January 23, 2026 – Int’l Real Estate Darius A. Ross and Hire, Train, Retain Mike Matalone

0:04 Intro 1: Broadcasting from AM and FM stations around the country. Welcome to the Small Business Administration award-winning School for Startups Radio, where we talk all things small business and entrepreneurship. Now, here is your host, the guy that believes anyone can be a successful entrepreneur, because entrepreneurship is not about creativity, risk, or passion: Jim Beach. 

0:26 Jim Beach: Hello, everyone. Welcome to another exciting edition of School for Startups Radio. I hope you’re having a great day out there riding the roller coaster fun of being an entrepreneur. It is great days and bad days and bad days and great days, and you just got to be ready for it, and be ready for the weather this weekend. Godspeed to all of you out there. Don’t go on the road. Just be safe this weekend. Great show for you today. Darius Ross is with us to talk about international real estate, and Mike Matalone to talk about hiring, training, retraining practices. It is fantastic. Both of these are just great guests. And so you are in for a treat. And maybe if it’s a long weekend, you might have to listen to it twice to get the whole value out of it. Thanks for being with us today. We’re going to go ahead and get started right now. It’s going to be a long show, 54, but no breaks. Here we go. Let’s get started. Very excited to introduce my first guest. His name is Darius Ross. He is a business consultant, motivational speaker with 30 years of entrepreneurial experience. He has been very successful in the real estate space, and he is the managing director of D. Alexander Ross Real Estate Capital Partners Interest. He also has three books out, including a new one called Success DNA: Mastering Persistence in Leadership and Life. Darius, welcome to the show. 1:54 Darius A. Ross: How you doing? I’m doing well. Thank you, sir, for being here.

1:57 Jim Beach: So tell us your story. Grew up in Chicago. How’d you get started? Tell us the story. 

2:06 Darius A. Ross: Got started basically by being fired from a financial institution, and from there I started buying, basically, what we call rehabs today. Otherwise, they called me the garbage man, because I bought houses that were basically falling apart. They’d get the kickstand, and they were in bad shape. So I learned how to master construction and real estate and development. So that’s how I got started. 

2:30 Jim Beach: I love it that you got fired. I got fired too. I got fired from Coca-Cola. Who’d you get fired from? You don’t want to say? 

2:38 Darius A. Ross: It was called First Chicago at the time. It’s now become Chase. 

2:43 Jim Beach: Were you just shocked as all could be? I was completely caught off guard. What about you? 

2:48 Darius A. Ross: I was, but the bottom line of it was that it was a blessing in disguise, because it led to a lot of unique and interesting opportunities. 

2:55 Jim Beach: Yes, definitely. That is very true. Me too. That happened to me too. My life wouldn’t be the same if I had gotten stuck at Coca-Cola. I’m absolutely not. So glad. All right, so the first flip that you did, tell us about that very first one. Why’d you decide to flip a house? Tell us about that. 

3:14 Darius A. Ross: What actually didn’t happen as a flip. Actually, what happened was someone was driving by, and they saw outside that there was all kind of construction going on. And I had a ragtag crew. I had an immigrant crew. They were doing all the construction we had, and so forth. And so they drove by and they were like, are you interested in selling? And I’m thinking, well, what the hell, what do I have to lose? So that’s how it ended up happening. I was not thinking of flipping. I mean, that was early years. We’re talking about ’88, ’89, so that was not something that was, you know, considered by a flip. It was more a matter of, you know. 

3:47 Jim Beach: Luck of the draw, so to speak. What do you mean, luck of the draw? 

3:52 Darius A. Ross: In my wildest imagination, my first house that I was looking at, I expected to stay in the house. I was actually staying there with the cot and so forth, because I left Chicago, I’m downstate Illinois. So I’m like, okay, I’m going to be staying in this house. And I had my little canteen there, a little cooler, and so forth. So I was actually living in the house and figuring out how to survive. You’re 27 years old, how to survive. So it was more just survival, and you’re out of your parents’ house, and this is your first period of being an adult. 

4:32 Jim Beach: And then, so how many flips have you done at this point? 

4:37 Darius A. Ross: After that, it’s been almost 100 plus. But I learned not to fall in love with the housing industry, because living past the ’87, the ’90s, and the 2000s, you learn very quickly, do not fall in love with a piece of real estate. It can surprise you. 

4:53 Jim Beach: That is very true. All right, so are you still flipping, or have you moved on from that? 

5:01 Darius A. Ross: Now it’s more commercial, residential development, as well as the acquisition, multifamily, 50 units and greater. 

5:09 Jim Beach: Okay. Why that? Why move up? It’s just more volume, easier to do? 

5:16 Darius A. Ross: It’s more a matter of, number one, it’s wealth creation, and if you’re looking at legacy creation, that’s it. The other thing about leverage is much better and more important than speaking. It’s easier to maneuver those properties, because basically, once you learn the dynamics of one to two units, or three to four, it’s easier to deal with the tens, because you understand the tenant population is primarily looking at a place to stay in. The workers, they’re going back and forth. Very simple. 

5:43 Jim Beach: Okay, and how many units do you have now under your management? 

5:49 Darius A. Ross: Total, right now, directly and indirectly, almost 100,000. 

5:53 Jim Beach: Whoa, stop. I’m sorry, say that again. 

5:56 Darius A. Ross: Total, direct and indirectly under control is about 100,000 units. 

6:00 Jim Beach: Holy cow. How can you indirectly control a unit? You get involved in partnerships? 

6:05 Darius A. Ross: You get involved in partnerships. So you may have a partnership that you have equity stakes in, or you have some type of development activity in, or consulting. 

6:13 Jim Beach: Okay, so tell me about a deal you’re working on right now. What are you doing right now? Tell me about something. 

6:21 Darius A. Ross: Current right now, I’m looking at more international development, because right now we’re looking at the population of the world, especially in the developing market, or what used to be the developing market: Asia, India, Africa. You’re looking at probably 10 billion-plus people over the next few decades. So now I’m looking at how to turn around, maximize those areas where the population boom is really booming, and how to get in there and develop on the ground up, both the land as well as the acquisition of properties that are already there. So it’s a different market. Now you learn different understanding. It’s a language issue, as well as a political and social issue. So a lot of things you have to learn very quickly. 

7:01 Jim Beach: Yes. What market do you think is best for you? You name some very different type places. 

7:07 Darius A. Ross: Both Africa and Asia, particularly speaking India. In Africa, it’s going to be Nigeria and Egypt. In the Asian market, it’s going to be India and parts of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Okay? 

7:20 Jim Beach: And why are those, just because of growth rates there, or absolutely economic mobility, money, access? You know, some places you’re not allowed to own land. It’s an American. 

7:33 Darius A. Ross: It’s primarily issue of the fact that you have so many different people that are going to be imperious that it’s going to be serious. And you’re looking at a situation where the population boom is going to be probably 10 people for every one person. It is huge. Very huge. 

7:56 Jim Beach: Have you been to India yet? 

7:59 Darius A. Ross: I will be going to India for the second time this summer, and I’ll be back in Africa for the first time. Actually, the second time I didn’t get on the ground, but this time I’ll be on the ground. So it was a flyover. So we’re looking at probably this fall. So this is going to be a different experience. I found out there was some DNA lineage there directly. So it’s going to be different experience. It’d be like coming back home, so to speak. 

8:25 Jim Beach: What about access to capital? Where have you found money for all of this? You mentioned partnerships. Can you talk to us about raising money? 

8:33 Darius A. Ross: That is one of the most unique things now, because, believe it or not, there’s almost a quadrillion dollars, and I’m going to stress that again, a quadrillion dollars of dry powder sitting on the sidelines. Dry powder being money from sovereign wealth funds, family offices, hedge funds, pensions, and so forth. So the ability to raise money is very easy, if you understand the dynamics of what investors want. But the bottom line of it is now it’s a skittish thing because of the tariffs and so forth. That’s making people very uncomfortable. So it’s like making them comfortable in the markets and politically speaking, the transition of these areas that are politically kind of in upheaval. So it’s like there are certain things in the US politics right now are making people very skittish. So it’s making it a little bit uncomfortable to get the funds where you want them. 

9:21 Jim Beach: Yeah, it is. These are uncomfortable times, and that’s usually when opportunity strikes, though, right? 

9:48 Jim Beach: Tell us about your books. USA national bestseller, Success DNA: Mastering Persistence in Leadership and Life. Tell us about the book and why you wanted to participate in it. It’s a compendium, right? About 10 different authors, each to a chapter. Is that correct? 

9:48 Darius A. Ross: Correct. The issue was being able to discuss what leadership is all about, and I was coming at it from the military standpoint, as well as growing up in a background of very strict disciplinary and so forth. And also the urban flair to it, because so often young, particularly speaking minority young men, both Hispanic and Black, grew up in a situation where there’s a lack of discipline because there’s a lack of male leadership in the house. So I talk about what it’s like dealing in those environments, and what it’s like when you have the ideal circumstances. And I do circumstances. Okay. 

10:28 Jim Beach: It’s been the fact that you’re African American. Has that been a problem for you? Have you been held back because of your race? And then, no, let’s, I’ll stop right there. Then follow up the. 

10:43 Darius A. Ross: Interesting part about it, and I’ll tell you, it was more a matter of, when you pop up in the room. One of the big things of it was that I used, I want to call it the hack. If you want to call it, I would actually use versus Darius, which was not an African American name. I would say D. Alexander. So I would turn around and appear in rooms, whether it was at the athletic clubs, or the golf course, or even social philanthropicness. You saw my name and you felt my impact financially speaking, when I’m donating to charities and so forth. So when I popped up there, it was like, oh. The interesting story I’ll give you was at the New York Stock Exchange Club when it was around, and I appeared there. And when I appeared there, no one really knew what to do, because when I got there, it’s like, oh, can’t be him. Can’t be him. But it was me. So as a result, my guests were let in and I wasn’t, and it took a managing person to come down and let me in, because it was like, oh, we never knew that he was Black. So has there been real hindrance? No. I think it’s been more a matter of it’s shock and awe. As President Bush would say, you’re not quite sure what to do, because when you’re hearing me over the phone, it’s a different dialect change when you feel the movement of how I move and so forth. It’s very quiet, very strategic. So it’s not been so much of an issue. It’s been more a matter of I’m shocking people as to how I come across, which is strategic, I’d say. 

12:18 Jim Beach: Well, also, Darius, I have found pictures of you in suit and tie, looking really sharp. And then I’ve also found pictures of you with necklaces on and a different look, right? Urban. Okay, thank you for that. Urban. I think you look better urban, by the way. 

12:39 Darius A. Ross: Well, you know, the funny part about that is that the interesting thing that throws people off is like, I can go whichever way you want to go. And that’s why we can go street. We can go the hip hop era, or we can go corporate. But the best part about it is being able to pivot. And I think that’s very important, that you can pivot. Particularly speaking, there’s a ratio issue, and you can move around in any environment, whether it’s being waspish on Martha’s Vineyard, or being in the Hamptons, or being on 125th Street Harlem. You’re not afraid of maneuvering wherever you are, and you’re genuine. That’s my big thing, being genuine. Not saying, okay, now financially speaking, you’re at the top 1%, but being able to say, you know what, I still know what it’s like to be zero versus at the top 1%. I get both. 

13:30 Jim Beach: Tell me about the Mastering the TPS Blueprint book. What does TPS stand for? This one looks autobiographical. Tell me about this transforming trauma into triumph. 

13:44 Darius A. Ross: It is almost autobiographical, but it’s interesting because the book was actually 1,200-plus pages, because I took different lessons from all different points in life and all different experiences in life. And I said, you know what, I’m going to turn around and transform this, talking about life in general. So what I’m discussing is how, in the inner city, there’s so many things that deal with PTSD, believe it or not. And when you deal in an environment where there’s so much violence and so much chaos and so forth, how do you come out of that? And then trying to transform people that are walking around day to day, not only adults, but kids that day to day are dealing with this violence and this craziness and how they actually come across. And I talk about my own experiences and experiences of relatives and friends that we lived through this. And the strange thing about it for me was I lost 200 friends during the ’80s due to the gang and HIV crisis, as well as the drug crisis. So I talk about how you deal with that, because mentally speaking, it’s a dream. You get so used to fighting, you don’t know when to stop fighting. 

14:51 Jim Beach: 200 people. And so what is the solution today? Way to the inner city problems and the racial issues that we still have. Darius, do you think Black Lives Matter moved things forward? What are your thoughts on all the current social problems that we have? I think. 

15:17 Darius A. Ross: I think that Black Lives Matter, all due respect to it, they have a good agenda, but sometimes you can find yourself deep in a quagmire of this whole DUI thing. And what I mean by that is the diversity issue was very strong. It had a lot of impact in the ’80s from Dr. King and what happened in the 1960s. But somehow or another, there is a transition there, whereas it got lost in the whole sauce, so to speak. And what I mean by that is we as African Americans that had leadership and had power and so forth, we somehow got a little bit soft. I’ll say it that way. And we stopped thinking about the fact that everybody in the race had not propelled themselves forward, meaning that a lot of us were able to go to suburbia and go to Ivy League schools and so forth. But there were so many people that were still lost behind. So we lost the concept of each one teach one and reach back as a village. So that wasn’t, per se, the Anglo majority issue. You know, we say Black and white. No, we’re fighting about that. See, sometimes we have to hold accountability to the fact that we lost sight of Dr. King’s message, what we all have to come forward at the same time, versus just partially. So that’s the real issue. We kind of missed the boat there, and we stopped fighting for all the things we should have been fighting for. 

16:37 Jim Beach: And what about the family situation? Why, or what do you think the solution to the inner city family problem is? We’re not enough men at home. 

16:49 Darius A. Ross: We have to address the issue of when I was growing up in the ’70s, we had the senior programs, which in the up-to programs, which was youth training partnerships. We had the YMCAs. We had so many different programs that, at least up until I got around 17, 18, these programs existed during the Reagan and Carter and so forth administrations. A lot of those programs are cut due to budget cuts and so forth. But those programs need to come back, number one. Number two, we have to also address the drug issue problem, and we have to address the crime issue. One of the biggest things of it is vocational programs left the inner city. Jobs left the inner city, and so they had to go to suburbia, which is where a lot of people could not get to the jobs because they were working without transportation. So one of the big things of it is we have to address the fact that fathers are no longer in the homes, and we have to address the incarceration scenario. A lot of these men are intelligent, but because they’ve got families, and because sometimes they end up in situations where they have to feed these families, they do unscrupulous things. So the streets become a draw. So we have to go back to getting those vocational programs back into place, as well as bringing some of those jobs back to inner city, which is a big question. Now, how do you do that? We have to look at things, for example, in the construction trades. You have tons and tons of vacant lots, tons and tons of buildings that are boarded up. If we actually put these gentlemen back in the trades and say, okay, plumbing, electrical, and so forth, construction laborers, we start building back an inner city, and we start making these communities back normal once again. You know, these men would do the work. There’s not a question of, you know, nobody wants to turn around and go to jail. Nobody wants to turn around and be incarcerated. The bottom line of it is, I want a job, I want to work, and I want to make things happen, but there is no future. And so the drug trades become the future. 

18:46 Jim Beach: It is so sad to see, and I don’t know, seems like it would be easier to solve than over the last decade. So, no. 

19:01 Darius A. Ross: Nobody’s addressing the inner city problem because it’s not politically correct. And I’ll say it that way, politically correct to do what, to actually fix the inner city problem. It’s better to leave it as is, and just let, if we use the term, the folks just fight amongst themselves. For example, the projected projects, right? You have a huge community of people in a closing environment with nowhere to go, nothing to do, and so forth. It’s ultimately speaking, nothing more than violence, because you have people that are on top of each other. You have some working and some not. So it’s going to be people considering themselves, okay, I’m going to take advantage and prey on the poor. So everybody in this community might be working class and middle class, but there are only a few of them that actually have something to work with. So of course they’re going to prey on each other. It’s like, you know, an animalistic kind of thing. Even animals don’t do this, but this is what they reduce these humans to, thinking to themselves that they’re taking advantage of whoever they can, because there’s the money, right? 

20:09 Jim Beach: Serious. I’m sorry, they should put you in charge. 

20:15 Darius A. Ross: Well, you know, the thing about it is, it’s interesting, because when you say that, I thought about running politically for political office. But here’s the problem with that. A lot of times when you look at these situations, you have to put yourself in them. And so often in leadership, you find yourself detached from the problem. Okay, if you’re not there after four years of college, and you go off and you create a job, you create a business, and so forth, you refuse to come back. Whereas when you have your feet firmly planted on the ground, you go in these communities on an ongoing basis. But as an investor, and as well as someone that constantly goes back and forth, and you’re visiting people there, you begin to see the solutions. The only problem with the solutions is politically speaking, it doesn’t really make a lot of sense, because nobody wants to take the heat if something goes wrong. You know, it’s wonderful when everything goes right and it’s the photographs and it’s the media press, but you got to get in here and deal with all the problems and address them head on, and actually put the money to it, and actually say to people, this will work, but it’s going to take time, and that’s a problem. Things can work, the training programs, the architectural concepts of making things better, and the social issues and so forth, but it takes time. It’s not an overnight solution, because it’s taken 300-plus years to get here. 

21:37 Jim Beach: Totally different topic. Darius, when did you realize you were different from everyone else? 

21:43 Darius A. Ross: Probably at about six years old. 

22:28 Jim Beach: Okay, how? What was going on then? 

21:43 Darius A. Ross: I was reading The Wall Street Journal. I was reading Forbes, Fortune, and I was getting quizzed about it every single day by a parent. That was like, listen, you know, who’s the chairman of this board, who’s on this board, what’s the stock price, what’s the Dow opening today, what was in the news? So I have to be constantly quizzed and so forth. To this day, I’m still a book collector. I probably have over a million-plus books. So to this day, I still collect books. Newspapers. I probably read 1,000 in a month on an ongoing basis from every market you could imagine. 

22:28 Jim Beach: Wow. Interesting, but that was parental excellence there. Did you also realize that you were intellectually superior and realized that you had more drive than your peers? 

22:42 Darius A. Ross: Well, the funny part about that was, I had a dad that was always like, what you going to do now? There was no such thing as coming to the table saying you’re going to be half-assed at anything. Everything was, you got to be the best, you got to excel, you got to exceed. And that was an ongoing thing, saying to my mom. So you had no choice but to get it right and to be the best at everything, and so excelling just came as it was. The problem with it was now keeping my head in college, because I found out that, you know what, it was much more conducive to actually look at the professor and say, okay, he’s making 60,000 and I can make that in one deal. Yeah. So my junior year, that was it. So I saw the hustle. You know, how do you utilize the hustle of being able to move faster, think faster, think quicker, be abstract and can touch at the same time. 

23:38 Jim Beach: Wow. Darius, how do we find out more about you, follow you online, get in touch, all that, please? 

23:42 Darius A. Ross: You can reach me at DariusRoss.com or DariusARoss.com. And then there’s also the books on DariusWrites.com. That’s D-A-R-I-U-S-W-R-I-T-E-S dot com. 

23:55 Jim Beach: Fantastic. Darius, what an impressive career. Thank you so much for sharing with us, and we’d love to have you back. Thanks a lot. 

24:16 Jim Beach: Definitely appreciate it, and we will be right back. 

24:16 Jim Beach: We are back, and again, thank you so very much for being with us. Very excited to welcome another great guest. Please welcome Mike Matalone to the show. We were having fun with his last name. It’s Italian, shortened. Used to be Madalone, and so anyway, he’s a lion killer. That means to kill lions, so we need to be really respectful. Mike, welcome to the show. He is the author of a new book called Hire, Train, Retain. It’s in its second edition now. He has been very successful at finding people the right job. He has a company called XP3 Talent System, which does exactly that: helps people get jobs, does training, corporate training. Mike has given thousands of training exercises across the last 20 years or so. He is also the managing partner of a deck and dock building company. Interesting. They will build decks and docks for you. It’s called Lake Anna Deck Solutions. I love building decks. I should hire me, and I’m really good. Mike, welcome to the show. How to. 

25:24 Mike Matalone: Doing good, Jim. Thanks for having me. I’m doing great. Appreciate the opportunity to talk to you this morning. 

25:30 Jim Beach: So I built a 30-foot swinging bridge entirely by myself at your home, or, yes, in my backyard. 

25:38 Mike Matalone: Cool, cool. And why? 

25:46 Jim Beach: Because I had two places I wanted to get to. All right. I had a tree house, and once I got the tree house, I realized it was perfectly aligned with the deck over by the pool, and so I said, they got to be connected. And did it. And it’s, you know, five years later, still sturdy as hell, and it’s safe as hell too. So I was really impressed with myself. 

26:14 Mike Matalone: Well, good. I’d love to see it. Yep, send me a picture, and next time I’m in Atlanta, I’ll come and look at it in person. I love seeing stuff like. 

26:21 Jim Beach: Swinging bridges. 

26:26 Mike Matalone: Yeah, I built the bridge on my property just that. It just goes over a little creek, but it ain’t no swinging bridge. So, yeah, love to see what you did. 

26:35 Jim Beach: Tell us about the market right now. We have a strange market. Thousands, millions of jobs available, millions of people unemployed. Tell us about the market and XP3. 

26:48 Mike Matalone: On the market, it is what we call an employer’s market currently, because of all those available jobs and people looking for work. So it kind of puts it in our favor a little bit at the moment. For example, you know, my client was telling you about in Woodstock, Georgia. We were just helping them fill a position. We posted an ad. The first three days had about 140 people apply, which, you know, when it’s an employee market, sometimes you’re lucky to get three or four people to apply. So that’s the good news at the moment. And then what your other question was, you wanted me to tell you about. 

27:24 Jim Beach: Well, that’s kind of bad news if I don’t have a job right now. I am. What are these people going to do? We have so many training mismatches, right? Yes. What are you suggesting people do who can’t find? I mean, 140 applicants, that’s kind of scary. 

27:42 Mike Matalone: Yeah, so, again, it’s good for the employers, not so good on the employee side. And that means, when you’re looking for a job, that is your job at the moment. You cannot just apply to one or two things and hope someone’s going to get back to you. You’ve got to, every day, be diligently putting in hours of applying to as many things as possible. The other thing is, you need to not just generically do it. Out of those 140 people, I probably had only two of them that actually put a custom cover letter together. It was short and brief, but they only two, but it caught my attention, right? Just the fact that they did it. And then when I read it, they actually said, hey, you know, I went to your website. I learned about this, and I’m impressed with what you guys have done. Would love to be a part of your team. They recited some of the core values and the mission statements of the company. So they clearly did do their research, which then made it stand out even more. And then one of the two actually then customized their resume just a little bit for the exact position that we’re hiring for. So, you know, that, again, made that person stand out even further. 

28:59 Jim Beach: So, so those are a couple points. Mike, excuse me, you only got two applicants. Only two that put cover letters. To me, that means you only got two applicants. Yeah. I would throw the rest away without even reading them. Yeah. 

29:16 Mike Matalone: Well, unfortunately, I don’t want to be that harsh about it, right, because there were still some really good candidates in there. But another thing I will also point out for the people that are out there looking for jobs, ChatGPT is a great resource, right, or other AI similar tools to that. So, but what you have to be. 

31:10 Jim Beach: How is it a great resource? 

29:16 Mike Matalone: Well, doing research, figuring out what you need, how to answer interview questions. So we actually send out a screening questionnaire that usually has about six or seven pre-screening questions about their knowledge and skill as it relates to the role, right? They have to fill that out first before we schedule an interview, just to demonstrate, A, the initiative, they’re willing to invest the time, and B, that they have the basic skills that it makes it worth us talking to them, right? So a lot of people we’re seeing now are using various AI tools like ChatGPT to help them answer these questions, which I appreciate, the resourcefulness. I appreciate that people want to make themselves look a little better, and maybe their writing skills aren’t as great. So kudos to you if you’re doing that. But what the problem we’re seeing with it is people are just purely copying, pasting whatever the AI tool gives them into their answers. And it’s very obvious from the formatting and stuff. And, in fact, and this is the key thing I want to point out, one particular candidate we had did exactly that, and the depth of detail into her answers was, you know, if you didn’t know it was ChatGPT, you’re like, wow, that’s impressive. But then I went and looked at her resume and her experience, and she had no experience that was relevant to be able to have that depth of detail in her answers. So you got to be truthful and sincere and customize it a little bit to fit yours. And, you know, it doesn’t have to be the exact thing that was spit out on AI. 

31:10 Jim Beach: So I had a guest, Mike, who was talking about hiring, and he said that what he does is makes it difficult as hell, and it’s almost like a game. I don’t know what your musical tastes are, but I used to be a big, big, big deadhead. Grateful Dead. In the ’80s and ’90s, they traveled to hundreds of cities that I happened to already be in, and so I saw hundreds of shows. And the way they did it, and of course you have to remember who their clientele was, the biggest drugs and stoners on Earth. They had a telephone message that was five minutes long that said, if you want tickets, here’s what you have to do. You have to get a three by five card. On the back of it, you have to. And they made five minutes of instructions, and you had to do it exactly right. And if you did it exactly right, you got good seats, you know. And it was just always funny to have all these stoners trying to fill out all these forms. But the guest I was talking to said he does the exact same thing with hires. He writes an essay. It says in the bottom, the last line of the essay says, please start your reply with, you know. And so he knows whether people read it because they didn’t reply with, you know. It’s just 32 steps to follow, including, here’s my favorite thing. He said, you have a project due on Friday. I want you to write one paragraph on Friday. Here’s the link that you need to use. The link that he sent was broken on purpose, because then if you contacted him Thursday night and said the link was broken, the link was broken, he knew that you were a procrastinator. But if you contacted him on Tuesday right after he sent it on Monday, you’re on top of your game, you know. And so it was just another test. What do you think about things like that? Deuce, bad hires. Yeah. 

33:08 Mike Matalone: So, so I think if they’re done appropriately, correctly, they’re excellent. So that’s the question here. I was telling you about where we send out six or seven questions. So the point is, you don’t want to make it, and it’s when you use those in the hiring process too. So the expectation of what you want the candidate to do has to be realistic. For example, I know my wife’s been in banking most of her life. And, you know, a few years back when she was looking for another job, she was applying to some of the big, big banks, you know, the Bank of America, Wells Fargo’s, companies like that. And sometimes they would have people take like two-hour tests and assessments before they even, you know, as the first step, before they even got an interview, right? And that’s a little bit much on the front end, you know, because what most people don’t realize on the hiring side is that they hire completely one-sided. Meaning, what do we need? I need you to be able to do this, this, this, and this, and they don’t think about what the candidate needs or what the candidate wants. And to be effective at hiring, it has to be a two-way street. So that’s one point to it. 

33:08 Mike Matalone: But having something simple up front, so like I said, we have maybe six to 10 questions maximum. What dictates the number of questions is the level of the role. So the higher the role, we’ll add more questions, because we’re obviously seeking more knowledge and skill. But the lower level, we try to keep it to just six. But we always have at least a 20, 30-minute screening call first, just to talk to the candidate, and kind of get a little introduction going, and then explain that hiring process. So I think if it’s simple like that, it’s good. It shouldn’t replace the interview, but it should just help you to pre-qualify. 

33:08 Mike Matalone: Now, other stuff that you pointed out, or that he said, that I really like, and that’s kind of what, going back to what I said, one thing is that we look at is the quality of the answers, right? Do they possess those skills? But even more important is their willingness to invest, you know, because it might take them 30 minutes or so, 40 minutes to fill it out, to do a good job with it. So the willingness to invest that time says a lot about the individual, because a lot of our clients, when I introduce our systems, they go, well, what about candidates who aren’t willing to put in the time? So, well, those are the same people that aren’t going to come in early, stay late, take on any extra tasks once they’re there. So that is a behavioral pattern. If they’re not willing to invest at least 30 minutes or so in the interview process to fill out some assessments early on, you probably want to shy away from them. 

33:08 Mike Matalone: So those kinds of things are good. But also that you mentioned something that we had a similar scenario. Attention to detail was one of the key behavioral attributes we were looking for. And I guess I had accidentally put in a couple of typos in the questionnaire. And this one candidate came back, and she says, I know that you said in the job post that attention to detail was critically important, and I noticed that you purposely put in some typos to see if we would catch those. So she pointed them out to me, right? And of course I’m thinking, no, that wasn’t on purpose, but it will be going forward. So from that experience, I actually started to do that to see what people pick up on. 

33:08 Mike Matalone: And then the other way we use these that will help people on the hiring side. And if you’re even interviewing, people write their answers, and that’s where I said, oh, are they using ChatGPT or Google, and the answers, whatever. What the next step of our process is always like a 45-minute to an hour Zoom video interview is the next step. And on that interview, and this is key too, I like to explain hiring is like dating, right? We’re on our best behavior. We’re trying to be everything we want that other person to be, right, until we get the relationship, or we get the job, and then we relax and go back to being ourselves. And that’s where, you know, like, I got a colleague years ago. He wrote a book called You’re Not the Person That I Hired, right? So what happened to that person, right? And, well, that was my representative I sent to get the job, right? So people are trying to be everything they think you want them to be, but your key objective is to get them to relax and help them to be themselves, so you can see who they are early on. And you got to recognize every candidate is either going to be anxious, nervous, or really excited about the opportunity, and that causes us all to have brain farts and not be at our best and say the right things at the moment. So relaxing people is key, and helping them make an informed decision is a critical piece of that puzzle. 

37:59 Jim Beach: I was watching YouTube shorts the other day, and there was a YouTube short about a woman who wanted to get a job at the BBC in London, and she tried, she tried, she tried, couldn’t get a job, couldn’t get a job. And someone recommended, go hang out at this particular bar, which happens to be in the building of the BBC. And three days later, she had an interview, you know, just being at the bar all day, hanging out, networking, and meeting people. Yeah, exactly. What are your thoughts on that kind of strategy? 

38:37 Mike Matalone: I think, you know, anywhere you can, keep talking about from the candidate side or from the employer side. Yeah. I mean, obviously getting a foot in the door is the first step. And if you can use your networking skills or introductions from other people, that’s going to definitely help you out, right? Even, for example, out of our clients, you know, an employee referral for a potential new employee that we’re going to add to the team, because they know them, we give them first priority and kind of bump them to the top of the line. So, yeah, networking and using introductions from other people, whatever means you can do it, is a great way, particularly for the candidate, to get a foot in the door. Because, again, you go back to what I said, that job, we had 140 people apply in the first couple of days, right? So there’s a good chance you may be well qualified, but I may never even get to see your resume, because maybe the first two that sent those covers stood out, and by the way, we’re actually going to probably end up hiring one of those two. But that doesn’t mean the other people weren’t qualified. They were, you know, buried down deep in there, and I never got to see it. Whereas if someone made that introduction, I would have looked at that. 

40:00 Jim Beach: Have you ever heard any crazy strategies like that that got a person a job? 

40:06 Mike Matalone: Oh, yeah. And I’ve heard all kinds of different strategies and different things. But like I said, the best advice that I would give to job seekers is, don’t be generic. Customize it. Put a cover letter. Do your research. Learn about the company, because, again, once you get that introduction, that’s just one step, but you still got to be able to impress the people. And one of the couple of things in there that we look for is the quantity and quality of questions that a candidate asks us about the company, about the job, says a lot about the individual, right, versus the candidate who doesn’t ask us any questions. Now, in order to do that, you got to do a little research, right? So go to the website, learn about the company, learn what they do. So when you do start talking to people, you have a base knowledge of understanding, and you can start talking about, hey, I saw on your website you do this. Wanted to point out that I’ve got experience in that area, or anything you can do. 

42:12 Jim Beach: And here I’ll give you the flip side. It was years ago we were hiring a vice president of marketing. And, you know, one of the standard questions we start off with, I say, hey, before we jump into stuff, I want you to tell me, what do you already know about our company, and why are you interested in joining our team. And this guy I was interviewing, who was highly qualified from his resume and everything, right? He said, yeah, I don’t really know anything about your company. And I was like, you didn’t even go to our website, you know, and take a look around, you know. He’s thinking as a marketing guy, our most public-facing marketing piece. You think he would have definitely went there and did a little research. His response to me was, yeah, I’ll do that after I get the job. So as you can imagine, that interview didn’t go any further. If you can’t invest 15 minutes for anybody, but let alone someone at that level, that’s a VP of marketing, right? You think you would have come back and said, hey, I looked at your website, and here’s some suggestions I have on how we can make improvements. Something like that would have made that person stand out, versus the opposite effect that he had. 

42:12 Jim Beach: And I know that I was referring that I got fired from Coca-Cola. Earlier in my career, I was applying for a job inside Coke, and I had just worked at Coca-Cola Japan. And Mike, I put together a 10-year plan that was going to save them a billion dollars. Coca-Cola Japan was going to save a billion dollars. And I came back to Atlanta, and I knew everything there was to know about Coca-Cola. I knew everything. And I was interviewing, and he asked me, do you have any questions? And I was like, not really. You know, I’m pretty sure that’s the reason I didn’t get that job, was even though I already knew, I didn’t come up with some stupid questions to show that I was. The billion-dollar savings wasn’t enough to buy me a job too. 

43:06 Mike Matalone: Well, that’s interesting too. You’d think it would at least got some attention to explore that. 

43:13 Jim Beach: They said that I didn’t play well with others, and I should go start my own business. 

43:20 Mike Matalone: Well, it’s not that I can relate somewhat. It’s not that I didn’t play well with others, but I, you know, in my earlier years, I got fired a few times myself, but it was because I was just acting a little too independently. I mean, when I did play with people, I played really well. But I always thought when I was younger that it all had to be on me, right? And on that note, that kind of reminds me of another suggestion too. You know, I see people go to extremes, the, hey, I did this, I did that, I did that, and then that’s a caution. Are you a team player, right? If everything’s I. The other side, though, is the people who are like, we did this, we did this. And I’m like, well, that’s great. I appreciate you’re a team player, but I need to know what you’re capable of doing, right? So you got to kind of understand how to balance that piece as well. 

44:12 Jim Beach: Yes. We haven’t talked about training. Let’s talk about some training. We have about five minutes left. Get this perfect employee. How do I keep them? 

44:24 Mike Matalone: Yep. So first thing is, people need to realize, you know, from the employer side, is that you have to train everybody. I don’t care if you take the concept of the A, B, and C players, right? A players are the best of the best out there. Well, we know for a fact that less than 20% of the world’s working population are those natural A players. Probably 50, 60% of those B players, what we like to call high potential. But either way, in either circumstance, even if they were an A player for your competitor down the street, doing the same job, same product, services sold, they still got to learn your company systems. They learn your processes, your products and services, and your way of doing business. The faster they learn that, the faster they’re going to be a productive member of your team. So recognize that everybody needs some training, and everybody’s looking in today’s world for that learning opportunity. So that’s key. And therefore another tip is, in the hiring process, you need to look for two things above everything else. Number one, are they smart enough to learn what you’re going to teach them? Right? Can they absorb the content? And number two, are they coachable? Which is very different than are they smart, right? You can be the smartest guy in the world, but if you’re a know-it-all, I can’t teach anything. So start looking for that in the interview process, and get granular about the skill set you’re looking for so you can identify what the candidate’s good at, and then where there are gaps there. Therefore, that becomes knowing, if I hire this person, I’m going to have to spend time on these elements to train them, to get them up to speed quicker. 

44:24 Mike Matalone: So that’s the hiring side. On the training side, understanding what your real objective is. And, again, people who do offer training, it’s usually for the job they hired them for. And we actually focus and teach three key objectives when you’re onboarding new employees. Number one, make sure they have a great learning experience. So you got to make it fun. You got to make it interesting. You got to be organized and structured. So have a detailed plan, at least even if for the first two or three days, right? This is what we’re going to do to teach you what you need to know. Which leads to number two objective. As I said, don’t just train them on the job that you hired them for. That’s a given. You need to do that. But more importantly, before that training begins, you need to train them on the big picture of the organization. Help them understand how the company works. So like, hey, you know, we have a marketing team. They do this to bring in leads. You know, we have a sales team. Their job is to close those leads. Here’s what that entails. Then it’s handed off to production, or whatever their part works in your company. But if every employee understands that big picture, they will start becoming psychologically engaged with the organization. That understanding helps them to learn everything else better. 

44:24 Mike Matalone: And specifically, as you’re learning stuff, right, I could sit there and tell a new employee about how all those areas work in my company. But the third objective is where I’m going with this. You need to focus on building relationships with as many other people as possible in that first week on the job, which leads to collaboration, and it’s a key component to team building. So with that, what I do is I have the head of marketing. That person presents, hey, this is what I do to help you out and help the rest of the company. Here’s how this works. Then I have the head of sales present their stuff, the head of production do their stuff, and so on and so forth. But at the same time, they’re getting to know that person. And we even throw in stuff like, hey, here’s how long I’ve been with the company, why I love this job, right? And even a little about me personally. Hey, when I’m not working, here’s what I do, here’s the hobbies I got, wife, kids, dogs, whatever. You got to get people to understand, and the reason that you know who each other are and build that relationship, because the Society for Human Resource Managers does, has done a lot of studies around this, and their reports say that one of the key elements to retention is relationships with other employees, and it’s also the key to collaboration. If they don’t know who the people are or what they do and how that supports their role and vice versa, they’re not going to collaborate. So focus, again, on the hiring: smart enough to learn, coachable. And then focus on those three objectives: create a great experience and help them understand the big picture and build relationships that lead to collaboration. Then anything else you’re training on they will absorb a whole lot better. 

48:52 Jim Beach: Mike, have you met any of these youngsters, these 30-year-olds that want to get promoted, you know, once a year? You know the stereotype? I have found every single one of the stereotypes to be true. I’m very concerned about the youngsters today. They lack seriousness, they lack everything. I’m just very down on them. What are your thoughts? Are you as negative as I am? 

49:23 Mike Matalone: No, because since I do this every day, right, I see that not just from the young people. Sometimes I see it from the older folks, in today’s world, right? So it’s really an approach. So go back. You said they want to be promoted once a year. That’s actually a good thing, Jim, and it should be actually built into your training program, because it’s another key element retaining people. So, for example, the number one reason we hear from candidates of any age why they’re leaving, or they have left their last job, is they felt it was a dead end. There was no growth, right? And most managers take that approach, hey, you know, Jim, do a good job, and then we’ll talk about what’s next for you, right? And then sometimes those conversations never happen. So in order to keep employees focused, they should always know what’s next for them and how to get there. So the concern you pointed out, it’s not just stick around and do a good job. In fact, the number one reason employees aren’t more successful as they should be is managers are typically bad at defining what success looks like for them. 

49:23 Mike Matalone: So when we hire, for example, we believe that every employee should have two promotions in their first year, and then it becomes less frequently after that, depending on the role. But here’s how that plays out. We say, look, hey, let’s take an example. Let’s say it’s a project manager, just for an example, right? You might have been a project manager down the road, working for a competitor, same job. You bring all that knowledge, skill, but as I said, you have to learn our systems, our processes, our products, right? And the faster you learn it, the faster you’re going to be a productive member of the team. So we have a structured training program, as I said, that first cover those three objectives, then go into the project manager training. But there’s a skill assessment that we have. Let’s say it’s not going to be a subjective, you know, whether I just think maybe you’re doing a good job. We actually detail it and say, hey, you know, when it comes to each task, job planning, or managing the crews, or whatever, you know, there’s actually three definitions. It says, here’s unacceptable behavior for that. Here’s the standard if you just want to keep your job. But, hey, if you want that promotion, here’s the box you got to check on that, right? So when you give them that clarity, and they know exactly what not to do and what to do, then we say, hey, as soon as you can check off the boxes in the excellent column, which, with our training and your background, you should be able to accomplish that in the first 60 to 90 days, then you will get your first promotion. But they have to demonstrate. It’s not just given to them because of anything other than them demonstrating they can meet the standards of what you need. 

49:23 Mike Matalone: So even from a compensation standpoint, right, let’s say the person is looking for $60,000 salary. Well then what I would tell them, I say, look, I’m going to start you at 55 because you’re a trainee for us in that first 90 days. But as soon as you check those boxes, I’m going to actually bump you to 65 and give you five grand more than you were asking for. And then after that, you kind of go to the next one. And it could just be as simple as you start off as a project manager trainee, then you become a project manager. The next level is project manager one, and that requires some different skill sets that they have to demonstrate over maybe the next six to nine months of that first year to get to that next level. 

49:23 Mike Matalone: So bottom line is, Jim, they should always know what’s next and how to get there. And that ties back to the vision of the owner of the organization, right? What are they trying to accomplish? You got to make sure all your employees understand that, but they have to understand not just what that means for the owner accomplishing that, but what does that mean for me. In turn, when I help you to get there, what does that mean for me. You know how that’s going to reward me? 

53:12 Jim Beach: How do we find out more, get in touch with you, follow online, get a copy of the book? 

53:19 Mike Matalone: Yep. So the book’s available on Amazon. It’s Hire, Train, Retain. So you just go there. You can get a copy there. My website, where they can learn more about what we do, is XP3Talent.com, and that’s the number three. And then if they want to email me directly, they can do that at Mike@XP3Talent.com. 

53:38 Jim Beach: Mike, thank you so very much, and we’d love to have you back. Great stuff. 

53:41 Mike Matalone: Well, Jim, thank you. I appreciate the opportunity, and we are. 

53:44 Jim Beach: Out of time, but you know what we do? That’s right. We come back tomorrow. Be safe, take care, and go make a million dollars. Bye. Now, be safe during the storm. Take care. You.