I'm Doug Bencsko your host today. I'm also the founder of A2O Digital, and the business franchise owner for precision garage door in the New York metropolitan area. On today's podcast, I'd like to welcome a friend Ed Hesling, Ed's been part of the Precision network since 2013. And he worked his way to the top where he's now an owner of the Precision garage door Central PA location. He obviously greatly values customer service, and focuses on bringing leading quality to every customer's home. Ed always has led his team by example, and has worked with them to cultivate the same value he has. He's always looking for ways to grow and improve in the home service industry. Ed, welcome to the podcast today. I really appreciate you agreeing to come on. I'm going to lean into this conversation with you how basically, I really got to know you a little bit. We had a Northeast regional meeting back probably almost a year ago now. It's been maybe a little more than a year now. But we had that Northeast regional meeting. And I, I don't know if that was the first time that we met with you. But I think it was the first time where I really heard you say something that like I went, Wow, this is this is interesting. And what I'm talking about, has to do with hiring employees. We were talking about the frustrations of hiring employees, finding them getting the right one the first time so you don't have to go through a training process over and over again. And, you stood up in that meeting and you told me about what you do in your location. And you said I use Enneagram. And I went wow, what is Enneagram, and I didn't even know how to look it up. I couldn't spell it, I didn't know what Enneagram was. But I'd like to talk to you today a little bit about it and let some of the people that have a chance to watch this podcast, potentially learn something about this process that you've used. And just for everybody that's listening today. We've incorporated it in our markets in the New York metropolitan area, and have started utilizing everything that you've brought us in, and it is a very interesting, and we believe it's going to really continue to help us with the hiring and training of, of new employees. So with all that being said, as a business owner, I know obviously one of the big challenges trying to find people, why don't you start Ed by telling everybody the story of how you got introduced to Enneagram.

It's a good story. First, Doug, thank you for having me. It's a real honor to be here and on your podcast. So I greatly appreciate our conversations with this. The story of how I came across the Enneagram. It's kind of a two part story. So back in maybe 2013, 2015 area when I first got into Precision Doors, I was dating a girl who wanted to know a little bit more about me, because apparently what I was telling her wasn't good enough. And so she had me take the Enneagram test, and I didn't really think much of it. And she brought up all this interesting stuff about me that she read when she read me my results. And I was like yeah, that's accurate. That's accurate. Like that's interesting, but I didn't care enough about the Enneagram at that time.

It described you though.

It describe me to a tee. And it was like it knew my whole life without having a conversation of getting to know somebody throughout their whole life. Right. And fast forward a few years later, I went down to a Precision Door corporate meeting. This was at the I think one of the Dolphin or Swan hotels. I think this was back in 2018 2019 timeframe. And when I went down to this corporate meeting you know, I was in a position where I really wanted to advance my career in Precision Door. And I was thinking, how do I advance my career? How do I get to the next step and I, my solution that I came up with at the time was, let me figure out what everyone who's here what their pain is, let me have some conversation with some owners, some managers, let me figure out what their pain is. And I want to be the one to come up with a solution to that pain. And what almost everybody spoke about was employee retention, and hiring and culture. I hire somebody and you know, within a month, they quit. You know, I can't keep employees for long I'm, I'm rolling through employees spending so much money training employees every six to 12 months. And it's just it's bleeding me out, right? And so that was a common answer with everyone. And, you know, I never at this point in my career, I wasn't involved in hiring. So I had very little experience with hiring. And I think that's kind of gave me the advantage because I can try to possibly look at the picture from a much broader perspective. And so when I met, I met my partner, Steven at this corporate event. And, you know, he talked about opening up a market in the Central PA area and asked if I was going to be interested if I would be interested, since I live pretty close. If I'd be interested in starting it up with him. And I was like, Yeah, sure. I'm, you know, I'm down. Let's go. And that's when I kind of got my hands pretty green. When it comes to hiring people.

Yeah, you had to go out and start a crew.

Yeah, we had to crew up, you know, and so at first we're hiring people, and you know, I'm following Steven's lead, you know, he's throwing out Indeed applications, people are coming in, we're doing the basic hiring stuff. Like, just like everyone else does just have a conversation, you trust your intuition. You trust your gut, you trust your heart, trust your head, I think this guy's a good pick, let me go ahead and hire them. And, you know, I was at that point having kind of like the same issues that I heard everyone else was telling me about months prior. And so I was like, you know, I still made a promise that I wanted to find the solution to this. So let me let me focus on this. And let me use Central PA as a trial and error place to see what I could find out what I could utilize. And one day I thought about that test that my girlfriend at the time asked me to take. And I looked at my test results. And my test results were pretty old at that time. And so I was just curious, I was like, let me just take the test again, and see if anything's changed. And I took the test again. And my results were still the same results, give or take a pointer to maybe. But so I was like, Okay, so these results don't change. So they're more than just, it's possibly more than just DISC, because DISC may change due to the environment that you're in, or the job that you have. This looks like it's something deeper than DISC. And so I made it everyone in the company, test it out, like I had Steven, take it, I had a few texts I had at the time take it. And then I just used it when I hired people. And at first I was comparing my results to everybody else. Because I thought very highly of myself as my accomplishments as a technician and an installer. And I felt like that I was kind of different from other technicians and installers. And I felt like my, my points and my results had something to do with that. And so I had to have a lot of heart to heart conversations with myself to diagnose each Enneagram result and figure out what makes us Enneagram results unique, and how does it apply to my life.

So Ed, excuse me for interrupting. But yeah, when you take the test, right Enneagram breaks you into one of nine different categories. Is that accurate?

Yep. The Enneagram does break down in 9 different types. The 9 types are type 1s are the perfectionist, these are people who look for perfection everywhere they go. If you clean a house, they would walk in the house and give it a white glove treatment. Type 2s are the helpers, these are people who look at other people who need help, and they try to be what they need as far as help goes. Types 3s are the achievers, these people want to be successful and they are very title oriented. Type 4s are the romantics, these people add spice to life or add flavor. You see a lot of people who majored in liberal arts test high for type 4s Romantics. Type 5s are the individualists, they make great lawyers, great attorneys, great judges. They look at the world through a very logical perspective. Type 6s are the loyalists. I love hiring type 6 because they're bleed greens and they are in it for the long term. You get great retention with type 6. Type 7s are your enthusiasts they also kind of like to add flavor, they hate missing out on opportunities in life and they really take life by the horns and try to have a full experience. Type 8s are the challengers, these are people who are very goal oriented. They are very motivated by money and they have a strong direction. When they see a goal and they see how they get there they work nonstop to get there. Then your type 9s are the peacemakers, these are people who like to go through life with as little as interruption to their routine as possible. They just want to coast through life and if something gets in the way of it, it kind of throws them off track. They don't really like to be thrown off track, but those are the 9 different types of the Enneagram.

Now, Ed just so maybe some of the listeners understand, there's no right or wrong Enneagram personality. It's really, what's the personality and what is the job entail, right?

Right. It's more so what, what, what type fits best with the demands of the position. And it's, you know, part of the Enneagram helps in, you said it best through discussion Doug, part of the Enneagram helps put the right people on the right seat of the bus. And, you know, I think making sure people on the right seat on the bus also helps greatly with employee retention. Because if they're not seated on that right spot, they may not feel like they belong. And they may try to keep looking for a job where they do feel belonged. And I would hate for anyone to miss out on a great opportunity working with Precision Door, just because they didn't feel like they were in the right spot in their position.

Yeah so you could test out high in a certain category, and I know there's nine different categories. And each category has a name attached to it, a perfectionist, a giver, or a helper they call one or performer or individualists or like, I know there's nine different categories, and you could test out really high for a certain category. And it might make you a great fit as a technician going into homeowners houses and trying to help them with, let's say repair in the garage door. Right? Whereas another person wouldn't want to hold different personality profile, because they're an accountant. And they're going to be sitting at a desk and they're going to be working with numbers and they got to make sure that numbers are are accurate and detailed. And so you might be looking for a whole different personality profile there.

100%. Yes.

Share with us what does it entail? I actually know the answer to this but share with us. What does it entail? How long does the test take? Like, is there a cost to doing this test? Like, share with me a little bit more about that?

Yep. So the test is relatively very cheap. It's $12 a test. And it does take about, you know, on the fast end 45 minutes, and on the slow end up to an hour depending on the test taker, but it's a pretty extensive test.

Yeah, I think 140 some odd questions, right.

144 I believe.

Yeah. By the way, I've taken the test too. I know my profile. And I did kind of the same thing you did. I I've been in sales great portion of my life where you were in front of homeowners and talking to them about you know, a solution to their problem and had success obviously all my life doing that. And so I was looking at it and trying to figure out what's my personality profile. And then like, I'm sitting going if I know I can do it, I can hire other people like myself that they have probably a pretty good chance of being able to do it also.

Yeah, it's before the Enneagram you kind of wonder like, am I the only person like this out there? Like, you know, some people just may think of themselves like I'm different or unique and you'll find with the Enneagram results that some people their highest scores may be 19, 20, 21. And then there's unique individuals who their highest scores rank 24, 25, 26, 27 points. And these people, you know, they're a lot of who they are focused on a specific personality type. And they may stand out from the rest of society or may think of themselves that they stand out from the rest of society because people may not be as before the Enneagram, strong minded as they are strong willed as they are, or strong intuitive as they are. And the Enneagram kind of helps you learn that like, okay, so I am, like these specific score results. And I'll use myself for example, you know, I scored 25 points as a type 8 challenger, and, you know, I would ask myself why do I feel like that I'm the only technician that cares about every job in their call average of every job and making sure the customer takes care of like the customer is taken care of at every job. Like, I feel like I'm the only technician in this company that does that. Because there could be another technician that says, it's five o'clock, I'm just going to go in, fix the issue and leave and I'm like, no, no, let's, whether it's five o'clock or 10 o'clock, you know, you want to be there, you want to get it right, you want to make it right, you know, take care of the customer as you would your first call today. And like, it kind of just helps bring understanding to these employees may not just process things, the way that I process things, and I live my life in a more of a habitual way. And so that's what I was kind of looking for is other people, like myself, just like you said, who, if I can find other people who scores are very similar to myself, than I would have people who would care as much as I would care to run the business. And if, if my results like, you know, I have to be humbled, right. So if my results, if I find that I have a weakness in a specific area, I can hire somebody that I know that the business needs, who has a strength in to where they can help carry the business. And I think Steven is great with that. Because, you know, me being a high type 8, I'm very, I run the business off of my gut instincts, because 8, 9, 1s, they process information and process their life through their gut. 2, 3, 4s, process their life and information through their heart, and 5, 6, 7s process and live their life through information and facts and data, right. And so when you're building a relationship, when you're building a business, you know, you have employees, you have to build those relationships. And as a type 8, I can be blunt, sometimes it's like, hey, let's just do the work. And Steven being a strong type 3 is just like, okay, we can't say it that way. You have to, yeah, kind of have the I don't want to say hold their hand while I tell them, but you have to say it in a way where they feel inspired. And so Steven is a great strength where I'm weak because I'm more of a go getter. And Steven is more about hey, let's not lose or fracture relationships along the way.

Yeah, so every style Enneagram style, probably has a spot in your organization, depending upon the job that they're doing, right? And it's good to have balance and have different types of people in your organization. But you want to make sure on the right seat on the bus.

Yes, at the end of the day, that's what matters is making sure we're on the right seat of the bus.

Ed share with the audience about obviously, they get a personality profile, one of nine numbers. But there's also a healthy, an unhealthy and I'll say a normal as the way they call it. Personality, like, share with everybody a little bit about that. I think that's an important piece.

Yep. So the Enneagram every personality type, they have your average types, you're above average types, and you're below average types. And it kind of knew you using adjectives describes you know, what the average personality type is, what the above average personality types is, and what the below average personality types. I'll use myself for an example and I'll give the proper terminology so like, you know, at their best, the above average personality types for type eights, they're strong, direct, they're courageous. They're great leaders, average eights they are how do I describe average eights?

Yeah, that's right. So when you say, average, above average, whatever, isn't it really like a state like your state that you're in? In other words, a healthy eight right now I might be like, because everything is going well in my life. But hey, something bad happens in your life. And you become, I'll say, maybe in an unhealthy state at that time, it could be something like, you're just I don't know, maybe you had some kind of tragedy happened in your life. Yeah, right. And then all of a sudden, you're not at your best, you go to an unhealthy state, and you act out you act differently when you're in that kind of state.

I apologize, yes so the 10 levels of development, I believe is what you're referring to. So Enneagram, all nine personality types, they have the 10 levels of development, and in my hiring process, I kind of focus like, when I know their Enneagram type, I may ask them questions to figure out where they fall on the 10 levels of development. And they have three of them three levels, you know, 8, 9, 10 are the healthiest levels of development. 5, 6, 7 are the average levels of development. And then 1,2,3,4s are like the unhealthy levels of development. And it kind of talks about, you have this personality type. And you can kind of gauge where they're at in life by figuring out what level of development they're on. And, obviously, the unhealthy levels of development, they'll have a lot of negative traits about themselves. And the very healthy levels of development, they carry a lot of healthy traits about themselves. And it all dictates how they're handling life in that moment, you know, if they have personal issues going on, if they have work issues going along, it gauges where they fall on that range between healthy and unhealthy levels of development.

So in theory, you've classified yourself as an eight. And that it's a good fit for, like a technician in your company. But if he's in an unhealthy state, it might not work out.

I would be a pain in the butt technician if I was an unhealthy eight. An unhealthy eight, I would be arguing with my superiors, I would be challenging my superiors, I would be questioning my superiors. And I wouldn't do it privately. I wouldn't care if I was doing it privately or publicly, I would be rude. And I would, I would think that, you know, I have a right to feel this way. When I don't have a right to feel that way.

Yeah. And I appreciate the way you just explained that because you can have an 8 who is a star performer, like just incredible person. And then you can have another 8, and because they're not in a great state, where they have something going on in their life, and they're under duress, or stress or something like that. And they're acting out and you're going to be going, Oh, my gosh, what did I get myself into with this. So you need to, you need to not only know what personality style they are, but where they are in their 1 to 10 levels of development.

Yeah. And I think I think that's a beautiful part about it. Because I think, you know, before the Enneagram , I was that person that if an employee acted out, and, you know, their behavior was unacceptable, alright there's the door, you know, I was very blunt to the point and I think now that I have an understanding from an Enneagram aspect, I can at least do what I can do in the realms of what I'm able to try to redeem that employee because the unhealthy and healthy levels of development that can switch on a dime, you know, that can turn around in a day. It's just a matter of being knowledgeable and aware of where they're at on their levels of development. And, you know, if they're willing to uncover stuff with you, you know, as a leader you can help turn that around and help put them in a better mood. I recently just had an eight who a type eight tech who was doing real well with his call average and his call average started to dip and we had a conversation, I pulled up his Enneagram results, did my own self calculation of where does he fall in his levels of development, I figured he was at this point. And so I pulled him into the office, and we had a two hour conversation. And then the very next day, you know, his call average jumped back up $500 and he started to do really well, again, and it's all because of it's all because we came down to what the root of the issues were. And I approached it the way that his Enneagram style needed to be approached. And, you know, it was a very constructive conversation we had, and we had a clear path moving forward beyond that conversation, and it, it kind of rebuilt trust there. Yeah, it's funny, because, you know, you can have a guy working in a healthy state, like, for a very long period of time, and then something goes wrong, and you're going, what's going on, and there's normally something happened in their life. It could be, like I said, a death in the family or, for that matter, it could be like his dog died, you know, he’s depressed, and he goes into this, like, totally different state. And if you can understand that, then you can help them get out of that to. Yeah, absolutely. You know, we're as, as owners, as leaders, you know, we're, we're meant to have the business thrive in the best ways possible. And, you know, you only get that if your employees are thriving. And you can only you can only have your employee thrive as much as they allow you to let them thrive. Right. And I think, you know, with Steven, being very focused on relationships in the business, he's helped grown me in many ways on how to build tangible relationships with all the employees to where one they can trust me and let me in and help with anything that they may be personally have going on. Or if I'm unable to help get them the right help that they need.

Yeah. So just for the audience, I'm not sure that we clarified, Steven is your business partner. Right and totally different type personality than you do. Right. Different perspective, and a good person probably to bounce ideas off of and have a different kind of way of approaching things. Ed talk about the culture of your business. How has Enneagram affected that if at all?

So that's a great question Doug. I knew the Enneagram was going to affect my culture in a positive way. I just didn't know how well it was going to affect the culture. I knew based off the idea that if I hired people of similar types they would get along better but I was really surprised to see how well my guys get along during business hours, I was even more surprised to hear when Zack Stevens was getting flooring done, one of my installers getting flooring done at his house other technicians showed up and helped him with flooring. We have a group chat with everybody at the company, I was surprised when one of my technicians posted that he was at Hersey Park with another technician and their family. I'm surprised how often my guys get together outside of work, and 4th of July, Memorial Day these guys are hanging out outside of work bbqing and just living their best lives together. And they carry that inside the business where they all laugh, and joke around, and have fun and games, but they carry that even when they're off the clock. They enjoy each other’s company. I wasn't expecting it to go that far but it really cemented a brotherhood in our company and that is not something that I was expecting, but it's the cherry on top for me I should say. You know, that's how a lot of my guys think that we're here to bring this company to the next step. And here, here's Eddie given us this idea, that this is what I feel in my heart is true that I got to be on board with this. And when it comes to the technicians, you know, we'll use those first examples. In sales training, you know, everyone kind of processing similarly, like we, we may do some role plays, on sales meetings. And before the Enneagram I would be the only one shouting pause, let's go over this certain process in the sales in the roleplay. And now I'm silent and everyone else is saying pause, pause, pause, pause because they're all thinking alike. And it's gotten to the point where just like, I already know what I did wrong, man. Like, as soon as I said it, I know so it's a good culture. It's a healthy competition that everyone has, you know, type eights they like competition and so you know, my main focus, the number one score I'm looking for when I look for technicians, type eights, and they like healthy competition, as long as I can create a healthy environment, all of them can thrive and succeed together. And the Enneagram is helping me find people who all think alike to put them all together, instead of finding, you know, five personality types that I think may not go well, with techs, you know, I can find different positions for those personality types that keep all similar personality types that I looked for that would thrive in this position as techs, and then they all function and think alike.

Yeah, so yeah, so I, we have 40, some odd technicians in our organization right now. And we have a lot of eights also, that do this. And but we have a lot of other personality styles too. And we still have some of them are like really good performers also. But you have to know how to, like talk to them. Because sometimes it's you talk to him differently than you would an eight as and, you know, so knowing all the people, it's not per se you got to have all eights as technicians. But knowing what type of personality style they are, and it helps you to be able to know how to get out of a conversation with him that affects them in the right way. Right. And so that's important, too, right?

No, it's, uh, and I don't think we touched base on it. But the Enneagram is such a huge leadership tool. And it's such a huge management tool. You know, I used it for hiring, but I also use it to have conversations with my employees. And it's a good blueprint that you have about that specific employee's life, that you can look through their test results and figure out, okay, so this is how this person truly feels. Let me approach it from this sensitive area, instead of sitting them in my office and thinking, hey, you need to do better, blah, blah, blah, go do better now. And it's, it's used as a tool that's designed that when you have that conversation with that employee, when that employee leaves that conversation, they're thinking, wow Ed you know, he really understands me, who really gets me I really feel motivated from that conversation. Not my boss is such a jerk, you know, he's just just an asshole. Why would I want to work hard for that guy? Right. And so that's, that's another advantage that that the Enneagram has offered for managers and leaders.

So when we had that Northeast meeting that I was talking about, and I heard you get up and start talking about this, I thought it was a fascinating topic. I was like, wow, this is interesting, this could solve a huge problem of, you know, trying to get the right people into the business and right seat on the bus. And, it was a fascinating thing. And I came to you sometime after that meeting, and I remember not immediately but pretty soon after that meeting and started asking you questions. And you told me, I said, how am I going to learn this about Enneagram ? How am I going to understand it better because you understand it to a very high level because you've been studying it for a lot of years and, and I wanted to try to get on the same page caught up to you to be able to understand this. And you recommended a book to me and for the life of me, it's escaping me the name of the book, do you remember off the top of your head?

Yep, The Road Back to You by Ian Cron.

Thank you. Yeah, I've read so many books. And I just could not remember but I listened to that book on an on an audiobook thing. And I listened to it three times. Three times like to be able to try to understand this. And it was a huge step for us in our business. One of the crazy things that came out of it, though, for me, I found that when you tell somebody that they're applying for a job, though, we'd like you to take a I'm not going to use the word test is it's not a test. It's a what's the word I want to use? A, I don't know, helps profile you but I'm trying to remember how we classified. We don't like to call it a test though. But when they're done taking this, it takes about an hour or so to take 144 questions as you said and people that are not serious about the job will never take the test. There's people, yeah, send it to me is that don't, don't take it. And so you immediately eliminate people that are not serious about the thing. Yeah, that you know. So I found that a kind of like a, a weed out tool in some ways to be able to weed out people that are not serious. And we have a recruiter on staff right now that we hired. Her name is Kelly, and she, she gives this test and she's then evaluating what type of profile they are. And there are certain, like, if we're looking for a technician, and there are certain style, we're going to immediately roll them out that's not for that position, you know, we're not going to hire him for that position. We might say, oh that's a great thing for for a different position that we have. And we could, we could do that. But we're basically eliminating them from our further conversations. And so we find it's, it's a really great tool to get to those serious candidates.

No, I agree. And I actually recently just changed my approach style when it came to hiring. I was talking to Brandon a few weeks ago, and he recommended this book called Start with Why. And I'm not sure if you've had the chance to read it yourself. But I listen to audiobooks so I had to listen to it a few times to remember everything about it. But I had this aha moment, when he was talking about how the adventurers traveling the Arctic, how they went through a unpleasant season. And you'd think that there's no chance anyone's going to get out of it alive. And they all survived these treacherous conditions. And it all came down to how he approached the ad. And he was, he took a different direction when he made the ad in the paper of who the people he was looking for. And my aha moment was, well dang it, like, I need to do that. When I make indeed applicants, right, let me speak to the Enneagram style that I'm looking for. And I used to go through like 80 applicants just to find five people to call to bring in, and I changed the tone in my Indeed ads. And all of a sudden, I would get 10 people submitting an application a day. And now there's like two or three people submitting an application a day.

Yeah, that's a great story, a great story. I know the story your talking about it was it was a guy that was going to the Arctic. And he described that I want to hire people to come on the ship with me, they have to be prepared to work 20 hours a day, they are in little sleep, be willing to like suffer like frostbite and cold and like, it did not sound like a glamorous job.

But it's adventurous. You know, the adventure is wild and your name you'll get credit for, for the surprises or all the stuff that their findings are, you'll have credit and you'll go you'll go down in infamy with along this adventure, and he attracted like minded individuals who crave that adventure. And I was like, man, I got to do that when I'm posting my ads. Because right now I'm advertising. This is Precision Door. This is how much money can make submit an application. And I'm getting a lot of people that I don't that I think is aren't that would fit better somewhere else in the business. Right. And now I just worded differently for the technicians that I'm looking for. And now I'm getting people who are submitting applications. And now they're following up, right, which is a crazy part where they're sending emails and hey, I submitted my application, did you get it? You know, I'd love an opportunity to sit down and talk with you guys. At that point. It's like wow, so I can speak to different Enneagram styles through my indeed application and have the right people actually submit applications and then bring them in for an interview.

Wow, wow that's interesting, right?

It saves a whole lot of time because like I said, before that book, I was getting 80 applicants a week. And now I'm getting 15 great applicants a week and maybe five of those applicants would be perfect as a technician. And so it's a and you can do that for customer service. You can do that for business controllers, or you can do that for a call center. You can do that for technicians, installers, there's a lot of different ways you can speak to the Enneagram style that you're looking to hire just in a job ad that makes people want to gravitate towards it. So it's a pretty interesting stuff I was recently, like I said, maybe about seven days ago, I changed the ad. And it was like a night and day difference with the applicants I was getting.

Wow, I want to talk to you further about that off camera.

That sounds great.

What's interesting Ed, I did read that book Starts with Why

Starts with Why. Simon Sinek, right?

Yep. Simon Sinek. Excellent book, business owner. excellent book to be able to, to read or listen to, we are actually making changes in our business because of that book. We'll save that for another, another episode sometime in the future.

I'm going to have to talk to you off camera about that.

Yeah, so is there anything you'd like to, to like close with any final thoughts that you might have, that that might help a customer, I have one that I, I want to like, you know, put out there for people. But is there anything that you'd like to like to finish with.

So Doug you kind of touch a little bit of base on it. You listened to the book three times, the Enneagram. It's, it's not as something that can be as easily comprehending as DISC profile is. And I know that DISC profile has been the staple with Precision Door for the longest time. And DISC profile has a lot of its strengths. The Enneagram is very deep, there's a lot of information to uncover, there's a lot of repeats, you had to listen to it over and over. And you really have to dig in deep for a lot of answers. And it's not, it's not something that people can understand at a surface level. And if they try to understand at a surface level, they'll head in the wrong direction, the Enneagram. It takes, it takes time. And it takes a lot of trial and error to get close to perfection with. And I've been doing the Enneagram for 4 years now. And I'm still learning a lot about the Enneagram that, that I wish I had known one or two years ago. So it's not if you want to do the Enneagram right, you got to you got to understand that you got to put in the work to do the Enneagram right. And it can save if done right it can save 1000s of dollars when it comes to hiring employees and keeping employees it's uh, the knowledge it has can save so much time so much headache and so much money.

Yeah, and I was that was almost ditto to what I was going to say, almost ditto. I was going to say, if you're going to do this, you got to take the deep dive, you got to go. And you got to study it a little bit you really need to dive in. But it is a worthwhile as a business owner, it's a worthwhile investment to make. Because hiring the wrong people, for the wrong jobs is just a lot more painful than spending the time and getting to understand this and utilizing this tool. Yeah, to be able to make your business better. Have a better culture, be more profitable, like just make things work smoother.

Yeah and it's used to better hire, used to better manage, used to better build culture, and used for better retention. And I think I've mentioned this before, Doug. I don't let my guys know about the Enneagram. Right, you know, they only hear about it in the interviews, but I don't, I don't Enneagram is not talked about in my business. Like it's talked about, like, like DISC is talked about I you know, I can see the strengths that Enneagram has to offer, but I didn't want to give like my employees a way out of or reasonably like, oh, that customer was a type eight. That's why they didn't buy and you know, I use it as a very surface level to the employee. And once they're hired and onboarding through the training, they probably never hear me speak of the Enneagram ever again.

Yeah, so that's a great point. The way we're using it is obviously to go through the you know the hiring process. But our leadership team actually does understand Enneagram we are trying to get them to understand because when you have 45 technicians, we have supervisors and people that are responsible to understanding the personnel they have working under them, and to be able to talk to them appropriately. But we're not going to the individual employee and saying, Oh, we know you're an eight or seven or two or whatever. Yeah, we don't we don't dive into it. We know it from the beginning, because they go through this test, and it helps us to be able to help them. But we're not we're not diving deep into the number with them either like this. But our management team, we do do that.

That makes sense. When I when I have a managing team, it makes sense to introduce them into it, get them involved in that have better understanding so that way, as a shared team, they can better manage the rest of the company.

Yeah, yeah. I so if you if you don't know Enneagram is spelled e n n e a g r a m. Enneagram. It's sometimes even looking it up. It was it was hard for me to for when I first tried to find it. But if you do that you'll reach you're looking to Amazon or whatever. You can find the book and both audio and print version. And you are on a good step to improving your hiring and employee retention and productivity of your staff when you do that. Ed thank you so much for joining us today. I really appreciate it. I appreciate so many of the Precision Door guys wanting to share things that helped make them successful. I'm looking forward to meeting with you again in the near future. Thank you for joining us today at A2O Digital. Appreciate it.

It's a real pleasure to be here. Doug. Thank you very much.

All right. Nice talking to you.

Nice talking to you as well. Bye.