Welcome And Guest Background

Amy Dardis 0:10

This is the Building a Clear Authentic Brand Podcast, and I'm your host, Amy Dardis. And in this episode, I am so excited to have Matt Christensen on the show. So Matt is the president of Distributor Data Solutions, otherwise more oftenly known as DDS. And they do product data for e-commerce, and they work with a lot of manufacturers and distributors on being able to deliver a manufacturer's product content to a distributor's e-commerce website, which is actually how I got to know Matt while I was in the gas and welding industry working on e-commerce. We worked with Matt and DDS and his team. And it was actually through this process that I got to know Matt and his team and really watched them tap into a brand new industry, do something that hadn't been done before. And I saw them do it with just grace and professionalism and positivity. And they were one of my favorite teams I ever got to work with. And I mean, I've been in their room as they navigated some complex situations. I saw them tackle new things of like, hey, how do we do this and problem solve? And so Matt has really done an amazing job of leading, building his team, leading his team and choosing people really well. And so I'm so excited to kind of dive into that conversation with Matt today. Matt, thank you so much for being on the show.

Speaker 1 1:46

Yeah, thank you for having me. I'm honored. I I think that especially this topic of hiring and people and team. I think people talk about it a lot, but I don't know if they really live it, or I don't know what kind of things they've done to make it possible. And so it's something that I've always, you know, obviously our our our company and our product is what people buy, but I've personally always taken a lot of pride personally in the hiring. And I think I've I've been involved in the hiring, good and bad, uh, of everyone in the company, but maybe two of the last two people. And we've been in business for 11 and a half years. It's something I've always taken personal and something that if if a leader of a company does not, if they're not involved, and it's harder when you're when you're bigger, we're still less than 30 people, but it's a choice you can make. You can you can choose who you get to work with. And we involve, you know, I'll tell I'll tell you about our process and uh what we do and how we've done it and some of the things that we've learned, but we involve the team as well. So if we're hiring on the dev side, then on the second interview, then we're definitely involving the team because they should get a say in who they get to work with. Instead of leadership or HR, we've never once used HR to hire anybody. Never. It just doesn't make any sense to me. They don't know anything about the dev side or the data side or any of the stuff other than HR, and we're just not hiring HR people. So we've never done any of that. And so it's been cool that it's been a a collaborative effort because the the team is then invested or vested in their success. And they also own it if we all make a mistake on a bad hire, which we've definitely done. We've in the past, we've chosen talent over personality before. And if you overlook the personality for pure talent, and you get somebody who can't work with a team and they know they're super smart, everyone here is super smart, but it can just be a cancer and they they want a lone wolf and work on their own. And so yeah, I'll tell you about some of the mistakes we've made too.

Why Leaders Must Own Hiring

Speaker 1 4:30

You learn a lot from them.

Amy Dardis 4:31

Where do you feel like this this focus on the quality of your people and the the personality and character of your people came from? I mean, when you won't got into this, is this something that like slowly you started to kind of realize the the importance of it or had you experienced this beforehand, or was it just kind of innate in you that that's just how you view people?

Speaker 1 4:56

Probably a little bit of everything. Having experience and working at different companies, you see what companies do well and what they don't do well, and you see people that you work with who yeah, you would follow them or take them anywhere, and then you see people that you're forced to work with when you're an employee, you can't do anything about. And so you just go home and complain about it. Yeah. So, you know, I'm a I'm a co-founder of the company, and so this is different. I have a choice in every single person we hire. And I think that was it. And my business partner worked for him for 10 years, interestingly enough. He he did a really good job and he he found really good people and loyal people, and he would do things that other companies in the industry wouldn't do. And so, yeah, just having good mentors along the way and just, you know, finally having a choice in having full control. No one else telling you what to do. It's full control. You get to choose who who works here. And so you want to do it right, just like everything else. And especially when you you start a company, it's funny because you think that everything's important. Everything's the most important thing. And then after about a year, you realize, okay, here's my role, here's my focus, and this is what's important, not not all the the the side stuff. So, but it's just something that I guess I kind of had a talent for and can read the personality and not afraid to ask the hard questions. And and we've we've had really good luck with the process and with the people we've got. We we were talking before we started that if you look at our website, the many of our team has been here since the very beginning. And our turnover is insanely low. Like it's just it's crazy. And so it's on purpose. We do have a process for this. Well, in the beginning, 11 years ago, we're in Salt Lake City, and so Salt Lake's a tech hub. And so we've got all these startups, there's a lot of money here, and so being a a startup without private equity or venture capital backing, we didn't have a ton of money. So we we also have to compete with these big name companies that are here. Because you have a lot of people coming out of school or young in their career, especially on the software side, that maybe want a resume build and go to a company that that company looks really good on their resume, and we just weren't that. We're in we're in product data. So if we had to one of the things we did is we we've always used a recruiter, technical recruiter. And that recruiter has a couple rules that we've put on them. And especially in the beginning, we wanted we would only take resumes from people who have worked in very large companies and that want to come to a small company. Because having worked at multi-billion dollar companies, you you realize that while the the name and the resume sound good, you're working on such a micro piece of the pie. And yes, they have processes that are good, but they also have an insane number of processes that get in the way of actual productivity and work that small companies can do and move faster. So that was a hard, fast rule. No exceptions. We will not do not send me a resume unless this person has worked for a massive company and they don't like it and they want to work for a small

Recruiting Filters In A Competitive Market

Speaker 1 9:06

company.

Amy Dardis 9:06

Because you knew you could offer something that they would then value because they had seen the other side. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Speaker 1 9:13

They had to ask them that. Because some people work for big companies and they want to stay with big companies. Like you have to be willing to take slightly less insurance. You've got to be willing to have less processes that you might have liked at a large company. But you have to want to be able to actually make a difference and work on many different things to actually help the company and help your customers. So it was just a hard hard, fast requirement. Do not ever send me. If they don't meet this, do not send it.

Amy Dardis 9:50

I love that.

Speaker 1 9:51

So it was a good filter. And that was a way that because we had a couple people out of out of college, and one I can think of in particular that we hired and they never even showed up the first day because Adobe's headquarters is here. And they got later next day got an offer at Adobe. So we just didn't didn't want to deal with that. If you want to go work for Adobe, absolutely, please. But it was a really good way to filter out people that wanted to come back to a small company. And so that worked.

Personality-First Interviews And Red Flags

Speaker 1 10:28

Another thing we do is so we do we do personality, we do two-part interview. We do, depending on the on the role, let's say it's on the software engineering or development side. The first interview is 100% personality. We've already got your resume. We can already tell that you've got the qualifications unless you're lying, which is not. I mean, this so we already know, but what we don't know is if if they're a good fit. And so the first one is 100% personality. We don't get in any technical. And if they pass the personality, then we do a second technical if it's on the dev side with the dev team. If it's on the data side, second one would be with the data team. But the the personality one's interesting because it it's not your normal interview questions that we ask. So it's not like tell me where you see yourself in five years, which nobody knows. Tell me, you know, just just those dumb interview questions. We don't do any of those.

Amy Dardis 11:40

Okay.

Speaker 1 11:42

So some of the ones we do. So my favorite, this is my very favorite question. And we've been asking these questions forever, and we've shared them with people.

Amy Dardis 11:53

Do you have a set do you have a set list of questions that you've curated that you make sure you're asking every time so there's consistency in the process?

Speaker 1 12:02

So we get consistency in the process. Now I don't remember the number of questions, but it's probably 20. You don't always, depending on how the interview's going, you don't always get through all of those. But you try to hit, and some of them might be similar, but you try to hit on enough to as you feel the flow of the interview and the person, maybe what you're what you're wondering. But yes, definitely want consistency between candidates. But my favorite question is, and I've I've asked this forever, is if your best friend was sitting here, what would they say is the best part about being your friend? So it's a crazy question because I've had people, I've had one developer I remember say, I don't have any friends. And I'm like, we're done. We're done here. Like if you don't have any friends, then you're not gonna get along with anybody here. If you don't like you have to be a good friend. You have to do things that you don't want sometimes to be a good friend. We've had really, really good answers, and we've had some that are like, that's uh that's a red flag, and probably just stop here.

Amy Dardis 13:27

And the more you ask that same question, the more discerning you probably get with the answers that you're hearing. Because you see the people how they answered when you hired them, and then how they turned out to be as an employee.

Speaker 4 13:43

Yeah.

Amy Dardis 13:45

Versus then maybe hearing some things being like, nope, that's that's not gonna work.

Speaker 1 13:50

It's an interesting one because in the 10 years or however long we've been asking, and I always ask that one myself everybody has always thought for a second.

Speaker 3 14:02

Okay.

Speaker 1 14:03

So you can tell if if somebody's thinking like just very genuinely, sincerely, you know, like my wife's my best friend, or or whatever the answer is, or here's a story about my best friend and why I'm a good friend. And so you can you can ask follow-up around that and why do they say that? So it's just a something that they don't get asked on an interview, so they can't prepare for it. Right. So they they typically tend to be super honest. Whether that's good or bad, but they do typically be are are pretty honest with you.

Amy Dardis 14:43

Do you have a set of like core values or just specific attributes or characteristics that you know you're looking for and and these questions help reveal that?

Speaker 1 14:54

Yeah. Yeah, because I've I've always said it's the reason we do, and I tell the candidates this the reason we do the personality and the the first interview, and there's we're not gonna ask you anything technical. It's just tell them that up front. Yep, we tell them that up front. And I tell them the reason is because we we can teach you anything technical as long as you're smart, and we can tell by your resume that you're smart. What we can't teach you is not to be an asshole. And and that's that's the important thing because we've had crazy, crazy smart people that we've hired strictly for either a very specific development role or we were just in a hurry, especially early on. We're like, all right, we gotta get some help to get this thing moving. And software you're always building, well, you were always building for about a year before you could sell something. And so there's a lot of front-loaded development work, and so get urgent, we got urgent early on, and there's one one guy that was just uh absolute super smart, got a lot of stuff done, but he was just an a-hole. Uh he's an a-hole on everybody. And so some of those lessons of uh how you can see somebody affect an entire company, especially when you're you're small, are just it's it's just not helpful. And then if you act quickly and make a decision quickly and let them go, everyone knows that, all right, you've got the best interest of the company, you've got the best interest of the whole team, and it's not just you're hiring someone technical and they're gonna be able to get away with it. So it didn't last very long, but it was definitely a learning moment of all right, we gotta prioritize personality and being a good person around the the family values and and things like that and friendship and and things that you just your parents probably taught you, hopefully, instead of a company taught you how to be a good person. So it's it's been interesting. Here's another one. I got another funny one. So another question I ask is has anyone complained about your driving in the last three months? And if so, why? Same thing, right? You no one's asked it, so you have to be on.

Amy Dardis 17:38

Yes.

Speaker 1 17:39

So we've because it can be a number of things. You can be myself personally. I tend to just not be in a big hurry. I don't care if I miss a turn and have to take the longer way, drives my wife nuts. But I'm just just not in a in a huge hurry. Other people are in a huge hurry. That's fine. Other people can be, I think your personality can come out on in driving in in some fashion. So anyway, I asked that. Go ahead.

Amy Dardis 18:13

No, no, yeah. So you what are what are some of the answers you hear about that?

Speaker 1 18:18

So I had one guy, developer too, said, Yeah, actually said, I I deliver pizzas in my spare time. I'm not married. I deliver pizzas and I'm in a hurry, and so I always park in the handicapped spot wherever I go. I'm like, really, you're a jerk. So again, just stop. We're done here. Thanks for coming in. But there's no reason to waste any more time when you know that like that guy's just super inconsiderate jerk. So that's one that sticks out that was okay.

Amy Dardis 18:59

So you're asking you're asking questions are just real life patterns and stories, not like, how would you handle it if, you know, hypothetical situation.

Speaker 1 19:11

No. I mean, there's some, like I I know, I've seen like Elon's favorite question typically is around what are some of the biggest problems you've had in your career and how did you solve them? I think those are super important and we we ask those. But on the personality side, it's more what are they like in their everyday life? Because at some point that's gonna creep into work. You're just you're there too much. And you know, maybe it was more important when everyone was in the office 100% of the time. Maybe not, though, too, because you can get away with a lot more when you're working remote. So yeah, I'm really just trying to find out who they are. What what are they a good person? And that's I think that's what we've done a good job with. And the people that are here and why we have such low turnover and loyalty and or they also believe in the mission and what we're doing. You uh you have to they have to buy into what you're actually doing.

Amy Dardis 20:17

Do you spend time in the interview talk talking about that? Like talking about just what you guys are doing there beyond the what?

Speaker 1 20:26

A little bit. I think that in interviews, what I've noticed is questions around that or responses around that, people tend to be they just want the job. If if they've and that's also part of the vetting with the recruiter, is they we we have a pretty decent write-up about our company and what we do and why we do it. So that's another filter that we have before they come in. But candidates tend to Yeah, I that sounds super interesting. I definitely want to do that, even though they clearly don't understand. They just want the job so bad. And so at the same time, in what we're looking for, it's important that they know the personality person expectation of what we want them to be too. So I think we we don't end up having a lot of competition if it's between us and another company, if a job is similar, because when they go home, they say this company, they didn't ask anything technical. And we've heard that so many times. Like they didn't, they they don't they nothing technical. They didn't ask what languages I know or any of this kind of stuff. They just asked if, you know, basically trying to see if I'm a good person. And so when they go home to their family, it's like, oh, these guys kind of care if we're good people, and so they must care if everyone else there is good people.

Amy Dardis 21:57

So that alone is Helping you stand out in what is a very competitive hiring market.

Speaker 1 22:05

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So and I think that shows when, you know, you as a a previous customer of ours work with our CS team, they've all gone through well, they were most of them were all customers at some point too. We don't post. We're just they wanted to come work here. I do not do that. But but yeah, I think that it's how they end up treating our customers too. So it and it's not it's not a tactic. It's just it's who we want to work with. We have a choice in who we're gonna hire, who we're gonna work with. And it's cool having the control over that, you know, in my in my seat. And so I owe it to everybody here to give them the best people to work with, not just talent-wise, but personality-wise.

Amy Dardis 23:00

So yeah, I love that. And I love that you say you have a choice because you you 100% do.

Let The Team Decide

unknown 23:07

Yeah.

Amy Dardis 23:07

Do you have any thoughts as to I mean, you've you've seen the inside of a lot of different companies, especially with just in in what you guys are doing, or constantly working with different clients of all different sizes. Do you have any thoughts on why more businesses don't see it that way, or they kind of don't wrap their head around you really do have a choice of who you choose to bring on?

Speaker 1 23:38

Yeah, I I think it's a hundred percent the the leadership. It's if the leadership believes in it, it it will get done. I think some of the my favorite companies, we have a lot of tech partner companies and customers. My favorite companies are the leaderships that are in my seat that believe the same thing. But it's not just your leadership team that needs to be picked by you or the good ones. It's everybody. And so there's companies that we work with and have worked with who I've definitely seen it, but I haven't seen any companies where the leadership, probably the number one in-charge person, does not believe that. I think if I see a a dysfunctional company, I think of a lot of them, it's the leader. The leader's probably a jerk or the leader doesn't care and they have different motivations as to why they're in business. And I would say that's the number one theme that I've seen.

Amy Dardis 24:51

Yeah. When you're doing your I mean, because when you're looking for these characteristics in your team, it's it's not just like you said, it's not just some tactic, right? It's it's who they are because who they are is what is driving your business and driving the relationship that the service that they're providing to your customers. Because I've I mean, even being on the other end of that, being a customer of your team, when they would show up with just, I mean, it was the highest level of professionalism. I mean, so smart, but also just real character, real like heart, real, like you tell you could tell that they cared about your success. And that's not because you're out there giving all these customer service trainings. Like it's you're just looking for people who that's what drives them.

Speaker 1 25:55

Yeah. Do the right thing. You know, do the right thing for the customer, do the right thing for the company. You know, we're we're never the the fastest, we're never the cheapest, but we always try to do things the right way. And I think that's something I've always taken in everything we do, or try to do it in everything we do, is just do it the right way. And it's an easy decision for an employee team, and we call them team. When they have a question about how should I handle this, the the answer is always do what's best for the company. And so they've got that mentality of, you know, they'll go the extra mile for a customer or they'll tell a customer we're not gonna do that. And so it's it's do the best thing for the company is the is what always instilled in everybody. So I think that that helps when you can you have a problem or how should I handle this? It does that, you know, they shouldn't have to always come to me and and what to do. It's you know, you just do what's right for the company, and that should be pretty clear as to which which choice.

Amy Dardis 27:06

So when you're hiring, you said you have a two-part inter two two-step interview process. Yep. And then the first one is all personality. Yep. And then the second one is with the team, or team and technical.

Speaker 1 27:21

Yeah. So typically on the personality, we'll have myself and then one person from whatever team. It's the everything these days is kind of blended into the development side. We used to have data team split out, but now there's so much AI that the data's been blended into the dev team and and I think CS is kind of on their own a little bit. That's kind of it. That's kind of the structure basically of the company. And so yeah, if it's on the dev side, then it'll be myself and typically Tyson and who's head of our software engineering. And if it's CS, then it'll be like myself and James, head of CS. And so whoever in in charge of the department on the personality side, and then we decide together, should we have them come back for a second? And we don't want to have again, we're still under 30 people. We don't want to have a million seconds because what we do then is if it's on the dev side, then Tyson picks three or four or five developers and will do the second technical side with with the candidates. And so they've already passed the personality side. We've already hopefully filtered the the good people down to them, and then you know, they they do the second, and then that group decides together. One thing I do is I always go last too.

Speaker 3 28:57

Okay.

Speaker 1 28:58

Because I don't want to influence the decision. And so I always go dead last.

Amy Dardis 29:04

Oh, smart. That way they're not just like care, they're they're speaking up their own honest opinion.

Speaker 4 29:10

Yep.

Amy Dardis 29:11

And then not letting it just be influenced by you because it's like, well, Matt thought this was a good guy, so we should hire this person.

Speaker 1 29:18

Yeah, exactly. And I want to hear what they have to say because it could change the way I look at them too. So it it's it's fun. It's it's fun because they get a say as well. And it's an equal say. It's not it's not like I'm making the major. Like you guys, you you guys honestly are the ones that have to work with them. I don't this much. So honestly, you guys are the ones that you know really need to decide. And and if if you think it's the right person or then I'm I fully support it. So but it's it's good because then everyone who decided are are vested. They're helping them day one. They're like, hey, let me know whatever you need. They want them to be successful. And if we make a mistake and we absolutely have, then we all made it. Not just that person was crammed down my throat by Matt, and it's his cousin or something. And so it's it works well. Has worked well.

Amy Dardis 30:27

Is the having the t the team in on that interview, was that something that you've started out doing as well, or is that something you kind of picked up on or learned from as you kind of, you know, experienced more and more interview?

Speaker 1 30:43

Yeah, good question. I I can't remember when we started that. It I know it's been a long time. I would think we we typically had at least one person technical on there because my background's not software. It's more on the IT side, so I don't know the questions to ask a software developer. So I know we always had one, but I don't remember when we started having more of the the actual team doing it. Maybe there are too many tiebreakers and we couldn't decide, so we needed more people.

Hybrid Culture With Real Accountability

Amy Dardis 31:21

Do you so are you guys, you have a little bit of you have a hybrid mixture of your team, right? So you have some people remote, some people on site and both.

Speaker 1 31:32

Yep. Yeah. So we have an office downtown. There's probably I don't know, six or eight of us that are in the office every day. And then Yeah, I mean, like most companies with COVID, we we didn't have any choice.

Amy Dardis 31:52

Right.

Speaker 1 31:52

And so then we looked at it as, all right, this could be actually an advantage because then we don't have to just get people from Salt Lake. We can hire people from anywhere and we can really get the very best person, and it doesn't have to be geographically geographically based. So yeah, we looked at it as, okay, this can be an advantage and we can hire anyone because we've set the culture. There we did have a requirement during and still do today. If anyone's on a call, their camera has to be on. No exceptions. I don't care if it's with the team on their daily or twice daily stand-ups or a customer, but you're not allowed to be on a call without your camera ever. So that we started that during COVID. Really, it was the first time we were kind of remote. So I think with that and the check-ins and just the accountability nature, we're really good. And that this is something we've worked on forever being a software company, just the planning and the tasks and the organization and all that is definitely takes time to figure that out. But they were just gotten so good at planning and knowing what we're gonna build and develop or creating the tasks for all those. And then so everyone's accountable. You have a certain amount of work that you have to get done within a in a sprint. So yeah, you you know what the expectations are and you just have to do it. I don't care when when you do it. Some people like to work later, some people like to earlier work earlier.

Amy Dardis 33:33

So as long as you get your stuff done, then you're clear about those expectations from the beginning. So there's no ambiguity there. There's no like questioning. People know, okay, this is how we operate as a company, therefore I know what I'm getting myself into, and I feel like I can thrive in that type of environment.

Speaker 4 33:54

Yep. Yep.

Speaker 1 33:55

Yep.

unknown 33:56

Yeah.

Amy Dardis 33:56

So sorry, go ahead.

Speaker 1 33:59

Just to answer your question and come back to that. The hybrid, yeah, is has really been an advantage and something that we even advertise through the recruiter. You know what try to get people that are at least close in the area to come in. Oh, so I do this. We try to get them to come in on Thursdays. And so company buys lunch and we basically bribe them to come in. That works pretty good. And then we've got a set day where people know that more of the team will be in and they like working directly in the office with them. So we do bribe them once a week. Some people live a little further away and they'll come in once a month. The the more remote, like Chicago and Illinois, some of you know Kansas. Some of those are more try once a quarter to fly them in.

Speaker 3 34:55

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1 34:58

I mean about that. And so pay for their flight, their hotel and all that. And so and try to do it at the same time, not random, so you get everyone to come in at the same time. Yeah. So that's another thing we try to do to try to keep some of the office because there's no replacement, but it's just it's just not realistic anymore to to require people at the at our size. I'm there's companies with 40,000 employees in the same office. I get it. Apple, those companies, like I I get it. But for us, it's we've we've made it work really, really well. And it's kind of cool because like most of our team's younger, and so they've been able to be home with their kids from the time they're born and take them to school every day and and not have to drive. It's it's dumb to me to say, okay, you're you live an hour away or 45 minutes away, and so you're gonna spend an hour and a half in traffic a day not working. And and just to say that they need to work in the office, it makes no sense.

unknown 36:07

Right.

Speaker 1 36:08

And so they get to spend time with their family, spend time with their kids, they get to do things that you know before COVID, they would never have been able to do. And so they just see their kids grow up, which is which is very cool.

Amy Dardis 36:19

So that's huge. Yeah. And another way that you can, I guess, set yourself apart in a marketplace without just being like, oh, we're gonna pay you more, so therefore you're gonna choose us. But that's not the conversation that you have at all, probably.

Speaker 1 36:36

No, and it's not lasting. You know, money's great and we all need it. We we're always trying to be above competitive, but it's not the only thing. And so if you can if you can, you know, I I can think of a couple of scenarios where some of our team have had probably two or three kids now since the beginning of COVID. And just think about the help they've been to their wife or to their kids. It's just it's just a different and their kids are gonna be better off for it in the long run anyway. So it's it's kind of cool to be able to watch that and so they'll remember that more than if you gave them an extra five grand or or buy stupid snacks or something like that. It's just yeah.

Amy Dardis 37:22

So you're attracting people who one are like relationship and people-driven people. So therefore they value the relationships in their life, they value the relationships at work, and you're also offering them an opportunity to work with people they like, but also be present and engaged with the people in their life. And for the right person, that's everything. You know, that is that's like, yes, I want that in my life. That's way better than sure, I'll make 10,000 more a year here, but it's gonna cost me my relationships, my mental health.

Speaker 1 38:00

Or it's gonna cost you 10 grand in gas.

Speaker 4 38:03

So yes. Oh my god.

Speaker 1 38:07

It's I think it's just something that some of the leaders of companies just don't still today don't get. I think there's some people that are still like, you're gonna be be in the office because I say so. You're gonna be in the office because that way I feel like I have control. It it really is about, you know, kind of ultimate productivity and and the old mindset of thinking that somebody's product, you know, productive eight hours a day, nine hours a day is is not right. So if you can get that max several hours of extreme focus and productivity in a day, who cares what time it is? Like that's that's all you're trying to do. It's like you're trying to get stuff done, you're trying to get it to be great. And who who cares the schedule or where they do it physically?

Amy Dardis 39:03

So how do you kind of so you I mean you're so clear about what you're looking for in your your standards and beh behavioral standards as an individual when you bring them on. And now that you have hybrid employees, uh do you do anything that in order to just intentionally facilitate and maintain that culture with with your team?

Speaker 4 39:32

Yes.

Speaker 1 39:34

We the the daily or twice daily stand-ups that the data team has, the CS team has, which probably uncommon for CS to do, but it's driven by the development team. Those are those are everyday. Uh an exact schedule, they've got to be on camera. The the accountability aspect is something that's that's very strong in everyone that's been here for a while. And so we rely on everyone else to do it as well. So I think that everyone knows that it it doesn't just have to come from the top as this constant reminder. It's just you show it, you do it in your daily actions and how you do things, and people will catch on. And if they don't, then talk to them about it. What's going on? Why haven't what you don't seem like you're as productive. You know, have the com the hard conversations now until they become a lot harder later when it's a bigger deal. So I think that our team has done a great job of just setting the expectation of accountability. You're gonna be accountable to the work that you're gonna do. You've got to get it done, it's gotta be great. And they're not afraid to have the conversations with them about when they need to do better or when they're doing great. I can't just be one-sided of always do better. It needs to be you're doing a you're doing an awesome job. Keep it up.

Amy Dardis 41:12

Because there is that clear standard to hold them to. I think oftentimes if a company doesn't define that clearly, it's it's a lot harder to hold someone to an expectation that hasn't been clearly defined versus one that has, especially one that you defined even from the interview process.

Speaker 1 41:31

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's I I gotta give most of the credit to the rest of the team for just continuing every day, just setting the standard. They're not just sitting there watching, they're doing it themselves.

Amy Dardis 41:47

So And because of that, I mean, your team, the way that they work together, knowing what they value, their loyalty to the company, as a business, you guys have done some pretty cool things because your team can work together with the level of trust and accountability that they need.

Speaker 1 42:06

Yeah, I've always I've always said, and I truly believe this, and maybe not always, in the beginning it was questionable what we can do, but I I truly believe there isn't anything we can't do with the team that we have. And I think every time that there's a change, you know, you're gonna have some change, whether it's the company's choice, the team's choice, or the individual's choice that they're they want to go do something different. We we have always made the team better. So, yeah, that sucks at the time, but we've always taken the opportunity to always improve. And so, you know, today we've got the best team we've ever had. And to, and and some of the stuff we're doing with AI, and we started three years ago when nobody else was even talking about it. And now it's in our product and it's saving our customers time and money and earning them money. So yeah, I think I think just knowing that we can do anything as a company. There's nothing we can't do. And and even with our size and we have bigger competitors and other things, but yeah, it's what's your approach?

Using AI Without Losing Humanity

Amy Dardis 43:23

I mean, because you guys have been with doing AI, uh, like you said, for the last few years. But when I guess what's your philosophy on balancing the AI side and the people and relationships side internally and externally?

Speaker 1 43:39

Yeah, I view the AI as two parts in the company. I view it as using it in the company itself. So are you using it in your team and your role and you know, marketing, creating copy, creating email campaigns? That that's how we would use it in the company. But the harder part is you Using it in your product. So using it in your product, it actually works really well for data. And thank goodness it's it's here because there's a lot of things that we said we wouldn't do because we didn't want to offshore the work to more manual processes. And so now we can do all the things that we wanted to do at scale in our product because of AI. So I view it. Can you use it in your product to improve your customers' lives? That's awesome. Obviously, can you use it in your company to improve your productivity and get more stuff done? I think more companies can do that than in the product side. But yeah, I we share. We have channel on Slack where we share what we're doing. And we have an all-hands company meeting where every department shows what they're working on. And you know, the last quite a while, almost everything is something to do with AI, where BDRs are sending out data audits to distributor prospects that is they're basically using AI to scrape parts of their site for the product data. And so things that you talk about doing forever, but you you can never do that in historically. So it's pretty cool to hear what people are doing. And the more you the more you show you can do something that no one else in any other department thought of, the more creative people are getting and what they're trying, even if it if even if it fails.

Amy Dardis 45:38

So you're bringing them together to like share what they're whether they're it's successful or not, just but just creating this environment where people are just kind of brainstorming and feeding off of each other to be like, oh, I didn't think of it like that. That's super cool. And you know, even if you're in the the dev team and this person's in the customer service team.

Speaker 1 45:56

Yeah. Yeah. We're using it to analyze sales pipeline and these recorded calls and things like that where you think you heard something, but you can just use just the data to analyze some of this stuff. And so it's pretty cool. So it it's not saying, all right, everyone in the company, go do AI Fridays or some of the stupid things that I've heard companies do. It's it's show by example. You know, everyone, you somebody had to start, and you know Joel. And so Joel was the the iron fist that I said, go ahead, you do it, you have my full support. And if anyone says no, I don't want to do it, then you can tell them to come talk to me. So Joel was the iron fist that made everyone, or the dev team was the first one. And so he led by example and did stuff that is still crazy. Yeah. Crazy.

Amy Dardis 46:56

Well, you guys were doing stuff like that before AI even, I feel like that's just like a characteristic of your company is that mindset of how can we challenge the status quo? Because even what you guys did in the welding and gas world, well, gas specifically of creating product data that did not exist.

Speaker 1 47:16

Yeah. Yeah.

Amy Dardis 47:17

And I mean, and that was before AI It was before AI, yeah.

Speaker 1 47:21

It was very programmatic, very time consuming, but it was pretty cool.

Amy Dardis 47:26

But driven by the that that force, like that, that within a person, you know, or within a people to say, we're gonna do this. We're gonna find a way to do this.

Speaker 1 47:40

This is a problem. Let's find a way to fix it.

Amy Dardis 47:43

And it was a big problem.

Speaker 1 47:44

Yeah. Yeah.

Amy Dardis 47:45

And it wasn't just a, and I guess what always impresses me is it wasn't just a technical problem, right? It was one thing to figure out the technical side. It was another thing to then build the relationships, give the education, and change the mindset of the customers that you guys brought this to.

Speaker 1 48:05

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for going first. Thanks for being the the guinea pig. We owe all a lot of that to you. And then you standing up on stage and being the first one. So yeah. We always need to.

Amy Dardis 48:16

My job was easy compared to what you guys had to do.

Speaker 1 48:19

Well, it it worked well. So we had a lot of hope.

Amy Dardis 48:23

But it was, but but to me, the real accomplishment of that was because of the team that you had. Like it really was the people who drove that and their ability because I saw them in. I mean, to change mindsets is no small task. And to change behavior is even harder. And it was just like to they navigated through so many difficult conversations, not because they had to or because you were there cracking the whip behind them, but because they knew what they were trying to accomplish.

Speaker 1 49:00

Yeah, it's it's pretty funny, and thank you. Yes. It's uh I'd say Elon again, big fan. But I think one of the quotes that stuck, and I think it's very true in software, is that the ideas are easy, the execution is hard. And so people can always come up with ideas, and I historically, idea after idea after idea, but having the team that can execute the idea is awesome. It's so cool. Now, having said that, I've had ideas that the team is executed, and it's turns out like a the market's not ready for it, or it wasn't super well thought out, but they built what what we wanted or what I told them we wanted to do. So there's sometimes when I go in and I'm like, hey, I've got an idea, there's a little bit of eye rolling. So it's but it's overall it's been great. And they they they can challenge me, and they do. I I'm like, hey, tell me if this is a bad idea. If it is, then and so everyone's got the freedom to, you know, tell me that that's just a stupid idea, or I don't think it's the right time. So I think I've you know hopefully given everyone the freedom to challenge me on some of these knee jerks.

Amy Dardis 50:24

It's a hard thing to do to challenge the leader, you know. Do you do you feel like you you had to work for that to get them where they felt comfortable doing that?

Speaker 1 50:33

I think it's harder for me because I think just historically it's not like it can be an ego thing where you know, don't challenge. But in the end, don't tell me I'm wrong. Yeah. But but in the end, it's no different than uh you know, relationship with my wife. Like if I think I'm always right, then I'm not willing to accept that I'm wrong on something or something. So it's it's really the same thing to me. And so it's as long as I'm fine with it, then they can be super open. If I'm defensive and I turn into an a-hole, then they'll never do it again. So they just have to set the you have to you I have to go first. Like you tell me that I can do this, and then I don't overreact or I agree with it, and then they feel like they can do it again or anytime. So it's I don't think I was always like that. I think I've learned along the way to be better, be up be more open to criticisms.

Amy Dardis 51:41

I think a lot of a lot of us go the on that journey.

Speaker 1 51:45

Yeah.

Founder Burnout And Work Identity

Amy Dardis 51:46

As a leader, I mean, going through all the ups and downs and learning how to like build your team and stuff. How has the quality of your team and the team dynamic changed what your role as a leader and even inside and outside of work has looked like?

Speaker 1 52:05

Yeah, yeah, good question. I think I think I'm I'm always trying to find out and ask myself what are my strengths? And that can change over time. I think it's definitely company-wise, it's changed with AI. And so where where can I be most useful to the team? Where can I be most useful to the company? And I spend a lot of time with marketing. I would say I spend a lot of time with sales. I spend zero time with on the dev side other than project priorities, which I really like to do and can bring the sales and marketing aspect of that into the the priorities. So yeah, I think I think it it's changed over the years for sure. But yeah, I think for me it's just where where can I be most useful? I think with now with AI, I can be super useful with marketing because I know I know the problems that the customers have. I see it with the on the sales side, and so I can interact with the AI and the prompts differently than others can because I can really fine-tune the nuances. And so yeah, I pretty much do all the copy anymore. But I can do it in super quick.

Amy Dardis 53:40

Right.

Speaker 1 53:40

I'm not bragging, I'm just saying that it's it's just been so tuned. Our our co-pilots are so tuned to the marketing and what DDS does, and I had a big part in the nuances of that. And so it's I like doing it. And I think it's I think it's been fun. And I think marketing historically is it's cool, but it's so slow. It's such a slow process because it's got to touch so many, so many hands, and then there's the design aspect, there's the the red line aspect. So I think anymore it's it's it's fun. I enjoy doing it, and so I think that's where I spend my time.

Amy Dardis 54:25

Did you ever have the kind of the founder just crazy season of life where you felt like the business was kind of consuming consuming you, consuming your sleep, your life outside of work?

Speaker 1 54:42

Oh yeah, yeah. It's well, and you know, you know, Jenny, so my wife has been involved since day one, which makes it ten times worse for her. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, the the first year never took a day off. 365 days a year, because in the beginning you think everything's important. Even the little things you think is important or are important. So yeah, think of I think when COVID hit and then Jenny and I were both working here and we're both stuck at home, that's when it really hit, and it became hard on the marriage side. And especially for her. You know, she's like, it's it's too much. It's just non-stop DDS, it's after work at night on the weekends, and that's the conversations. And so it got pretty bad and just consuming. And so that was that was a really good lesson for me. I still do. I still think about it, but I just try not to talk about it as much as it it's hard. It's at some point you you do have to separate yourself because it's not your identity. It's it's a big part of you for sure. And it's definitely something to be proud of. We've done great things and it's a great company. But it does take a toll. And especially when your spouse is also working there, it's a lot. So it's yeah, absolutely. Probably worse because of Jenny working here various roles and off and on over the years. It's I'm getting better.

Amy Dardis 56:33

It is hard. I've been in business with my husband for as long as we've been married. I mean, it's and yeah, we've totally rode that roller coaster of it and going all up and down and figuring out how do we make this work? How do we balance raising our children? How do we balance running the business? And especially when there's not necessarily a Monday through Friday schedule. And you can lay in bed at 10 o'clock at night and talk about, you know, what you're doing. And I've learned actually, that's what I try to do. I'm like, I can't talk about work at night before bed. Because if I do, I will never go to sleep.

Speaker 1 57:12

Yeah. Yeah. It's it's uh it's a chat. We've found the balance now. I go to the office every day. Jenny works at home and and just try to try to have some separation, especially at home.

Amy Dardis 57:30

Try to do some things outside of the Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Speaker 1 57:32

She's been a trooper, though.

Amy Dardis 57:33

So it's a blessing too to have like your spouse, because they understand, right? It's like they understand what you're going through or to an extent of like, okay, I'm in this with you. Like we are in this together.

Speaker 1 57:49

Yeah.

Amy Dardis 57:49

Um button.

Speaker 1 57:51

Yeah, I think where I I I definitely have taken advantage of that. Where hey, let's go on this, let's go to this trade show and it'll be fun because it's in a fun place, but then all you do is end up working and stuck in a booth. And so I've definitely taken advantage of that in the past.

Amy Dardis 58:14

Yes.

Speaker 1 58:14

Not a lot.

Amy Dardis 58:15

Yeah. No, it's it's it's yeah, just learning and being able to like you said, separate that knowing that your identity isn't your business, although it sometimes it's easy to feel like that, you know, with the rise and the fall of the business, sometimes the rise and the fall of how you feel about who you are as an individual.

Speaker 1 58:35

Yeah. Yeah. It yeah. It it can be a roller coaster for sure.

Amy Dardis 58:40

It can.

Speaker 1 58:41

Yeah.

Amy Dardis 58:41

Yeah.

Trust, Delegation, And Letting People Go

Amy Dardis 58:42

But having your team, like the team that you have now today, do you feel like that's taken a lot of a lot of things off your plate that maybe you used to feel like you had to manage and you didn't have people you could trust to 100% delegate it to you?

Speaker 1 58:57

Yeah, I don't I don't worry about anything with the with the business. They've they've got it. I can I could go on vacation. They they've got everything.

Amy Dardis 59:07

I don't worry about Do you take vacations now? Like will you will you check out and like just go and not work?

Speaker 1 59:17

I don't not work, but I will work in and I will do check-in in small doses.

Speaker 3 59:25

Okay.

Speaker 1 59:26

I won't obsess, and so I'll I'll try to have maybe first thing in the morning, check-in, just email, Slack, and and maybe one other time during the day. But I don't I I don't sit there and obsess, and I'm not the one getting the phone calls and that kind of stuff. So yeah, it it's it's so much different than it was years and years ago. I I I trust the team a hundred percent. They've got it. There's nothing that that they can't do. And so for me, it's probably more curiosity and where can I be helpful? And so it's yeah, it's pretty cool.

Amy Dardis 1:00:08

You're not afraid that you're gonna come back to like a big thing. Which is so great.

Speaker 1 1:00:14

Yeah, they'll tell me if there's something, but uh so much of our our company is development and pipelines and workflows and all this stuff. I can't help. I don't even have access to that stuff.

Speaker 4 1:00:29

So it's like I don't know.

Speaker 1 1:00:34

You do I can't I I can't tell you what to do. You guys know what to do, so yeah, they don't give me access.

Amy Dardis 1:00:40

So which is a great feeling to have to to know that like you run a company where you are not the expert at everything that happens in your like you are not the dev guy. You are not the like you really do have people that you're just like, man, I trust you because I couldn't do this myself if I wanted to.

Speaker 4 1:00:58

No, no.

Amy Dardis 1:00:59

But because you have those people, you guys have been able to do amazing things. You have not been the ceiling of your company.

Speaker 1 1:01:06

No. And I I tell them to do the same thing. When you go on vacation, you know, go on vacation, take, take your time. And they and they do it too. They know that their their team's got their back. So yeah, it's it's not just me that has that.

Amy Dardis 1:01:21

Yeah. Which is that's I mean, to me, like that's awesome to be able to know that you can truly take time off and recharge and enjoy time with your family and know that what you go back to is not a burden or a stress. That hopefully it's something where they're like, yay, I'm excited to go back to work because Yeah.

Speaker 1 1:01:41

That's how it should be. That's the goal when you go.

Amy Dardis 1:01:44

Yes, it is the goal. I think that's been kind of like the the biggest drive for me is one, experiencing what it feels like to just enjoy work and know that that's possible. And because I've been in so many roles where I didn't, and it was either because I was with the wrong team or I was in the wrong role. I mean, of just like doing something that I am just not naturally wired to do and constantly feeling that friction. But knowing that, like, wow, if we spend 40 hours a week at work or 50 or 60, you know, however many, it's like, why wouldn't we want to enjoy the majority of that time? Or like you said, enjoy the people you work with.

Speaker 4 1:02:31

Yeah.

Amy Dardis 1:02:32

And I I think if more leaders had this mindset of like, okay, when I build my team, I want everybody to actually enjoy working together. And that alone could just drastically change how people feel at work.

Speaker 1 1:02:46

Yeah. And it if someone is not working out, you you gotta let them go. Immediately. Like you got you've got you it you've gotta do it. You cannot delay and linger that kind of stuff.

Amy Dardis 1:03:08

Have you learned that the hard way?

Speaker 1 1:03:11

Yeah, I think I think early on, yeah, we let we let a a couple personalities really drive, and they were super talented, super smart, super productive. They really helped us, but the personality was really bad. And so we learned it then, and that was really early on. And it's hard when you're first starting because it mistakes can really cost you. And you know, when you get more immature and it's you can you can make mistakes and it's you know what the outcome's gonna be. But yeah, definitely early on, and probably let those go on a little too long. And ever since you know it.

Amy Dardis 1:03:58

Like was that something where it's like you knew it and you just got past the 100% know it.

Speaker 1 1:04:03

The team knows it. The t the team's complaining about them, and and you know, if you're not listening to the team, then they're gonna quit telling you at some point. And you never want that. So yeah, it's you just gotta you gotta let them go and go do something else, and your team will thank you for it forever.

Amy Dardis 1:04:26

Do you remember like the mindset or the thoughts that you wrestled with of like why you why you were afraid to let them go?

Speaker 1 1:04:36

Like when you knew you needed to, but why maybe what did you tell yourself as to like you just don't want a disruption in productivity and you know that it takes a while to get somebody up to speed, and even developers that are super smart and takes a while to get somebody up to speed. So you don't want to you just don't want to lose time. Especially when you're you're kind of young in a company and you know that time's critical. Yeah. So yeah, that that's the justification anyway. But the reality is you're you're gonna lose time either way because you're everyone else is gonna be miserable working with that person. Then especially when you're all in the office and you can't escape. It's probably easier when you're hybrid now, but it's yeah. That's it's not all just who you hire, but you've gotta be willing to let people go. When they're not the right fit or they're not kind of getting it, or they're a personality miss, then you you gotta do it.

Amy Dardis 1:05:40

Mm-hmm. Do it. Yeah, and you probably felt like relief afterwards.

Speaker 1 1:05:46

You do and and you watch your team after and the way uh a hundred percent of the time they rally around that. They do. They the they pick up the slack, they because they're just relieved of not having to deal with whatever it was and then you bring someone new in and then you've got someone new that brings excitement into the team and so yeah it works really well. You just I mean it sucks, but it it is business. It's not you're not you're you're not running a charity. You're running a business. You're not in business to employ the wrong people for your business.

Amy Dardis 1:06:21

Right. No, it it hurts everyone in in the long run.

Speaker 4 1:06:25

Yeah.

Speaker 1 1:06:26

Yep.

Speaker 4 1:06:26

Yeah.

What DDS Is Building Next

Amy Dardis 1:06:27

So what what do you guys have kind of on the forefront at DDS or what big exciting things are you guys kind of working on right now?

Speaker 1 1:06:36

Yeah I just most most of what we're doing I I always think about product with that question. And I think for us it's that data's hard because there's so many products, there's so much and it's just a moving target and it's always changing. And so we're doing a lot of technical partnerships and technical integrations in our industries that we haven't had some of these companies before. We hadn't had Shopify or Big Commerce and That's huge. We've got Shopware, we got the PIM companies like In River and Aquino and you've got more ERPs coming in and and doing a phenomenal job. So agencies which never had I don't remember more than a handful of agencies in in our lower tech industry. So I think technology's moving and the cool thing is that I've always believed that the software the technology will move these industries forward. So I agree. I think that's big for us and it's really fun. It's fun to see these and meet these companies, spend time with these companies because the first thing they always say is the data's the hardest problem. Because they they're all coming from the retail side and now they've saturated retail and now they're coming into the B2B side. And so it's a really good fit and it's it's fun because I've been complaining for 11 and a half years that there are not any of these great technology companies that are serving retail in our low tech industries. And so now they're here and it's fun to work with them. It's fun to learn from them and what they're doing with AI and their product and how we're integrating with them. And so the end result is deeper integrations for our customers, you know, real time sync with these websites, real-time onboarding with the PIM and some of these and then having these agency partners that can help do the onboarding do the work do the integration do the customizations is is super cool. So that's a big thing for us right now is more deeper integrations and helping our customers get better software into our low-tech industries.

Amy Dardis 1:08:58

Does it feel like it's snowballing? Because it feels like things are just moving so fast right now It feels like everything moves so slow to me. It's not fast enough for you.

Speaker 1 1:09:11

It's never fast enough but it's very welcome.

Amy Dardis 1:09:14

I hope it looks faster from the outside but it does it looks really fast from the outside. Especially just when I think about how long it felt like it took when we were doing this in the you know gas and welding industry. Yeah especially at the beginning I mean that was it was a slow start and then it just got faster and faster and faster you know and then like every quarter it was like oh my gosh they're changing this and they're changing this and they're changing this and yeah but I I think for us what we're able to get done with with AI helping on the dev side and product side is pretty incredible.

unknown 1:09:56

Yeah.

Speaker 1 1:09:57

So we're looking at what are the problems are our customers having solve that. What is the next problem solve that next problem solve that so in the beginning it was just kind of product detail data you now we've got to compete with AI and people are trying to create product data with AI which to me a the quality's not as good as I think people think it's gonna be it's also what are you going to do with it then? Because it's no different than companies that were paying scraping companies to give them product detail data before you still got to upload it to your systems or have integrations with the systems and so uh you still got to categorize it, still got to normalize it, all that kind of stuff. So that's what we're trying to trying to do all that.

Amy Dardis 1:10:46

Yeah. Well you have you I mean you have the team to do it. And I think you I mean you guys have that like that mindset of what are the problems and let's let's tackle the things that other companies aren't tackling because because maybe they're afraid but it's like you guys aren't afraid of a problem. And I love that.

Speaker 1 1:11:07

Yeah we're not and we know we can scale that that's the cool thing is we can work with we work with some of the biggest manufacturers and distributors in the world and they have real problems because of the size. So yeah we're we're not afraid. Yeah we're we're looking forward to it. It's it's nice having AI help us exp expedite that so it's a welcome time.

Amy Dardis 1:11:32

Well I think you have the right combination with uh your I mean I think it's your team, right? That really drives all of this and you guys's ability to do it. So yeah I really appreciate just all the insight that that you've been wanting to share about your company and what you guys have done to be successful with it.

Speaker 1 1:11:52

Yeah thank you for thanking of me I wish you the very best of luck I will help you however I can so let me know if there's anything I can do to help you. Yeah it's it's an important piece. I I just if if nothing else one one closing thing to remember or advice pay attention to your hiring process.

Hiring Process Takeaways And Closing

unknown 1:12:15

Yes.

Speaker 1 1:12:16

Whatever it is just it it's probably not it can always be better. We're always trying to improve it we think we've got a pretty good formula but we're always and we meet after we hire someone like what went right what went what went wrong I I don't know if leaders pay enough attention to that you choose who you're gonna work with and you choose who your team's going to work with it's fun if you do it right yes I think that's so so wise I think the hiring the hiring process is just crucial it is yeah yep critical awesome okay well thank you so much that is all for this episode and I'll see you guys next time. All right thanks Amy