Recruiting in the Age of Googlization—Ira Wolfe, Chief Googlization Officer of Success Performance Solutions

How are you using technology in your hiring and recruiting process? Has it changed in the last 5 years? What about the last 10 or 20 years? 

Today’s guest, Ira Wolfe, is a globally recognized recruiting and HR expert.

  • Success Performance Solutions Website – CLICK HERE
  • Recruiting in the Age of Googlization – BOOK LINK
  • Geezers, Geeks, and Googlization – BOOK LINK
  • Big Sky Franchise Team – Ready to Franchise Your Business? – CLICK HERE

Described as a “Millennial trapped in a Baby Boomer body,” Ira S. Wolfe is the #1 Global Thought Leader on Future of Work (Thinkers360) and Top 10 for HR. He has emerged as one of HR’s most visionary thinkers in managing the convergence of the tired, the wired, and technology. Ira is a TEDx Speaker and Chief Googlization Officer of Success Performance Solutions, a company that provides hiring solutions, employee assessments, and hiring and recruitment marketing. He is a prolific blogger, contributing writer, host of Geeks Geezers Googlization podcast, and author. His first book The Perfect Labor Storm launched him onto the national stage which was followed by his second book Geeks, Geezers, and Googlization. 

He writes frequently for CornerstoneonDemand’s ReWork, Medium, Huffington Post, and many regional and industry business journals. He has appeared in INC Magazine, Fast Company, American Express OPEN, Business Week, NFIB, Inc., Intuit Small Business and Fox Business. 

Sponsor

This episode is sponsored by Big Sky Franchise Team. If you are ready to talk about franchising your business you can schedule your free, no-obligation, franchise consultation online at: https://bigskyfranchiseteam.com/ or by calling Big Sky Franchise Team at: 855-824-4759. 

Transcription

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (00:02):

You’ve worked hard to build your business, and now it’s time to grow. Welcome to the Multiply Your Success Podcast. I’m your host, Tom DuFore, CEO of Big Sky Franchise Team and a serial entrepreneur. And as we get started on our episode today, the question I’d like to lead with is how are you using technology for recruiting and training your staff, new team members, franchisees, or any other team member or partner that’s joining your organization? What are you doing with that? How are you using it? And are you using it effectively? I can tell you right now, we are in a transition period where we are taking our manuals that we create for our clients, and we’re looking to create a way to have that all cloud-based for our clients to provide that better training technology. By the way, if you’re not using cloud-based manuals, give us a call, check us out, bigskyfranchiseteam.com. I’d love to share with you about what we’re doing there and how we could maybe help you implement it at your company, as well. We have several different ways that we’re going about doing that.

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (01:13):

But today’s guest is Ira Wolfe, and he’s described as a Millennial trapped in a Baby Boomer body. I love that. He’s a Millennial trapped in a Baby Boomer body. He is the number one global thought leader on future of work by Thinkers 360 and a top 10 for HR. He has emerged as one of HR’s most visionary thinkers in managing the convergence of the tired, the wired, and technology. I love that, the convergence of the tired, the wired, and technology. Ira is a TEDx speaker and Chief Googlization Officer of Success Performance Solutions, a company that provides hiring solutions, employee assessments, as well as hiring and recruitment marketing.

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (01:58):

He is a prolific blogger con contributing writer, host of the Geeks, Geezers, and Googlization Podcast, which you got to check that out. And he’s an author. His first book was called The Perfect Labor Storm, which launched him onto the national stage, and then was followed by a second book, Geeks, Geezers, and Googlization. He writes frequently for Cornerstone on Demand’s Rework, for Medium, Huffington Post, and many regional industry business journals. He’s appeared on Inc Magazine, Fast Company, American Express Open, Business Week, Intuit Small Business, Fox Business, and the list goes on and on. So, let’s go ahead and jump into my interview with Ira Wolfe.

Ira Wolfe, Success Performance Solutions (02:40):

My name’s Ira Wolfe. My company is Success Performance Solutions. We are celebrating our… We just started are 26th year, so we’ve been around a little bit. I’m also an author, as you can see from, if I step in the right direction, one of my books, which I know we’ll be talking about, Recruiting in the Age of Googlization. I’ve got a podcast, as well, Geeks, Geezers, and Googlization. You’ll see a theme here, Googlization. And if you check out my LinkedIn profile, you’ll see I’m in the Millennial trapped in a Baby Boomer body, and you can easily see the Baby Boomer body, but the mind is definitely that of a Millennial. [crosstalk 00:03:21].

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (03:23):

Yeah. I love that. I love that. And I love this whole idea… And thank you for sharing that. And that’s one of the reasons we wanted to have you on the show here, is you are, as you described, a Baby Boomer, and you have embraced technology. And talk about, was it always that way, and your use of technology and systems, have you always been that way?

Ira Wolfe, Success Performance Solutions (03:49):

Yeah, pretty much. I’ll go back, and even prior to this, as I said, I started this business 26 years ago. Prior to that, I started my career, which is all other stories, probably a whole other episode we can talk about. But I started my career as a dentist. I actually practiced for 18 years. If anybody catches my TED Talk, which is titled Big Change Work For You, I opened the TED Talk by saying that I loved everything about dentistry, but dentistry, which was true. I loved building the business, I loved to growing the business, I like marketing with the business, I like having a great team, I liked working with the patients, the customers, helping educate them, helping them get through their hurdles.

Ira Wolfe, Success Performance Solutions (04:32):

Just didn’t like what I had to deliver, and for many reasons. Not that I didn’t think it was a valuable profession, but I just didn’t like the repetition and the micro-ness of it. Obviously, you’re working in a very tiny space. I’ve made that basically transition because I needed to get out, and the entrepreneur side of me took me in not a completely different direction. I actually do the same thing I used to do. I lead a business. I help people.

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (05:07):

Yeah. Great. Well, and I love that entrepreneur, just the bug, once it bites you, it takes hold, and it tends to be a direction you ended up going.

Ira Wolfe, Success Performance Solutions (05:17):

Yeah, sorry, Tom. I don’t think I answered the question about technology because [inaudible 00:05:21] I brought that in is, here’s 32 years later, or actually more than that, 34 years later, I was computerized in my dental office in 1987. We were computerized. So, yeah, it’s always been a bit of a bug. 1991, we got our first cameras, those intraoral cameras, and now when you go to the dentist, they put a little camera in your mouth and they showed it on the screen. We had the first one that was out in 1991. So, always took the opportunity to use technology, partly, honestly, from a marketing sense, wanting to be at the forefront, want to be at the head, wanted to show people that we were innovative and leading the pack. But you couldn’t just do it from a marketing side, you had to embed it, you had to see the reason to use technology to improve the services or make your life easier. One of the two. So, yeah, I’ve always been enthralled with technology.

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (06:29):

I love that. And let’s talk a little bit about this idea of recruiting in the age of Googlization, and let’s talk a little bit about that. Our audience is primarily a business owner, entrepreneur, an executive, a leader of their company, and recruiting is always a topic of discussion that we have with our clients, it’s always a concern and a challenge where I consistently hear people say, “I just can’t find good people.” So, I’m hoping you may have some tips or tricks or suggestions to help do that.

Ira Wolfe, Success Performance Solutions (07:07):

Yeah, absolutely. So, the Googlization part, let’s start with there, that’s always the catch, and that’s my theme. I wrote a prior book to this, Geeks, Geezers and Googlization, which is not my podcast, but wrote that in 2008. It was about the different generations, but it was also how technology shaped their beliefs, and it wasn’t just that Millennials were bad people, Baby Boomers blamed everything on the Millennials. And yet the only world they knew was the internet. Many of them, the only world they knew was the internet. And now it’s even more so, we blame Gen Z for being lazy and uneducated, and the reality is, is every generation has good and bad people. But technology shaped our lives, and it’s just happening so fast.

Ira Wolfe, Success Performance Solutions (07:54):

But the Googlization part is really about the convergence of people, technology, and business, and we have people that are fighting it. You have businesses that, “We need to be more personal. I hate this technology. I hate everybody looking down onto their phones all the time, so they’re forbidden.” Well, the problem is you can’t function in a world like that, so for any business owners that are out there, any managers that are saying, “No, we need to be more human. We use Indeed. It doesn’t work. We want to have personal experiences,” the problem is, is that it in today’s world that’s moving so fast, is you can’t attract the top talent, you can’t attract enough of the top talent because you spending too much time in administrative repetitive functions. If you’re collecting resumes and getting emails and putting them in a spreadsheet, and then… It just takes too much time. You can automate that, and that’s technology. Even a spreadsheet’s technology.

Ira Wolfe, Success Performance Solutions (08:54):

But to be able to how do you automate what can be automated and still have a personal experience so you do have the time to be able to have more interaction with the people you need to have an interaction. The number one complaint when I get people say they can’t find enough people, and yet there’s all these people looking for jobs. How is that possible, if people are looking for jobs and companies can’t find people? Well, one is that their hiring process is so arcane, it’s a 1970s process, that the top talent doesn’t come, or the people drop out. There is up to a 90% abandonment rate from people who start to apply that don’t finish, like cart abandonment. So, anybody in e-commerce, anybody selling anything online, you track somebody clicked on the buy, but didn’t check out.

Ira Wolfe, Success Performance Solutions (09:49):

Well, that happens at least half the time, up to 90% of the time with recruitment, because the process is just too difficult. You’re asking for too much information upfront. You’re asking people to take too many tests. And I sell tests, so I’m an advocate. You can’t buy enough tests from me to make me happy. But the reality is, is there’s a proper time and its proper place and the right tests to use. So, sometimes the application process is just so dysfunctional, it just pushes people away. So, you can use technology in the right way. How do we screen people faster? What’s the information that we need?

Ira Wolfe, Success Performance Solutions (10:35):

But the number one complaint after that dysfunction is that after people apply, they don’t hear from anybody, they don’t hear from the company. They get maybe a thank you for submitting, that’s it. The resentment rate within candidates, measured by the talent board, has been as high as 40%. 40% don’t just dislike you, they’re not just unhappy, they resent you for the experience that they had after they got hired, or after they applied. And the HR black hole is still a problem, and it’s a problem because companies don’t have enough manpower there, or I guess person power is the proper term these days. They don’t have enough people and resources to respond to each individual, but their customers and they need to do that. But you can do that through technology. So, technology needs to be used, it must be used to enhance the recruitment process, to allow more human interaction for the top talent that you want.

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (11:42):

Well, that’s an interesting thought, and I’d never heard of this resentment idea. And it makes sense because someone applies and then they, like you said, maybe an automated thank you email goes out or, “We’ve received it,” and then it goes into a black hole of nothingness.

Ira Wolfe, Success Performance Solutions (12:00):

Yeah. It’s huge. And I encourage people to look at the talent board, to talentboard. … I always forget if it’s .com or .org. But if you look up the talent board candidate experience, it’ll come up. They release a report every year. They just released their 2020 report… or 2021 report, but it’s based on 2020, which was an unusual year. And they had 180,000 people in the survey. I mean, we’re not talking like 50 people they surveyed, we’re talking 180,000. Prior year was 200 to 300,000 people that they screened, that participated in their survey, of candidates, and they said, “Tell us what your experience was like.” And that’s from people who applied, so can you imagine what it’s like for people who quit and they don’t have a record of them? These were people that apply to a company and then were willing to respond to a survey.

Ira Wolfe, Success Performance Solutions (12:59):

And within that population, 40%, there was a 40% resentment rate. That’s crazy. I mean, because resentment’s a strong word. It’s not just dissatisfied, unhappy, it’s resentment, and resentment means people tell other people about the company, the experience. Bad news travels, is the old… I don’t even know what it is with social media, but I’ve been around long enough and I remember they used to say, “If for every good thing that happens, you might tell one other person, but for every bad thing that happens, you told nine people,” and then it jumped to 15. In social media world, it’s crazy. That’s not the type of PR you need if you want to hire good people or you want to attract good customers.

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (13:50):

Right. Well, and what about… I mean, okay, I’m convinced, I believe you. So, now that let’s say this is true, what are some steps or some things that the audience could do, or that I could do, to implement a better program? What do you recommend? Could you walk us through some steps there?

Ira Wolfe, Success Performance Solutions (14:13):

So, we have an acronym, it’s in the book, it’s called REACH, and it’s pretty general. I wasn’t too original on the R, which is reach. Couldn’t think of another thing. But recruitment is marketing. With reach is, are you reaching the right audience? Is Indeed the right tool to get what you want? If you’re looking for line workers… And Indeed really owns the marketplace, and it’s decreasing but they they own it. Is you could attract a lot of people, but are you attracting the right people, are you attracting the quality people? If looking for skilled labor, is it the best place? If you’re looking for trades, if you’re looking for plumbers and welders, if you’re looking for data scientists, is Indeed the best place? Probably not. And that would be, “Okay, where can we find them? Is there a job board? Or is it about relationship building?” Maybe it’s using LinkedIn, maybe it’s in groups. So, understanding how can we reach the right people? And you need to measure that.

Ira Wolfe, Success Performance Solutions (15:14):

And I can tell you right now is most HR, if you ask them, “What’s your best source?” they’ll say where they get their most candidates, but they don’t know where the best quality comes from. Because they may find the source that they only get 10 candidates a year, but out of those 10 candidates, if they hire two, so that’s a 20% success rate, what’s the success rate from Indeed? And it may be 1%. So, part of it is, is where do you get the quality from?

Ira Wolfe, Success Performance Solutions (15:43):

E is engagement, which goes back to what we were talking about. Once you reach them, you need to engage them. So, the website can’t just be a job description, which is a legal document technically. Is why would I want to work for you? What makes your company different? Again, is where’s the landing page? I go to look at your website, what does it look like? Does it look like it’s a place that I have opportunity, that I would fit in, that you appreciate me as an employee? So, the reach, engage.

Ira Wolfe, Success Performance Solutions (16:13):

The A is the application, which we talked about already. You need to not hire people based on five questions, but you can screen people on five questions. You don’t even need their name, we won’t get into that, but you don’t need their name, address, last three employers, where they went to high school. What you need to know is do they have minimum qualifications if you need to have five years experience? Do they have to have a four year degree? Do they have to be able to relocate? Are there over the 18 years old [inaudible 00:16:42]? Are they licensed in your state? What are the four or five main questions? If they answer no to them, don’t waste your time or their time collecting a lot of other information. And then invite them, that’s the engagement, invite them to complete it. So, look at your application. Is it turning away people? Is it helping you attract the right people, or is it turning away people?

Ira Wolfe, Success Performance Solutions (17:01):

The C is communication. You need to communicate. Excuse me. You need to do this before and after, but especially after. As soon as somebody applies, acknowledge him, thank him, and don’t just put him into this black hole. If it’s going to take you two months to go through all the applications, let them know, give them stages, “Hey, we’re still interested,” because top talent goes away.

Ira Wolfe, Success Performance Solutions (17:27):

And then the last one is interesting because it’s hire. Most people stop their recruitment process when they hire, but onboarding has proven to be a key. Is that just because, “Hey, I’m a recruiter. I’m an HR. We can push that off our desk, check it off, because we sent them all the papers, we got the contract, and they’re going to show up on the first day. Now it’s the manager’s responsibility.” No, because if the manager shows up and nobody’s ready, they don’t have a desk, the manager’s sick, an employee doesn’t show up, it’s become, “Hey, Tom, welcome. Oh, we forgot you were coming. Nobody told me. Hey, your desk, isn’t ready. Your computer’s not ready. Your badge isn’t ready. Why don’t you just follow Joe around for the next three days?” Not a good experience. So, it’s reach, engage, apply, conversation, and not just communication, but a conversation, and hire. So, again, look at each of those steps, what are the touch points? How can you improve that experience?

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (18:33):

Wow, that’s great. I like it. Really easy to remember. REACH. I like that. Well, Ira, this a great opportunity for us to take from that, and let’s jump into our formula for the show a little bit. We’d like to find out your view on some of these questions that we like to ask every guest, and when we talk about the misses, makes, and multipliers. So, I’d love to hear from you, talk about miss first, is there a miss that you’ve seen or experienced in your career that came along the way and something you might’ve learned from it?

Ira Wolfe, Success Performance Solutions (19:08):

I have so many people that I follow that they have these great misses in their life, like bankruptcies and failures. Yeah. I’ve got a lot. Nothing as tragic as that, but yeah, I’ve made a lot of mistakes. One was going into dentistry, investing eight years of school, a year of residency in the public health service, putting hundreds of thousand dollars into building my practice, and then, in my young… I was just in my 40s selling it, literally walking away from it. Was that a mistake, all that education and timing? No, because I learned a lot. I learned critical thinking. I learned how to manage people. I grew up in there. And I personally didn’t think I changed, so to me, that’s not a miss. But had I gone back, had I been able to go to…

Ira Wolfe, Success Performance Solutions (20:04):

Well, you can go to college now, too, but had I been 18 years old and deciding on my career, would I have looked at it differently? Would I pursue different things? Sure. Hey, I’ve got two failed marriages. I made mistakes. I’ve made personal mistakes. I pulled out of the stock market at the wrong time. So, yeah, I definitely have some misses, but fortunately I learned… There’s something called the fixed and growth mindset, and this may lead into the pluses, the fixed mindset is, is those are mistakes. How can I be so stupid? I can’t be successful. I can’t be vulnerable. I can’t tell those stories. People will think that I’m on top. No, they all turned out to be learning experiences. I walked away with every one of those with an opportunity to do something different, and I continue to use that, and that’s probably why I’m the Millennial in the Baby Boomer body.

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (21:01):

Well, I love that. Thank you. And thank you for sharing that. Yeah. I tend to view my misses and in a similar vein there, they’re learning opportunities. And what about from this idea for a make or two, you’ve had some great success, you’ve already shared with us, is there anything that has been a make that stood out to you along the way?

Ira Wolfe, Success Performance Solutions (21:22):

Yeah, I’ve said this a couple of times, but I guess I’ll make it super clear at this point. I grew up in a business family, and they were all in retail. And people just treated everybody fairly, with dignity, both their staff and customers. It was about customer service from day one. And they sold commodities, they sold retail. And hopefully I’m selling more than commodity, but in reality, we sell preemployment tests, we sell things that you can go on the internet now, literally a million people, it feels like a million people, are selling the same things. The differentiator is creating an experience both for your employees and your customers that they feel special, they feel valued. That to me is the make. I mean, people said, “How did you get in from dentistry to here?” I go, “I’m not doing anything different.”

Ira Wolfe, Success Performance Solutions (22:26):

One, I’m passionate about what you do, whereas you probably can see, I learned how to run a business and, and improve my business acumen and constantly learning how to improve that. I’ve been a good marketer, content generator, so it’s allowed me a little bit more than other people to be able to do that. But mostly it wouldn’t matter. My current employee who I haven’t seen in 10 years, we’ve been virtual for 15, she’s been with me 18 years. I’ve been out of my practice for 26 years and I still am in contact with my employees. Some of them were 20 and 21 at the time. Now they’ve got grown kids. I still get Christmas cards, greeting cards, birthday cards, holiday cards, or sometimes just the, “Hey, haven’t heard from you in a while. How you doing? You treat people fairly, with dignity, and it goes a long way.

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (23:24):

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for sharing that. And what about this idea of a multiplier? Our show’s Multiply Your success, and this is maybe the favorite question because we probably get the most diverse responses. So, I love hearing what different folks have to say. So, is there a multiplier that you’ve used along the way?

Ira Wolfe, Success Performance Solutions (23:47):

It’s probably communication, and I often kid… [inaudible 00:23:51] kid facetiously, but it’s probably the truth. I probably am a content creation company that just happens to be in the HR space, or whatever space I’m in. Sometimes I wonder. But I’ve constantly tried to communicate with people. I’m going to, again, go back to my dental days. 1980, we were in a recession, gold was through the roof, silver was through the roof, mortgage rates were crazy. I mean, mortgage rates were as high as credit card rates. And I start a new business in a town that lays off the largest employer, lays off for the first time in history, the day I start my practice. And two months later, I put out a newsletter and everybody else…

Ira Wolfe, Success Performance Solutions (24:37):

And again, I’m going to age myself, but anybody who was around, you used to get, for anybody who was around in 1980 and you went to a doctor’s office and they had a newsletter, it usually was a typewritten page that was all spotty because they ran it through a mimeograph machine or was a bad copy and it was all speckled. We had color. It was one color. But for October, it probably came out as orange, and then for the winter, it probably was green or red for Christmas. But it was a one color newsletter. And I remember all my peers saying, “Well, that’s a lot of work. That’s really expensive.” We didn’t direct market. We sent them to our patients. But because it differentiated us. And then I could have sent it out as stock… Here’s great stories, I always wrote the first page and the last page to personalize it. I talked about our staff. I talked about us. I talked about what was important to people. And I haven’t stopped doing that.

Ira Wolfe, Success Performance Solutions (25:46):

For 40 years, I still do newsletters. And sure, people get a lot of newsletters and they reject them, but it’s amazing how many people that keep in touch. It’s like, “Oh, we really appreciate this.” We can’t read every one, but it’s a reminder. It knows I’m still in front of them. So, I do a lot of content. I do videos. I do audio. I got a podcasts. I write. I blog. I wrote books. My multiplier is certainly content.

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (26:21):

That’s amazing. Amazing. And that you’ve been doing it for so long in all of these different distribution channels. Right? I mean, in the ’80s it was-

Ira Wolfe, Success Performance Solutions (26:32):

[inaudible 00:26:32].

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (26:32):

Yeah. It was typing and printing and making copies, and as technology changed, you’ve changed with it, but it’s still the same concept. You’re creating content and sharing that and personalizing it. I like that.

Ira Wolfe, Success Performance Solutions (26:46):

It’s communication. I mean, the theme is not that, oh, what’s better, an article or a podcast or a video? It’s communication. How do you communicate? And it needs to be engaging. It can’t be one way. What’s the communication that creates an engagement similar to the reach. How do you reach the people? How do you engage them? They don’t have to apply to get this other than signing up, giving you their email. But then what’s the conversation like? How do you ignite that conversation? And you got to do it some way.

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (27:22):

Yeah. I love that. I love that. Well, for the final question we like to ask every guest, is what does success mean to you?

Ira Wolfe, Success Performance Solutions (27:33):

Yeah. That’s so tough. Certainly, it’s wellbeing. It’s being able to take care of my family and do some of the things I enjoy, and giving back, but it’s also buying the toys I want as well. Again, I’m in the assessment business, but I was exposed about 25 years ago to an assessment. And I wrote a book about it, it’s called Business Motivators. And if you go up to our website, you’ll be able to read a little bit more about it, or get the book.

Ira Wolfe, Success Performance Solutions (28:11):

And it looked at what are the six things that people value? It was based on the work of Eduard Spranger, and there are people that are obviously motivated by money, people motivated by power and growing, people motivated by community, giving back. Other people are motivated by a particular doctrine. It could be faith. It could be patriotism. It could be politics. But something they feel really strong that’s their guiding light. Motivated by learning. Or motivated by the… They call it aesthetics, or we call it a aesthetics. And it’s by your environment, but it’s also your wellbeing. It’s a holistic… So, whether you’re motivated by saving the trees or you’re motivated by yoga and meditation and self-thought, that’s what drives you.

Ira Wolfe, Success Performance Solutions (29:03):

Success, to me, turned out to be economic, because I want to return on my investment, so I’m the entrepreneur and I am in business. But it also turned out to be high social. So, you marry those, and described that early on, but it helped me articulate it that, yes, I do care about people, but I invest my time and money and effort on people who I feel value what I do or that I know that I’m putting it in the right place. Because I can, at this stage in my life, and I could volunteer for a million organizations, but some would be more rewarding than other, so how do you choose? And so, success to me is certainly getting return on my investment, but then investment isn’t always about, “Did my stock rise or fall?” or that how much money did it make, it happens to be, “How many people did I impact?”

Ira Wolfe, Success Performance Solutions (30:01):

And right now, even by doing that, for the last year I’ve been working with what we call the AQAI, the adaptability quotient, and it’s based on artificial intelligence. And the goal, the purpose behind it is how do we help a hundred million people not be left behind, due to both automation and… The pandemic will leave us, or we’ll find the norm, but the pandemic accelerated the loss of jobs, it accelerated automation, it accelerated the skill gaps, it accelerated pay inequities, accelerated a lot of things. And there’s a lot of people that are on the verge of being left behind. So, part of it is, is it was an easy year for me to be passionate [inaudible 00:30:50] is how do we help people become more comfortable, more courageous, to make the changes they need to make through this AQAI? But in the backend of it is, it’s my business, so it’s rewarding from when people call and say, “How can we help?” It’s rewarding that I can exchange that with something that actually is going to help somebody’s wellbeing.

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (31:15):

Wow. Wow. Well, thank you for sharing all of that. That’s amazing. And it’s incredible to think about 100 million people on the verge of getting left behind.

Ira Wolfe, Success Performance Solutions (31:27):

[inaudible 00:31:27] say that, and the scary thing about that… Thanks for bringing that up, Tom. The really frightening thing about that, that’s a fraction of the people. That’s just in the US. That’s almost a third of our… Worldwide, the World Economic Forum has identified 375 million people are at risk for being left behind, and that’s before the pandemic. That number is from 2019. So, the fear is that we’re going to have these two societies, these gaps between not just the 1% and the 99, but certainly between even middle-class and lower-class is going to be astronomical.

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (32:13):

Yeah. Well, I know this is going in a slightly other direction here, but just your opinion and viewpoint on it. You’re in this, this is what you do. You help companies and people with this. So, how do you see remedying that? So, if we could take it instead of 100 million, if we could just even cut that in half, that makes a huge difference, or any percentage. So, what do you see is being able to make that happen?

Ira Wolfe, Success Performance Solutions (32:42):

Well, I’ll keep this concise. We hear a lot of things about grit and resilience, and we’ve mentioned growth mindset before. If you’re brave, you’re resilient. Well, resilience only gets you so far. It gets you out of the hole and back to where you were. Resilience is bouncing back. But we need to help people grow and thrive. Grit is, “I made it. I survived,” but the world around us has changed and it’s changing faster. So, grit and resilience isn’t enough. But whatever you use, whatever tools you use… And we talk about grit, resilience, growth mindset, mental flexibility, the ability to make sense of the world. I describe mental flexibility as turning on CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC all at the same time and making sense of it. And then, finally, it’s unlearning. We have to unlearn a lot of the things. We have a lot of assumptions. We have to unlearn some of the old behaviors. It’s not just learning that’s important. Sometimes we have to unlearn, too.

Ira Wolfe, Success Performance Solutions (33:45):

Those are all tools. All they are are tools if somebody just gave you a new toolbox. Ultimately what they do if you become good… Those are abilities, by the way, and they are skills we can learn. So, what our goal is, what we’re trying to do, is help people become better at those. And by becoming better at those, they become more courageous, they have the courage to try something new, to go back to school, to learn a new skill, to change their job, to move, to do something, to get out of a bad marriage, to get into a good relationship, whatever it is, they have the courage. By having the courage and the ability to take that first step, they’ll hopefully have the courage to take a second step. And once you start that walking, you say, “Now I get it. I’m getting in a rhythm, and I can go on.”

Ira Wolfe, Success Performance Solutions (34:36):

So, it’s courage, help people get the courage to build their confidence. And you know what? When you’re more confident, you’re more hopeful that the world isn’t dystopic, that technology is not going to take my job, the sky isn’t falling. Yeah, there’s a ton of problems. We got a ton of problems. We’ve got climate change, we’ve got political dysfunction. We got tons of problems. But you know what? I wake up in the morning, I’m ready to go. Like, “Oh, I lived too long, and what a horrible life. And I’m just going to get out of it.” I’m not an optimist. If you look at my personality profiles, I never come out as an optimist.

Ira Wolfe, Success Performance Solutions (35:17):

But when I look at where I see the world, I act like I’ve got another 100 years to live, and I want to put that into somebody who’s 20 years old and 25 and 30 and 40, who’s really, really struggling. And everybody’s throwing out all these super powers. If you’re resilient, you can conquer the world. If you buy my book, you can conquer the world. And all of them are just tools to help people become more courageous and confident. That’s it.

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

Wow. Wow. Well, thank you for sharing. Amazing. I love it. And as we look to bring this to a close, is there anything that you had hoped to share or get across to the audience that maybe you haven’t had a chance to yet?

Ira Wolfe, Success Performance Solutions (36:04):

We covered a lot of territory and unpacked… I’ve got tons more. But again, if you’re a little bit on the fence of where the future is going to be, if you’re really struggling, whether you’re the business owner and can’t find enough people, don’t know what the market’s going to be, or whether you’re an individual, please connect with me, look me up. Again, I put out a lot of content. All the content’s free. You have to buy the book, but the rest of the content’s free. And again, it’s about how do we become more adaptable and by doing so, you develop that confidence, you develop that hope. So, that would be my message. I’m available. Connect with me on LinkedIn. I’m on LinkedIn a lot. Twitter. Also, we have a newsletter. We have a community, it’s called Googlizationnation.com. It’s free. Subscribe. Get a weekly newsletter that we were talking about. Again, if anybody has any questions, if I can help anybody, please just connect with me. Thanks.

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (37:10):

Well, thank you, Ira, and we’ll make sure we have all of your links to all of the information and resources you’ve mentioned. We’ll make sure we have that. That’s all in the show notes for anybody tuning in. And thank you so much for your time. I’m so grateful for you to be here.

Ira Wolfe, Success Performance Solutions (37:24):

Thanks very much. I enjoyed the conversation, and hopefully we helped a few people change their lives.

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (37:30):

Ira, thank you so much again for a fantastic interview. And let’s go ahead and jump into today’s three key takeaways. So, the number one key takeaway that I found really, really just eyeopening is when Ira said that there are at least 100 million people being left behind just in the United States due to job skills and job skill gaps from technology use, understanding it, from the jobs that are being created versus the skill of the people or the knowledge that they have that’s available in the current labor force. That’s significant. And to me, what it means is there’s a huge opportunity, there’s a huge opportunity for you as an employer, as a leader of your company, to figure out a way on how you can embrace this as a differentiator for you in your market space.

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (38:27):

Number two, he talked about this acronym of REACH and using this acronym in your recruitment process. So, in order to recruit or reach these people, number one, you got to reach them, get in front of them. Right? And number two, engagement, number three was application, number four is communication, and then number five is the one that he said oftentimes gets forgotten about, which is the hire and onboard. So, hire and onboard. I thought that was fantastic.

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (38:56):

And the third key takeaway from the episode is when he said he focuses on content. I love that. He said he’s a content creator. And maybe you should start thinking about how you can be creating content in your own business, for your own promotion, for your own clients, customers, service, products, whatever it is that you’re doing. There’s something of interest that you could be talking about, writing about, blogging about, doing social media, any kind of communication, content. Pick a channel, it doesn’t matter what you want to use to get that point across.

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (39:35):

And now it’s time for today’s win-win. So, today’s win-win, I love this whole idea that Ira talked about the whole time about technology changing, embracing the change, and it really resonated to me when he said make change work for you. Make change work for you. I loved when he said that, and to me, it just resonated. And I think that if you can make it work for you as the leader of your company, and you can figure out how you can make it work for your business and what your doing, it will make an impact on your staff, your team, your customers.

Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (40:16):

And that’s our episode today, folks. Remember if you are thinking about franchise in your business or you’re ready to take it to the next level, give us a call or look us up, reach out to us, bigskyfranchiseteam.com. Please don’t forget to share this podcast, like it, subscribe to it. And we look forward to having you back next week.

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