you how many students, they didn’t get back to me with a yes or a no or anything. Okay? Get back to them. Say, “Hey, we’re going to get back to you in three weeks.” And then do it. And if you can’t in three weeks, tell them, “Hey, we need another week or two.” All right? But definitely get back to them. Again, that reputation, long-term, that dignity long-term.

[NEW_PARAGRAPH]There has no dignity to not get back to someone that you interviewed with to tell them a yes or a no, and that happens today in 2024. It’s unbelievable. You got to make that a priority. Then when you extend an offer, let them know, “Hey, get back to me in whatever couple weeks,” whatever it is. And then let them know once they say yes, “We want to talk to you every four to six weeks to find out how school’s going. Just a half hour call. How’s school going? We’ll share with you about the business.” I’ll tell you, in about 60 or 90 minutes leading up to the internship, you really get to know them. They get to know you. When they show up that first day, all those nervous willies are out and there’s a bit of a relationship to build on and off you go. So those are just some tips. There’s others, but those some tips about what to do to bring on great talent to your organization.

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (20:29):

Now, in today’s world, with so many companies being remote or virtual or just maybe even internships, how have you seen organizations have a successful internship with someone that is doing this remotely?

Robert Khoury, Agile Rainmakers (20:46):

I haven’t seen a lot of organizations doing it remotely to speak to that. I can speak to what we do when we have our remote days, and I have had some interns work remotely in the past. I don’t favorite. But one of the key things you want to do is every morning go over the mission, the vision, the values. Invite them to share what they see in it that day. Invite them to share with you what it is they plan to do today, and then have a meeting towards the end of the day, “How’d you do? What’s left?” But don’t have your meeting at the end of the day at 5:00, have it at 3:00. And then there’s an hour and a half or so to get more work done till the next day.

Robert Khoury, Agile Rainmakers (21:33):

So it’s really important to have them grounded every day with a quick meeting on why they’re there, why the company exists, all of that, and then what they say they’re going to do. Because when people establish their own objectives, they’re more likely to accomplish them. So what they say they’re going to do that day, great. Then check in around 3:00, “How’d you do?” They tell you. “All right, what’s left? Okay, what can you get done till 5:00?” And then let them do that. Repeat the next day. That’s what we do in person. When we work remote, we add in an extra check-in around 11:30 because people drift. So I want to know, what do you plan to do between 9:00 AM and 11:30? Okay, we’re going to talk at 11:30. How’d it go? All right, great. Next check-in’s at 3:00. Okay, what are you going to do between 11:30 and 3:00? Okay, great. Now let’s check in at 5:00.

Robert Khoury, Agile Rainmakers

Now it sounds like a lot of work as a manager, it’s actually far less work because it’s five minutes here, 10 minutes there throughout the day. Versus you don’t check in on them, they take a huge left turn, and they blow a few days going in some other direction or not being productive, and then now you’re trying to excavate success when it hasn’t gone that way. If you’re not checking in on that intern for a week or two weeks, who knows what’s going on. But little check-ins throughout will make all the difference in their success. And yours as a manager.

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (23:07):

I know you have your intern management book available. So how can people get in touch with you, learn a little bit more about this, get a copy of your book if this is something they want to implement in their own organization?

Robert Khoury, Agile Rainmakers (23:18):

So the book Intern Management: Principles for Designing an Exceptional Internship is available on Amazon, so you can just get a copy that way very easily. The first book I wrote, How to Intern Successfully, that one’s for the interns and that helps them get out of their own way because if you remember when you were in college, mostly you were in your own way. The book helps them get out of their own way because there’s exercises, breathing exercises, meditative exercises, et cetera, to help them get past themselves so they can be a real productive intern with you. So those are the two books. They’re both on Amazon.

Robert Khoury, Agile Rainmakers (23:52):

In terms of reaching me, I’m available at robert@agilerainmakers.com. I have a website, agilerainmakers.com, and also robertjkhoury.com. Those are two websites we have. And on LinkedIn, you can find me there. And then on Instagram, Intern vs Manager, which we’re super excited about the difference that’s making for interns and managers because we have a lot of our interns providing short skits and tips to help other interns and managers do the best they can. So those are some of the ways to reach out to me.

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (24:27):

And we’ll make sure we include links in the show notes as well. Well, Robert, this is a great time in the show where we make a transition, we ask every guest the same four questions before they go. And the first question is, have you had a miss or two on your journey and something you learned from it?

Robert Khoury, Agile Rainmakers (24:42):

Well, believe it or not, I graduated from Princeton with an electrical engineering degree in 1990 and in a mini fab plant that we had… I specialized in electronic materials and devices. In mini fab plant, I built MOSFET and JFET, and it was my favorite class to do that. However, I had no interest in electrical engineering and doing that work. So talk about a miss. I missed the entire semiconductor revolution from 1990 through today and beyond. That would’ve been absolutely extraordinary. I missed it, but at the same time, it just wasn’t an interest. But boy, coming out with a double E degree from Princeton, you would think this would’ve been great. Some of my classmates are extremely well-known folks out there in techland.

Robert Khoury, Agile Rainmakers (25:35):

The second miss was in 1996. I’m interviewing Wall Street, and I just did not understand the difference in culture between interviewing and actually being there. So they’re very particular about how you interview versus when you are there. Didn’t get the dream trading job I wanted, and that was another miss, but a great lesson. I learned a lot. And if I had to go back in time, I’d have it happen the same way it happened again. It’s fine.

Robert Khoury, Agile Rainmakers (26:03):

Another miss is I joined this high frequency trading firm in 2004, and they offer me equity, which I take the equity a year later. But because of some internal changes, my equity, instead of $3 a unit became $11 a unit. And then it wasn’t issued until a year later when it was $25 a unit. So it just caused so much stress, et cetera, having this… Was supposed to be a great thing to have, but now I have to borrow money to pay for the units, pay for the taxes associated with it, all of that. It turned out okay in the end, but if I had just started literally six weeks prior, none of that would’ve happened. So that was another miss. We could make this a whole miss podcast if you want, but I’ll stop there with toe stop.

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (26:59):

I appreciate you being willing to share a few along the way and let’s talk about a make or two on your journey.

Robert Khoury, Agile Rainmakers (27:07):

I was working at Pricewaterhouse in the early ’90s. Really wanted to get some international business experience, and it took me about nine months of applying, interviewing, talking, et cetera. I was in the New York office. I landed this opportunity to work in Saudi Arabia for a year. So I worked in Saudi Arabia from mid-’94 to mid-’95. It was a total make. I absolutely loved the experience. I learned Arabic, I learned about the oil business. I traveled significantly. I earned enough money to pay for two years of business school at Duke because when you work overseas it’s tax favored. It was absolutely extraordinary. So that was a total make that shifted everything to get that kind of unique experience, plus being able to fund the next chapter of my life. So that was awesome.

Robert Khoury, Agile Rainmakers (28:02):

And then another make was in ’97. I landed a trading job here in Chicago with the First Chicago Capital Markets. I really wanted to be a trader, was again my dream job and I got the opportunity, which absolutely was a huge make for me.

Robert Khoury, Agile Rainmakers (28:20):

Let’s see. I’ll skip to 2019. I hired this phenomenal intern. He was a sophomore at Princeton. He came in and his work ethic and his smarts and everything, it was incredible. And he inspired me to go down the path of designing an internship program and then writing books about interning. And it never would’ve happened if I hadn’t hired him. It’s amazing what the difference one really good intern can make for your business and for you. I highly encourage given that a shot.

Robert Khoury, Agile Rainmakers (28:58):

And then the last make I’ll say is in 2021, right in the middle of the pandemic, I got connected with a ghostwriter, John Selby. He’d written 30 books. We talked about the possibility of writing a book, and we came to the idea of internships and he loved the idea. We worked on that collaboratively and we ended up putting together these two books to bring dignity to the internship discourse. Huge make. I love writing books. I love talking about internships. John Selby is a phenomenal, phenomenal human being, but that’s a total make in my mind.

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (29:39):

Wonderful. Thank you so much for sharing those. Well, let’s talk about a multiplier. The name of the show is Multiply Your Success. Have you used a multiplier to grow yourself personally, professionally, or companies you’ve worked for or run or operated?

Robert Khoury, Agile Rainmakers (29:53):

When I think of multiplier, I think about being able to take something and expand on it and potentially in a non-linear way. So when I hire these students, they come from top universities, and how they multiply is I treat them really, really well and train and develop them, share with them very transparently, everything going on. And then they refer the next intern. So they refer the next group interns. They all know each other over the years. It’s amazing in that sense. So in a way, I’m multiplying the internship opportunity that way.

Robert Khoury, Agile Rainmakers (30:29):

How I also multiply is I tend to leverage other people’s strengths and what they enjoy to doing, and then I’ll adapt that as a manager. So this intern, his name’s Hector, he decided to do this Intern vs Manager. I am not an actor, I am not an Instagram person, but okay, this is something he’s strong in and/or wants to develop. This is something he enjoys. Okay, we’re going to go down that path together and I will adapt as a manager to manage somebody who’s interested in that. And I think that leverages opportunities. Well, having now 70,000 followers on Intern vs Manager on Instagram, I mean, I think that says it all.

Robert Khoury, Agile Rainmakers (31:12):

And then I also will, like everyone today, I’ll leverage LinkedIn mainly just to have a following and to get the word out. Ultimately though, for me, I keep things simple. I keep them repeatable with only minor variations. So I’ll do talks for colleges, I’ll do talks for high school students as well that are interested in internships. And I didn’t ever do the same one twice. I always make sure that there’s some variation, but the base is the same. Not keeping it the same keeps it fresh, makes me think, makes me apply myself every time. And I think that helps everybody to grow. So that’s how I define multiplier, Tom. I know other people might be more tech-savvy than I am, but this is how I’ve chosen to multiply things.

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (32:00):

I love it. Thanks for sharing. Well, Rob, the final question we ask every guest is what does success mean to you?

Robert Khoury, Agile Rainmakers (32:07):

Performing with excellence in whatever I’m doing. So Agile Rainmakers advises high-growth companies. We’re strategic business partners. I want to do that with excellence. I’ve recently started executive coaching, same thing. I want to do that with excellence. Starting recruiting again, I used to do that for years. That with excellence. Writing books. So whatever I do, I want to make sure it’s done with excellence. That for me is success.

Robert Khoury, Agile Rainmakers (32:35):

Secondly, though, you need some sort of hard data on that. So client surveys. For me, success is a client survey is rated a 10 out of 10, and they refer new business as well. So that to me is another aspect of success.

Robert Khoury, Agile Rainmakers (32:51):

When it comes to the books, the data would be the Amazon reviews. Are they fives and are the write-ups so unbelievable that… they border on the unbelievable that they’re that good on those reviews?

Robert Khoury, Agile Rainmakers (33:07):

But lastly for me, I’m more out to make a difference than to make a buck. I don’t mind making a buck, but I really focus on making a difference. And that’s how I view success. And you know when you’ve made a difference, because people are really happy to see you when you walk into a room or they’ll go out of their way to say hello to you. And so I focus on those things to ensure success. If no one’s ever calling or emailing and no one’s ever stopping me to say hello, I know I’m not doing a great job. These are the measures of success for me, but ultimately it’s about making a difference. If anyone’s out there who writes books, it’s unbelievably hard to make money doing it. You don’t write a book to make money. And I didn’t write these books to make money. I wrote them to make a difference. Everything I’m doing now in my 50s is to make a difference.

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (33:59):

Before we go, is there anything you were maybe hoping to share or get across that you haven’t had a chance to yet?

Robert Khoury, Agile Rainmakers (34:05):

The one thing I’ll say is that I would love to partner with business owners who are interested in growing their firms and doing it in a way that has integrity and in a way that leverages great college students. I’m open as to how that can happen. I’m not fixed on the way, but I do think there’s a lot of opportunity for growth no matter where you are. I mean, if you are running your own business, you know you can make things happen. I love being a strategic business partner and I also love training and developing young talent to help them succeed and help companies succeed with that. So that’s last thing I’ll say, Tom.

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (34:54):

Rob, thank you so much for a fantastic interview and let’s go ahead and jump into today’s three key takeaways. So takeaway number one is when Rob talked about how to improve your intern selection and matching process, and he gave a few checklist items. He said, you want to determine what you want in an intern, create an exciting job description, have a consistent interview process where you ask the intern candidates the same questions, get back to the student, so respond back to them. And that’s a chronic problem. So let them know whether they’re hired or not or if you need more time. And the last thing Rob said was to schedule several meetings or phone calls prior to the intern starting to start building that relationship ahead of time. So for that little window they might be with you, that relationship engagement has already begun.

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (35:49):

Takeaway number two is when Rob talked about the difference between having small intern projects versus a large intern project. And his recommendation is that you give interns multiple small projects that might be two or three weeks each. So he said, for example, give them five projects at the same time so that they know what they’re supposed to be working on. And this way then if they’re waiting for decisions or something to happen with one project, they can start on the next. He said interns generally want the projects to be meaningful, to have feedback and to be exposed to as much or as wide of a variety as they can.

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (36:28):

Takeaway number three, again, very practical takeaway here, are some examples of what intern projects could look like. And he gave a really simple one, which is to survey your customers. I thought that was great. When’s the last time you’ve surveyed your customers? I need to take that advice as well. When’s the last time we have? It’s been a while. He said another common project. Have the intern go through your website, look at links, find broken links, compare to other competitors. Look at it for SEO improvement. Another one is to review your social media. And he said, these kinds of projects maybe take two weeks, three weeks each, and if you have five or so of those, that’s a 10 to 15-week schedule of activities of things that they can be working on.

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (37:15):

And now it’s time for today’s win-win. Today’s win-win is to remember that your intern is going to remember this experience for the rest of their life. Your intern is going to remember it. I know I shared this, but I vividly remember here… It’s been coming up on, goodness, over 20 years ago, well over 20 years ago that I had my first internship. And I still remember so many fine little details about it and all the different little things that I was able to do. And so I think it’s an important thing to remember and think about that person and what they’re going to remember from the internship. Are they going to remember this as a positive experience, a negative experience, a neutral experience? Which one do you want them to walk away with? Because they are coming into their career and you are an important stepping stone for them.

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (38:15):

So if you’re going to take on the intern, be mindful and considerate with it because that intern is going to remember. You’re going to make a lasting impact on this intern. You never know where they end up, what they do or what they become. They may end up becoming a business colleague or associate or might end up working for you. Who knows? Maybe it’s the next president of your company. That’s this intern that’s coming to work for you.

Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (38:39):

And so that’s the episode today, folks. Please remember to subscribe to the podcast, to give us a review. And if you or anyone you know might be ready to franchise their business or take their franchise company to the next level, please connect with us at bigskyfranchiseteam.com. Thanks for tuning in and we look forward to having you back next week.

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