Our podcast Small Biz Buzz hosts, Crystal Heuft and Rob Stevenson talk about how keeping employees happy contributes to their success. They discuss competitive salaries, benefits, perks, and company culture. Companies that show an interest in their employees’ success tend to make more of an effort to raise morale in many different ways. Some companies have even gone as far as to hire a Chief Happiness Officer. Tune in for more.
Transcript:
Speaker 1: 00:00 Howdy, listeners. As we all know, planet Earth has 7.5 billion people, and 7.4 billion of those people have small businesses. Now, to be fair, numbers that size can be hard to envision and to be even fairer, most of what I just said is entirely made up. But I'll tell you what isn't made up, Keap. Keap is the all-in-one client management software designed specifically for small businesses. Keap takes the most annoying and laborious parts of running a small business and metaphorically tosses them into the sun.
Speaker 1: 00:28 Stop grinding yourself to death with busy work and repetitive tasks. Let Keap integrate your customer followups, messaging automation, next level appointment setting, and so much more. Head over to keap.com and start your free trial of Keap Grow, Keap Pro. Or for those looking for something beefier, talk to one of our coaches about Infusionsoft, the product that started it all. More business, less work, that's Keap. Just go to keap.com to start your free trial. That's K-E-A-P.com. One more time, that's K-E-A-P.com.
Crystal Heuft: 01:00 Hi, this is Crystal.
Rob Stevenson: 01:01 And I'm Rob.
Crystal Heuft: 01:02 And this is Small Biz Buzz presented by Keap.
Rob Stevenson: 01:07 Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages, welcome to the Small Business Buzz podcast. My name's Rob Stevenson. I'm your host.
Crystal Heuft: 01:16 You did that all wrong. Are we starting over or do we keep going through his mistakes? Rob doesn't listen-
Rob Stevenson: 01:23 We have to leave this in.
Crystal Heuft: 01:23 ... and then he gets offended when he's like, "Derek, why didn't you think of me?" Let me go ahead and do what Derek actually asked you to do. I had a feeling I would have to do that. But hello, everyone. Today we have two great guests, Jenny Baio and Andrew Roberts, here to talk to you about keeping employees happy in the workplace, why it's important, what type of things keep them happy, and we hope that you enjoy the show.
Rob Stevenson: 01:47 That's fair. But I was going to get there. You just went right to the punch.
Crystal Heuft: 01:51 He clearly expressed to you that the intro's already done, he's using that intro. We just need to introduce our lovely guests here. I'll tell you what doesn't bring workplace happiness, sometimes, it's Rob's inability to listen and then he gets mad when he's like, "Why do they keep wanting Crystal to intro?" Because you know what? I was paying attention.
Rob Stevenson: 02:08 In fairness, I was blinded by Jenny's Crocs. Once I got my eyes on those Crocs, it was like nothing else mattered.
Crystal Heuft: 02:16 Guys, Jenny's wearing Crocs, and I'm not one to embarrass people about their shoes.
Rob Stevenson: 02:20 Bling-out Crocs.
Crystal Heuft: 02:22 I'll just say I would never put them on my feet, but they're a cheerful color of pink. Right?
Jenny Baio: 02:26 Yes.
Crystal Heuft: 02:26 They're cheerful. And they've got adornments, would we call them?
Jenny Baio: 02:30 Yes.
Crystal Heuft: 02:30 Yes.
Jenny Baio: 02:31 They have a real name but I don't know what it is. But my Crocs are definitely conversation starters.
Rob Stevenson: 02:35 You named your Crocs, you named your shoes?
Jenny Baio: 02:37 No, the little adornment-
Crystal Heuft: 02:40 The clippers.
Jenny Baio: 02:40 ... attachments. They have an actual name.
Rob Stevenson: 02:41 Like your [crosstalk 00:02:41] Crocs bling.
Jenny Baio: 02:42 Yeah.
Rob Stevenson: 02:42 And it's not Croc bling, because that's a win right there, Croc Bling. Possibly a crock spoke like on bikes maybe. Crocs-
Jenny Baio: 02:51 Embellishment.
Rob Stevenson: 02:52 Embellishment.
Jenny Baio: 02:52 Adornment, I think adornment's like [crosstalk 00:02:56]
Rob Stevenson: 02:56 Is it like a club. So if you see other people with Crocs and you are like, "Oh, I have more bling than you." Or I have less bling than you."
Jenny Baio: 03:00 Yes there is, but I'm not that into Crocs.
Crystal Heuft: 03:03 All that matters is you're on your feet a lot during the day around here. So do they keep you happy?
Jenny Baio: 03:07 They keep me very happy.
Crystal Heuft: 03:08 You keep wearing them then.
Jenny Baio: 03:09 I suggest everyone try some, Rob.
Rob Stevenson: 03:12 Nobody said the Crocs don't make people happy. I was simply commenting that you don't see them every day, especially bright pink, Pepto-Bismol croc-blinged Crocs.
Jenny Baio: 03:21 True.
Crystal Heuft: 03:21 On that note, why don't you guys share a little bit about why you're here today because we know you're experts, we see you every day and you definitely keep a lot of people happy in this building, but why don't you share a little bit about your background and what you do for us here around Keap.
Jenny Baio: 03:34 I'm Jenny Baio and I've been working for Keap for six years. Yes, I wear Crocs usually on Fridays.
Rob Stevenson: 03:41 How long have you been a croc aficionado?
Jenny Baio: 03:43 Probably seven years.
Rob Stevenson: 03:44 Seven years.
Jenny Baio: 03:44 Seven years.
Rob Stevenson: 03:45 So shortly before you started here at Keap you were [crosstalk 00:03:47]
Jenny Baio: 03:47 Yeah, it was on my resume. It was part of my interview process. Yeah, they wanted it.
Rob Stevenson: 03:53 It's funny because your title is master of first impressions, which is fantastic, and if anything's going to master a first impression, it's going to be Pepto, Pepto-Bismal croc-blinged crocs.
Jenny Baio: 04:06 Yes. They make a very strong lasting impression.
Rob Stevenson: 04:09 Demonstrating here, it's very quickly become a conversation point.
Crystal Heuft: 04:13 We'll definitely post some pictures of these two lovelies because Rob is giving you a very bad impression. Jenny has it together maybe from the ankles to the head, so I don't want you to go ahead and judge her on the crocs. She's got very stylish hair all the time. [crosstalk 00:04:29] adorable and always a cute outfit. [crosstalk 00:04:33]
Rob Stevenson: 04:33 Jenny is adorable-
Crystal Heuft: 04:34 Just settle down, can we get to air?
Rob Stevenson: 04:35 ... your implication that she has it together from our ankle store head implies that ankle South.
Crystal Heuft: 04:40 Let's go ahead.
Rob Stevenson: 04:41 Andrew, save us. Let's talk about employee engagement, how to make people happy and what makes you happy on a daily basis?
Andrew Roberts: 04:47 Perfect. Do you know what makes me happy is understanding why I go to work mainly because that's really where I spend most of my day. When I'm alert, it's I'm here at work and understanding that my core focus is the employees. That's kind of my audience and that's who I put all my energy towards. So really what makes me happy is understanding that everybody has what they need to really go towards their goals as well as, what are some of the fun elements? Like I absolutely love to laugh. If you come to the front desk where Jenny and I both work, there's traditionally laughter there. So we're always here for a good time and I feel like laughter really kind of helps sets off the day to just to know that like as you go about your day with meetings and all your workload, that you can laugh and you can have a moment of just like being in a good mood and letting that transcend throughout your hours at work.
Rob Stevenson: 05:36 That's really cool. So much of happiness and all of those details comes from the energy. And if I had one word to describe you, it would be energy. Andrew is the key pipe man. He literally is bouncing off the walls literally. He bounces off the walls with this exuberance and it's infectious and it just is a barometer of happy inside the organization.
Andrew Roberts: 05:59 I like that you said infectious because happiness, the energy is so contagious and I think that's the reason why Jenny and I are both in this role of being masters of first impressions, is because we really feed off of each other. And I would say out of the whole entire company, we probably affect more, we have more touch points with a wide variety of Keapers here. So it's like-
Jenny Baio: 06:22 I agree.
Andrew Roberts: 06:23 ... yes. So we have the ability to just bounce our energy off of them and we feed off of that as well, right?
Jenny Baio: 06:28 Yes. The role itself of master first impression. First and foremost it's to greet guests, but what I appreciate about my role is that it is very much a focus on the employees and taking care of them. And I joke that Andrew and I are the room moms to 400 kids and he keeps reminding me that's a working title, but I do because when you think of schools and so often the arts are the first thing that gets cut when they're trying to tidy up and buckle down. And when you think of a workplace, a lot of times the little things are what often get overlooked or we don't have time to do that, but it's greatly encouraged in our role and I think it has a huge influence on the way people feel. We are able to remember the little things and something that's naturally happened in our role is the salon effect. A lot of people will come, take a break from their desk and come chat with us just to vent, to get a laugh, get piece of chocolate. As Andrew said, we have great connections with Keapers all throughout the building and it creates a stronger bond in the building. It's the people that I love to come see every day. And it's for those little things that have a great effect on keeping employees happy.
Rob Stevenson: 07:41 I mean that impact can't be understated, Crystal and I were doing some research on employee happiness and one of the things that we read is that happy employees are 20% more productive than non happy employees. And it feels like such a low bar. Like are you happy at work? Are you happy? Are you a happy person? But that's not something you can interview for. No one writes on their resume, I'm a happy person, I'm a happy employee. So you need to have these mechanisms in place. So what are some of the things that you guys have seen, or that you've done, or that people have inspired? Where does this energy come from?
Andrew Roberts: 08:14 I see this a lot in Jenny and it allows me to reciprocate the same energy. But really taking, I think the big word here is care, when people feel cared about. When you talk about the little things that Jenny mentioned, that those little things when they are sparked by caring about somebody we're able to do things, for instance there's a Keaper here and I'm not going to say their name. But they had been out of remission for cancer and Jenny, she knew that. It had been I think a couple of years. So she drafted up, Jenny's our resident artists, she's fantastic.
Crystal Heuft: 08:52 So good.
Andrew Roberts: 08:52 Right? I'm like, "Oh my gosh, she needs to just illustrate my body. Just make me look really skinny." But she was able to draw up a card to celebrate this moment for this Keaper. And she had noticed it from their posts on Facebook. So, the fact that people, we've been able to establish this relationship with individuals that they let us into their lives, it allows us to clearly focus on care. And I think that will in turn, it's like a domino effect. And then boom, happiness prevails.
Crystal Heuft: 09:20 Yeah. Although you guys are definitely masters at first impression. Just side note, I had a friend visit the office last week Thursday and before I could get up to the front to grab her, she had already texted me and said, "The gentleman at the front desk is reason enough to work here." And it was like within the five minutes of me walking to the front. So what you guys do at that front desk is super important, but you guys do a lot of other things around the office to keep us all happy. And there's some dark moments. We had no caffeine in here for about a week and I'll tell you, I was trying to protect Andrew. It got rowdy quick. So I think there's like a level of expectation once you get happy where you almost kind of start forgetting what you may have had before or where you came from or that these things are benefits and traits. How do you guys handle through times that get dark, like no caffeine or things like that? How do you handle keeping people happy and keeping focused on the positive?
Jenny Baio: 10:25 I think that's a really tricky time. We all love the cool things, especially about our workplace here at Keap. We have the wonderful cereal bar and the freestyle Coke machine and ping pong table. There have been dark times where something simply broken down or there's just a big shift and something might be going away and if there's a lull before something new comes in and it does affect people. It's tricky to navigate that. I think one of the biggest things to remember, at least for me, cause it can eventually affect my attitude too and I know that when Andrew and I are down or negative it does affect everyone else too.
Crystal Heuft: 11:02 Yeah, it's felt. It's rare but it's felt like you guys do a good job of managing that, so I've been crying into your pillow, whatever you guys do.
Jenny Baio: 11:12 Sometimes the word entitlement is thrown around, and it's not so much to debate whether employees are entitled or not entitled. I think it's to take a moment and remember the gratitude of that Keap is a really unique place to work and especially after our company meeting that we just had. It takes sometimes just a little lens shift when you believe in what we're doing for small business-
Crystal Heuft: 11:37 Definitely.
Jenny Baio: 11:38 .. and going back to the bigger picture I guess is what it is in a nutshell of, yes, it's fun when there's candy at the front desk and drawings on the whiteboard and those are embellishments, just like my Crocs, that make it a little razzle-dazzle.
Jenny Baio: 11:55 But I think in dark times we go back.
Rob Stevenson: 11:57 [crosstalk 00:11:57] talk with Jenny and Andrew. I want to build on that point, you mentioned something very interesting to me about employee entitlement or that sense of entitlement. Part of building a workforce that is dynamic and productive means taking care of them financially, means taking care of them holistically from a benefit or a health care or whatever perspective. But it also is keeping ahead of trends, of things that you've heard that other companies do that make an employee happy or something that is relevant to an employee's individual experience. Like your story about the remission card. What are some of the things that you've seen in the world that you know are your go-tos for making people happy or keeping employees happy?
Jenny Baio: 12:38 You can take that one Andrew.
Andrew Roberts: 12:40 I'd love to. I have noticed that you can have some of the fanciest items. Like you can have some of the coolest quiet stations and work pods, but when you don't have an atmosphere that cultivates creativity, network. Like the organic ability to just like, I see somebody who is maybe sitting by themselves eating lunch and I'm going to go there and join them. I think even with the times, it still goes back to those, like the foundation of, "Am I happy where I am at?" You could have this like huge cafeteria where you subsidize all of the lunch and you're like, "Oh sweet, I only pay $3 to have an Angus steak burger and French fries and there's soda and whatnot." But when you come to a point where you have that, where are you eating that?
Andrew Roberts: 13:31 How excited are you to get that nourishment and then go back to work. So here at the office, we remember those things and it's investing in our people, in knowing I was reading some of the things that helps people stay happy in the workplace. And the thing that was said was, take an interest in who your employees are and knowing that they are heard and that they are valued. And I think if we go back to that, bring on all the new trends and we'll get there.
Derek: 14:08 So welcome to another episode of worst business ideas in history. I'm Derek Harju.
Dusey van Dusen: 14:12 I am Dusey van Dusen.
Derek: 14:13 And today we're going to be talking about WOW chips or Olestra chips as some people might know them.
Dusey van Dusen: 14:18 Wow.
Derek: 14:20 I still remember the logo is a big, WOW is very prestigious. So for those who don't know, WOW, or Olestra chips were a product that were put out in the late nineties, I ate this product. I enjoyed this product for a period and then I really didn't enjoy this product for a period to follow.
Dusey van Dusen: 14:43 What changed?
Derek: 14:46 The contents of my stomach changed. So Olestra chips, Olestra was this product that was put out by [inaudible 00:14:57] and it was basically a fat substitute. There was zero fat, half the calories, but it tasted exactly like vegetable oil or whatever you would use to produce chips.
Dusey van Dusen: 15:08 That's awesome.
Derek: 15:10 Let me say this, the product tasted delicious. Absolutely delicious. I ate more of this product than I should have.
Dusey van Dusen: 15:20 I think it passed me by.
Derek: 15:22 Yeah.
Dusey van Dusen: 15:23 Which is why you're the one talking about these things.
Derek: 15:26 Well, I consume a lot of dumb cultural problems. I will always back the wrong horse. I had a Sega CD [crosstalk 00:15:36] I should have brought a super Nintendo, anyway, I lived in Kokomo, Indiana when this product came out and a lot of people haven't had this product because it got taken off of store shelves, but I got to get it early because we were a test case because what a lot of people don't know is that in the Midwest and parts of just middle America in general, companies will test their products to just basically get a swatch of middle America and then avoid the big PR scandals that might come out if the product doesn't go well.
Dusey van Dusen: 16:10 Okay, because it's isolated, not as many news organizations that are recognized across the country, that kind of thing.
Derek: 16:16 Right. Like you don't want to do this in Manhattan, you don't want to do this in LA. So they tested it where we lived. They tested lots of stuff. This was the place where they would test things like the KFC double down or any of Taco Bell's, like cultural variety options. I am convinced Taco Bell is going to create a biological weapon [crosstalk 00:16:39]
Dusey van Dusen: 16:39 Well, they're going to win the fast food wars.
Derek: 16:42 Yes, that's true. Anybody who's watched demolition man knows you can do worse. You could do worse. So they tested them out there. They even put them in our schools, in the vending machines for real. Yeah. And I tried them and as a chubby kid at that age, loved him. I was like, "I can eat as many of these as I want. I'm fine." Well then a week passes and things are not fine.
Dusey van Dusen: 17:05 Speaking of passing.
Derek: 17:06 Yeah, so what happened was Olestra, it was discovered, the molecules that make up Olestra are too large actually be digested by the human body. And so they go in and then they come right back out, causing what was politely deemed rectal discharge. These are their words, rectal discharge, stomach cramping and loose stool, which is just explosive poops all over the place. There's no way to get around this.
Dusey van Dusen: 17:34 So how did they get to this point? Like don't they have to test and make sure that this new chemical is healthy before it goes out to mass market?
Derek: 17:44 This past the FDA, it passed the FDA. The company did what they were technically supposed to do. The problem is that when they tested it, they tested it in small focus groups. And when you test small focus groups like this, you're not going to give each of them a big family value size bag of chips and just watch them go ham on it. You're going to have a great scene, "I want you to eat this entire bag of chips please. I'm going to sit here and watch you and till it as empty."
Dusey van Dusen: 18:13 Taking notes.
Derek: 18:15 They're going to give him a little bowl. And they're going to be like, "Oh these are delicious." And they were. I want to be clear that the product was delicious. But what an actual person is going to do is they're going to buy a full size bag of this thing. And they're going to burn through it during it. They're going to watch Dr. Quinn medicine woman and they're going to finish that bag. Well, when you do that, the body says, "Oh, this is too much of this bizarre product for me. Let's get this out of here." I personally succumbed to this product during a cross country flight in which I was forced to spend 40 minutes in an airplane, not an airport and airplane bathroom.
Dusey van Dusen: 18:53 Yeah, the flight attendant's worst nightmare, a lot of [crosstalk 00:18:56]
Derek: 18:57 They were not happy with me. Nobody was happy with me. The product initially did really well. $350 million in its initial month of release. Lay's must've seen, they're like, "This is amazing. Let's put it out everywhere." And so they did well immediately following so did the bad press and precipitously a month later the product revenue was cut in half and then half again until like the PR storm was too much to ignore, and they ended up first taking it off the shelves entirely and then rebranding it as light. And then eventually the product has mostly disappeared from public view.
Dusey van Dusen: 19:31 Yeah, well you say mostly.
Derek: 19:33 Mostly.
Dusey van Dusen: 19:34 You can still get it?
Derek: 19:35 You can still get products with Olestra in it. Now they're hard to find. The Olestra is buried in a list of ingredients, but the FDA never pulled this off the shelves. All they did was they forced Lay's to put a warning label on it and eventually just the mechanics of the economy and people not buying the product and the bad PR forced them to self police and just take it off entirely. So this begs the question, what can small businesses learn from me?
Dusey van Dusen: 20:05 That's what I want to do. I'll put myself in the shoes of a small business owner and say, what's the takeaway from this lesson? And I think one of the first things is product testing. If you've got a product, if you've got something that you're making and that you're selling, it's easy for you to look at it and go, "This is perfect, this is exactly what I want and it's great for me." But spending the time with a wider group of people that you think might represent who your target audiences of really letting them spend some time with it and not rushing it to market.
Derek: 20:35 Yeah, because this stinks is something that was like, they tested it, people said, "This is great." And they couldn't get it on the shelves fast enough.
Dusey van Dusen: 20:42 Yeah. What about small business owners that have some service as opposed to doing a product. If they're listening and saying, "I don't really develop products, how does this apply to me?"
Derek: 20:52 Well even if you're providing a service, you have to think long and hard about, how is that customer going to engage with your service a month later or six months later? Not that long ago, I had my entire house torn up and all the pipes under my home replaced. Now, right now that plumber is my hero, but in six weeks if that plumbing starts leaking again, he is an enemy. So you have to think, just because you get the customer's money and just because they're happy when you first hand them the product or the service, you got to think about what they're going to feel about you six months, a year or two years later.
Dusey van Dusen: 21:28 Absolutely. Hopefully they don't feel like everybody who ate Olestra feels like.
Derek: 21:35 So to all of you out there, thank you for tuning in. This has been worst business ideas in history. I'm Derek Harju.
Dusey van Dusen: 21:41 I'm Dusey van Dusen.
Derek: 21:41 And we'll talk to you next time. Bye.
Speaker 1: 21:45 Keeping ever expanding client info straight, sending the same emails hundreds of times, scheduling and rescheduling appointments over and over. Who enjoys this nonsense? No one except my cousin Brent and Brent is the absolute worst. Keap is the premier all-in-one CRM. Just head over to Keap.com that's K-E-A-P.com and start your free trial today. Get the busy work out of the way so you can focus on what's important and make your small business grow with Keap, start your free trial at Keap.com. That's K-E-A-P.com. More business, less work that's Keap.
Crystal Heuft: 22:26 Guys are on social cheering everyone on, I see it all the time. It's really appreciated and I think for me the things that keep me happy around here, I would strip all the fancy stuff, the cereal bar, the soda. Don't tell people, I've had people warned me that if I mentioned the cereal bar getting rid of it again, they'll tackle me, but I think like I would get rid of all of that to keep the people we have in the building any time because the fact is the team building we do around here, that's really important to me.
Crystal Heuft: 22:54 You want to come to a place you actually like the people you're working with. I feel like we have experts in house. I'm lucky to work with every day that have helped me grow. But also I think we've had just fun people. They're really cool. I love the tailgates. Getting to know the other employees better. I like being part of subcommittees or cross functional teams where you get to know everyone's expertise. I love seeing you dance Andrew on social media so that I can ... you get a feel into other people's lives and I think you guys do that really well.
Rob Stevenson: 23:24 In fairness, I pulled my back just watching Andrew's dance moves on Instagram so.
Andrew Roberts: 23:31 If you really want to know, I actually pulled my back [crosstalk 00:23:33] It was creepy.
Crystal Heuft: 23:34 It was good. You did a good job. But I mean we're lucky here too because aside from some of the stuff that maybe smaller businesses may not have like unlimited caffeine most of the time unless something's broken. We just got done with a weight loss challenge, which I think is really fun during the holiday season, helping you just do what you should be doing anyway. Like either staying on track or losing weight at a time people gain. And I just weighed in lost four pounds, but it's something I might not have been conscious to during the holiday had we not had everyone rallied around it and a team of people that were weighing in that were kind of holding each other accountable. So we do lots of things like that. The unlimited vacation for me is huge.
Rob Stevenson: 24:15 Let's go back to that. I liked the employee weight loss. I think that's a fantastic example. I wonder if we're being honest with ourselves. How many people came out of that room happy?
Crystal Heuft: 24:24 I did.
Rob Stevenson: 24:25 Holidays are extremely hard amplify and to lose weight.
Crystal Heuft: 24:28 Paige did. Shout out to Paige Clark.
Rob Stevenson: 24:29 Okay, so that's good. I'm just glad. So that's fantastic. Dusey is waving, Dusey did a good job too. Okay, that's fantastic. I just wonder, from a happiness perspective, how many people really fulfilled all of their goals over the-
Crystal Heuft: 24:42 Even if you don't, you still have a team and if I had come out of it, trust me that based on the scale at home I was concerned. I wasn't sure I was going to come out happy or just even. But I'm just saying, having a team of people rallying around staying healthy, that just helps you keep your goals up and keep it forefront when your mom's bringing like five dozen Christmas cookies from Albuquerque to your house and then conveniently leaves them there. It's like just helpful to remember these things.
Rob Stevenson: 25:11 Albuquerque Christmas cookies was actually the name of my Christmas band when I was in sixth grade. So let's talk about small businesses for a second. It is so personal. You're working so hard day in, day out, especially if you're a solopreneur ever. You live and breathe and eat your success or your goals as you try to build that success. What are some really easy basic things that we can recommend to some of our small businesses to focus on from a happiness perspective.
Crystal Heuft: 25:38 When you said small business and I think of small businesses might make a lot of my family have been small business owners and when I hear our customer stories, Andrew and I we grade our new hires and we have a segment, where did we spend some time with them going over our purpose and our values and our mission. There's a segment in there that has a really brief timeline of how Infusionsoft came to be, which is now Keap, and there's a segment, it officially started in 2001 and there's a segment in there. It was the first year that our founders took home a livable paycheck. So that's a lot of years that they worked their butts off and didn't always see the reward.
Crystal Heuft: 26:19 And I always try to point that out because it's a reminder that our founders were in the same boat that small business owners are now. And one thing that Scott mentioned was that as we go through things, we have to remember to have fun and whatever. The ping pong table is highly used here and especially by our accounting guys. They use it a lot and they're very heads down working hard, but then they remember to have a fun break and the fun break is very subjective. You can go outside, simply take a walk, but remembering to counter the hard work with some fun in whatever kind of levity you groove on, like wearing Crocs or anything like that.
Rob Stevenson: 27:01 It's funny, you've talked about the ping pong table because I played a lot as a kid and I'm pretty good and I can probably beat most of my friends if I said, "Hey, let's play ping pong." But then you come here and you watch the caliber of the people who are playing.
Crystal Heuft: 27:13 It's fierce.
Rob Stevenson: 27:15 It's Forrest Gump quality. It is bananas how good people are at ping pong and they're breathing heavy and the balls are getting smashed over into different aisles and all across the field that it's like, "Well, I'm just going to go sit back down at my desk because I thought I'd come for a fun game." But at this point.
Crystal Heuft: 27:32 Yeah, they play table tennis. I play ping pong. I've never been good at ping pong, but you know what brings me joy? Well, before I was really like working hard on counting my calories was opening up the side pantry that for probably at least a year of being here, I didn't realize that was our area to open and seeing cherry Pop Tarts.
Rob Stevenson: 27:54 We have a side pantry?
Crystal Heuft: 27:55 There's usually one box out of 25 that's the cherry one. And when there's a cherry Pop Tart, I'm like, "I'm living good."
Rob Stevenson: 28:04 Where is this side pantry?
Crystal Heuft: 28:04 You know where it is? Where the peanut butter jelly is?
Rob Stevenson: 28:06 We have peanut butter and jelly? So I'm happy, what the? I didn't know. So we have a kitchen here. It's got microwaves, it's got the cereal bar.
Crystal Heuft: 28:15 You're facing the microwaves. It's the one on the left. It used to be the one on the right then [crosstalk 00:28:19]
Rob Stevenson: 28:18 We can go in there.
Crystal Heuft: 28:20 I always thought that was Andrew and Jenny's territory. I'm respectful. I don't go into other people's kitchen and start tearing stuff out. But I kept seeing other people go in there and come out with stuff. I'm like, what's in there? Finally I looked but the cherry Pop Tart, I don't know how we decide what numbers of what boxes to get, but when there's a cherry Pop Tart there's one time, I'm not going to lie when I was on a downward spiral that I tried to hide it behind all the other ones cause I was like in case I want one later in the week, I'm not mean enough to go hide an extra one in my drawer. Because I'm like, "It's first come first serve." But I'm going to make it harder for them to come at all to this box. And I came back, it was already gone.
Rob Stevenson: 28:56 Are you a Pop Tart hoarder?
Crystal Heuft: 28:58 No, I'm not. That's what I'm saying. I only believe in taking when you're going to eat it because it's a communal area. However, those cherry ones are hard to come from. So I did get a little petty and I hit it behind five other flavors to get like tricky. No, they were on to me. It was gone.
Rob Stevenson: 29:15 We need a Nicholas cage, Dan Brown angels and demons map to find the hidden cherry Pop Tart.
Crystal Heuft: 29:21 They didn't need any maps. They were gone two days later I went over and I'm like, "Oh I bet they didn't find it." No they were gone. But anyway, we do get a little spoiled here. A question I had was how do you guys feel about, there was a software engineer company that actually made a title for someone as the jolly good fellow and his entire job was to around the company, and make people happy and then we were reading further over a thousand chief happiness roles across LinkedIn right now. How do you guys feel about that being an entire role?
Andrew Roberts: 29:53 If you think that were we've come to a point in life where as society has shifted and like the workload has shifted and how people are spending their time away from their families to really support their family and that somebody saw a need to be able to have somebody there to be like the extreme ambassador for our business, to be able to focus on people's energy levels and being able to feel invested in. That just goes to show how important the work that we were so fortunate to be a part of, to be able to greet people by name. The fact that I feel like Jenny and I, we probably can pull everybody up in one solid line and just tell everybody like a name-
Rob Stevenson: 30:34 Could you really?
Jenny Baio: 30:34 The first name, second name and last name would be tricky, but first name. Yes.
Rob Stevenson: 30:40 Wow. That's 400 employees. Let's be clear. That is an accomplishment. That is something to be, wow, that's amazing.
Andrew Roberts: 30:48 When you say that it's amazing. When we think about it, it's really not hard because we come from the lens that when you come in this door, you are joining a team that is so focused on small business success and that all the hard work that they do is going to go back to their families. All you're doing is you're just joining the wagon. So when we invest in, you just think that, "Hey, we're welcoming you." You're a long lost family member and you take that lens. It's so easy to know who they are. And so to your point, it is so fantastic that they are roles that are coming out right now to really invest in our people and say, "Hey, guess what? Your happiness matters." Because we understand the results of happiness. And in order for us to grow, we need you to be a part of this. We need you to be an ambassador and happy ambassadors just make the world go round.
Rob Stevenson: 31:38 I love that.
Crystal Heuft: 31:39 I'm like, I don't know, divided a bit by this topic because when I read that at first I thought, "Well that's silly." And then I think of people like you and definitely I think you two both are able to do that role. But I think it'd be very hard to find other people that can do it the way you guys do. Then I questioned myself. Do you guys think it's also any responsibility of the employee themselves to have a certain level of happiness? Because I will say, I'm not going to name names, but there's some people I've seen around the building that they do have a sense of entitlement. I'm not going to ask you to call anyone out, but they have entitlement or they feel like they're owed certain things and I've had a lot worse. So I'm grateful. I love what we have here. I love having people like you and I do. I am one of the ones that takes breaks as you guys know, to just step away and get to some happiness. And I will chat with you guys for like 15-20 minutes sometimes just to get my head out of where I was. But I think there is a certain level of responsibility to keep yourself happy at work. So how do you guys feel about that?
Jenny Baio: 32:39 I would definitely agree with that and that can be debated until we're blue in the face and I speak only for my own personal development of my own life. If when I expected my parents to keep me happy when I was younger and then my boyfriend to keep me happy and so on as it goes. And I finally reached an age where, and I realized that I'm responsible for my own happiness, that for me that was a huge shift and left for a lot more gratitude than expecting everyone to keep me happy.
Crystal Heuft: 33:08 So Andrew, do you two think there's a bit of a responsibility there for employees to keep themselves happy to a degree as well?
Andrew Roberts: 33:16 Yes. I think when we realize what makes us happy and understand it, this really brings me joy and all of these other are just elements that are like seasonal. For instance, I may like ping pong now, but in 10 years it's going to be nothing to me. So really understanding really what provides that lasting joy. What is that and how does that move me? And maybe having free lunch every single day. Although it's beautiful, it's a cute little perk. It doesn't necessarily bring me joy. I can still do the work that I'm called to do and I can do it with my flavor without having that.
Rob Stevenson: 33:55 I certainly love that. I love you're putting your own flavor on it. Okay. I want to do a bit of a thought exercise here for everyone, we work at Keap, it's a great company. We are focused very specifically on small business success, but we are very lucky that there are some really cool perks and privileges that we get to take advantage of here. So let's go around the table. Let's talk, and this is a two part question. So the first part, what's your favorite perk at Keap, Andrew?
Andrew Roberts: 34:21 Surprisingly enough, and this may sound kind of cheesy and like, "Oh, of course he would say that." But having the ability to have an application here, like the piece of the software that we can use outside of work is so key. Coming from the entertainment background that I came from and then learning the software and understanding its capabilities and the fact that I have that for the rest of my life. I get to use that, I send an email blast to my family members. It's cool even though I don't own our business, but it's kind of fun to know that I can do that.
Rob Stevenson: 34:53 You're your own addition of the Keap's offers. That's very cool.
Andrew Roberts: 34:56 Yeah. So I love that for sure. And let me see here. Oh gosh a perk. Once again, I feel like this sounds like the, aw, world peace answer, but a perk that I think is really fun is knowing that we have the tailgate, which is every quarter we have the ability to shut the business down and network and have fun with each other. But really gives us an opportunity for Jenny and I to really kind of do what we're called to do, but have so much fun with people. So I like those two things.
Rob Stevenson: 35:26 How about you Jenny? What's something that you'd like to take advantage of?
Jenny Baio: 35:29 Well, my favorite perk is Win4time, I think that's a huge advantage.
Rob Stevenson: 35:34 Explain that for people.
Jenny Baio: 35:35 Win4time, the way I understand it, may not be the exact industry definition, is that you can take off as much time as you need, so long as it aligns well with what's going on in the company, your team and I don't take advantage of it because I love my job so much and that sounds really cheesy, but I think it's a huge advantage and I've seen it come into effect and especially positive ways when somebody's sick, when they have a family emergency, it's not, "Oh, I had someone pass away but I have to be back to work tomorrow." I think it's the care side of Win4time that I love. I think it's a great perk. The one perk that I took advantage of negatively was the free candy, which is why I need to-
Rob Stevenson: 36:22 That's not negative, free candy is fantastic.
Jenny Baio: 36:26 I ate too much of it.
Rob Stevenson: 36:28 There's no such thing as too much candy.
Jenny Baio: 36:30 I think the part that I love is a Keaper has to do with communication. The fact that if I have something really burning, I can share it with my leader and I can even go as high as slacking one of our executives and share my thoughts. That's a perk that's not so much sold in the interview process, but the fact that we have that type of environment here where I can communicate from my heart to my leader and even to an executive and Andrew and I even shared something with our chief people officer that we can even just step directly to them and share our thoughts. I try to take advantage of that as much as I can.
Rob Stevenson: 37:12 How about you Crystal, and if it's not cherry Pop Tarts then everything is a lie.
Crystal Heuft: 37:17 It's not cherry Pop Tarts. It's because also I'm off that bandwagon. The downward spiral has stopped. But if I had-
Rob Stevenson: 37:23 The downward spiral of cherry Pop Tarts has stopped?
Crystal Heuft: 37:25 It has.
Rob Stevenson: 37:26 You heard it here first.
Crystal Heuft: 37:27 Yes. So, there's so many you're asking the person that just cried happy tears.
Rob Stevenson: 37:32 I asked for one.
Crystal Heuft: 37:34 No, I'm not giving you just one. But I cried happy tears in my review yesterday because really the thing that I'm most grateful for since I've been here has been like the growth I've had in two years. It's going to get me all emotional, just thinking about it again. But I'm with a leader that really supports me and wants me to do my best all the time. And through the growth I've had here and her trust in me to do those things, I've actually grown personally too like, I feel more confident in my own skin standing here. So that's something that didn't cost anything. Just a great leader. Shout out to Laura Collins, but like a great leader, power to grow, trust to do that. Those are worth more than anything else I could get. But if you want to talk about the other things, I'm addicted to the caffeine. That is something, I don't expect it when it's broken. I don't get down in the dumps, I want to hunt Andrew down or Jenny. But basically those are the things that I probably take advantage of the most growth and soda.
Rob Stevenson: 38:33 Well first of all I didn't know we had cherry Pop Tarts. So my answer is fluid. I didn't know we had peanut butter and jelly so I reserve that. I didn't know we had a secret magic cabinet at the left of the kitchen. So there will be exploration later I think. And it's something you know to be very light here. It's something that Jenny referenced her there. We have a freestyle Coke machine in the kitchen and it allows you to make-
Crystal Heuft: 38:58 So many combinations.
Rob Stevenson: 38:59 Like 150 different kinds of soda and I don't even like soda that much. But I can go if I want and get a glass of ginger, lemon diet Coke and that's my go to because it's the hardest to find. You literally have to hit like four buttons to get there. And Andrew just made the face. I got some today and someone looked it up and I'm like, "Why are you doing that?" I'm like, "Because I can, because it's there."
Andrew Roberts: 39:23 I feel like I gave you the look that you gave Jenny's Crocs. Just like disapproval.
Rob Stevenson: 39:28 And everyone knows that look. Okay, I did promise a two-part question. If you could have any perk, if anything in the world very quickly, what perk would you want?
Andrew Roberts: 39:39 If I could make it up, I would ask that every family, so every employee would have one solid week that they would spend with their family. It would just literally be, I need you to disconnect. I need you to remember. I feel like I'm forcing this on, but I feel like people work for their family, whether it just be them and their spouse or them and their fur baby or them and their parents. I would think there'd be so cool just be like, "What are your working at home? Are you guys going on a little vacation." Spend time with their family, that's an incident of why you work as hard as you do, I guess.
Rob Stevenson: 40:14 How about you Jenny?
Jenny Baio: 40:16 Well, after that answer, anything I say is going to sound very petty. If I could create a work site perk. Well, mine's a little biased because I love art and I believe that everyone has an innate ability to create. My own would be to have a room that's pretty much might look like a kindergarten classroom, but it's full of art supplies. Anything that you could use goes back to taking breaks, art is a great way to let the brain rest and have fun and actually even refocus. So it would be a big giant art room where people could come play.
Rob Stevenson: 40:57 Full disclosure, I color at a kindergarten level so I would fit right in.
Jenny Baio: 41:00 So that's perfect. It's excellent for you. Coloring, lots of coloring.
Rob Stevenson: 41:05 My perk is very simple. I go up and down the stairs to the support team, to the product team, down with the marketing team. I would get a slide. We would love I think a slide with a big pack crash pad at the bottom be fantastic.
Jenny Baio: 41:17 That would be great.
Crystal Heuft: 41:18 Okay. For me it's going to sound super cheesy but I actually am very fulfilled and I'm happy. So that just brings us to the end of this where we can all agree that happiness in the workplace is very important. There's lots of ways to get there. So if you're out there and you've got a small business, there's lots of things that don't cost anything to keep people happy and I think putting focus there, whether it's in a role or in any kind of effort is going to be worth your time and considered an investment because you'll get a return on it. So that's it for today guys. Thank you for being here. We really appreciate it.
Jenny Baio: 41:52 Thank you very much for having us.
Andrew Roberts: 41:53 Thank you and stay happy.
Crystal Heuft: 41:55 Thanks. We will with your guys' help.
Speaker 1: 41:57 Thanks for listening to Small Biz Buzz. Please take a second to subscribe to the show and leave a five-star rating. It helps keep the show going and if you need a hand with growing your small business, head over to Keap.com, that's K-E-A-P.com and get started. More business, less work. That's Keap.