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Welcome to Founder-Led, featuring founders scaling 7 and 8 figure companies who share the strategies and mindset driving real growth.
Brought to you by LinkedIn Growth Engine. We help established recruitment and staffing firm owners land new clients from LinkedIn by turning their executive content and insights into a trust building inbound lead engine.
We partner with $1M to $20M+ agency founders to build visibility, authority, and trust that drives pipeline, without turning you into a “content creator.” Over the last 12 months, we've helped drive $20M+ in booked revenue from LinkedIn.
If you're done relying on referrals and want prospects coming in pre sold, you're in the right place.
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Rohan
Welcome to Founder Lead, where we sit down with some of the sharpest minds in the staffing and recruiting industry.
00:00:07:16 - 00:00:11:02
Rohan
This episode is brought to you by Frontier Studios.
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Rohan
A full funnel content agency
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Rohan
helps business owners
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Rohan
go from hidden gem
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Rohan
industry icons
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Rohan
by growing their visibility,
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Rohan
authority
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Rohan
ultimately, their business
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Rohan
from LinkedIn.
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Rohan
if you're ready to join
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Rohan
over 40 CEOs and business owners
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Rohan
who are taking thought leadership content
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Rohan
the conversation you're listening to today
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Rohan
turning it into real revenue
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Rohan
without wasting time.
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Rohan
Content leadership below
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Rohan
someone from our sales team will reach
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Rohan
Now let's get to today's episode.
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Rohan
Today's guest is Sonya
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Rohan
CEO and founder of Editor's Service Solutions
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Rohan
and Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the year winner.
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Rohan
She leads a 7000
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Rohan
employee,
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Rohan
$150
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Rohan
workforce organization operating in over 150 locations nationwide.
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Rohan
Sonya builds workforce models
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Rohan
don't just staff operations,
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Rohan
they improve how they
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Rohan
Her team supports aviation,
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Rohan
hospitality,
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Rohan
transportation,
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Rohan
the automotive sectors, where performance and accountability directly impact results.
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Rohan
Companies turn to Sonya
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Rohan
when staffing isn't enough and execution matters. She combines strong operational systems with people first leadership,
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Rohan
turning workforce strategy
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Rohan
into a competitive advantage.
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Rohan
Sonya, welcome to the
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Sonya
Thank you. Thank you so much for having
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Sonya
I look forward to our conversation.
00:01:28:14 - 00:01:31:04
Rohan
Yeah. Me too. Well, you know, Sonya, I don't often
00:01:31:04 - 00:01:36:00
Rohan
speak to business owners who are leading 7000 person organizations, so
00:01:36:00 - 00:01:52:23
Rohan
would love to hear from you a bit about your entrepreneurial journey and specifically if you can talk about what were some of those, you know, keen flexion points or breaking points at different stages of the business, and what did you learn from them?
00:01:53:03 - 00:02:12:09
Sonya
Well, there's a couple of different things to get it to that scale. I believe that first and foremost, the most important is having the foundation of who we are, who we are, what we do. One of the things that's one reason why we are very niche within our industry is really we try to work with partnerships with our clients, not just, hey, I need five people.
00:02:12:09 - 00:02:28:19
Sonya
Tomorrow we come up with a full workforce plan with them. It's kind of an extension of their management team, and I think by having that very deep rooted foundation like recruiting excellence and really pushing each section of our organization to be the best has been
00:02:28:23 - 00:02:41:03
Sonya
kind of what's helped us succeed and grow very fast. So like I said, our four pillars are recruiting excellence, operational excellence, trusted relationships and technology, and all those places.
00:02:41:03 - 00:02:56:15
Sonya
Such an important part. And some of the biggest hurdles that we've had is obviously we went through Covid and being almost 100% in the travel sector. You can only imagine we went had 95% drop overnight. So
00:02:56:18 - 00:03:06:12
Sonya
we had at that time about 4000 employees. We still have locations coast to coast. We were at 110 locations, I think, at that point.
00:03:06:16 - 00:03:32:07
Sonya
And then you had an immediate dropped where there's just nothing to do. What things is unique about us is we do more operational outsourcing versus just temporary staffing. We really own the the entire department or mechanisms. But how we were able to survive was one relying back on our partners. We didn't leave them hanging. We we worked with them to give solutions.
00:03:32:07 - 00:03:54:17
Sonya
We became the experts on Covid. We became like the experts on, okay, how are we going to, you know, manage these locations without any volume, but still having some work to do and not charge them more because they were also suffering. And we did that and kept true to our word. We also were very, very keen on keeping our management staff throughout the country.
00:03:54:17 - 00:04:17:16
Sonya
And that was, was was crucial to us because it is about the culture that you built and hiring people for their soft skills that really are along that same mindset of of ability to do anything and understanding what your company's values and cultures are. So that was really important to us was to somehow keep our managers, which meant cross training.
00:04:17:17 - 00:04:48:23
Sonya
You know, my recruiters became salespeople, my operations people became really almost more in the field. HR because, of course, we also didn't have 4000 employees we were dealing with and compliance. I mean, my vice presidents were sourcing masks and sanitizers. So, you know, one is is the cross functionality of adapting to that. But having that core team and then what we saw was going from that, we actually in a year and a half, we're back up to 100 million.
00:04:48:23 - 00:05:13:14
Sonya
So we went down to 27 with a drop back up to 100 million, because we not only did lose any clients, we gained clients because they saw one. What we did and how we we worked together and that we were always there and communicating. And it wasn't about the dollar that they were handing us. And I think that's really somewhat I tell everybody is my key is you cannot chase the the dollar, don't chase everything that you're trying to achieve.
00:05:13:17 - 00:05:35:10
Sonya
First. Just be really good at what you do right. That's what you have to do. What is your value add? What am I really offering to my client? What can I do that's better than them? And that's where I a lot of times I tell people it's like our biggest competition is my client, right? If I'm not providing something that they cannot get themselves, that I'm really not providing
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Sonya
a service, I'm providing a commodity.
00:05:37:23 - 00:06:09:06
Sonya
And so that's kind of our focus with all of our, our, our teams and having that in every single department and really them working together as a collaborative team. And it also communication, I mean, running in 151 locations, that's that is critical. And that's where it's not through slack. It's not through emails like my regional operations managers have a weekly call with every one of the branches in their region all calling in so that they can share and collaborate, talk, have a focus and and communicate.
00:06:09:06 - 00:06:20:11
Sonya
And that was, I thought was crucial really when we were scaling so much is that those touch points. And every Monday we have one corporate call that has all of my
00:06:20:15 - 00:06:22:15
Sonya
my accounting department, my recruiter,
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Sonya
my operations department. And we literally go through every branch. We start every meeting with what we call snaps, like legally blond.
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Sonya
And that's where we got anybody got anything good to share, you know, and all of that okay.
00:06:37:02 - 00:06:52:04
Sonya
And then we go through every region by region, every branch. What how we performed that last week. We know exactly to the penny, you know, if we had a failure or stuff and then we always ended up with one of our guys is really good at a bad dad joke. So he has
00:06:52:07 - 00:06:53:12
Sonya
a joke at the end of it.
00:06:53:13 - 00:06:55:13
Rohan
Okay. I love it. So.
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Sonya
You know, it's hard work, but you got to have kind of what you do, right?
00:06:58:14 - 00:07:11:19
Rohan
Yeah, right. Well, there you have it, folks. Sonia runs a 7000 plus person organization and still has time for dad jokes on her Monday meeting. So permission to have fun at work as well while driving results.
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Rohan
I like what you said about your biggest competition is not, you know, your other traditional competitors, but it's really making sure that you're continuing to add value and surprise and delight your existing customers.
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Rohan
How do you strike that balance between allocating resources effectively to make sure you're delivering on that quality, without over investing on a set number of customers and still continuing to grow and being operationally responsible?
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Sonya
Well, I think with me, one of the things I think that makes that key is the multiple touchpoints, right? So
00:07:45:20 - 00:07:55:19
Sonya
being able to provide that service, like said to a client, we don't have like a one fix all except for our account managers that are on the ground. They're kind of the the 1 to 1 person with them.
00:07:55:19 - 00:08:21:20
Sonya
But having my recruiting team kind of working on that, they're keeping that ball rolling. They're managing that process. Having my operations team have the full ownership to talk to the client, and then having my piece that are the touch base, then we're able to look at an account, handle it from all the different levels, as well as having multiple touchpoints without over investing and having, you know, all this concentration.
00:08:21:20 - 00:08:38:17
Sonya
And a lot of times to that's we're trying to be proactive, not reactive. You know, I think that's where especially in staffing, you know, I know many of your probably other guests will probably say in staffing or recruiting, sometimes the smallest client is the one that's the biggest work record, right?
00:08:38:18 - 00:08:39:00
Rohan
Yeah.
00:08:39:01 - 00:09:05:14
Sonya
Oh yeah. So part of it is also choosing your right clients. Right. That's where I say is you cannot over promise that they want to change something that is not part of your value set. Then sometimes you just have to say no. And and we've done that a lot where it's like and actually we're working on one big client right now and they want to pay below what we're paying the other people in that same market to do the job.
00:09:05:14 - 00:09:24:18
Sonya
And we're like, you're going to be the recruiting ground. I can't promise you quality and underpay somebody, but a dollar or two more than what I'm doing right next door without you sacrificing, you won't be happy. I won't be happy. We'll get a million phone calls and complaints because they're going to jump ship and they're going to want to go over there.
00:09:24:19 - 00:09:35:18
Sonya
And it's like. So a lot of times that is that difficult conversation. If you're truly being a partner with a client, not just telling them what they want to hear, but telling them what's right for what they're expecting.
00:09:35:21 - 00:10:00:06
Rohan
I think that's such an important lesson on business, like the day to day of running a business. It's it's not some magic thing that might happen or some silver bullet strategy that is going to take you to that next level. It's these day to day conversations, having the tough conversation, learning from them, and also understanding that,
00:10:00:09 - 00:10:11:16
Rohan
yeah, given the scale of a business, what trade offs do we need to make to make sure that we're keeping the right customers, but still growing in a way that's aligned to our values and making sure that the team feels empowered.
00:10:11:16 - 00:10:16:04
Rohan
And yeah, the cultures there as well. So I really like I really like.
00:10:16:04 - 00:10:28:12
Sonya
That really important to is on the team. You know, I always say that you've you've got multiple customers, right? You've got the customer that's hired you, but your other customers, your employee and your coworker. Right. And
00:10:28:16 - 00:10:45:15
Sonya
one person cannot do everything on its own. You have to truly have partnerships and like, appreciate the other person's excellence. To really have a team and a team approach, I think is really also what's key is when you can really rely on everybody single focused.
00:10:45:16 - 00:10:52:10
Sonya
Here's what our job is and not competing against each other. I think that that's where you can also excel.
00:10:52:13 - 00:11:17:02
Rohan
Yeah, well, many of our audience members are actively growing and scaling their companies. So what what's a learning. Maybe you can share an example where you have kind of enabled your team, or you've worked through a leader or a VP to help them own an outcome and feel empowered. How do you, especially at these levels of scale, work through your team?
00:11:17:06 - 00:11:41:07
Sonya
Well, one of my favorite quotes is from Nelson Mandela I never lose, I only win or learn. So sometimes yes we have, right. Somebody is going to if they're not making sometimes a mistake, that means they're not growing. So that's one of the things is like understanding why they make certain decisions or if something like, you know, something they did, if it's a bad hire or if it's a bad mood.
00:11:41:09 - 00:12:02:02
Sonya
One what have we learned from that to kind of continue to grow? And then also not having these, I guess the strict black and white like like, was their intention good or was their intention bad? Obviously you had bad intentions, that's one thing. But really working through where those points are to help develop your leaders, I think that is key.
00:12:02:03 - 00:12:05:04
Sonya
I think a lot of people try to say, okay, here's the job.
00:12:05:08 - 00:12:16:22
Sonya
You're going to do this. You're going to meet these quotas. And if you don't do by, you know, there's no use for you. And so they get that churn and then they're not getting that trust level. I think transparency and trust with your team is important.
00:12:16:23 - 00:12:34:23
Sonya
Have them have goals but have them set the goals as well. That's one of the things I think that we also try to do is our goals. Is is more of a contract okay. What are we going to accomplish? What are you going to accomplish? What do you need, you know, to to achieve this next quarter, this next year and then hold you to it?
00:12:34:23 - 00:12:43:06
Sonya
Because if it's just like a force push on, you know, sometimes they don't. And you really are giving the pathways to do that.
00:12:43:08 - 00:13:04:11
Rohan
Yeah, yeah. And so when you think about your leadership team as well as middle management and some of the frontline folks, what is the the message that you want it still with them, given the rate of technological change that's happening? Right. AI is coming and causing a lot of disruption, but also a lot of opportunities for companies that are using it in the right way.
00:13:04:11 - 00:13:09:14
Rohan
So what is the message that you are telling internally at your company these days?
00:13:09:16 - 00:13:30:03
Sonya
That's actually kind of a funny point, because we're doing a lot of work with, particularly with Palantir right now, because a lot of our big clients as what they're kind of implementing, and they're seeing it as the roadmap to the future. So you have to get on board. You can't just be like, oh God, this is extra work, and it is a ton of extra work at the front load, right.
00:13:30:04 - 00:13:39:20
Sonya
So getting championing that through our team, that that's really kind of what we're actually working through right now. And that's where we got to do say honestly, okay, hey,
00:13:40:00 - 00:13:52:11
Sonya
when we're going to get on board now, how do we make this system work with us? You know, like with tracking our people at our productivity? How do we make it where that transparency is a help, not a hindrance, right.
00:13:52:13 - 00:14:15:12
Sonya
You know, when I was wanting to look at pointing fingers. But how do we embrace that? And that's hard when you have so many different levels of the organization. Right. Like they might have it at the VP level, but you get down on the frontline worker and they're like, why am I doing all this extra work? You know, are you trying to replace my job, which most of our jobs, luckily are not replaceable by AI, but but technology always can help accelerate.
00:14:15:12 - 00:14:37:14
Sonya
And I think that you have to learn. How do you have that human touch of understanding it, having your own knowledge set and then embracing it to see what that is going to save you to, where you have more time to do more right, or to, you know, advance and get to the next level. So we use a lot of AI and a lot of automation.
00:14:37:14 - 00:15:00:02
Sonya
I would say it's not necessarily AI on, you know, processes, the back end processes. That's where I feel like it's really good. But what AI doesn't do is it has to have that human touch, right? That that, you know, critical thinking and communication to be able to read the other person. That's where I feel like it fails a lot.
00:15:00:03 - 00:15:13:07
Sonya
On when they try to implement on recruiting or even on clients and sales and stuff like that. You know, if you're not talking to the person, you're not reading their gestures, you're not you're not under, you're not truly listening. And I think that's the part that that
00:15:13:10 - 00:15:18:14
Sonya
you lose is that listening ability to really propel forward.
00:15:18:17 - 00:15:19:06
Rohan
Okay.
00:15:19:12 - 00:15:23:16
Sonya
But we are seeing companies right now having everybody AI this, AI that.
00:15:23:16 - 00:15:25:00
Rohan
But yeah.
00:15:25:02 - 00:15:34:19
Sonya
It's not there yet. That's why only 5% of the AI projects have actually worked so far. Yeah. So but that's because it's got to have that human side with it as well.
00:15:34:22 - 00:15:59:15
Rohan
Yeah. We're noticing the same thing. And you know, on our end we run a content studio specifically helping business owners grow their their visibility, their thought leadership and ultimately drive business outcomes through a content driven strategy, whether it's a podcast or written posts. And one of the biggest concerns, understandably, is like, I don't want to sound like everyone else.
00:15:59:15 - 00:16:02:14
Rohan
I see all this AI slop that's all over
00:16:02:19 - 00:16:25:14
Rohan
LinkedIn. At the same time, they realize that in a world where now software is becoming commoditized, the prices are going down, information and knowledge is becoming commoditized, intelligence is on tap. What is truly scarce. It's my voice. And how do I show up in a consistent, authentic way that just sounds like me.
00:16:25:14 - 00:16:59:07
Rohan
And so what we have found is AI can be used well to ingest an entire knowledge base and company documents and understand how the company runs, and then also a ton of transcripts to help with some of the research and the topic identification and thinking about the buyer journey. And a lot of that groundwork can be done so that we can spend our time on the things that AI does not do well, that we do not want it to do, which is capturing the voice, getting the voice down, making sure it sounds like you, like you're having a conversation.
00:16:59:07 - 00:17:15:13
Rohan
So yeah, it's really interesting to see how we can use it to enable certain superpowers, but at the same time making sure that we are in our zone of genius, which is very much still what people want to hire us for is that human element, right?
00:17:15:13 - 00:17:38:04
Sonya
And 100%, that is one thing that you could ask you about, like some of the writing and stuff like that. I won't do just a AI and a, you know, have so many marketing companies. I would let us write this, let us write that, but it's not the same. And I have my own podcast. And one of the things how we we use AI a little bit with it is because ours were fireside chats, so they're 100% natural.
00:17:38:04 - 00:18:06:19
Sonya
But I will do very in-depth research on everybody through AI. I will say find me every LinkedIn post, every article, everything about their history, every I will have it and it will produce usually a huge ten page document. And then I also have here's where our sections are. But then my executive producer actually takes that to kind of write the questions and, you know, come up with what is like our intro, but the writing.
00:18:06:19 - 00:18:19:01
Sonya
And that's 100% human. It's just like it's great for the research, but unless you want to sound like everybody else out there, then not great for content creation, I would agree.
00:18:19:03 - 00:18:25:20
Rohan
Yeah. Okay. Well, let's kind of shift gears a bit into some rapid fire questions if you're open to it. So
00:18:25:23 - 00:18:30:03
Rohan
what is one habit that makes you a better CEO?
00:18:30:07 - 00:18:49:15
Sonya
Well, I always say I'm a good collector of people, and I like collecting people of all different types and and watching them work together as a team. So that's one of the things that I think is really made me. That's how I say is my only power as a CEO is I can put the right people together to make a super human.
00:18:49:20 - 00:18:54:13
Rohan
Okay. I love that a collector of humans and my.
00:18:54:13 - 00:18:57:05
Sonya
Daughter, is that like the stereo of Hillary when I said that, you know how
00:18:57:09 - 00:19:02:04
Sonya
people like you sound a little weird. I was like, well, how else to say it?
00:19:02:07 - 00:19:03:12
Rohan
How do you
00:19:03:12 - 00:19:11:17
Rohan
when you think of bringing in leaders that are themselves very ambitious, want autonomy, have their own vision? How do you
00:19:11:22 - 00:19:16:13
Rohan
cultivate leaders to want to grow and stay with you long term and
00:19:16:16 - 00:19:22:01
Rohan
kind of continue to work with you versus perhaps doing their own thing or joining another fast growing organization?
00:19:22:06 - 00:19:41:19
Sonya
Well, one, everybody has different motivations. You know, some people are money motivated. May. That's easy, right? Some people are more motivated by the challenge. But the biggest thing is you have to give them ownership. So we're very big on giving. Actually, I kind of say it's like a whole group of entrepreneurs, but we reward them well in terms of they are there.
00:19:41:21 - 00:19:59:07
Sonya
Most of them are bonus based on the company, not based on an individual. We took out the individual competitions of who's got this, who's got that and made it more. They're all tied to the company as a whole, which brings them to where they have more loyalty, because they feel like they have more of a voice to be able to change things.
00:19:59:07 - 00:20:11:22
Sonya
And a very powerful that with my leaders. I mean, both of my VP's have been with me for over 15 years, so we've done a pretty good job. And actually most of my middle managers have been with me for
00:20:12:01 - 00:20:34:14
Sonya
I've got some over 15 years as well. They have all kind of grown with us. And that I think is really important, is giving them one ownership, right, in terms of ownership of their ideas, of what they want to try working it through as a collaborative, like, hey, I think this is how we need to handle this and getting everybody else's expert opinion and transparency.
00:20:34:14 - 00:21:10:03
Sonya
I think that's also key, and that's why most of them won't leave is because I'm not hiding something behind. It's like we're kind of an open book in that respect and making them present to you. Hey, I want to do this and this. That's actually one of my favorite interview questions. I usually ask somebody who they left their last job is, I'll say, if if you had a if you were in charge of 100% with your last place, what would you have changed or what would you or what did you feel like you didn't have the power to change to make them really critically think about, you know, what was it that was missing?
00:21:10:05 - 00:21:21:09
Rohan
Yeah. Oh, that's a good question I like that. All right. Back to the the rapid fire here. What is a biggest workforce mistake that leaders make.
00:21:21:13 - 00:21:23:03
Rohan
00:21:23:05 - 00:21:45:21
Sonya
I think by well some parts of it is not delegating at all. Like they, they kind of think I can do everything myself and then they don't delegate and therefore they don't have anybody to not only rely on, but they have no outside opinions. And then they a lot of times make mistakes. I kind of also think that's one of the, the biggest and I don't really say delegate.
00:21:45:22 - 00:22:03:12
Sonya
I say give up control. You know, that power move where they kind of keep things close to the chest. And you know, you've seen that with some people. They want to protect their job. So they protect their knowledge. But by protecting their knowledge they're not going to grow. And I always tell people, if you want to grow and succeed
00:22:03:17 - 00:22:18:00
Sonya
and continue to move up through the company, hire your replacement, hire your replacement and train them, and then that's going to help you a lot more than trying to, you know, control it too much or people are scared to hire somebody better than them.
00:22:18:02 - 00:22:18:06
Rohan
Yeah.
00:22:18:07 - 00:22:21:18
Sonya
But that person can actually make you better if you allow it.
00:22:21:21 - 00:22:33:18
Rohan
That's such a good one. Yeah, I love that. It's almost like they should. You should feel intimidated in a meeting with them for how smart they are and how they keep you on your toes, because that ultimately lifts all ships, right?
00:22:33:19 - 00:22:34:18
Sonya
Exactly.
00:22:34:23 - 00:22:40:17
Rohan
Okay. What is one metric every CEO should watch for in workforce ops?
00:22:40:21 - 00:22:43:23
Sonya
You mean workforce ops in general or is a CEO
00:22:44:02 - 00:22:50:22
Sonya
and the CEO? I look at a lot of KPIs. I mean that's really like I said, our gross margin, we look at that every single week
00:22:51:03 - 00:22:58:02
Sonya
by every single branch. And that because that has a symptom of so many other things. Is it mean that there is staffing issues?
00:22:58:02 - 00:23:19:15
Sonya
They're not. Staffing correctly is a product issues. They're not really doing the the job in the best process and stuff like that. Yeah. You know why. Or if they lose a customer like retention customer retention. That's huge right. Like we we strive to always be at 97%. If you're not looking at your customer retention, then
00:23:19:20 - 00:23:21:12
Sonya
you know, what is that telling you.
00:23:21:13 - 00:23:30:19
Sonya
Then you become a commodity again, right? Yeah. So I think that all of those numbers lead into what the true story is of a location and how they're succeeding.
00:23:30:21 - 00:23:37:22
Rohan
Okay. That gross, that gross margin being the the symptom and that holistic number to drill into. I like that. Yes.
00:23:38:01 - 00:23:39:11
Rohan
Okay. What is
00:23:39:14 - 00:23:44:11
Rohan
what is the best leadership trait someone can have under pressure.
00:23:44:15 - 00:24:07:20
Sonya
Remaining calm. Right. And and also somewhat optimistic. You know, like I said that that that saying where I said I never lose, I either win or learn is what did you learn? And finding all of those under pressure, that's when you have a lot of learnings to do and how to not make that mistake again, and admitting it when you know that wasn't, we call it, like I said, our whoopsie.
00:24:07:20 - 00:24:23:22
Sonya
So we've done that many times. But my leaders that have admitted those, they have gone so far in my company because they just continue to take, okay, what did we do wrong? How do we fix that versus pointing the finger? I think pointing the finger you're never going to get anywhere, right?
00:24:23:23 - 00:24:33:17
Rohan
Yeah I'd agree with that. Yeah. All right. Let's do a couple more. What's a belief you hold that most leaders would disagree with?
00:24:33:21 - 00:24:40:13
Sonya
Well, I am very empathetic. Like I said, one of the reasons I started my podcast was,
00:24:40:17 - 00:24:54:23
Sonya
I realized I was a female CEO, and I think that, you know, coming up in the transportation industry and stuff like that, I mean, I was definitely the only woman in the room for a long time to my career. And so with doing that, a lot of times she tried to be like a male, right.
00:24:55:00 - 00:25:09:23
Sonya
Like, I have to act this way or think this way or be like very stock. Really. When I embraced my natural instinct of community, my natural, you know, empathy and kind of I always say it's like a mother's love. I could love anybody,
00:25:10:03 - 00:25:16:17
Sonya
you know, there is great quality. Somebody can have like some parts of them. They're not perfect, but they have other parts that really make them special.
00:25:16:17 - 00:25:42:23
Sonya
And how do you take that and motivate them to be 100% or 110%? I think that's the hardest thing as a leader is how do you inspire people to perform their very best for their own sake? Almost. And when you can get people to work at their 100, 110, 120, that's when you grow, that's when you succeed. But it's hard to do that because you can't.
00:25:43:00 - 00:25:44:13
Sonya
It's not a cookie cutter. It's not just.
00:25:44:14 - 00:25:45:11
Rohan
A yeah.
00:25:45:16 - 00:26:03:23
Sonya
Here you go. You have to almost think of it for each one of your team. And then the hardest, hardest part is I can do that with like my top level, getting it all the way down to like four leather levels. That's okay to me is key. How do I train my managers below me to have my managers blow me?
00:26:04:03 - 00:26:10:00
Sonya
Like with our locations, we have huge locations with sometimes like 600 employees.
00:26:10:04 - 00:26:11:07
Sonya
00:26:11:09 - 00:26:12:03
Sonya
And
00:26:12:06 - 00:26:22:18
Sonya
they when they try and say, okay, how are we different from the competitor? And we have a competitor that's in our space? You know, they'll say, oh, it all depends on that one guy on the ground. Right.
00:26:22:21 - 00:26:38:12
Sonya
And my belief is, if we've done our job at editors and that person not only understands our culture, our our values and our belief, and we did a good job finding that right person, that person's always going to be the best.
00:26:38:13 - 00:26:47:08
Sonya
It's not a matter of I hired Joe versus John, then it's a matter of how do we develop that person to be the very first best.
00:26:47:11 - 00:27:20:12
Rohan
I was listening to a podcast yesterday with Joe Gibbs, who was one of the co-founders and the chief product officer at Airbnb, and he is now the chief design officer at. Under the current administration, the US administration, and his role is to redesign the interface that 300 million Americans used to interact with their government. Right? Whether that's websites, one of the things he did was help government employees.
00:27:20:12 - 00:27:41:12
Rohan
How do they retire properly? Like a lot of the paper records were in mines that were built like decades ago. And it's like six months just to process someone retiring. And him and his team has brought that online. And I bring that up because he talked about one of his most memorable stays, as you know, staying at an Airbnb.
00:27:41:13 - 00:27:58:11
Rohan
And it was at a a Buddhist monastery in Japan. And so he was, you know, really living the life of a Buddhist where he'd wake up at 5 a.m., hours of meditation. And one time one of the monks came up to him and said, Joe,
00:27:58:14 - 00:28:06:14
Rohan
what is the vitamin that your heart desires? And he was like, That's such an interesting but odd question.
00:28:06:14 - 00:28:19:03
Rohan
Let me think about that. And what came to him was, how do I create an environment where my team feels like they are doing the best work of their careers?
00:28:19:06 - 00:28:22:19
Rohan
Yeah, but they look back decades later and they're like, Joe,
00:28:23:00 - 00:28:29:02
Rohan
that was hard. It was difficult, but that was the most meaningful, the best work I've done in my career.
00:28:29:02 - 00:28:39:18
Rohan
That is what he came to him in that moment of clarity that he wanted to go back and cultivate for his team at a world class company, which is Airbnb, right?
00:28:39:21 - 00:28:41:21
Rohan
No. That's you. I love that. Yeah.
00:28:41:22 - 00:28:53:10
Sonya
But it is. It's true. You want if they're happy and proud of what they're doing, you know, that's how you get loyalty. That's how you get people to feel ownership. And and you continue to grow together.
00:28:53:15 - 00:29:08:06
Rohan
Yeah. Well, so in your last question before we wrap it up, if you could have a message on a billboard that many people would see on their drive, what message do you want to get out into the world?
00:29:08:10 - 00:29:26:08
Sonya
Well, I could do our logo because that's pretty easy. Empowering excellence in every workforce. Yeah, that's what we came up with, our tagline, because that's what really summed up what it was. But I think that empowering excellence is, is a lot of what we strive to do and hopefully achieve that.
00:29:26:10 - 00:29:45:01
Rohan
Empowering excellence in every workforce. I love it. Yeah, well, there we have it. Sonia, thank you so much for sharing your your insights, your journey, your personal stories. We'll make sure to link your LinkedIn as well as a website in the show notes. Is there anyone anywhere else you'd like to direct our audience to?
00:29:45:04 - 00:29:45:16
Rohan
00:29:45:18 - 00:30:07:18
Sonya
Well, we have is Service Solutions obviously is our company's main website and spark sessions with Sonya. I have some amazing guests that have been on mine, which is just Sonya. Com will take you to the links on that. And so I think both of those and then of course my LinkedIn, you know we're usually pretty active on that.
00:30:07:22 - 00:30:14:05
Rohan
Okay perfect. Well thanks again and look forward to a future conversation. Take care.
00:30:14:07 - 00:30:16:03
Sonya
Thank you. Bye.