How agency owners can bridge the millennial employee divide with Chris Tuff

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Agency Management Institute community, where you’ll learn how to grow and scale your business, attract and retain the best talent, make more money, and keep more of what you make. The Build A Better Agency podcast, presented by White Label IQ is packed with insights on how small to midsize agencies survive and thrive in today’s market. Bringing his 25 plus years of experience as both an agency owner and agency consultant, please welcome your host, Drew McLellan.

Drew McLellan:

Hey, everybody. Drew McLellan here with another episode of Build A Better Agency. Just a couple of business notes before I tell you a little bit about this week’s episode, a couple things. Number one, we are getting ready to do the drawing for this month’s winner of the ratings and reviews. So again, if you have not left a rating or a review, or you have and you just haven’t sent me a screenshot of it, remember that we are giving away a free seat to any AMI workshop live or any of our on-demand courses. Once a month, we are drawing a name out of the hat if you will, of someone who has left a rating or a review or obviously both for the podcast.

So because many of you use usernames like Golden Retriever Lover 192, although, I think we should all love Golden Retrievers, I don’t know specifically who that is. So that’s why I need you to take a screenshot of your review and email it to me at [email protected]. I sort of wish I had thought about the URL on that. That’s a long one, sorry about that. Anyway, leave a review if you haven’t, or go find your review if you have, and take a screenshot of it and get yourself in that drawing. Those workshops are worth about $2,000 apiece. So we are literally giving that away every month to encourage you to leave us a rating and review. So we’d love you to do that.

Secondly, you may have gotten an email about it, you may not have heard about it yet, and this is hot off the press as it will, but we just announced that we are doing a conference in 2020. So the Build A Better Agency Summit will be in May of 2020 in the Windy City of Chicago, have some amazing keynote speakers, great breakout speakers. So excited. It is purposely going to be kept as a kind of an intimate conference. So we have about a room for about 200 agency owners and leaders from anywhere and everywhere on the planet. So wherever you are, I promise you, these two days are going to be worth it.

Right now we’ve got very early bird pricing on the registration for the workshop. So head over to agencymanagementinstitute.com and read about the summit and who’s going to be there, who’s going to be speaking. It’s a great opportunity for you to meet other agency owners, to network with other folks, to hear how other people are doing it, and to really learn from some of the best of the best. So I am super excited about it.

Obviously, you’ll be hearing me talk about it between now and May of 2020, but I wanted to give you a heads up that registration is open, and I would love to see you there. And I do expect that it will sell out fingers crossed, because as you know putting on a conference like that, signing the hotel contract was a little like signing a mortgage. So A, I hope it sells out, but B, I do think it will. So don’t wait too long. And why pay more than you have to? You might as well get in now while it’s cheap.

All right. So with that, let me tell you a little bit about this week’s episode. So as you know, I am with agency owners and their leadership teams pretty much every day of the week. And there are two topics that I can count on coming up when I’m hanging out with my friends who own agencies. And the first topic is always Biz Dev, whether it’s going well, whether it’s not going well. A win streak, a lose streak, whatever it is, we always talk about that. And the second thing, we always talk about are employees. And for many of you right now, you’re struggling to find and keep great employees. And in the conversation around employees, oftentimes the M word is mentioned: Millennial. And usually it’s mentioned through gritted teeth.

For many agencies and agency owners, we have not quite figured out how to get the best out of Millennial employees. I think sometimes we struggle with understanding what’s important to them, how to motivate them. And so when I heard about my guest for this week, and the nickname that he goes by, which is The Millennial Whisperer, I knew that I needed to get him on the show and I needed to pick his brain so that we could all be better about how to deal with Millennials in our workplace. And so Chris Tuff is his name. Not only is he a Millennial whisperer, but he is also an agency owner.

And so as you’re going to hear in his story, as he grew in his own leadership inside agencies and eventually became an owner, like all of us, he was dealing with more and more Millennial employees. And so he decided to take the time to really learn what mattered to them, to learn about them, to learn about what motivates them. And over time, he became such an expert at it in terms of building up departments filled with Millennials who turned out to be great employees and grew into leadership positions that he realized that he had some knowledge that he could share with other employers, and particularly with agency owners. And so he wrote a book called The Millennial Whisperer.

And so, again, I knew that we needed to get Chris on the show, And so he’s here with us today. So settle in and get ready to learn about those young employees. And the reality is for most of us, we’ve got to have this young blood in our shop. We need them because they have a digital prowess that many of the older employees don’t have, because they are affordable, because you know what, we’re all getting older, and so more and more of our workplace is getting younger, younger than us certainly.

So this is not an optional learning opportunity for us, we’ve got to figure out how to deal with these 20 and 30 something employees and how to motivate them, how to keep them fired up, how to figure out which ones are the good ones and the ones that we want to keep. And Chris holds the key to all of that. So without further ado, let’s get to the conversation. All right, Chris, welcome to the show. Glad to have you.

Chris Tuff:

Yeah. Thanks so much for having me.

Drew McLellan:

So my motivation for having you on the show is sort of twofold. One, you have an expertise that many agency owners are hungry for, which is an understanding of how to really find and get the best out of a young workforce, specifically the Millennials. And two, you walk the same walk that we all walk, you also own an agency. So tell us a little bit about your background and how you came to have this vast knowledge about the Millennial population.

Chris Tuff:

Sure. So I was one of the lucky ones. I say that because it was my lucky 65th job interview after graduating from Vanderbilt that I finally found myself interviewing at an ad agency. And that ad agency was Moxie Interactive. There were currently 12 employees there. And I got in there and I finally found a place that I was passionate about. And I was hired to many people’s relief from my family. And I kind of fell into the digital space. And I popped around, I was on the account side for a little bit. I was a creative copywriter actually going to The Creative Circus at night. I experienced that and I was like, “Yeah, this isn’t the thing.” And after four years of very lateral moves, I fell into my niche, which was kind of the digital and social space. And I was actually told by the owner at which time we’d grown from 13 employees to about 400 employees.

Drew McLellan:

Wow.

Chris Tuff:

So any agency undergoing massive growth, I can commiserate, and it’s a wild ride. But I fell into this social media space and was told if I got a million views of a video, then they’d give me my own department. I was like, “Bring it!” So, I filmed my engagement to my wife. And once again, this was before cell phones. I mean, I had to put a camcorder hidden on a tree in Atlanta. One of my friends who was a cameraman for the real world, I was like, “Listen, I think I’m going to get engaged to my wife in about three hours and I need to film the whole thing. I’m going to do it while I’m running down the streets of Atlanta, and I’m going to do it at this telephone pole. I’m going to pretend to sprain my ankle and I’m going to go from spraining my ankle to popping the question. Can you film it?” He was like, “Absolutely!”

So he filmed the whole thing from the back of a car. And it was this scale of emotion that people had never seen before on really outside of maybe America’s Funniest Videos. And so it was me pretending to sprain my ankle, my wife laughing and calling me clumsy. And then me going to pop in the question and her crying and just totally overwhelmed. And so I put it on christophertuff.com, ended up getting seven million views within four days.

Drew McLellan:

Wow.

Chris Tuff:

And the server guy actually called me and was like, “Chris, how are you going to pay for this?” Because you actually had to pay server bills before YouTube.

Drew McLellan:

Right.

Chris Tuff:

And so, the whole thing unfolded. I ended up getting on the front page of The Wall Street Journal, Good Morning America and all this stuff. And that was actually my first sign that I had fallen into the right place.

Drew McLellan:

What year was this?

Chris Tuff:

This was 2006.

Drew McLellan:

Okay.

Chris Tuff:

So 2005 going into 2006.

Drew McLellan:

Okay, so really before social and all of that was-

Chris Tuff:

Exactly.

Drew McLellan:

Mainstream. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Tuff:

Exactly. And it was also around that same time that we were, as Facebook was evolving and launching into the general market from the college, they were going from colleges to the general market, on behalf of Verizon Wireless we got to work directly with Zach and some of those early guys. And so, we were at the very forefront of social and that was my jam. I had a failed startup in 2008 with the recession, that was kind of a city search for a younger generation. And then I fell into 22Squared 10 years ago where I wanted a full service independence shop to really learn, because I was so sick of being at a digital shop where these other shops would give us the strategy, and then we’d just have to execute underneath it. And I helped kind of push us into the social space. So I built the social media team from scratch just myself and a couple others to actually being probably our fastest offering.

And through all of this, I was surrounded with Millennials. And I lead business development after that for two and a half years. Hit rock bottom, I was burned out. I lost sight of my family, and some of those things that weren’t a priority that I wanted to be. And it was right around that, that I was like, “You know what, I’m going to double down in actually being a servant leader. I’m done Don Drapering it. I’m done being the tip of the spear. And I’m going to coach and I’m going to make these younger… I’m going to try to infuse and put as much time into building these people up.”

And it was about seven months into that, that this whole book was inspired where I was on an executive men’s retreat in North Georgia, and I introduced myself and I was like, “Oh, my gosh, I don’t really know what I do.” I’m not a creative. I’m not a social media guy anymore. I’m still an owner of the agency. I’m kind of the Millennial whisperer. And I introduced myself like that. And Tommy Breedlove who was leading the trip, turns to me, and I didn’t know him at the time, he goes, “You better write that book,” after I sat down by the fire. And I was like, “What book?” He goes, “The Millennial Whisperer. And if you don’t write it, I am.” And I was like, “Tommy, I don’t know how to write a book.” He was like, “We’ll talk more about it over the weekend.”

And that was about 18 months ago, and the rest has been history. We published about four months ago, and we sold about 40,000 copies. And I think we’re just now starting to really take off. So it’s been super exciting and a wild ride.

Drew McLellan:

So from your perspective, and certainly it’s woven into the book and through the book, a lot of this is just experimental learning, right? So it was you sort of experimenting on these kids until you figured out what the equation was that made it work, right?

Chris Tuff:

That’s exactly right. And I think we don’t put enough emphasis around that within our walls of our agencies is, okay, we might have this culture, but build a subculture within your culture. And especially as agencies get more diverse in offerings and people, I think that’s even more important. And so I really ran with that. I was like, “Okay, so I had the influencer team, which is now almost 20 something people, as well as all of the content strategists.” And I kind of ran with, “All right, our agency culture is this, and yes, that can act as the foundation, but we’re going to do things a little differently.”

So I think constantly experimenting, and tactically I talk about it in the book, but the importance of put it up to your people for as you put some of your money aside for those excursions, let them choose what to do. And I know you did this recently, but we did Bad Axe Throwing as one of our excursions because everyone was like, “Yeah, we got this Bad Axe Throw and we got to do it.” And it was super fun, different-

Drew McLellan:

It was a blast. Yeah.

Chris Tuff:

And a great bonding. So really allowing your people to help mold that subculture within.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. It’s interesting because I think, and maybe I’m wrong because I suppose we don’t know how other people look at our generation, but it seems like Millennials are the first generation to be completely painted as this sort of lazy, entitled… It’s like all of them have been sort of branded with this stuff. How did that happen?

Chris Tuff:

So, and that’s funny because that’s the cover of the book, right? Entitled, needy, impatient, naive, poor, shallow.

Drew McLellan:

There are so many memes about it and funny videos and all kinds of stuff, but I just think as a general rule, they’ve been labeled.

Chris Tuff:

100%. And it’s no different than actually any time before us. There’s always massive disdain and pushback on generations as they transition in. But I think what makes this very different is one, we’re talking about a massive generation, we’re talking about people that were born between 1981 and 1996, an application that is 37-year-olds and 23-year-olds, and that is a huge generation. And then what’s happened within those times is the world and the rate of change has increased dramatically. So that disparity between generations is only getting more exacerbated because of these things like cell phones and social.

And one of the things I set out in the book within that generation, first of all, I think we need to put it into two different generations, older Millennials and younger Millennials. And what makes them different are two massively impactful societal things that have made them different. One is older Millennials had beepers in college, right?

Drew McLellan:

Yeah.

Chris Tuff:

They didn’t get their first cell phone until… I mean, and social account until they were in their first, second jobs. Younger Millennials were given an iPhone with a Snapchat account on it at age 13. That is a huge difference. And so from a societal standpoint, the younger Millennials went through their most formative years with social media around them, and the older Millennials didn’t have any of that. So technology adoption is that first piece. The second piece is when the recession of 2008 either hit their parents, or older Millennials then. They were in the marketplace, and so they are either forced to become entrepreneurs and do something different and jump around, or it was much more of that entrepreneurial spirit.

Versus the younger Millennials, the reason why they’re actually looking for a place to hang their hat and to have more job security and longevity is because they saw their parents lose their jobs. They inherited a massive amount of student debt because of the timing of that. And so I think that’s one thing that is I think important to note. But why there’s so much… One of the things I tell in a lot of media interviews is we’ve got to stop using Millennial as synonyms for just young and inexperienced, because guess what, Millennials are young and inexperienced. And I think that’s one of those things that a lot of generations go through when you’re undergoing that transition.

Drew McLellan:

One of the quotes that I loved was this whole idea of Millennials aren’t the problem, they just expose all of the problems. And so often when I’m talking to agency owners and they’re lamenting through gritted teeth and often over a whiskey, their frustration at how these younger employees come to the workplace, show up at the workplace, respond to the needs of clients. We live in a 24/7 world and clients are demanding, and agency owners are typically of the mind of we’re in the service business and so we serve our clients, and if that means we get a text at eight o’clock at night, then so be it. And they get push back, and so they’re frustrated.

But my conversation with them is really around the idea of we have to understand that every generation isn’t going to work the same way we work, that we earned our stripes a certain way and that doesn’t necessarily mean that that’s how they’re going to earn their stripes. It doesn’t mean they don’t need to earn their stripes, that they don’t have to prove to you that they are a good employee and committed to the same things that you are-

Chris Tuff:

Sure.

Drew McLellan:

But they may show up differently. And that to me is that whole idea of its exposing really the cultural shifts, the technology shifts, all of that. It’s not so much about the people, it’s just about the fact that they really grew up so differently than we did.

Chris Tuff:

Absolutely. And I think if you take away kind of… One of the things that I feel like I run into a lot, especially as I’m starting to talk to corporations about how to apply some of these tenants of the book is that there’s sometimes this mentality of, “Well, I had to do it this way, why don’t they?” And that’s what, it’s like, “Okay, let’s ease into it. I get it. I get it. It’s different.” And but if you go down into the guts of this thing, and you look at what Millennials are looking for from their organizations, statistically speaking, what they’re looking for from their organizations according to the 2018 Deloitte Millennial Survey, the first thing is no different than any other generation, the first thing that they’re looking for is pay. What’s their pay going to be and benefits?

Where it goes a little bit different, it’s not massively unintuitive. It’s culture is massively important, work culture. So how do you create a work culture where people can thrive? I mean, we’re agency owners, this should be our strength. And then you have this is a touchy one, but number three, work flexibility. And I’m sure a lot of agency owners are going through similar things to what we’re going through where people want to, especially in these open work environments, they want to do their flow states in the places that they best have flow states. And sometimes that’s at home, sometimes that’s working from a coffee shop, whatever it is, our product is either creative or analytical or whatever that offering that person’s working on is. But I think it’s important that we allow people to thrive in those places. And so I think that’s important. So that’s one piece, right?

Millennials aren’t the problem, they just expose all the problems. Organizationally, that’s not that groundbreaking. From a leadership standpoint, and where my book really focuses is if you look at leadership, what they’re looking for from leaders is one, inspirational leadership. Two, transparency. Three, autonomy. And four, a purpose-driven life, right? So they want to make sure that within what they’re doing every day that there’s something bigger than just your agency bottom line, profit margin, stock price, whatever it is. And so, you can break down any of those first three.

Inspirational leadership is interesting, because you ask any leader of a department within your agency, “Hey, Carl, would you consider yourself an inspirational leader?” Carl will turn to you and say, “Yeah. Anytime I do my big department meetings, everyone lights up.” You say, “Okay. Thanks, Carl.” And then you go to two people on Carl’s team and say, “So, hey, guys. Is Carl an inspirational leader?” And they’re like, “Well…” Their first question is, “Is Carl going to find out?” You say, “No. Carl is not going to find out.” And it’s like, “No, he’s not inspirational.” And that’s also why I created my Millennial Leadership Assessment, because I think we assess our leaders on some of the wrong tenets, and we don’t bring in the opinion of the people on there. So the Millennial Leadership Assessment, there’s a free assessment on my website the millennialwhisperer.com. But I think we’ve got to think about these things differently.

And then I love talking about autonomy and transparency, because well, autonomy for me comes down to one example. And it was when my wife turned to me five years ago, and we were just leaving our holiday party, and she goes, “Chris, how have you stayed at one agency for so long?” And I turned to her and I said, “Because they’ve given me a long enough leash to be entrepreneurial, but enough structure that I always become a better leader. And they’re challenging me, and they’re giving me the tools to I think grow.” And I call it within the book, autonomy within structure. But long gone are the days of you cannot micromanage this generation, because they will just react to that.

So I went looking for this a little bit more, I’m like, “Okay, what are some of the tactics that we can introduce to agency owners like you all out there?” And I met actually an agency owner himself, Ben Kirschner, and I googled, number one boss for Millennials, and Forbes called Ben Kirschner the number one boss for Millennials. So I was like, “Okay, I’m going to call this guy and interview him on some of these topics.” And fascinating guy, he has a company called Elite SEM, which is growing rapidly, obviously like many of us has 90% of his employees maybe even more, Millennials.

And I was like, “So tell me more about this autonomy piece. How do you do that?” And he said something fascinating, he said, “Are you familiar with Under Armour Protect This House?” And I was like, “Yeah, tell me more. That sounds awesome.” He was like, “Well, so Under Armour has this thing and this is what I introduced to all of our teams is that If you create a culture that’s worth fighting for, then push down that autonomy to them. So whether it be a bad culture fit, whether it be covering for someone with things like unlimited paid vacation, whatever it might be, remind them it’s up to them to protect this house.” So he constantly reminds that and pushes that down, where it’s not him coming from and being like, “Oh, you took too many days off this year or you’re not paying…” Let them actually control the environment, which is very difficult for us to step back as agency owners and let these younger people roll with that. But I think we’ll find it’s a lot better in the long run.

And then my last piece, and this is my last rant just on the leadership side, because I get so excited about it. But transparency, I think a lot of leaders, especially agency owners as I’ve talked to a handful of them, they think that transparency means that they have to show their bottom line and profit margin, or on the other side, that they have to be vulnerable and just cry in front of their people. And transparency isn’t any of that. You know what transparency is? Is this need for a connection with the people that work with them? There’s this yearning for connection.

And then the other side of it is context. Show them the bigger picture. If you didn’t want a new business pitch, explain to them why. Don’t just say you… Explain to them where their efforts had actually gone. I mean, in all of us, new business is that is the machine, right? And I think it’s another good example, how can you be more transparent? Tell them who beat you out and why? How are you getting better in those areas? Talk about the mistakes you made. Because it’s, I think long gone are the days of the rah-rah, and the connection piece is also a huge part of what we’re doing. And get to know your people, as people, not as employees. And if you do a few of these things, right? I think you’ll see a massive change in not only the culture, but also some of those key metrics of turnover and attraction and all that.

Drew McLellan:

So from a motivation point of view. So I think, much like we parent the way our parents parented, I think we probably boss the way our bosses bossed us, right? So how is it different? What does motivation look like with a Millennial workforce? So if I have a bunch of Millennials working for me, how do I get them engaged? So beyond the leadership thing that you just talked about, what are some other things that I can do to motivate them to show up?

Chris Tuff:

So one of the things I think is on the other side of it, which a lot of us know as business owners, and it’s what I call my 70-30 rule, which is you got to understand that along with ourselves, a lot of these Millennials are comparing their insides to other people’s outsides. They’re living their lives on Instagram and everyone’s posting these perfect pictures in life, and they think that that is actually achievable outside of your walls.

And so what I do is I think we need to have a constant reminder of my 70-30 rule is 70% of your job should fire you up and fuel you up and be Instagrammable, but 30% of your job is going to suck, 30% of your job is going to be in your area of weakness, and that is life. And so, I think you see these people… I mean, we see it, they jump from agency to agency, and then we have what we call boomerangs where they come back and say, “Actually, this was a lot better.” And so I think we need that-

Drew McLellan:

Which by the way are great employees.

Chris Tuff:

Totally.

Drew McLellan:

Because they tell everybody else why they came back.

Chris Tuff:

Exactly.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah.

Chris Tuff:

And then, so I think that’s one of those things that we just need to make sure that we’re bringing in. But I also think that it’s up to us as leaders to help craft what I call, I think life should be a ruthless pursuit of passions. And those passions don’t always intersect with our current job, so we’ve got to be able to create more lateral movement within our walls so people can actually see those. As agencies, what better place for people to find new beginnings, right? I mean, you’ve got creatives, you’ve got media, you’ve got account. So take down those walls and allow those people to actually pursue those passions, because passions evolve.

So I think that’s a key thing, and as I’m talking to some of these larger corporations about this stuff, that’s one of my big key points, is because we don’t do that enough. And then the other side is we’ve got to help our people identify those passions, but also pursue them. And so I am a big advocate of employees spending between 10 and 20% of their time on side hustles as long as they aren’t trying to create new agencies or offerings that are competitive with your agency. So, no freelancing during that time, think way outside of the box.

And so a couple examples. One guy on our team, Kevin, he ended up putting his time to Camp Twin Lakes, which is a nonprofit in town and helping them with all their marketing materials. Another woman on my team ended up creating an online clothing company, because her purpose which she had identified was to make women feel more confident in their own skin. So she was like, “This is perfect, Chris.” I was like, “All right, let’s do it. I’ll help you put together the approach and strategy, and then let’s just see if we can make this thing a reality.” And six months later, she turns to me and she goes like, “This was way harder than I thought.”

And we had done whatever it was, $2,000 of Instagram ads, and I think we had enough to know how competitive the space is. And those examples, if you weren’t to provide that, I think a lot of people, especially as young people, if you don’t meet their kind of needs, then they will walk. And I’m not saying that this person would have walked and started their own clothing company, but I think there’s a lot of ways that we can help accommodate for those things, as well as help push us to more innovative stuff, so-

Drew McLellan:

And even if she wouldn’t have walked, she’s got this unscratched itch.

Chris Tuff:

Totally.

Drew McLellan:

And so now she’s unhappy in the workplace, and that’s infectious.

Chris Tuff:

Totally.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. So one of the questions I want to ask you about is hiring, because it’s interesting, for every bad Millennial story I hear, someone else will say, “Well, you know what, we’ve got this great Millennial,” and then they tell the story. So we know that there are good employees out there in that population, obviously. So I want to take a break, and then when we come back, I want to ask you about what I should be looking for when I’m interviewing a Millennial candidate.

I wanted to take just a quick second and remind you about one of the core offerings of Agency Management Institute, and that is our peer networks. So we offer them both for agency owners, and also what we call key executives. So if you’re a traction follower, these would be for your integrators. These are sort of your right hand people who help you run the business day in and day out. So from the owners’ perspective, imagine a Vistage group or an EO group, only everyone around the table owns an agency. And these folks become your board of advisors, they become trusted friends that you learn a lot about their business, and they learn a lot about yours. So not only do you learn from us the facilitators, but you’re constantly learning from your peer group as well.

And the same thing happens in the key executive groups. We bring them together, and we help them learn how to help you bring your vision to life as an agency owner. If you want to check out either of these peer groups, you can go over to the AMI website, and look under the Networks tab. And there you will find information on both our live and our virtual agency owner peer groups, and also our key executive group. Check it out, and if you’re interested, let us know. We’re happy to have a conversation. Okay, let’s get back to the episode.

All right, we are back with Chris Tuff, The Millennial Whisperer. And we’ve been talking about how to motivate and fire up and stay connected with Millennials that are already on our staff. But right before the break, I said I wanted to turn our attention to hiring. So Chris, if I’m looking to fill a position, and my candidates are mostly Millennials. And again, as you said, with a age range of 24 to 37, or whatever you said it was, odds are that’s going to be pretty good. What am I looking for to figure out if this is what I want on my team?

Chris Tuff:

So I have two main kind of points, I would make sure that you can identify three questions that you can ask any candidate that are a must have, and start your interview that way. And you got to reiterate this time and time again. And for me, it’s these three things: be willing to put the agency in front of yourself and your own ego. Always be willing to get your hands dirty, and have a can-do attitude. And if you can do all three of those things, then I feel like you’ll be a good fit on our team.

And I think you would be surprised at how few people check every single one of those boxes, but also how it’s not really until you get working with these people that you know that they can check all of them. Which takes me to my second point, which is I think we need to do more tests drive to hire. So contract to hire six weeks, give people the opportunity to earn their place as a full-time employee. And I don’t think we do near enough of that, and some people will be like, “Well, there’s no way that people would do that.” Then I would ask yourself whether or not you’ve created a culture and an environment that is where it needs to-

Drew McLellan:

Worth the risk.

Chris Tuff:

Right, exactly.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah.

Chris Tuff:

And I’d say we have a 20% success rate when we do that. And we’ve done this within our influencer team and a few other areas, and it seems to be a really good way to actually test drive. And a lot of times, it’s just, it’s either a culture fit thing or sometimes a work ethic thing, expectations on both sides. But whatever it is, it tends to be a really good tactic that I encourage other agency owners to try to put in place.

Drew McLellan:

So if those are your three must haves, are there some questions that you specifically ask to sort of dig at that a little bit?

Chris Tuff:

Yeah, I mean, the first one being, I mean, a lot of these guys are young, so I think that as you’re going through that, it’s put into practicality and examples. So I’m looking for the can-do attitude thing, I’m looking for optimism. I’m looking for how they are problem solvers. So giving examples of when you’ve tackled a challenge. Give me an example of a challenge that you’ve had to push through, whether it be at college or putting together a project or whatever it is. I can usually tell with these candidates, it’s kind of a sniff test with whether or not they are willing to put their ego aside, that’s more of a I think intuition thing.

But I’ll ask once again, examples of where they’ve had to really get into some sort of work product or putting together something innovative to achieve or tackle a problem that’s going on. So, I think it’s more of through conversation, but I think you’d be surprised when you ask people straight up, it’s either going to scare them or they’re going to be in line with kind of what you’re talking about when you just say, “Are you willing to put the agency in front of yourself? And are you willing to always get your hands dirty? And do you have a can-do attitude?” I think you’d be surprised.

Drew McLellan:

Do you find that they’re candid about the fact if they think the answer to any of those is no, are they going to say it?

Chris Tuff:

If they don’t say it, I’ll either be able to sniff it out through the courtship. And I do think that that’s an important point. It’s not a one-hour interview people, it’s a courtship. Because you need them, especially if you’re doing the contract to hire, you need to be worth that risk, as you said, right? It’s a courtship that often times, and I talked about it in the book, it oftentimes will be over a few weeks. And that’s a lunch, that’s sometimes drinks, coffee. It takes time to get to know people, and for us to just put it into a one-hour interview is preposterous.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. I think for a lot of agency owners, especially in the hiring environment that we’re in right now, they feel incredible pressure though to accelerate the process.

Chris Tuff:

Totally.

Drew McLellan:

Because otherwise, somebody else is going to offer this kid a job and pull them out from under them, right?

Chris Tuff:

And I think that’s a great example of where we need to push down some of that responsibility. And one thing that try to push down on our people is that it’s up to you to do this courtship, because the people that we bring on are very reflective of who you are as a leader and it’s going to make your life a lot easier.

Drew McLellan:

Right. Work a little harder.

Chris Tuff:

Exactly.

Drew McLellan:

Right.

Chris Tuff:

Exactly. And so I think pushing down that responsibility is absolutely critical. And I don’t expect the agency owners to be out there doing the courtship. Are you there to seal the deal for the must have candidates? Absolutely. But make it up to your people, say, “Do the courtship, do the dance, when you’re ready to close it, send them to me.”

Drew McLellan:

One of the things that is interesting to me is many agencies work really hard to put together as you were talking about earlier in our conversation a decent compensation package, particularly around the benefits. I think a lot of especially smaller agencies, their benefit packages compete pretty well against big corporate jobs, 401(k)s and all that sort of stuff. But one of the things I’m hearing a lot from agency owners these days, is that in air quotes, “The kids don’t seem to like the benefit package that we have. They don’t really appreciate things like a 401(k) or things like that.” So what benefits do you think Millennials are looking for in their package or find sort of brag worthy or worth choosing an agency over another?

Chris Tuff:

Sure. So I think that there’s a step before that, which is how do you create a culture of rewards and recognition that is talk worthy? And so I use two examples in the book. One is my big blue rooster, which is an example of a startup out in San Francisco called Domo. And at Domo they call all of their new employee, actually all employees their Domo Sapiens. And on your first day at Domo, you put your name and what you want your [@that 00:40:38] song to be. So if you’re going up for a speech or whatever, your song that’s going to play.

And then on the first day of every month over the loudspeaker, someone’s @that song is blared loud, super loud through this warehouse, blue sirens go off, and they take a 10 foot blue rooster over to the cubicle of the salesperson of the month. And that is the reward and recognition, and people are clamoring to have this blue rooster sit next to their desk. And that’s an extreme example, but you know what I do-

Drew McLellan:

A passable trophy.

Chris Tuff:

Exactly.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah.

Chris Tuff:

Exactly. And I think there’s a lot of tactical things that we can put into place to do that, but I think oftentimes as the space gets more competitive for talent, we oftentimes go to, do we restructure as an ESOP? Do we actually give up more equity? Do we need a stock option plan? Do we need cash bonuses, stock bonuses, retention? There’s all of that stuff. We always go to money, whereas what I found in the qualitative research around the book itself, we need creative solutions that are talk worthy and braggable and Instagrammable.

And the other piece that I talk about is I use a dentist’s office as an example. And the peer to peer recognition is super important. And it’s a friend of mine, and when we were talking about how you push down this rewards and recognition, versus it just being the owners having to do it all, he does this thing where he gives what he calls the ADS box, Atlanta Dental Spa box, and he gives $50 to every single employee. And at the beginning of the month, there’s a blank kind of big wall that everyone puts their ADS box, and they can give them from one employee to the next, but you got to give it. And so at the end of the month, and throughout the month, people can walk up and see, “To Chris, $50. Thank you so much for going above and beyond and helping me out with that thing.”

And he said that it’s twofold. One, it’s the best return on investment you could ever make, because it is immediate motivation. But on the other side of it, you’ll have these people that will self-correct when they walk up to that board three months in a row and they don’t see an ADS buck for them. They’re like, “I got to change something,” right? And I think oftentimes as owners or leaders, we think that it’s up to us to help them find that thing.

So I say all of that, but I mean, one of my big things is if you’re not utterly exhausted from rewarding and recognizing your people, you haven’t done it enough. And something as simple as an agency owner, people look up to you, right? So asking all of your leaders to simply do this, forward any accolade onto me just so I can say thank you so much. So when someone on your team is recognized by a client or a peer, forward it onto me, CC them, and all I’m going to do, and maybe I’ll send a gift for something fun? And that cost’s nothing. So, I know that’s on the other side of the benefits piece, but I think, yeah, the 401(k) it’s you got to check those boxes, but where you’re really going to create that attractive environment is with some of these other pieces.

Drew McLellan:

So what I’m hearing you say is that in part of the interview or certainly part of your retention strategy, while you have to have the regular old bonus programs or benefits package, it really is about more trophies, more recognition, maybe on a smaller scale, but more within a shorter timeframe. So I’m feeling appreciated more often.

Chris Tuff:

Exactly. And I mean, and so another example, I open up all of our meetings with what I call snaps, and I’ll just give snaps to people that deserve recognition whether someone pushed themselves out of their comfort zone or… I’ll say, “Meg, you killed it in that presentation to X client,” snaps. And then that instigates this kind of viral thing within our walls where people are building each other up. And those snaps go on for like 25 minutes, which is a lot more refreshing than going through an Excel document to ask what everyone is working on right now. And so yeah, I mean and once again, that’s another one of those things where it’s like, “Guys, we’re agency owners. Let’s experiment. Let’s see what sticks, and let’s pivot when it doesn’t.”

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. So one of the things I know you’ve thought about and written about is how business is going to look different as the boomers retire and as the Millennials get into leadership roles, and eventually are actually running companies. And it occurred to me as I was thinking about the conversation we were going to have today, that if I want to attract and keep younger employees, then if I can get ahead of the curve and start building that company now, right? Then they’re going to feel more comfortable there, and they’re going to stick around, and they will step into a leadership role because it feels more natural to them. So what is the company of the future going to look like do you think, as you look through your Millennial crystal ball? And how can we sort of step into that early?

Chris Tuff:

Sure. And I think that a few things. One, I think diversity inclusion is going to become a bigger and bigger issue across the board. And if that’s not on people’s kind of top three, then I think it needs to be. And part of that diversity inclusion is also allowing Millennials to lead. I think, so taking the chance in some of those ones that you have a lot of hope for. And listen, they’re not that young. I mean, we’re now talking about 37 year olds. But then you’re also going to start seeing that change within our clients, that we’re seeing more and more Millennial CMOs, and even soon enough, CEOs.

So if we don’t match up I think correctly on that side, I think we’re falling behind. So I think that’s one piece of it. I think another piece is that we need to be focusing on once again, Millennials aren’t the problem, they just expose all the problems. So let’s just hear what they have to say. And I think making an environment where people feel heard, and where you’re actually taking action on some of those pain points is really important. And so whether that be creating more one on ones or I’ve heard reverse mentorships is something that I’ve run into a lot, where take your executive team and do a reverse mentorship where they’re actually learning from these younger people. I think tactically, there’s a lot of things that we can put into place that can better prepare us for the next thing.

And I think we’re about to undergo massive change. I think Zoom, I think it’s still a very buyable stock, because I see how it’s disrupted my life as I do more stuff like this and connect with people all over the world. It’s crazy. So what’s that mean for client relationships? Think about focusing in, there is a real truth to the younger Millennials being too reliant on technology. For example, I have a rule where if people are inside our agency walls, then you got to walk over to that person’s desk versus IMing, texting or emailing because it’s more comfortable. I mean, these younger Millennials have grown up with that as their escape, So we got to help them build these new muscles.

And so, I think the same is true with we’re in a service industry, people. We’ve got to create relationships with our clients. How do you do that? Guess what, Zoom is one of those ways. If you have a… So anyways-

Drew McLellan:

And the face time is valuable even if it has to be digital face time?

Chris Tuff:

Exactly. And don’t underestimate that. That’s real. I use an example in the book about how I went up to New York for some new business meetings, and I went to the new Snapchat offices, and I brought my cohort, Kristy, who’s head of business development with me. And I was going on this conversation with this guy, his name’s Adam. And I was like, “Adam, good to see you.” I gave him a big hug. And I was asking how his seven month old daughter was and all this stuff. And Kristy was like, “How long have you guys known each other?” I was like, “Adam, what? We met when you were at Facebook. What was that, seven years ago? Adam, wait, we’ve never met in person. All of this relationship has been grown through digital and social.”

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it’s becoming more common, right? I think that’s part of what the agency owners are struggling with is what they’re comfortable with, and what they grew up in is becoming less common.

Chris Tuff:

Totally.

Drew McLellan:

And so I think part of the reaction to the Millennials is also a reaction to maybe feeling a little out of step, and struggling with that a little bit.

Chris Tuff:

Then there’s truth to those feelings that you all have I assume, the boomers and extra owners out there, like the instant gratification. People ask me, “What of the Millennials stereotypes are very true?” I think instant gratification and I think some of these things, where it’s whether it be the 70-30 rule, where it’s like yeah, 30% of your job is going to suck. So stop jumping around. Or just I’ve actually bring in a mindfulness coach, because you look at just statistically, this generation is dealing with a massive amount of anxiety and stress. And we can point our finger to whatever we want, but I think it’s up to us as agency owners to create an environment where they feel safe and supported and where they’re becoming better people. And yeah, I mean, I bring in a mindfulness instructor in once a month, and it’s done, had a massive impact.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah, it’s interesting because I’ve worked in agencies my entire life. And it was always a stressful environment because you knew if one big client went away, your job might go away too. So it’s sort of ironic that we’re trying to create this peaceful, tranquil, safe place. And again, because what we grew up in was not that, right? There was always a little tension in the air about if you were going to get… I used to always say, “If you’ve worked in an agency for 10 years, you’ve been laid off at least once.”

Chris Tuff:

Well, and I think our stresses have evolved, like look at what stressed us out as when we are their ages, and what’s stressing them out. What’s stressing them out isn’t job security. They will quit tomorrow. They’re not scared about losing their jobs necessarily, and maybe the younger Millennials I think that’s a little different, but the things that are stressing them out are very different. So how do we address those things and actually take on some of those responsibilities that in our generation were never the agency’s responsibilities? But I think you’ll find that it will be paid back to you in tenfold.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. Yeah, great point. This has been fascinating. If folks want to learn a little bit more about you, if they want to follow you on social and keep tracking what you’re talking about, what’s the best way for them to find you?

Chris Tuff:

Sure. So it is themillennialwhisperer.com. And that’s two Ls, two Ns, I learned that the hard way after writing a book on Millennials. And forward slash, actually, buildabetteragency. We’ve created a free Millennial leadership assessment for listeners, which I think all agency owners will really vibe with. And then you can actually download the first chapter for free as well, which we’ve created for you all. I think all you have to do is put in your email address. And then you can find me on all the regular social channels and find my book in the airport now, and at any of the major retailers and on Amazon, The Millennial Whisperer.

My Instagram handle is @millennialwhisperer. And my Twitter’s @Christuff. And I can also be found on LinkedIn. And the best way to interact with me, I’m happy to be a sounding board because listen, I am an agency owner, I know what you’re going through and happy to be a resource, but hit me up on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram are probably the best places.

Drew McLellan:

Awesome. So what’s next for you? You’ve written a book. So now what are you going to do next with this insight and knowledge do you think?

Chris Tuff:

Yeah, so I’m being very deliberate in building an online curriculum that we will be introducing to small business, medium business and large businesses so that we’re working on that curriculum right now. So within your agency walls, as you want some of your leaders to go through some of these, basically the tactics within the book and our workbook, et cetera. We’re building all that right now, so that that’ll be done by the end of the summer. And then I’ve got three major engagements right now that will be kind of the case studies. I know agency owners love their case studies.

Drew McLellan:

Yep.

Chris Tuff:

So we’ll be getting some I think really good case studies. And then I think it’s going to be really off to the races. A lot of people when writing a book, I’ve got a lot of advice in writing books, and I learned a lot and I put it all on the line for this one, but you all know what that feels like because we live it every single day as agency owners. But one of the big things, you don’t build a business out of selling books, you build a business behind a digital curriculum behind the book. So that’s our biggest next thing.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah, very cool. It’d be fun to watch that evolve.

Chris Tuff:

Totally.

Drew McLellan:

Thank you so much for being with us today, and thank you for sharing your expertise. As you know, this is a frustration and pain point for every agency out there right now, as we sort of learn to adapt to and embrace and encourage this new workforce that we absolutely are dependent on having if we’re going to keep growing our business. So, really vital stuff today. Thank you.

Chris Tuff:

I love it. And I think I wrote it for essentially agency owners, but I think it applies to all audiences. And my main kind of metric for this thing was let’s make sure this thing’s a painkiller, not a vitamin.

Drew McLellan:

Right.

Chris Tuff:

Thanks so much for having me on.

Drew McLellan:

You bet. Thank you. All right, guys, this wraps up another episode of Build A Better Agency. Lots of actionable items in this conversation, and I’m hoping some thought provoking comments too. I think it’s really easy to look at this workforce and be frustrated at them and lay the problems at their feet. And I think part of what Chris has been talking about is A, some of it is just cultural change. Some of it is our own discomfort and our own need to change. And some of it certainly is, like with every generation, there are good and bad employees. And so I’m hoping that you can really find some takeaways from this conversation that help you create a better relationship with the Millennials inside your shop today that you want to keep, and also ferret out the good ones in your future interviews.

So I as always will be back next week with another guest. In the meantime, if you’re looking to track me down, I am always at agencymanagementinstitute.com. And just a reminder, anytime you need something from me [email protected] is probably your best bet, all right? I will be back next week. Talk to you then.

That’s a wrap for this week’s episode of Build A Better Agency. Visit agencymanagementinstitute.com to check out our workshops, coaching packages, and all the other ways we serve agencies just like yours. Thanks for listening.