Hello and welcome to The Talent Trade.

This is your host, Stephanie Maas, Partner with ThinkingAhead

Executive Search, and today, I am super excited to have

probably one of the all time greats with us from

ThinkingAhead, Brian Vogt. Brian was once again, our top

producer. Couple things I think everyone should know about

Brian, and help you, hopefully get excited to hear what he

wants to share with us today. Brian does this job the good old

fashioned way. He's incredibly well planned. He's very process

oriented. He's a phone guy, which is, I think, a little bit

of a novelty in his niche. He's diligent and consistent in his

work effort. It's no wonder he's been our top producer for

several years. The second thing I think you should know is Brian

is uniquely humble in his success and how he does what he

does. However, he has an alter ego named Brian that is not so

humble. So often we have to call on Brian to brag on Brian. Not

sure who we're going to get today, Brian, super excited to

have you here, and not sure which Brian we're getting, but

whoever is here, we're happy to have you.

Thank you, Stephanie, appreciate that there

was a couple things that I thought was important to chat

about. One of the big things what I've learned about this

over the years is a lot of the psychology associated with what

we do, and one of the things that's always dumbfounded me has

been trying to get to know what's really in the head of our

candidates. What are they really thinking? It always seems to me

like I never quite know what the real reason why they're open to

making a change until we get late in the process. And so one

of the things I've I've done is really changed how I ask

questions to candidates and learning to ask indirect

questions to them. Probably most recruiters do a good job of

during debrief calls or even prep calls, of asking

candidates. So tell me who you turn to when you make these

kinds of big decisions, whether it's a significant other,

whether it's a parent a friend, what I've learned to do over the

years is ask, instead of directly asking them what they

think of these things, it's asking them. So tell me that

important person in your life that helps you make these

decisions. What do they think of this opportunity? What are the

things that they're saying? So Stephanie, I'm going to I'm

going to ask you a question. If I were to ask you, tell me how I

was going to actually ask, How would I describe you? But I

don't want to do that to you. I think that would be kind of

rough. But if I were to ask your children, how would they

describe you as a mother, what do you think they would say?

Depending on the day, I think they would say I

was very silly. My silliness is probably a little bit annoying,

but I wear that like a badge of honor, because honestly, if

you're not annoying your kids, you're doing something wrong. I

think they would say I'm incredibly loving and would do

anything for them.

No, that's great. I think that's awesome. But what

just happened is, when I asked you that question, you stopped

for a second and said, Okay, how would my kids respond? And we

aren't going to put words in someone else's mouth, so we

really have to think about, what would they say about this? And

so that's been one of the things I've learned over the years is

Hey, asking that indirect question, not directly, asking

the candidate or even a client, what do they think of this

individual? But actually asking, what is that important person in

your life? What would they say about this opportunity? What

would they say about these things? Another thing I thought

was interesting I started, and I this is obviously something that

I've heard over the years from other people. Is a good question

to give to candidates if they're going through the interview

process, is saying to them, if you're talking to your future

boss or your future mentor, ask them this tough question. If I

were to ask other people that have worked for you, how would

they describe you as a mentor, as a boss, and you will get

immediate, Frank answers to that question, because people don't

want to put words in everybody else's mouth.

Let's do a role play on a debrief. I want to

know like, pretend you just sent me out on an interview, and

we're doing a debrief. I'm the candidate, you're the recruiter.

How exactly does that sound. And let's pretend you know who my

important person is. Let's use some very real information.

Yeah, so usually, what I would ask you, Stephanie

is, tell me about the the interview. You know, tell me

about the types of questions you got from the interview, mainly

kind of asking you, hey, what? What did they say to you? What

kind of questions Did they ask you? And then I would. Also get

into you know, did anything pop up that maybe concerns you

during the process? Any Did they say anything, or did anything

kind of strike you as odd or off, if I coached you properly,

did you ask a clarifying question when something was off

and then finally, did you guys discuss next steps in the

process. Where do we go from there? Now, at this point, when

I'm starting to wrap up the call, this is usually when I go,

Hey, by the way, did you have a chance? I know you and I talked

about that important person to your life, your your good

friend, whatever. Tell me, you know, did you have a chance to

discuss the interview with them? And what was their feedback?

You'll notice, I never asked them, What do you think? I don't

want them to tell me what they think. I want them to tell me

what that important person of their life is, is providing

information. Because typically, what we do is we turn to those

in our lives that think the same way we do have the same goals

and are good advisors for us. So a lot of times, the real meat

and concerns will come forward during that discussion.

You know, it's so interesting because the other

side of that too is those are the people that we trust. They

usually want what's best for us, and yet we can also heavily

influence their support with our feedback to them. So in this

scenario, the behind the scenes, which is really what I think

you're unveiling here, is, you know, after the interview ends,

I'm going to call my brother and I'm going to say, Oh my gosh.

Let me tell you, I loved it. It was great. This and this and

this, and my brother's feedback is going to be, well, hey, this

sounds like a great opportunity for you. I'm really excited. And

then, therefore, he will give me his support because of what I

shared with him. He may ask some Hey, make sure you find about

this. Make sure you find out about that. But wow, this sounds

really great for you. So the key here, and I love this, is when

you ask, Hey, what does your spouse think? What does your

support person think? What is, you know, whatever, what you're

really asking is, what did you tell them? What therefore, is

their response? But then also, it sheds light on, if there is

hesitation or concern, it'll be reflected back by that person,

and then, you know, hey, this other person that's a major

influencer, and they're at big decision making is not on board.

If our major influencers in our life are not on board with the

decision we're going to make, we're rarely going to make that decision.

Yeah, absolutely. I always find it interesting when

suddenly they begin to mention things that we never discuss,

right? Well, they mentioned I should be paid better. Oh,

really. Well, you and I had discussed that pay wasn't a

major issue. So, so now, why is this suddenly coming out, right?

You know, mentorship is important. Well, I'm, I'm not

sure if I'm getting that right? So that's always interesting,

and we unveil those concerns, but we also get to talk about

them, right? Because a lot of times, if you don't get these

concerns out in the open, they fester, then they pop up later

when an offer comes out, and suddenly you find out, well, I

don't really want to accept this because of there's this

lingering concern that I wasn't aware of. The only other thing I

was going to bring up was the CEO of Nvidia was talking about,

he was asked the question, you know, how do you coach people to

become more successful? And he said something I thought was

very profound. And he said, you know, he goes, what we find is

everybody's going to make mistakes, everybody's going to

fail. People are going to, you know, have to go through this

process of learning, and failure is part of that problem. But

what he said to people is, they've learned. We coach them

to fail faster, the faster we can teach them to fail over and

over again, the quicker they will suddenly realize, hey, I

figured this out. Now I can get to the point of being

successful. So if I could coach people that are new to this

industry, I would just tell you, hey, faster you fail at this,

the more mistakes you make. Don't look at it as a bad thing,

look at it as a good thing. So you can learn to be successful.

I love that, and I do want to share with our

audience this mentality at work, and that's with you, Brian. When

Brian joined our firm, you know, we kind of put the standard of,

you know, you make 50 calls a day. Well, Brian's like, well, I

don't want to be the average first year producer. I'm going

to make more than 50 calls a day. You know, we set up a

Monday through Friday schedule of how to plan your day to get

the most out of your day. Brian said, Hey, that's not going to

cut it for me. My first year, I'm going to be committed to

working, you know, Sunday afternoons to get all my

sourcing and administrative work done. And it's not about being a

workaholic or being so dogged that you don't have a life

outside the job, but it's this exact idea I want to hurry up

and learn this business is absolutely fast as I can, which

means you're going to make mistakes along the way. But

this, the sooner you get those hurdles and speed bumps out of

the way, the sooner the road opens up. Sounds super novel at

the same time, because he set that example. He also trained

the top first year that three years ago, we had a 25 year

first year production record. She came in and broke that

record. It stood for 25 years, but it was again on this

mentality of, hey, do more sooner. Do more faster. So it's

not just a Hey. It's a great thing to think mentality. But

I'm a huge believer in you don't listen to what people say. You

watch what they do. And Brian at the time, you weren't saying,

Hey, I'm going to fail faster, but you did, and I think there's

a lot to be said for that, so kudos for you for setting that

example for us.

I appreciate that. Yeah, and as a matter of fact,

another person on the team this year came on the team just over

a year ago and became a partner and and really just followed,

followed what I did, work harder, work faster, and get to

that point of of understanding this and becoming more

successful. So it's definitely something that I will preach and

believe in. And I think I don't know if I have the perfect

method all the time, but I think what I do definitely works, and

proof has been in the pudding on those around me on my team.

Absolutely. Fanastic.