Sue Cornish is a serial entrepreneur and visionary with a passion to grow businesses. She blends astute sales skills with 30+ years of management in complex field organizations. She believes that the strength of any organization is people – its human capital. Leading by example and understanding the keys to motivating people, Sue builds teams that take ownership of individual roles and collective success.
In a world where human capital is a critical asset for any organization, how can we effectively support individual growth and maximize human potential at every stage of life?
According to Susan Cornish, a visionary entrepreneur with extensive experience in human capital development, the answer involves a tailored approach that addresses specific needs at each life stage. Susan highlights how her companies, ranging from childcare services to career advising, are designed to nurture individuals from early development through professional growth. This includes providing high-quality childcare to support working parents, offering personalized tutoring to aid educational advancement, and utilizing sophisticated analytics in career coaching to optimize professional outcomes.
In this episode of America Open for Business, host Cameron Heffernan speaks with Susan Cornish about her strategic approaches across multiple businesses to foster human development. They discuss the integration of supportive childcare in corporate environments, the impact of personalized education on long-term career success, and the benefits of data-driven insights in enhancing employee performance and satisfaction.
This episode is brought to you by Your B2B Marketing.
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Narrator: 0:03
Welcome to America Open for Business, where we talk with high-growth entrepreneurs and leaders who have found success in one of the world’s most important markets.
Cameron: 0:15
Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of America Open for Business, where I talk with high-growth entrepreneurs and leaders who have found success in one of the world’s most important markets. This episode is brought to you by your B2B Marketing, a truly global marketing agency. Many mid-market B2B companies face challenges as they enter new markets or expand across borders. So we handle end-to-end marketing, from strategy through to execution, allowing our clients to focus on customer growth. Discover how we can drive your expansion by visiting yourb2bmarketingco. That’s co, not com. And some of the past guests on the show that we’ve had include Brian Smith, the founder of the UGG brand, what became a billion-dollar consumer footwear brand, the famous Australian sheepskin slippers and boots. And Ben Tidja, founder and CEO of Earthly Wellness, a $20-plus million direct-to-consumer e-commerce brand that is changing healthcare naturally.
Cameron: 1:13
And today I am absolutely thrilled to welcome onto the show Sue Cornish, who is a serial entrepreneur and visionary with a passion to grow businesses. Entrepreneur and visionary with a passion to grow businesses, sue blends an astute mix of sales skills with 30 plus years of management and complex field organizations, and what runs through her career as a common thread is belief in the importance of human capital. So leading by example and understanding the keys to motivating people. Sue builds teams that take ownership of individual roles and collective success. Normally, when I introduce the guests to the show, I’ll mention the company they’re affiliated with, their title, something like that. But it’s not that easy with Sue, so let me start by just welcoming Sue Cornish to the show.
Sue: 1:58
Thanks, cameron, thrilled to be.
Cameron: 2:00
Great Thanks for coming on. Now I’m going to go through the companies that you’re involved with working with. Currently, Sue is a franchise owner of Jovi. She is an executive advisor to executive learning. She is also involved with college tutors. She’s the owner-founder of Care Connection and, last but not least, college. Excuse me, I got it wrong, let’s try it one more time. Pathfinders, College and Career Advisors. So that is a lot to unpack there. Did I forget anything?
Sue: 2:31
You did not. I think you’ve got them all.
Cameron: 2:33
All right, fantastic. So let me start first by asking what common thread and we’ll take a look at some of these different brands and companies that you’re involved with and what you’re doing but what’s the common thread that runs through all those businesses that I just mentioned?
Sue: 2:46
People and if you look at each one of them, we are working with humans, whether they are small humans and their parents all the way up to adults who are running businesses and looking to grow their business through the human capital that they work with. So we sort of look at it. When I look at all of the brands and the leadership team, our theme is cradle to career, and so all of our brands help people become better.
Cameron: 3:17
Wow. So let’s start at the youngest stage of the life cycle there. Let’s go from the bottom up. Longest stage of the life cycle there, let’s go from the bottom up. Tell us how your company, your technology and what you do would help. I’m in that boat. I have two young children. So how would your company, your technology, help parents?
Sue: 3:34
We work with individual parents to assist them with their on-demand childcare needs, primarily through corporations. So what do I mean by that? So companies that are trying to support that work-life integration of their employees. Where parents are working remote and they need some support sometime during the day, corporations are stepping up to help fund that child care need so that the parents can focus on work during the work day and get that done and still provide and support those children that are in the home.
Cameron: 4:18
So this would be working parents that are trying to juggle and balance different things. How would you work with clients and who are your clients in that picture?
Sue: 4:28
So everything from the Fortune 10, clients that are global in capacity, that want that in-home childcare support the higher ed, for example, your major educational institutions, whether they’re providing supports to adult learners that have children, we do a fair amount of pop-up is what we call it where we put on-site child care when those events are happening home for corporations that are trying to balance and assist and support the family as opposed to just the employee.
Sue: 5:13
We’ll provide that on-site care for events, for an award celebration, a weekend trip, award trip, a holiday party or an end of the year party, where you know your employee constituent skews on the younger side and have smaller children in the home and not show because there wasn’t a child care support there, bring them. We create a fun environment for the kiddos while the adults have fun on the same location. So it’s in the home, on site, really collaborative pop-ups during those breaks between end of school year and summer camp, starting spring break, winter break, that kind of thing. So we’re there to support all of that on-demand need, whether it’s on-site or in the family’s home.
Cameron: 6:09
Okay, does that apply to the Jovi brand?
Sue: 6:11
It does. It does. Care Connection does some of that as well. Care Connection also supports as you’ve read in the news if you’ve turned on the news in the last four years since COVID started. Read in the news if you’ve turned on the news in the last four years since COVID started child care is an issue and we’re seeing more and more daycares struggle to stay afloat. Wages have increased, which I believe they should, but trying to make that business math work for daycares is a struggle. So we have a team of folks that provide coaching and mastermind groups work through the staffing challenges. We’ve got staffing challenges everywhere, so it’s not unique in the childcare or daycare space, but we support them from a coaching and and backup support or substitute support in those daycare centers. And then you know, that’s me. Those are the two brands that really heavily support that K-8 space, kindergarten of zero newborns to you know, 12 years old, let’s say.
Cameron: 7:20
So, jovi, you were involved with Jovi as a franchisee first, correct? So?
Sue: 7:24
Jovi. You were involved with Jovi as a franchisee first, correct. That was my first foray into entrepreneurship. As myself, I grew up in an entrepreneurial family, so it wasn’t foreign to me. I actually felt comfortable when I bought my first franchise. It felt like the right thing.
Cameron: 7:46
And then you added the Care Connection aspect as a technological solution later.
Sue: 7:49
You got it exactly. That came about during COVID to support some of those folks. And then we also have, as with the children age. We’ve already got that relationship with mom and dad or the parents, and as those children age, those same clients 10 years know, 10 years ago were coming back to me saying, hey, we loved the support you gave us. However, now we’ve got a child in middle school and we need support with geometry all the way up to AP, calculus and ACT and SAT prep. And that’s where the college tutors brand came into play. Same recruiting arm we primarily recruit younger adults, college-based students, and in the tutoring side we’re looking for that exceptional young person that wants to be a good role model, a mentor, and we’re one-on-one pairing them with students to help with that. Homework help, whether it’s mainly subject specific, but some study skills and that kind of thing.
Cameron: 8:55
Okay, and as those children are getting older, I suppose it’s going to be a little harder to find a specialist. Someone to teach trigonometry is harder to teach basic math, right?
Sue: 9:05
You got it. You got it. We went from reading skills and basic math and a little bit of you know other subjects to trig, calc, ap, stats, ap, chemistry, biology, act, sat. Those do take a different skill set from the tutoring standpoint. Sure.
Cameron: 9:27
Okay. So Jovi, for the let’s say, the younger age kids, through to kids who may need to be babysat on any kind of event, either onsite at the company or at a function offsite Correct Care Connection kind of, is the app or the platform that can tie that together Correct, okay? And then you go up to starting to tutor, you know, with both college tutors as well as Pathfinders. Let’s look at those two brands. How did the Pathfinders College and Career Advisors company come into the mix?
Sue: 9:58
So, believe it or not, we partnered not too long ago, back in the early fall. We partnered not too long ago back in the early fall with a company that we had engaged with over the last probably 10 years, rebranded it to Pathfinders College and Career Advisors, and so it’s been a great partnership of that organization and our organization organization. They’ve got the, the know-how, the expertise in coaching families and students on that college admissions process. But we also, we really they really start with a re now, start with helping that student determine what that career is going to look like and really do that exploration. Look like and really do that exploration prior to even looking at colleges that might be a good fit for them, and so that partnerships really come about that, like I said, they’ve got the expertise, we’ve got the marketing expertise and the relationships with families. So it was an easy brand to fold into the mix to promote that support. And really what we do in the Pathfinders brand is work with that student and their parents on identifying what that career path may look like and sending them out to do some heavy lifting and research and observations and once they’ve narrowed it down, then we start looking at schools that would be a right fit for them down. Then we start looking at schools that would be a right fit for them and Aaron, our founder of that business, hones in on the fact that you know, the average college student is in college over six years roughly 6.2 years to get an undergraduate degree. That should four years. So if you think about the amount of money that’s spent in those extra two years, if we make the right decision on the career path before entering, they’re more likely to graduate in four years or less. So it’s a great business model that folds right in with what you know, the clientele that we worked with since the time they were infants.
Sue: 12:04
So that’s how. That’s how that started and you know we also look at it today, which is why we rebranded from the. It was all about college before, but you know, when you look at some of the professions that don’t take a four-year degree that still are highly rewarding and financially can people young people or adults can knock it out of the park financially. We’re helping those people make decisions as to what path do they want to go, because there’s no reason to spend four years in an education and then come out and join a labor union where they’re going to help train you anyway. Let’s bypass that four years and start earning money right now. So we do hone in on. It’s not you know, today it’s not just about college. What is the career path and then what’s the right education path to get you to that career?
Cameron: 13:05
So you might, even at the end of a consultation with a client, they may advise maybe college is not the path for you, maybe that’s not the road you want to go down. That’s fascinating.
Sue: 13:13
Yes, yeah, and that’s changed. You know, if you think about 20 years ago the path for everyone, starting in middle school and high school, they were pushing more and more students to go to college and that’s put us in the labor shortage that we have today. When it comes to trades, you know, find a plumber, find a really good HVAC person that you’re not begging to come help. We need more of those folks and you know I tell everyone this story. I’ve got two nephews of those folks and you know I tell everyone the story. I’ve got two nephews. One’s got a five-year degree in engineering and the other went the trades path. And I ask everyone I’m like, you know, engineer versus an electrical high voltage lineman who’s?
Sue: 14:01
happier, overwhelmingly, um. And who’s making more money? Wow it’s a toss-up, um, you know, taking the, the educated one, a fair amount of time to to catch up. So, um, they’re there, they’re equal, but the totally different paths and both doing quite well in their chosen professions One educated, one through the trades, through a union apprenticeship and we need to really dig into that more, I believe, today than we have in the past 20 years.
Cameron: 14:39
Particularly when you factor in the cost of the other nephew going to college for four or five years. He’s starting behind. He’s starting now. What $150,000 behind, just on day one of his first job.
Sue: 14:52
Exactly Well, more than that, because they paid out the $150,000 plus the lost wages. Sure. So if you take the lost wages of the one that didn’t go to college and started an apprenticeship and started earning on day one, that that mass more like 500,000. Wow.
Sue: 15:11
So, so you want to make the right decision. I’m not saying don’t go to college, but if we’re going to go to college and then go into to, you know, some sort of in a labor based position, let’s bypass it. Let’s make the right decision for that young person. They can hit the ground running and that’s what Pathfinders does and you know we’re coaching and consulting, no different than we are with Care, connection and all of the other business lines there. And if you think about the spend you said it yourself, $150,000 in college Um, when you bought your first house, did you hire a realtor to help? Yes.
Sue: 15:54
Exactly, college is $150,000, spend that most people embark on their own without support and guidance, and that’s what Pathfinders does. They’re there to you know. If we’re going to equate it to a real estate agent, they’re there to you know, if we’re going to equate it to a real estate agent, they’re there to support and coach.
Cameron: 16:13
So do you? Would you work also with, or conjunction through, high school guidance counselors, people at the schools?
Sue: 16:19
We do partner with the schools when that family is really wanting, you know, to do a deeper dive. And we’re there to support the guidance counselors. You know they have sometimes 600 students they’re supporting. It’s hard to work one on one. We work, you know. We like to have students enter that coaching engagement sometime towards the end of their sophomore year and we’re not finished with them until they have signed acceptance papers to the college of their choice in their senior year. So right now they’re getting those letters and starting to make commitments and that will happen through June of their senior year. So we’re working with students for well over two years to prepare them for, you know, stepping foot on a college campus or entering the workforce.
Cameron: 17:17
So that’s the end-to-end process, not just the hard part. I wouldn’t be picking your career interests when you’re 15, 16. What do I want to do when I’m 30, 40? That’s hard enough. But then all the logistical stuff, the deadlines, the essays, the SATs all of that is part of your package.
Sue: 17:32
Yeah, exactly, and the college choice is the most important one. So what we train to is and what was fascinating to me when I first learned this that let’s say here in the state of Ohio, a student decides, they want to go into marketing. So the University of Cincinnati we’ll start down there. They have a marketing program that’s part of the business program. That marketing program is heavily skewed towards brand management because of Procter Gamble being in Cincinnati.
Cameron: 18:03
That makes sense.
Sue: 18:04
You come an hour and a half north to Columbus for Ohio State. They too have a marketing program for Ohio State. They too have a marketing program. That marketing program is heavily skewed towards logistics, because Columbus and the central Ohio area are very logistics-based.
Sue: 18:22
Now you go up to Akron University and, for whatever reason, they are more design and graphic marketing based. So a student and a family choosing a school going I’m going to marketing. All marketing is the same. And they get to Ohio State and it’s heavily data analytics marketing and they’re thinking they’re going to be designing great, you know brands and you know doing graphics and they’re wondering why it’s not a good fit. They’re wondering why marketing isn’t right.
Sue: 19:00
Well, it was school, the university and the environment that they chose. That was wrong, not necessarily the major. So we fold in all that education as to what are you looking for out of that career and what does that mean to you? Because then we’re going to help you find the university that is the best fit and the smartest buy.
Cameron: 19:26
Who do you think of as your client in that scenario? Is it the parent, the family, the child himself?
Sue: 19:39
Both. So the quick answer is yes, we like to have the parents involved because they’ve got to be there to support it. We like them for at least the first couple sessions and we also want them when the student is doing that career exploration. Student’s not going to be able to find people to follow or to observe or to intern with in there between their junior and senior year. Parents are have to help that. So we want the parents engaged in the process so they know how to support the process.
Sue: 20:07
And so they’re there to better understand because if, if dad decides I’m a Miami of Ohio alum and my child is going there as well and it doesn’t have a program to support, we’ve got to get dad over that hump as well, that we want the child to be successful when their first choice not go to Miami of Ohio. I’m not picking on Miami of Ohio, it’s a great school, but if they’re making the wrong program choice and then ultimately, two years in switch to a university that’s a better fit for them, they got another four years to go. So I’m getting the parents to better understand what the process is today versus, you know, 20 years ago when they entered school and the university programs. It’s just changed. More and more students are in. It’s more competitive, what you know Ohio State being a backup school for many parents because they have a stretch school school for many parents because they had a stretch school.
Sue: 21:16
Today, ohio State is a stretch school for many students in many programs Not all, but in many programs. So the whole mind shift has to change and that focus, you know, for a student. We need to explain to the parents that, hey, your student needs to, in high school, get engaged in extracurriculars. However, let’s not go a mile wide and do every extracurricular. Universities and employers are looking for a little more leadership, so once they’ve identified what programs they want to engage in whether it’s theater or journalism or sports we urge them and coach them to work towards a leadership position of some way so that they can demonstrate their strengths and their leadership abilities. It’s a learning, and universities want to see that learning early on.
Cameron: 22:10
So better to have one or two key leadership roles captain of the volleyball team, editor of the paper than you know an inch deep, a mile wide, doing a whole bunch of different things.
Sue: 22:20
Exactly, exactly.
Cameron: 22:22
Okay, and has that changed too? Because you’re working with parents, they’re giving you advice from when they were in high school 20, 30 years ago. Those things are changing all the time, so are there any hurdles you have to navigate in that context?
Sue: 22:33
We do, we do. You know the parents that say I want my child involved in everything because that’s what I did. And you know they laugh about the fact that, yes, you did it and you’re in every club and every team sport in the yearbook, but you were less likely to demonstrate the ability to lead, the ability to. You know, manage peers, and those are skills that you know are easier formed when there are parents, and that’s what we say to them is hey, mom and dad, you’re there to catch them, let them fail early on. And that is something that universities and employers you know.
Sue: 23:13
we’re employers of young people and if I had one criticism of Cameron, our age group is we don’t let our children fail enough when there’s a big old safety net to catch them, and then, when they get out into the real world and they’re on their own, they don’t know how to internalize that failure.
Cameron: 23:36
That’s what they said about the helicopter parenting generation, where bosses were getting calls on the second week of work. What’s wrong with Johnny’s performance? You shouldn’t call your kid’s boss to talk about how they’re doing.
Sue: 23:48
I think we wouldn’t have to tell them that, but I’ve taken those calls myself as an employer and, you know, had to remind the parents that you’re the parent where they’re employer and it’s illegal for us to talk to you. However, that happens because we’re not releasing them to fail, you know, and to stumble. They’re younger and there’s a great support system to pick them up and they learn from those things we all do. Yeah, and and there’s a great support system to pick them up and they learn from those things we all do, yeah.
Cameron: 24:15
And then there’s a parenting approach to that too. I can’t remember the book right now, but it’s essentially let your kids fail now and the stakes are relatively low. It goes for high school, college, early in career. Make a mistake on your first or second job, rather than 20 years into your career, when it’s a multimillion dollar mistake you’re making second job rather than 20 years into your career, when it’s a multimillion dollar mistake you’re making Exactly, and harder to recover, you know, emotionally as a result of that because we haven’t built up those battle scars.
Sue: 24:39
So all of that is what Pathfinders, college and career advisors, are there to help with. And then, because of my love of helping people and the the just the nuances of working with young and and learning, and you know, I stumbled back gosh, probably in 2015, on a tool because I, like everyone and you know, I was hiring and growing that first business and wondering 90 to 120 days in why that person that I hired wasn’t performing the way I expected them to and I could not figure it out. And that brought to our portfolio of offerings the culture index and executive learning.
Sue: 25:28
And the executive learning brand is there to coach companies and leaders young leaders, old leaders, older leaders how to make better hiring decisions and more importantly, how to use the data that we provide to communicate better with their employees, better understand where their team is coming at a challenge and what to recognize as just a trait that they possess versus how they’re feeling about their work. So that’s been a great add to what we do in partnering with businesses. When you know, when we’re all talking about gosh, I didn’t. It wasn’t a great fit. Now I’m refilling a role. How do we eliminate some of those issues? It’d be a great hire and just we didn’t onboard them properly, we didn’t train them the way they need to be trained and we didn’t put them in to quite the right role great person. How do we fix that so we can retain that employee and the time and energy they’ve put into learning our organization and fitting into the culture? That’s what executive education and the culture index does.
Cameron: 26:46
So do you feel that too many people would say or have the sentiment of I don’t really know my hiring and how to decide. I just have a gut feeling about someone that that feels like the right person to me, we’re going to hire them. Is that a common sentiment?
Sue: 27:02
Boy did I do that all the time and like. I said, I had that gut instinct that they were a good person and they are generally good people. But good people put into the wrong roles are not fulfilled. So you know our tagline is analytics over instincts and you know the educational advice and guidance and coaching that we give. Using that tool helps leaders make better hiring decisions and better promotional decisions.
Cameron: 27:41
So the message there must be this tool, it’s a methodology, it’s a process, it might be an investment you’re making, but 2x, 3x pays for itself and bad hires that you’re avoiding.
Sue: 27:53
Oh, absolutely. If you take a salesperson, you’ve hired a salesperson and your top salesperson brings in $10 million, for example, and your bottom salesperson brings in $1.5 million, so the delta there is $8.5 dollars from a good hire to your worst hire. So not only the cost of the turnover, the lost opportunity. So when we talk about helping businesses grow, that’s often where we can bring in the most impact. It’s in hiring that right salesperson that’s going to be a good culture, fit and is hungry and self-motivated to go out and help grow your business.
Cameron: 28:40
So I’ve gone through the program before. I’m a huge advocate of the value of it and it’s fascinating to me how short the actual survey is. Can you tell us a little bit about how that works?
Sue: 28:51
Sure, sure. So it’s two questions and it is free form adjectives. Both questions have the exact same adjectives. The first question is roughly about who you are, naturally, and then the second question is about how do you show up to work and and that’s it. It’s as simple as that. And, um, you know that helps.
Sue: 29:18
Once we’ve got that back, that helps me advise and coach our clients mainly leadership teams and supervisors um, uh, around the person that they’re interviewing or considering promoting or maybe struggling with on the team that they’re interviewing or considering promoting or maybe struggling with. On the team that they’re, you know they’re not feeling like they fit in, and it’s generally on both sides. You know the employee or the peer doesn’t feel it’s a good fit and the leader doesn’t feel it’s a good fit. So how do we fix that? Leader doesn’t feel it’s a good fit, so how do we fix that? And there might be an opening right down the hallway in another department where we can save that person who we’ve already invested, you know. So, not talking about the eight and a half million dollar Delta, just the cost of you know, you’re, you’re roughly, by the time you’ve hired, onboarded, lost opportunity and the person that’s training them, you’re roughly 50 grand Just to get them past the onboarding stage and a little bit of training. So losing them after that is lighting money on fire.
Cameron: 30:26
And then the ongoing part. That’s at the beginning. What happens, you know? I don’t know six months in a year down the road? How does the program integrate with the team at that point?
Sue: 30:35
So I recommend that we do regular reviews of the surveys and that helps us with many things. One, how do they feel about the work they’re doing today? How do they feel about, potentially, management and how they’re being led? Are they being micromanaged a little bit? Are they feeling stressed because the company is growing and they just had a big acquisition and things are in flux? We can look at that and start to identify some key topics, to have discussions with the person and it’s better than saying, hey, cameron, how are you feeling today? Because your response is going to be fine.
Sue: 31:17
You know, even though you’re going through chaos and you know the company’s laying off or adding people and you know there’s flux on job duties and whatnot, you’re not feeling fine. You just, we often internalize that everybody’s feeling the same way, not necessarily the case. So you know we can take those milestones and start to refine duties. And you know gaps in the business hey, do we have somebody that’s a really good, strong doer? We need exact data from this department in order to fix it. Who do we have on the team that can do that? We might have to teach them the hard skills, but they’ve got the traits to do the job. Well, it’s just going to take some training and we’ll be pleased, as leaders, with the outcome.
Cameron: 32:07
So it’s easier to train maybe not easy, but easier to train skills and specific job roles than this to change things like attitude and behavior, those kinds of elements.
Sue: 32:16
Absolutely, I believe so. I mean, you know, if we’re hiring for a CFO, we’re certainly not going to take somebody you know from necessarily an HR department or the marketing department and move them, or the marketing department and move them. There’s a lot of education that needs to be included there. But if it’s a task or a project, we want to put the right person in to handle that and we can teach them generally easier than taking someone like me that doesn’t have a really strong follow-through and putting us into a data analytics role. It’s not going to be a good fit. I’m not going to be happy and you’re not going to get the outcome you were hoping for.
Cameron: 33:01
Yeah, so we’ve looked at these handful of companies here, obviously brought together by human capital, optimizing that human capital, getting the most out of your workers, but also doing a way that’s going to be career and growth long-term oriented. One thing that I notice is I look at is that maybe not so much with Culture Index but the other brands there’s an aspect of a marketplace there. Just like Uber and Lyft, you have to have passengers, but you also have to have drivers, as it’s not going to work, at least not yet. Exactly.
Cameron: 33:33
Right, so is that part of your outreach and your messaging for both sides? Let’s just take the tutoring businesses, for instance. You need both to make it work.
Sue: 33:41
You absolutely do so. We do an awful lot of recruiting, an awful lot of hiring the magic’s in the match Maybe less so in an uber I. I just want the person to be safe and um have a good driving record and have a moderately decent car and clean car, um, as opposed to a tutor who has to have the hard skills. You know, I’m looking for a biology tutor. This person needs to excel at it and have a good enough personality to connect with the young person they’re tutoring. And then the student has to want to learn.
Sue: 34:21
You know the tutor can’t open up the brain and dump it in. We have to have a willing participant on the other side wanting to, you know, get better grades and work harder to achieve and not be frustrated. Oftentimes the students we work with in the college tutors brand they’re smart, they’re good students. They’re just connecting with the subject matter for whatever reason. Uh, missed some something, some core foundation at some point don’t connect with the teacher as well as they do other teachers and they they need that support to get them over the hump and that would see the grades go straight up. And it’s nice to you know, for young people it feels good when we’re successful For us heck, we’re fulfilled when we’re successful.
Sue: 35:15
Why would we expect our young people, you know, to grind it out when we can get a little bit of help? And if we can teach them that skill to be willing and able to receive help at a younger age, when they get to the adult issues, they’re more apt to raise a hand and say can somebody help me here, as opposed to struggling through it for hours, feeling as though they’re failing or, you know, putting effort where it shouldn’t be placed and it’s not as productive. So let’s teach them early.
Cameron: 35:48
Wow, and all the skills are there, or things you want for a good leader of a business unit, a department, maybe a company anyway.
Sue: 35:56
Absolutely, absolutely. I love it. I keep saying to people I’m just waiting for my first family that had infants, multiples to turn and say, ok, our children are ready to go through college prep with you, through Pathfinders and then become an employee. And you know we we have a robust internship program that we hire into our businesses from and you know that’s the best place to find young people, talented young people, is. You work with them as college interns and you see the diamonds and that’s fun. So you’re taking them all, even internally. We’re taking them all the way through the process.
Cameron: 36:43
Oh, wow, so you could coach them up to apply for college, get their internship. They come back and help out as a tutor or any other kind of a care provider.
Sue: 36:52
Right, you got it. Or market intern or what have you, and then all of a sudden they’re a full-time employee for us.
Cameron: 36:58
Wow, how is it now? We’re what? How far past COVID. I lost track. Three or four years after COVID, you have a very human capital intensive business. How are things going these days with getting people in the roles?
Sue: 37:13
It’s back to culture. It is not easy. I’m right there out with everyone. Wages have increased. We have to be willing to support the increases in wages. I’m not sure I see them going back down, nor do I think they should. We’ve got to start to agree that we’re going to pay people a living wage and so it’s a challenge. Work ethic is a challenge. You know, on the flip side of paying folks and you know you really do want them to want to work and want to be productive and more than actually finding them finding them that you know are risk, want to be at all ages. I mean, you know, I can’t, I can’t say the 21 year old is any different than the 54 year old, in certain circumstances, than the 54 year old in certain circumstances.
Sue: 38:05
We need people that want to work. I can go way down a political path with you. I won’t, but you know there’s, there’s groups of population that come and want to work. You should give them the opportunities and help support them so they can go to work, because we need those people.
Cameron: 38:26
That’s what’s so interesting about your businesses, what you do With us. Marketing can be done almost anywhere, almost anywhere in the world. I can find someone to do what I need to get done, but yours is at a certain time and certain place. There’s always going to be a need for in-person support, physically being there, and there’s no replacement for that yet replacement.
Sue: 38:47
We can’t. We can’t babysit via zoom, and nor do we ever expect that to be. I think some during covid, some folks tried. Uh, you know, parents were home and put them in front of a screen for another couple hours and you know, is that best? I mean, we’re in front of a screen a long long time in our lives. Let’s, let’s support and promote the activities that you know use some muscles too.
Cameron: 39:17
So what do you find most rewarding about? About what you’re doing?
Sue: 39:21
Oh gosh, I you know what I love the people. Um, I wouldn’t be in the people business if I didn’t love the people. And it’s about my team, my administrative team and watching them learn and grow and gain their voice to where they’re willing and able and confident in what they’re doing, and confident and growing in their leadership skills. That’s what keeps me motivated.
Cameron: 39:47
Because you’re not just helping. I think of the different levels of people that you’re helping. You’re providing employment and a job for somebody. You’re allowing someone to work at their maximum capacity, rather than both working and keeping one eye on their child is on an iPad or something. You’re allowing a young person to get the maximum out of their career potential. And then, finally, with the culture index concept, to maximize that fit between employer and employee. So that must be, on all those levels, incredibly beneficial.
Sue: 40:14
So much fun. It really is, and I’ve gotten to a stage in my career that a lot of what I do, even with my own team, is coaching. So we’re coaching it in many levels. We might call it tutoring, we might call it this, we might call it that, and then you know, because of my age and my time served in in business, I’m now getting the opportunity to coach other companies, leaderships, teams and how to look at growing their own teams and maximize maximizing them, which is super fun.
Cameron: 40:50
Who’s on your? Who are the posters on your wall for the coaching hall of fame?
Sue: 40:55
Oh gosh, Jack Welch. You know, if you think about that person, my dad, um, quite honestly, um, but you, if you think of Lee Iacocca and Jack Welch, and my dad quite honestly, but if you think of Lee Iacocca and Jack Welch and I know I’m staying in heavy manufacturing, but those are two that come to mind from years gone by that just were able to build teams that got shit done.
Cameron: 41:26
What do you think is the biggest misstep that companies make with how they treat employees?
Sue: 41:33
Good question. How they treat employees Depends on the size of the team, and I’m not going to say the companies are missing it, but I’m scratching my head and wondering how all of this remote workforce, whether we’re doing a justice or an injustice to our younger employees. Because when I think back to my younger days, having that mentor, having someone there to help and to guide and to learn from and even to listen to, you know, if you’re in a work environment and you heard someone having a conversation, I would gain so much value out of those moments that maybe I wasn’t even involved in. And now we’ve got so many people working remotely. You know those of us that are older that have already had that mentoring. It’s not as big of a deal to us. But what are we doing to the younger generation and are we doing them a disservice Because they’re having to figure it out the hard way and that that takes way longer? And and will they so?
Sue: 42:44
it’s a question I’ve got. You know I’m not sure I know the answer and I know that that’s a polarizing conversation remote work versus you know in person but and my team went entirely remote we talk a lot but I also can’t hear what they’re saying on the phone once we get off. And could I be course correcting and coaching them to be more effective and more fulfilled in their role? Because if you get off a call with a client or a prospect and you’re frustrated every single time because you’re hitting the same roadblock but no one knows it and you’re not problem solving through it? Yeah.
Sue: 43:28
How successful are you going to be? So it’s just I think that’s one of the things that the verdict is out on, Definitely. How’s that going to impact us?
Cameron: 43:41
I think that a lot with with fairly, with coaching, like just to take salespeople as one example, but the the informal nature of you can literally sit, and you couldn’t in the olden days sit and watch someone do a sales call. You can watch how they’re interacting with the person on the other side of the phone instantly, right after, pull them aside and give them some feedback right on the spot. That is so much harder these days and a lot more impractical and it doesn’t happen as much these days. And a lot more impractical and it doesn’t happen as much.
Sue: 44:05
I was just going to say does it happen or do we just scratch our heads on what they’re doing and you know, and when? When you do ask those questions, it’s their perception and they’re engaged in the conversation. So is their perception reality.
Sue: 44:21
Yeah, now there’s some decent AI tools and we could go down that path that listen to sales calls and can help a salesperson understand how much they’re talking versus how much the prospect’s talking and where they’re buying signals. And we’re going to have to make some healthy investments in those types of tools as a business society if we’re not back in the office enough to support it. And I’m not saying the younger people, I’m saying the folks that should be mentoring. They can work from home. I feel like they get more done at home, but they’re not building succession plans. They’re not helping the business in the long run.
Cameron: 45:04
There’s no question there’s trade offs to the whole approach, and I I’ve been working remotely largely for the last decade plus and we get together with my team a few times a year. But it’s just not the same. And I think about people who are now early 20s. They may have finished college during covid. They didn’t even have a graduation. Their last couple of years were remote and then their first job is like that too, and so so it’s becoming it seems normal to them how you start. You know at least I had that foundation at the beginning of my career, for the bulk of it, you know and how different that is and how much now feedback is by device Zoom calls like this, whatever it may be, it’s just not the same. Not that there’s one that’s better than the other. Also, I think you know people our age, we’re used to how it used to be. So I find it hard to adjust to training and mentoring people in my team now.
Sue: 45:49
Right and I’m not sure we know the outcome.
Speaker 4: 45:52
Yeah, when you say not that one’s better than the other.
Sue: 45:58
I don’t know the answer, I don’t know what the outcome will be. I’ve got friends that have children that didn’t have a graduation, went into their first job, you know, essentially in their parents’ basement and York City. But the company is on the West Coast, so they work from noon to eight because that’s when the work environment happens, you know. So it’s just different and we’ll see, I guess, is the ultimate outcome. They’ll figure it out. Now. We do have more resources today than you and I had.
Sue: 46:44
They can you you know, look on the internet and get an answer, or an intranet and get an answer.
Cameron: 46:50
We did not have that as a resource, um, but that nuance of listening to that conversation and and helping coach and guide, yeah, yeah well, I’m gonna ask you one last question, and that is when they, when you are inducted a long way in the future, inducted into the Human Capital Hall of Fame, what, what do you want they want them to say about you at the, at the induction speech?
Sue: 47:24
I wish I’d have gotten prepped for this one so I could have given it more thought. But I guess that you know that visionary person that really dug in to try to figure out how to fulfill folks and make a difference so that they can be the best person they want to be, and I think we have a long way to go there.
Cameron: 47:49
Okay, all right. Well, this has been Sue Cornish of and I’m going to list them all. Here we go, doing my best. Franchise owner of Jovi, the executive advisor with executive learning, one of the partners of Pathfinders, college and Career Advisors, college tutors, as well as founder of Care Connection. And for joining us today on the podcast. Thank you so much for being with us today. This has been America Open for Business. Thank you, sue. Thank you, cameron.
Sue: 48:21
It’s been fun Thanks. Thank you, sue. Thank you, cameron, it’s been fun.
Narrator: 48:29
Thanks. Thanks for listening to the America Open for Business podcast. We’ll see you again next time and be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes. Thank you.
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