Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Okay. You want to do audience stats or the guest stats just kind of because we’ll just kind of want to hand it back and forth a little bit. I’ll do audience and then you do guests and where the guests are from. Oh, that’s part of the guest. Yeah, I’ll do guest stats. Guest stats. Okay. All right. Okay. Here we go. Welcome everyone to the culture profit episode 50. This one’s a special one for us. I am honestly uh kind of surprised we made it this far. What are you thinking about Christa? Yeah, I didn’t know if we’d make it past that, you know, seven mark that people say. It’s tough to get past the seven mark. We did. So, yep, we blew past seven. So, um, for those of you that are new here, every 10th episode is just me and Christa giving you an update. We’re looking back on things that we’ve learned from past episodes, giving you some new information about Mobim, our startup company, and how things are going as a husband and wife team building a tech startup.
 

 
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): So, we’re going to jump into it today by sharing some stats of what’s been accomplished in the first 50 episodes of the culture profit. So, we’ve had over 400, let’s see, 480 listens slashreads per episode. So, that’s counting all platforms. We’re on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Amazon Music. We’re also posting to LinkedIn and LinkedIn has a newsletter distribution. And so, we’re counting the views of the article of the episode as part of that. So, 480 per episode. We have just over a hundred or 1,200 followers now. So, thanks to everyone who’s been following along on our journey to prove that putting people first is good for business. And then here are the top five countries where people are tuning into the culture for profit. The US is number one in the number two spot. The United Kingdom, UK, we’re thankful to our friends over there. Number three was Israel. Number four, Germany. and number five, Canada. So cool. And a little bit more about our guests, some stats.
 

 
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Obviously this is our 50th episode. Super excited about that. Um, so for our conference one question interview, we’ve had 48 total, 22. What am I? What am I saying about that? Sorry. So, we’ve done three episodes like that. 48 individuals have been interviewed in total from these. You can just say this right here. 98 total HR pros and people leaders have been interviewed across all 50 episodes. So, skip the second one. Yeah, you can just skip both of those and just say some of our episodes have multiple guests, some of them are single guest episodes. In total, we’ve interviewed 98 HR pros. Okay. Okay. No. What? Just I’m not doing these two. Pretend this isn’t there at all. Some of our guests. What? So, we’ve done 50 episodes. In some episodes, we have more than one guest. Okay. Okay. Yes. So, that’s how we get to 98. Um, across 50 episodes, we’ve interviewed 98 major pros and people leaders.
 

 
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Got it. Okay. So, a little bit about our guest stats. So far, we’ve had 98 people interviewed across our 50 episodes. And so, in some episodes we interviewed multiple people. And I think you’d find it interesting to see where our guests are from. So, most of them are from the US, but we’ve also had five from the UK, uh, two from Canada, one from Israel, and one from Mauritius. So, it’s been really cool to get to know these people from all over the world. We set up a time with the different time zones and it’s just always such a cool learning experience. Uh so the industries that we’ve had our guests from obviously most of them are from culture, kind of consultants or experts since that’s what the main topic is for our podcast. We’ve also had a significant portion from the tech industry and also food, sports, manufacturing, media, higher education, research, and professional services. So, we’ve had some really cool moments across these 50 episodes. Uh maybe you want to share a little bit about what’s been your favorite?
 
  
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah, one thing that’s kind of surprised me as we’ve gone along and done more of these episodes, we get a lot of requests to be on the show, lots of people emailing and asking to be a guest. There’s sometimes we’re getting multiple per day. We can’t have everyone because we only do on average two episodes a month. And so our audience, you guys listening, you’re the focus for us. And so we really try to put a high bar on who we prioritize for the episodes to bring you unique value, new insights, new areas to talk about when it comes to leadership and company culture strategy to give you tips and things that you can apply to better serve your people at the office. So I thought that it was interesting that we’ve seen more of those coming in. But I do have to say on kind of a funny note, we had one episode where um one of our kids, we recorded these at home in our home office and our four-year-old son, he was playing. We told him, you know, go play, watch a show, you know, we’ll be doing an interview for 30 minutes or whatever.
 
 
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): And um please just play. Don’t come knock on the door. Well, he got through our first line of defense because we’ve got two doors. We have one door that goes to the bedroom and then the next that goes to the office. So, we got through the first line of defense and then he started knocking on the door to the office in the middle of the interview. What happened next? Yeah. So, we quickly muted when we heard him break through the first door and he started yelling like, “Mom, I need your help with this or something.” And so with the mute on, I lifted my cup and I went, “Okay, I’ll be right there.” And and like just take it, you know, take a drink real quick and he’s like, “Okay, mom.” And so there’s been some moments where we have to be creative and how we navigate that because we don’t. We always want to be respectful to our guests and you know when they’re in the middle of a thought and you know sharing something I don’t want to interrupt with one of our kids.
 

 
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): But it was pretty funny for me. That was such a mom’s perfect moment. For anybody who’s seen dude perfect, you know they always are doing trick shots and stuff. So mom perfect is like mom doing a trick shot or something impressive. Christa, she’s the pro at that. So that was totally one of those moments. Throw those diapers in the garbage, you know. Yeah. Another thing that I really liked, if you go back and check out in episode 12, this was our first one where we did one question and a joke at an HR conference and compiled all those together. We interviewed people on how they would define company culture to a 5-year-old. And if you go to our YouTube channel, you’ll see there’s a little teaser um like a 30 seconds intro video for that. And I think I got carried away editing that one and with the special effect sounds and stuff like that on clip champ. So if you want something funny, go check out that clip.
 
  
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): And I also really like just making people laugh because at those conference interviews where we’re just getting to know a lot of people really quickly, we get their quick response on one question and then we’ll share a dad joke. Well, I’ll share a dad joke and I always like doing that. It’s a good time. Yeah, people have the best laughs. It’s always fun. So, um, and on a serious note, we’ve learned a ton, but Matt and I have both talked about how just having these interviews keeps us in the loop of what’s going on and what’s what’s the latest information, what’s the latest way that companies are, you know, helping employees feel engaged and excited about work. And we just get so many great tips and life lessons from the people that we interview. So, yeah. And I kind of feel a little bit selfish being the host of the show where we’re really learning from these super talented individuals. We’re getting one-on-one facetime with each of them and the chance to ask follow-up questions and dive a little deeper.
 
 

 
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): And it’s a lot of fun. We’re so grateful that you’re here along with us. One thing that I really liked, um, episode 10, Micah Burkus talked about his philosophy on hiring and, you know, I’m always the one that messes up, guys. Uh, his philosophy on hiring and just how to just start over so you don’t have that. So, just say one thing that I really liked. Okay. Okay. One thing I really liked was from episode 10, Micah. We need to have like a second of a pause before you start into it so we can clip it. Okay. One moment that I really liked was in episode 10 when Micah Buzz talked about his philosophy with hiring and he shared this principle of looking for people who relieve pressure. Are individuals making your life easier? Are they contributing to the goals of the team and what you as a team have agreed upon is the mission and directive that you want to go or do you feel like you’re being slowed down and you know you’re being asked lots of follow-up questions for them to be able to do their job and it’s a tricky thing to balance.
 

 
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): I’ve been thinking about this recently to prioritize individuals needs and providing them a good experience almost from like a customer service mindset but also balancing hey we have to be efficient with our time and dollars with who we hire or it’s not going to be good for the business and if the business can’t succeed then it ceases to exist and none of this matters at all. So from the business owner standpoint you do have to balance that and bless you. And really, if someone isn’t doing a good job, it doesn’t mean they’re not a good person. It could mean that they’re just not a good fit for that role, for that company. And so identifying who relieves pressure in a certain role, in a certain company, and who doesn’t can be kind of a gut check for identifying fit or alignment. Yeah. And we’re not just about proving that investing in your people is good for the profit, for the bottom line. We’re also here to help you get the ideas and the resources that you need to make sure that what you invest in your people is good for the company.
 

 
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Uh we had a couple sports ones that were really fun. Oh, 43. This one was really good. For anyone listening and you’re on the job hunts, you’re looking for your next opportunity, for sure, listen to episode 43. We had three exceptional talent acquisition leaders come join us for that special edition roundtable discussion and give tips on how to do better in your job search. Yeah, that one was really good. Um, we also had a whole episode about events and just making those worth the effort. Uh, poor performance, it’s not you, it’s me. We had a professor and workplace consultant who talked about all the contributors to poor performance and how to outgrow that. Um, and so that’s our last like nine episodes. And so yeah, check them out and feel free to go back further, but we’re here for you guys. We want to help your company succeed and help you get the buyin from your leadership to implement those things that will help your company. So, and if you ever have feedback, questions that you’d like answered, topics that you’d like covered, just message us.

 
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): You can go to the cultureprofit.com. There’s a contact form there or message us on LinkedIn. So, we’re here for you. We want to make this show very helpful and we’re going to keep it going. So, definitely look forward to future episodes. So, now we’re going to shift gears a little bit and talk a little bit more about Mobrim and what has been happening. The last time we did an update like this was well, I guess it was about six months ago. So, it’s been a little bit. A lot has happened with our business. We’ve now had our software purchasable and live for just over two years. It’s been 25 months. We’ve onboarded a whole bunch of companies from different industries. We’re helping streamline every facet of employer reputation. And this is just kind of a little overview of the main points that we do. So, Moim is the original employer reputation platform and we help HR pros do a couple very specific things. First, we automate review requests AC across top employer review sites like glass door, Indeed, comparably in her site.
 
 
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): We’re doing this FTC compliant. And if you’re not familiar with the Federal Trade Commission, they’re the legislative body, part of the government that helps ensure that there’s good business practices in the marketplace and there’s not deceptive business practices. And they’ve come out with new legislation last fall where they actually increased the civil penalties to precisely $51,744 is the max civil penalty for violating truth in advertising when it comes to reviews. Things like creating fake reviews, omitting disclosures of material connection. It’s now explicitly illegal for owners and managers to write reviews and not disclose that they’re part of the business. There’s several different things, but we’re ensuring FTC compliance with automating those review requests either with email or text and sending those out to your employees on a reoccurring basis so you can maximize the number of reviews you’re getting. And then Yep. And we’re like the machine that is just working while you’re doing those things that you need to do and using your skills for your best effort and the time that you should be spending. Um Mo is just working for you.
 

 
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): And we automate those review requests. They’re anonymized. They’re going to say save you time. And it helps your reputation be diversified across all the platforms instead of just focusing on one. And like I said, it’s a lot of time if you’re going in and you’re taking care of each of these platforms and getting your employees to write reviews for each of them. And if you’re not doing anything, you’re getting a lot of those negative reviews coming in and not so many of the positive ones. Um so anyways, great timesaver and diversifying across all those different platforms. And another thing that we’re doing in addition to automating the review requests and centralizing management of all of your employer ratings and reviews across these sites is we haven’t added this to the website yet, but we have an anonymous employee suggestion box. So essentially, this is a way for your employees to share anything that’s top of mind. So maybe you have a top employer or one of your best employees.
 

 
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): They feel weird about talking to their manager or to HR and so what do they do? They just quit or they’re spreading poison to other co-workers or they’re going to vent somewhere whether it’s vent somewhere online or to another co-worker or to people outside the business and in some way or another it’s going to damage your reputation. Exactly. And so by providing them the anonymous mobile room’s anonymous suggestion box that’s available 24/7 via a unique URL or a QR code, they can share whatever is top of mind in the very moment that it’s important to them. You’re giving them a place to share. They can list how important it is to them all the way up to I would quit over this issue not being addressed, which gives you some measure of how important this is to the individual. But the cool part is we encrypt that. So, they put in their email, you receive that piece of feedback, but then you can actually respond back and now you’re addressing it instead of it just going into the abyss, a one-way communication.
 

 
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): So, now you’ve got this internal feedback loop that is live at the same time as your external feedback loop asking for those employee reviews. And the combination, the pairing of those two is exceptionally powerful for maximizing our ratings and reviews in a true legal and authentic way while also having a lot of those negatives come in a way that action can actually be taken. They can be responded to and addressed appropriately. Yeah. And one of our latest uh enhancements to our software is the ability to collect anonymous Oh, nope. That’s what you just shared. Okay, that’s okay. I’m gonna share that. Just just say um this is just about to roll out. We’ve had some of our clients using it in beta. Customize employee surveys. Here are three examples of surveys you’ll be able to do and you’ll be able to send all your employee feedback to be housed in one place. Everything external facing and internal in one spot. Your mo platform So, what else is new?
 

 
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): So, I Oh, can I I was just gonna say I was just waiting for it to be quiet so I could start, but I will be quiet. It literally means you have to have a full second. It’s really tricky. Like, I’ve been the one sending the edits to Yeah. And one thing I wanted to add to the centralizing aspect, I don’t know if any of you have been to Glass Door or Indeed recently, but there’s always a capture that you have to do before you can even get into the site. And it’s just nice if you can have all four profiles in one place and you’re getting that feedback there and then you don’t always have to go into the individual ones and it saves a lot of time. Uh so what we have upcoming we are going to have all of our internal facing feedback as well as all of our external facing in one centralized platform with our engagement surveys onboarding and offboarding surveys and poll surveys. And all of these are so essential for keeping your employees engaged helping them be excited about the work that they’re doing and more productive.
 

 
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah. And you can customize any type of survey you can think of. If you need to run a custom survey that’s asking how a specific employee event went or anything like that, essentially you’ll be able to house all of your employee feedback in one spot. There are a lot of platforms out there that offer surveys already. A lot of them are very expensive and a lot of the small medium businesses are priced out. Um, and almost all of them that we’ve seen are excluding anything that’s public facing. And that’s really been our entrance to the market to fill that need that hasn’t existed previously, focusing on helping you collect more public facing feedback to strengthen your ratings and reviews and to manage all that public facing feedback. Now, the reason why we’re expanding to cover both public facing employee feedback and internal or private employee feedback goes back to something that I’ve talked about in my book, The Review Cycle. In chapter five, I talk about this model that I created called the perception matrix.
 
  
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): It’s kind of like a SWOT analysis where you’re looking at strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats, but just a little bit different. Instead, we’re looking at the positives and negatives of feedback, and we’re contrasting the perception data set, which is the public data set. That’s your public- facing employee reviews, and we’re comparing them against your internal or your legitimate data set. That’s your engagement survey. So, now we’re contrasting all the positives and negatives mentioned in employee reviews against all the positives and negatives mentioned in employee surveys. And putting those two data sets side by side is very powerful for identifying expectation misalignments. And I’ve seen examples of this many times over and over where maybe you’ve got something that’s a legitimate positive. You’re really good at PTO, but for whatever reason, it’s coming up as a top negative in your employee reviews. Well, that could be the result of how we’re talking about it or a lack of information around our PTO. We need to not just give more PTO days to solve it.
 
  
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): We need to change how we’re talking about PTO, giving our employees more education and fair comparisons to say, hey, we offer X number of days per year. The national average is this and so we’re actually above average. And that’s going to start shifting the perceptions and the beliefs about that particular experience driver. So we’re building this out to be a very very powerful framework for you where you can house all employee feedback in one spot. We’re making it costefficient, especially for those small to medium sized businesses to have a world-class solution to support your employees to understand what’s top of mind and important for them and help produce reports that will help you very easily make decisions with that information. Yes. And please go ahead and check us out. Um, try it. If you’re interested in something like this and you just want to see how affordable it can be for your organization, just give us a try. Give us a sign up for a demo and we’ll give you the overview and pricing and everything.
 
  
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): But we really are significantly more affordable than a lot of the options out there. And um, and we’re willing to customize and make it work for each of our customers, each of our clients. So, yeah. And just kind of as we’re wrapping up here, so Christa, any I’m kind of putting you on the spot here, but anything else you want to share from the last six months of what it’s been like building Mobrium? Anything that’s stood out to you as far as things you didn’t expect or things that have been hard or things that you’ve learned? You know, we’re almost three total years into this journey since um we fully committed to building Mob Brim. Any standout experiences? Uh, I think the interesting thing is that we’re still here. We’re progressing and I feel like things have been really consistent as far as from the beginning. There are ups and downs along the way and it’s one of the hardest things we’ve ever done, but we have continually made progress and continually learned.
 
  
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Like I think we both have had expedited learning through this process. Um yeah, in the last six months we had the experience of hiring an employee and that has been a really cool learning experience and um shout out Clayton he’s awesome. Yeah. So on my side, I do a lot of the accounting and the operations of the business. And so that has been a cool experience to learn how all of that comes to play. And um and yeah, I think just continually working with my spouse, with my husband, with Matt, um collaborating on so many cool things and being there for each other through the ups and downs. It’s been really good. Yeah, it has been a lot of fun. I’ve definitely enjoyed working with you. It’s I think a pretty rare and special opportunity to work together as husband and wife. Um, one thing that I was going to share that’s been um not what I expected, but we had the opportunity to look into a potential investment.
 
 
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): um an investor was interested in investing in Mobrium and we went through that experience of you know evaluating how we’re reporting on everything and measuring our progress and looking at our average you know reoccurring revenue and all these different indicators of success and um I don’t know if I maybe approached it not quite the right way but it ended up not happening even So, we did get an offer and uh we didn’t just quite align on all the details, but it wasn’t something that we were proactively searching for either. It just kind of came up from some networking conversations and next thing you know, someone’s offering us um a bunch of money to be a part of the company. And I think that experience, although it was one of those huge ups and downs of like, whoa, what’s going to happen? It was a clear signal to us of the reality of us building something meaningful and I took a lot of positives away from that and it really gets me excited for where we’re headed. I am very excited to expand the service offering that we have and extremely grateful for the companies that have chosen to partner with us and the individuals that we get to work with are really awesome.
 
 
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): And um it’s any business you’re in is a people business. Connecting with people, communicating well with people, you know, doing what you said you would do, following up. Uh we’re definitely not perfect. There’s things that we’re learning and working on and figuring out throughout the way. Um, but it’s been, like Christa said, an expediting of learning and even though it’s been uncomfortable at times, um, I’m grateful for that. I wouldn’t redo every moment. Um, but grateful for the learning that we’ve had. Um, for sure. I’m very excited for where things are headed. So, anything else? Just thanks to all of you for listening. Uh, this podcast has been great for us, but we hope it’s been great for you, too, and that you can learn some great things for your organization. So, tune in to all of our episodes, check them out. Um, again, look through our past ones, see if there’s anything that you can use for what you’re working on right now, and leave us that review and give us the feedback so we can keep serving the content that you’re looking for. Thanks everyone. We’ll see you next time. Take care.