Jason S. Bradshaw: When a global company realized that half of their new hires were leaving within the first year, they called Joey Coleman. By redesigning the First 100 Days® of the employee experience, they cut turnover dramatically and turned retention into a growth engine. That's Joey's specialty.

He's a Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Never Lose A Customer Again and Never Lose An Employee Again.

And his First 100 Days® framework has reshaped how businesses around the world keep the people who matter most.

But Joey isn't your typical business author. He's worked inside the White House. Defended clients in courtrooms. Sung at the Kennedy Center. And yes, he's even juggled in front of the Taj Mahal.

His eclectic life experiences fueled his belief that remarkable moments, not perks or paychecks, are what keep customers and employees loyal.

Joey Coleman, welcome to Chats With Jason.

Joey Coleman: Jason, thank you so much for the kind introduction. I'm so excited to get a chance to connect with you. As we've had the pleasure of not only being friends for a long time, but I've been a big fan of yours and it's an honor to be on the show. Thanks for having me.

Jason S. Bradshaw: I really appreciate you giving up your time. I know that you're getting back into the swing of things after a fairly lengthy vacation across Europe. But hopefully you'll be able to bring some of your absolute wisdom and magic to today's episode. I'm sure you will. Really excited about how we can fuse both customer employee experience in today's chat.

I'm wondering why does the First 100 Days®, you've written two books with this core concept of a hundred days. Why does that First 100 Days® decide the future of every relationship, whether it's a customer or an employee?

Let's look at the first - the instinctually imagining aspect. We know as human beings that the beginning of a relationship is the exciting part. That's when it's fun. It's interesting. It's dynamic, and if anyone doubts the validity of that statement, I ask you to just think about the difference in the energy when you just start dating someone as opposed to when you've been married for a decade.

Now, I'm not against being married for a decade, but it seems to require a little more effort, energy, and intentionality to keep it going long term than to keep it exciting in the beginning. So I think we're biologically hardwired to pay more attention in the beginning, to be more excited in the beginning, to be looking to make a difference, to stand out, to be unique, to be special in the beginning of the relationship.

When I was researching both of my books, we looked at businesses - small, medium, and large. Online and offline. Those that operated domestically, internationally, globally, those that sold product, those that sold service, those that sold product and service. And what we found is on the customer side, somewhere between 20 and 70% of new customers quit before the 100 day anniversary.

On the employee side, depending on the type of employment or the type of position that you are hiring for, we saw a similar 20 to 70% of new hires quitting in the first three months. That tells me is that our instinct is matched by our reality in that if we don't create great experiences in the beginning, people vote with their feet, they leave. They don't wanna be in relationship anymore, whether they're a customer or an employee.

Joey Coleman: Exactly, Jason. Not even close. In the US, I know the data for the United States, it's estimated to be just under a trillion dollars in annual cost for turnover across all companies globally. And depending on whose research you look at to replace an employee who is left is gonna cost you somewhere between 100 and 300% of the salary of the person you're trying to replace, in lost productivity, rehiring, posting the job, again, going through the interview process, doing all of these things.

And so this isn't just a, oh, my heart tells me it would be nice to keep 'em. My wallet tells me it would be nice to keep them as well.

Joey Coleman: It's staggering. Exactly. That's, people tell me, it's a hundred to 300%. Even if you take the low end of the estimate, you are gonna spend 100% of their annual salary just to get a new person in the job. That's before you start paying that salary again. So these numbers are absolutely staggering, and I think anyone who's been an employer or a manager for any appreciable amount of time knows that the financial cost of losing an employee is only a piece of the story. There's the morale cost. There's the institutional knowledge cost. There's the rippling effect into the customer relationship cost of, oh, you just lost the person that was your point of contact and now we have to re-message not only who your new point of contact is gonna [00:06:00] be, but why the last one left. And we all do the, oh, they left for personal reasons, or, oh, they got a unique opportunity elsewhere. But everybody thinks, oh, they left because it's horrible there. And what do they know that I don't know that I should be cautious about or governing myself about going forward? And this is not a recipe for success for either the employers or the employees.

Jason S. Bradshaw: Yeah, makes perfect sense to me.

Now, I set up in the intro that you defended criminals, that you've worked in the White House...

Joey Coleman: Alleged criminals. Alleged criminals, Jason.

Jason S. Bradshaw: Sorry, alleged criminals. And, you juggle the Taj Mahal. You've just been on this epic vacation with your family. You really have traveled the globe. How has all those experiences, whether it be personal travel or through the various works that of your past, how has that shaped your approach to designing experiences for customers and employees today?

And while I absolutely believe that different cultures, different perspectives, different experiences are all unique and valuable and important for us to take into consideration, the thing that I have learned in my time and in my travels is that the similarities across our species are much greater than the differences.

Almost every employee on the planet wants to do an honest day's work for an honest day's wage.

Almost every employee is trying to balance their career, their work, their contribution to the business or to society, externally... with their life, their family, their relationships, internally, that are part of the smaller network that makes their personal connections.

And so I think when we realize these similarities and these patterns within the species, it makes it easier to design experiences that can cut across borders, that can cut across generations, that can impact people of a variety of ages, walks of lifes, cultures, creeds. In a way that becomes more exciting to play with and more impactful in its results.

I'm thinking, what's the number one mistake companies make in the first hundred days that almost guarantees that they're gonna either lose a customer or lose their employee?

Joey Coleman: Yeah, it's slightly different depending on whether we're talking about customers or employees.

Customers the number one mistake they make is a whole lot of focus and attention during the marketing and sales process, and very little effort and attention after the sale is made. Customers as a general rule feel neglected after the sale.

On the employee side, it's a little different. While there's certainly a lot of attention before and there's attention after, on the employee side, what I would say the biggest challenge is we have a tendency to fire hose our employees on their first week on the job.

And they sent me the day one agenda. I have to confess, when they sent it, it was in a spreadsheet. The layout was a little confusing. I thought it was the first week's agenda. Not the first day. The first day involved getting the new employee set up to speed and familiar seven different software platforms. Now, when I say different, I don't mean our basic, oh, we have Gmail, we have a common calendar stuff like, no, I'm talking about industry specific, hyper-focused, customized software solutions that the average new hire hadn't even heard of, let alone used. And it was their thought that this would be a great way to spend the first day. And I thought to myself, I were a new hire, I'd want to quit by lunch. And so I think what often [00:11:00] happens is we are so desirous as employers to get our employees up to speed, to make them productive, to get them contributing, because often when we're hiring someone, we're not hiring because we're building depth in our organization. We're hiring because we're filling a hole. Someone quit, someone left, someone was fired. We grew too fast. We're trying to shore up a need instantly. And so we come with an energy of, I've gotta get you on the phones as quick as possible. I've gotta get you dealing with customers as quick as possible without stopping to recognize that the learning curve is incredibly steep. The desire to perform well is incredibly high. And when we match those things with a new hire and the emotions they're naturally going with, and an HR team that focuses more on compliance than culture, we create a recipe for disaster.

Joey Coleman: Jason, you make an excellent point. Yes. I would say what is shocking to me is for as many organizations that are talking about how can we effectively use AI to maximize our impact.

The number of first day experiences that are based on sitting in a conference room by yourself watching old videos is staggering.

Jason S. Bradshaw: Yeah. So let's flip it. What's the single most overlooked step a leader can take in the first hundred days of a new hire that will help keep them long term?

Now what we know to be true, Jason, regardless of whether we're hiring a frontline employee or a senior executive, someone who's just entering the market, or somebody who's been in the job market for decades, is that when they get home that night, their loved one, their significant other, their children, their parents, their best friend, their roommate, someone is going to say to them, how was it? How was the first day? We know that's going to happen with almost a hundred percent certitude. And yet, when I speak to organizations, when I consult with organizations and I say, we know that question is going to be asked, how is your new hire going to answer? I get blank stares. I get it depends on the role and it depends on, no, it doesn't.

There's a country music singer, Bonnie Raitt, who says in one of her most famous songs, let's give them something to talk about.

And that's the music I want playing in the background for managers, for leaders, for anybody who has folks that work for them. When you're thinking about the first day on the job, I wanna give you something to talk about later. In a positive way most organizations, they've got something to talk about.

Jason S. Bradshaw: Yeah, I've always wondered why so many companies fail to understand that the journey can be different. And that doesn't mean that it's gonna cost you more. It doesn't mean that it's gonna take you more time. It's just a journey that's with intentionality.

And I love the question and I don't want the audience to miss it. I love the question that you posted. How is the employee going to answer at the end of their first day... how was it? I think so often and I'd love to hear from you, Joey, whether you've seen this through your work. So often organizations get focused on what has to happen versus the intention around what they're trying to achieve.

And I think the fact that we try to spend so much time teaching them how to do the job instead of spending time teaching them why we do things the way we do, is a huge oversight.

I think there is an opportunity for every leader to slow down a little bit and to say, [00:18:00] what do I want new hires to feel? What do I want them to experience? Then what do I want them to know? And then what do I want them to do. In that order. As opposed to just immediately jumping to what do I want you to do tomorrow? Here's your to-do list.

Jason S. Bradshaw: Yeah, some leaders out there are organized. They've already got the hundred tasks that the new employee needs to have done in the first week. Talk about throwing people into the deep end.

Joey, imagine you're explaining your first a hundred days framework to a 10-year-old, but just by using what's in their lunchbox, what would you say?

Joey Coleman: How would I explain the first a hundred days principle to a 10-year-old as it relates to employee onboarding, but using their lunchbox as the analogy?

Jason S. Bradshaw: Yeah, whatever's in their lunchbox and you are packing the lunchbox so you can be as creative as you like.

Here's what I would say is the analogy that allows the 10-year-old to understand. Over the course of the meal, in this case, the meal being your time getting onboarded. We are gonna want you try and consume all of the food in this lunchbox. Now you have some choices. You can choose to eat all of the carrots and then eat the apple. And then eat the hummus and then eat the sandwich. Or you can take a bite of each [00:20:00] and slowly work them all the way down. You can choose to eat all of one on day one and some of the others later in the day for your snacks, so to speak. But these are the things that are important for you to do.

Now, let me explain why each of these items is in the lunchbox.

Now that you understand what we're trying to do, eat everything in the lunchbox. Let me explain why the things are in the lunchbox and then getting specific about we eat this because it does X, Y, and Z. We eat this because it helps us to better understand this. We eat this because it gives energy. We eat less of this and more of this because if we eat too much of this, it causes big problems in the long run. But we can eat as much of this as we want and it'll just help keep us going.

Jason S. Bradshaw: So if a 10-year-old can get it, why are so many leaders still challenged by this concept that.

What is the level of intentionality that is put into the onboarding experience your first day on the job? More importantly, your second day on the job 'cause there's some organizations, Jason, that do the first day quite well. There's orientation, there's onboarding, there's excitement.

When they get home, there is something to talk about. And then they show up on day two, and like, now what? Now your manager is responsible for you. And manager's oh, finally you're here. We've been down a person three months, get coding. I'm sorry. Get coding. What? Log in. Didn't they show you how to do logins yesterday? Log in, get on your account, get going. We're behind. Look at the board. And there's no handholding. There's no explaining. There's very little time.

Jason S. Bradshaw: Yeah, absolutely agree. When I was preparing to catch up with you today for this episode, I was thinking about my experiences through my work, and as both a consultant, a keynote speaker and an employee, and quite often sitting at the boardroom table, there's a conversation where the leaders will say something like, maybe we need to be a little bit more like company X, because they've got ping pong tables, they have free lunches. They've got these perks. [00:25:00] But I don't think that works because I've been in companies where the culture and the performance is high and they don't have those things. And I've been in companies that have those things and it's a revolving door. Everyone wants to leave.

So what do you say to a leader who thinks that retention is actually all about the perks?

Joey Coleman: What I would say to that leader is we probably need to have a number of conversations about your belief process because it seems to be quite absolute and not based on reality.

So I think we gotta do the basics right. We gotta get the wage right. And on top of that, we've gotta get a sense of purpose right. Now, this is one that I think gets muddled, right? Because people think, oh, my [00:27:00] work needs to be saving the planet. It needs to be denting the universe. That was great for Steve Jobs. That's great for some organizations. But at the very least, when I come to work, I need to feel like the contributions I'm making are seen, heard, and appreciated. And if those basic things aren't happening, I don't feel like I have value. And if I don't have value, why am I staying here?

Jason S. Bradshaw: Knowing that the realities are, some businesses can't just spend money even in even fixing someone's salary can take way too long... a lot long, really. But it's the reality in some organizations.

Joey Coleman: Sure.

Jason S. Bradshaw: What are five retention hacks that leaders can try this week without a huge budget? Let's take it as a given, there's some basic things that have to get right, but let's assume they've got those things right.

What are five things that leaders can start doing to help improve retention?

Joey Coleman: I love it. So keep me honest on the count on five. Jason, I'm gonna just riff off on a couple and you keep me honest. All right, let's start at the first one.

Number two, the thinking of you video. Now this one's gonna make some people nervous, but the first one was so easy. The second one I gotta stretch you a little bit on. Pull out your cell phone. Open the camera. Switch it to selfie mode. Click over to video, and you're gonna film a 30 to 45 second video. The video's gonna be real simple. Hey, I was listening to this Chats With Jason podcast, all about experience the other day, and they had this crazy speaker and he said, think of your favorite employee. And I immediately thought of you. Here's why you're my favorite, you give two or three reasons why they're your favorite. By the way, some of you are freaking out right now. Joey, what if somebody else on the team sees this? Maybe you could film one for everyone on the team over the course of the next month, and everyone would feel their favorites. It's okay to have more than one favorite. I know that Grammarians are freaking out right now, that there can [00:31:00] only be one favorite. I'm telling you, this is a place where you can break the rules, but give them digital proof that they matter. Because here's what the research shows. Not only are they gonna watch that video, in fact, the research shows they will watch that video within 90 seconds of receipt. Within 90 seconds of receipt, they will watch the video, but then they're gonna save the video and the research shows they'll watch it again. And what they will have in that video is your face, your voice, your tonality, openly and honestly with no opportunity for misunderstanding that by the way, we can sometimes get in the written thank you note. Sometimes people can misunderstand our tone in writing. Hard to misunderstand someone's tone when they're speaking. They will have more digital proof that they matter.

Make a list of the five things that are most important to every one of your employees that occur in their life between the hours of 6:00 pm and 8:00 am, [00:33:00] i.e., when they're not at the office. What are the five things that are most important to them? It might ha be their dog. It might be their favorite sports team. It might be the band that they love going to listen to. It might be the video game that they love playing, the musician they love listening to. I don't actually care what the thing is. I just care that you know what it is. By the way, there's more than one, which is why I asked you to list five. There's actually dozens, but I just want you to start with the top five and I want you to actually write them down so that in the future, if you want to do a special perk or a special gift or bonus them, don't just give them cash. You don't just give them an attaboy at a girl pat on the back. You give them something that is targeted towards something that matters to them. A thoughtful gift. A meaningful [00:34:00] experience. Something that is unique. Something that is special. Something that is going to let them know that you were paying attention when they were talking. You were listening when they were explaining what lights them up. So that gets us to four.

Model the behavior you want to see. I've made that one number five, because you can start doing that tomorrow, but it's gonna take a while for that to fully kick in. I wanted to give some examples of things you could do immediately that required little to no effort. Little to no money, we'll really start to move the dial.

Jason S. Bradshaw: Yeah, I love that every single one of those, there is no barrier to actually doing it except for your own belief that it's going to work or not work. So I would challenge anyone listening today, just pick one of the five. Start doing it, that would be a great start.

So Joey, what are the three storytelling techniques that you use on stage or in meetings, that any leader could steal from today?

Joey Coleman: Ooh, this is a fun question, Jason. I like it.

Three things that I try to do when storytelling. Don't start the story without being very clear yourself as to what the key takeaway or moral of the story is. So often leaders start telling a story or start getting into an anecdote, and they had a vision of what it was gonna be when they started. And that is not the vision. They all light on in the end.

Number two, don't be afraid to tell the same story more than once. So many leaders believe, oh, we've got, we've got the old hands coming up. I gotta come up with new stories and new examples. No, you don't. You can actually tell the exact same stories.

Which brings me to my third recommendation around storytelling. I am embarrassed to say that it wasn't until recent years that I started actively reading [00:40:00] into genres that I had no prior experience with. And I did that very intentionally reading into genres and to authors to increase my perspective on the different ways to tell a story. One need to only go to Instagram or TikTok to see post about romantasy... Fourth Wing, Thorn Of Glass, Thorn Of Roses... there's always some type of, complex name. I've read a number of those books in the last few years, and I'm willing to admit that publicly, even though some people might say, really, Joey, you Fourth Wing, what's going on? It's a fun book. It's an entertaining book, but the reason I read it was to have a perspective on all people who are loving that series and reading that series. Most of whom are women, I'm not. Most of whom are younger than me. Most of whom are having a [00:41:00] very different life experience than I'm having. And by reading what they're reading, I'm getting that perspective. I've been really trying to increase the number of authors I read that are not based in the United States. Why? Because I want that global perspective in how they tell stories. And different cultures tell stories in different ways. And if you want to increase your ability to tell stories, expose yourself to more diverse, unique ways that stories can be told. And by almost as osmosis, you will naturally pick up on new techniques, new ideas, et cetera. We see this in film all the time. Quentin Tarantino wasn't as famous for starting his movies in the middle of the action where the scene opens and you're like, what is going on? You're in it. Instantly. his type of movie, to be candid, is not generally the type of movie I like. I like a movie that starts out and [00:42:00] it builds oh, that's, there's that character. Then there's this character, oh, how are they? Oh, they're actually friends. No, wait, they're enemies. And it builds an arc towards, the peak of the interaction. And then hopefully the resolution, the denouement. Then, we, oh, we understand how it all worked. That's one way to tell a story.

But if I'm not exposing myself to other ways to tell the story, I'm always going to tell the story with the same narrative arc, with the same approach.

So those are three things I'd focus on.

Jason S. Bradshaw: Fantastic. Joey, as always, you brought the energy, the wisdom, and the practical ideas that people can implement today to improve how they attract, retain, and celebrate customers and employees in their lives.

But before I let you go, I have one last question for you. You've built a career on keeping relationships alive.

What's the single most important relationship lesson you've learned in business or in life that you wish everyone knew?

Years ago, my parents I grew up in a large family in the Midwest in the US and we got an assignment to go home and interview our parents on the definition of a successful marriage, and I'll use this analogy, but it applies to all relationships, not just marital relationships. And I asked my parents, what's the secret to a successful marriage? At the time they'd probably been married 20 plus years, now they've been married 50 plus years, [00:44:00] and my dad said the secret to marriage is realizing that it's not 50 50, it's 90-10. And I thought, that's interesting. And before I could say anything my mom said, and it just depends on which day who's giving the 90. And what's interesting is if both people give 90. The relationship is at 180%. If both people give 10%, the relationship is only at 20%. So, stop striving for 50-50 and try to find people that wanna be in relationships that are gonna give more than 50%, but are also gonna be okay giving less than 50% because they know you're gonna make up the difference to make sure you're always at more than a hundred [00:45:00] percent.

Jason S. Bradshaw: What a great way to wrap the show up. Huge thanks to Joey Coleman for showing us that the future of every relationship, whether with a customer or an employee, or just a friend, is shaped in those crucial early moments.

Here's my challenge to you. Don't wait until Day 101. Redesign one welcome moment. One touch point, or one conversation this week, and see the difference that it makes.

If this episode sparked an idea, share it with the leader in your company who's struggling with turnover, or tag the person who made your first a hundred days unforgettable.

Follow the show, leave a review, and send me your number one takeaway. I read every message.

I'm Jason S. Bradshaw, reminding you that when you transform the experience, you transform your business and the world around you.