How Leaders Think with Kenny Lange

Focus on your employees, and they'll focus on your customers. It's the same thing now.

Focus on your audience, your potential prospects, and they will focus on

you. It's that same thought process, but now we're focusing it

externally instead of internally.

Welcome to the How Leaders Think podcast, a show that transforms

you by giving you new ways to think and renewing your your

mind. I am your host, Kenny Lang, and with me today is

Amanda Fry. She is the COO of

Talent crowd, and she is a caring and

transparent technology executive. That's rare.

So we're talking to a unicorn with 17 plus years of

diverse experience in organizational strategy, DevOps people

ops and product development. Probably a few more ops in there, if I had to

guess. She is also the author of Kind

Transparency how to Say What You Mean Without Being a Jerk.

Something I desperately need. And it is set to release end of

Q Three, beginning of Q Four of 2023. So if

you're listening to this in the future, stop what you're doing, pull your

car over, get on the Amazon or wherever you need to, order books. Or

if we have floating cars, I don't know how to do that.

But buy it and make your life better. Welcome to the show,

Amanda. Thank you. Well,

I would like to know what is on your mind?

Oh, so many things, right. I think we all have

about a million balls in the air at any point. But I think what

has been really prevalent for me recently has

been social media. And I'll tell you

why. And not only because we're

marketing, we're trying to get out there, but the biggest thing for me in social

media right now is just how

monotonous, I guess, is the word I would say it has

become. And how everything is so bland

and everybody's saying the same thing, and people are putting out

very obvious things, and they're getting

thousands of likes and comments, and it's just

exhausting, right. Trying to keep up with this

algorithm wheel that doesn't make any sense, and it changes every

day. So one of the things that I've been

putting a lot of thought effort into is how do we

make that different? How do we make that better? How

do we change that dynamic so that people realize that this isn't okay?

We need to help each other.

We need to be out there actually having real conversations, being

genuine, and providing value to each other. Even

if we're not doing a business relationship, how do we provide value to

the people that are in our network, that are in our community?

I mean, you and I are a perfect example. We used to do business in

the past, but we don't today. But that doesn't mean that I don't still

derive a lot of value from the things that you're putting out there in social

media. So that's the kind of relationships that I want to continue

to have. And that's what I want to build even beyond talent, crowd or

kind transparency and all these other things that we've got going on. But

what do we do to make the whole

establishment more genuine? And I

guess that's what's been on my mind recently.

One, I love where you're going with this.

It's a wee bit of a soapbox for me as well,

or less soapbox, more just angry rant.

Because I look at the generic posts

of like, hey, do good things,

less bad things, and it's like 17,000 impressions. I was

like, Are you kidding me? That was the most empty,

worthless thing. But people engage with it and you hit a

certain point and it's like, well, I don't want to

not like this and miss that. I don't want to seem like I don't value

that. So click reaction.

Obviously that's a huge thing to tackle because I

would venture, I guess we're trying to tackle the core of

humanity. We tackle big things on this podcast.

So I love that you're taking us here. We're going to

300,000 foot view. So we're in outer space, we'll get some helmets.

But what do you think is behind

the monotony that

hollowness, the shallowness, the lack of

rich, meaningful relationships? I mean, obviously being

face to face is always the most rich of any communication

medium, but it's certainly not the only way

to have an engaging relationship. Like you said, we're an example

of we've stayed in touch, we've communicated, we've

engaged with each other's content. We've never

been physically in the same space before,

but it's not something that's like, hi, how are you? I'm great, how are you?

And you're just BSing your way through it. So what's

behind sort of that steam engine,

that heavyweight that's just rolling down, that it almost seems impossible to

stop? And I think that's the ultimate question, right?

It's, what is causing this? How did we get here? And I think

some of it, or maybe a good portion of it, has to do with

the algorithm game that's being played in social media today. And I think

that it had a good

thought or it's meaning to be well

intentioned, but it's just become

so big and so complex that people are gaming

it. Or the goal of an algorithm, right, is to incentivize

behaviors that we want. And it is not incentivizing behaviors that

we want. It's just being manipulated

to elicit likes and comments

and better viewing, better placement,

right? So I think I mean, there's a good portion of it, I think that

has to do with that. And it's no one's fault. I

think it happens so fast and it's evolving so

quickly that there's not a whole lot we can do,

unfortunately. So I think it's

about changing hearts and minds at this point and getting people

to realize that collectively, if we all

start doing things a little bit differently, then the algorithm

organically will change. And I know that's

like moving a steamship.

But we got to start somewhere, right? Right. Yeah.

It was a journey of 1000 miles.

Starts with a single step. I agree with you. And it made

me think of a quote that I've heard which is marketers

ruin everything. And I believe there's a lot

of truth to that. And if you're a marketer and you don't believe that, you

are delusional and feel free to mention me

or email me about your thoughts on that. But

the gaming of it, I certainly think that there are some

benefits to understanding, oh hey, if I write this

in a certain way, it's more clear, it is more engaging.

It should incentivize when we're writing copy or

creating videos, it should incentivize and reward

a level of excellence in doing that to where not everybody

can spew half hearted

content or ideas just because they have access to the Internet

and keyboard. Right. That's sort of the beautiful thing

about the internet and social media that I tell a lot of people is it

gave everyone basically a voice. The

terrible thing about it is it gave everyone a voice

to some extent because we no longer have to sit

and think and process through our thoughts

before we put them out there for God and everyone to

see, read and engage. Right.

Unfiltered, rarely in any context

has a benefit. I don't care what you're talking about. It could be the

Internet and communication could also be like water, like

filtered water is good. So if

we're changing hearts and minds, which albeit is

far more difficult than just say, well, let's just change the algorithm because that

doesn't even really account for people.

What do we need to do, those of us who are in leadership? Because

if you're in leadership, you have a disproportionate amount of influence,

so hopefully you have a one to many. Like

if you think you're a leader and you turn around and no one's following you,

you might want to reconsider that title. But for those of

us who are occupying a place of

leadership or just social influence,

what parts of that unproductive thinking

of I'm just putting stuff out there, I'm just putting my ideas out there,

I'm gaming the system. All those unproductive things you mentioned, what

do we start to think about so that we can address

these things head on? As opposed to the feeling of hopelessness,

which I've wrestled with. Like there's no way I can change

this. I'm one person, right. I don't

have 74 million followers. I'm not Kate Perry

for many reasons. I'm not her. But

where do you start thinking about that so that, one, you don't lose

hope and two, you have the right conversations with

people because it could quickly become, hey,

stop being stupid and contributing to all the bad things.

Right. Because people aren't going to move and change because of that.

Yeah. So I will preface this by saying that I have a

disproportionate amount of optimism compared to most people, I think.

So you'll have to bear with me on this. Your neon

lights gave that impression. Did it?

So I think what we can do as leaders

or what we have a responsibility to do as leaders

is really make sure that we're looking at what we're doing and making sure that

it even makes sense. Now the other piece of what I

enjoy or what I really strive for as a leader

and a business person is data.

Now data is something that is

concrete. We can look at it. It tells a story,

right? So I can say all day long, like, hey, think stuff that's out there

is crap. But if the data supports it,

then it's not just me saying it's crap. It's not my opinion. We can prove

it. So one of the things that I like to make sure that we

look at when we're sending out email

campaigns or putting out a social media campaign or

putting out anything out there in the internet, we should

be tracking it. We should be tracking engagement. We should be tracking

opens and likes and clicks and all of the things that we have access

to because that's now how the internet works. So if you're

putting out content or emails that

are just boring and just like every if I get another

email that says, hey, I was checking out your profile, no,

just don't. It's

not working, eventually I'm going to give in and

get that PMP certification. It's just

they're wearing me down, right? I'm one

incoherent pitch away. I will say though,

it's worth it. Maybe the incoherent pitches are working, but

I digress. What we can do is when we're sending, if

you're a leader and you're sending out these bland

boring emails that make it sound like they're coming from a

salesperson but they're automated, take a look at your

engagement. How many emails are you sending, how many emails are getting

opened and how many emails are actually getting responded to.

I'm going to venture to say that your funnel probably is pretty

wide. It's starting out here and it's very tiny at

the bottom and that can be proven data. So if you are

not getting a successful return rate on your engagements

and your campaigns, there's a reason. And

we just went through this internally ourselves. We were sending out those

kind of emails because that's what you do, right? That's what everybody says you're supposed

to do. It's not working. It in some

cases was doing the opposite. It was turning people

off because it was too much. There's a balance

between how many emails do you send, how often do you send them,

how long do you wait in between? And if your content is

boring and vague and like everybody else's, it's going to make it

even worse. People are going to hit that spam button right and now your domain

is going to get flagged. You're going to have deliverability problems.

So if you're looking at this from, how do

I use this from a leadership perspective to make my business better, but also

change the industry. That's how I'm

making mistakes. I need to change what I'm doing because, A, it's not

working, so it's not in my best interest, but it's also not in

the best interest of the people that I'm trying to reach out to either. So

I need to make my content more engaging. If it's the

middle of the day and they're opening an email, I want them to enjoy

my email. I want them to laugh. I want them to be happy

that we've had this kind of engagement, because otherwise

that's the first impression that they're getting of me. That's the first impression that they're

getting of my company. So we need to do that not only on email, we

need to do that on social media. We need to do that everywhere. Because it's

just like if I walked up to you in person, if we're at a conference

or something, if I walked up to you and said something weird like a

robot, you'd be like, who's this crazy person? Get away from me. So why do

we I noticed we have people in common.

Perhaps we should be BFFs. Yeah.

If we wouldn't do it in person, why are we doing it on social media?

Why are we doing it in email? We need to be more genuine.

And I think that that's going I don't have the data yet. We

haven't been doing it long enough. But I think it's going to resonate better, and

I think we're going to make more genuine connections with people. And

even if it doesn't lead to more business, I think it'll lead to

better community. Yeah.

Whoever's listening, rewind the last like, 30 seconds and

just put that on a loop or play it in your next

executive team meeting or marketing meeting, because I think that'll steer you in the

right direction. That may be worth the price of admission, but

two questions come up. The first one was what you

mentioned about data. Does the data support it? Here's

where data is not good or bad, it just is. Right. So long

as there's integrity is gathered accurately.

Let's assume that, let's say going

back even further in our conversation, at the beginning when you mentioned,

hey, somebody put something out there with zero depth and quality,

yet it has, umpteen, thousand

data points associated between reactions, comments where

people go, yeah, that's good, and they're like, you didn't

add to the conversation. There individual,

so thank you for that.

They have data that says, well, people are

engaging, therefore it must be worthwhile. But I think the

other side of that tension is what you mentioned about, is

it good for my audience, right? Because

so much of marketing that I've been a part of with

working in the digital agency space is, well, what's good

for the company, not always like what's clickbaity

for the audience, right? What can we do to get them to give

us our engagement, our hit of dopamine, but not necessarily

what helps them make progress. So how do you help people think

through well, I have data that says 15,000 people

on average are going to engage with this repost of an Adam

Grant quote, but maybe that's

not really the contribution they should be making. It's not

adding quality. How do you hold those intentions? Yeah, so I think

when you have that level of data, that

also tells a story too, because then when you add

those pieces of metadata to bottom

line so if you take I've got 15,000 engagements

and I've got 200 comments on this post. Now let's

look at a date stamp. What was our bottom of

funnel during that time period? Did I have people come to

my website? Did I have people fill out a form? Did

I have people do any of my call to actions? Did I have anybody set

up a discovery call to talk to one of my salespeople?

And you can take when you have large

amounts of data that seem good, but you're not getting

the type of reward or response or whatever

your end goal is, you always have to have that. What am I actually trying

to accomplish from putting this content out there?

Typically from a company perspective, you want to get discovery calls,

you want to get more business, you want sales. From a personal perspective,

I want to get more followers. I want to get people to eventually buy my

book. So what is my end goal? And if

the data that I'm seeing and the engagement that I'm getting isn't driving

towards that end goal, then something is still wrong. And

sure, you're getting kind of the example of the email.

You're getting a lot of opens, but if you're not getting responses, if you're not

getting meetings set up, then it's not successful. So you have to do something

differently. So same thing with the social. Yeah, sure. You're getting tons of

the fear of missing out, right. The FOMO, I don't want to be the person

that doesn't like doing good things. So I want to click this, but

I'm not going to that person's website. I'm not reaching out to set

up a meeting with that person. I'm not buying something from that person.

So sure, they got, like you said, the dopamine hit,

but there was no value derived

from either person. I didn't get anything from their content and they didn't get anything

from me. Something I've been thinking a lot about is

what's my point of view? And that's something I've read. Obviously I've known that from

some of my marketing background, but how do you think about

taking a point of view and

how do you do that in a way that's not just a point of view

for point of view sake. Right. Like, I'm just for shock and

awe, I'm going to take a controversial stance and that's going to put us on

the map whether we believe it or not, because we'll get discovery

calls. How have you thought about that with this

reboot, this rethinking that you all been doing at

Talentcraft? Yeah, so I think that that kind of

comes down to and this isn't only

important in social media and marketing, right. It's also important

for you as a company and you as a brand to really understand

what is your mission. Every big company out

there has a mission statement and yeah, it's a nice thing

to have and it's a nice thing to share it with new employees, but there's

a reason for it. There's a reason that we need to understand why are we

here, what are we trying to do, what are we trying to accomplish and

why? And if you can answer those four things in

whether it be a mission statement or our

core values as a company, then that's where you

start. And if what you're doing isn't toward

that effort or towards that goal, then

you probably shouldn't be doing it or you're doing it wrong. So I

think everybody needs to step back and say, why am I here? What am

I doing and what is my end goal? And then

everything should be towards that mission.

Got you. It sounds like you're saying that your

marketing and messaging

need to be in alignment and integrity with the mission and

values of your organization, not just picking

the flavor of the month to talk. About 100%, whether

it yeah, if not, it's not going to be genuine,

it's not going to resonate. And the actions that you take as a company

if they're not in line with your voice. So your

brand voice is really what you're creating on social media and in your

marketing campaigns. If your brand voice isn't in

lockstep with the actions that you take as a company, then

people aren't going to believe it, people aren't going to trust you.

It's just kind of like who you are as a person. If the actions that

you take don't match the words that come out of your mouth, no one is

going to take you seriously. And the same thing is true for businesses.

Absolutely. Yeah. Because marketing, especially in a

larger organization where I'm solo, so

I'm the Chief Everything Officer, I'm marketing sales service

janitor. But

marketing often creates a promise that sales

then has to back up and operations or delivery

has to deliver on that. And if any of those go

rogue right. It creates that sense of mistrust,

which I would say right now, Brand

reputation is at an all like the necessity of it is

at an all time high simply because of the things we're talking

about, where the social media and

marketing channels are flooded with things that

we're how feeling? Are very insincere. And skepticism

cynicism, I think, are higher than they've ever been.

Right. And it's so easy to damage your brand reputation. It's one

thing and it's so hard to come back from it. If that thing

happens, if you're being authentic and you're

being genuine and something happens, at least you are true to yourself and you are

true to your brand, right. But if you did something just to try to keep

up with what you think is going on in the market,

then you lend yourself a disservice. Well, what

do you say to the entrepreneur, the leader,

the brand that says, well, I don't really know that we

have a controversial point of

view per se. We're in agreement with some of the things

that some things have become bland just because of repetition,

right. They are meaningful and they may even be good,

but their repetition has turned them from

signal to noise. What if they don't feel like they have

a hot take on a situation or

an audience or something like that? And they say, well, we are being authentic

and true to our values and our mission, but

it doesn't seem like it's going to stand out.

What do you say to that company? Yeah, so that

really comes down to your value proposition.

Right. So if you don't have a

unique take on things, you should have something

unique that makes your company important, that makes

your company valuable. Why would somebody buy from you if

you don't have that? I mean, as just as a company and as a sales

organization, you need to kind of take a couple of steps back and say, well,

why would somebody want to buy my services versus buying them from ABC

Company? Right? So if you don't have

that unique brand voice, at least have a brand voice that

evangelizes who you are as a company and why somebody would want to buy

from you. Maybe it's testimonials from your customers, maybe

it's reviews, maybe it's charitable

contributions, maybe it's community involvement, like you're doing

something as a company that makes you unique, I

hope, right? Otherwise,

like you said, maybe it's not going to work out. Yeah,

maybe you shouldn't be in business or you should be in a different

business. It's one of those things

that I'm curious on your experience and thoughts on

this is with having a particular point of

view, is that something you

think people know what their point of view is and there's just

some fear intrepidation in vocalizing it publicly.

Like it's one thing to say in a sales conversation or one on one. It's

another thing to put into a marketing campaign

or a post where exposed to everybody. You don't get to filter that.

Or is it something that you think

can be or needs to be cultivated

and sort of discovered? Where do you sit

on that spectrum or that issue?

Yes, personally, I think that I would sit further on the

edge of that spectrum because I am very much all about being

authentic and genuine and completely transparent about who you are,

right? And obviously saying it in a way that

isn't going to offend people. But you have to be who you are. So

talent crowd, we have a very loud brand voice.

We have very loud colors, we have cartoons, we've

got all this stuff. And we had a discovery call

and the guy had told us that our website looked like a 13 year

old's birthday party. And I love

that. That was the

most validating thing that

possibly said. Because I was like, yes, you know what? Because

that means that we're being ourselves. I would love

to 13 year old birthday party, but that means that we're having

fun. That's exactly we're having fun. We

don't want to be every other stuffy

website out there that has that generic blue

color that just talks about, oh, technology

digital transformation. No, there's a reason that

we're out here doing this. And if we can't have fun while we're

the work is hard enough, the market is hard right now. If we can't have

fun while we're doing it, then what's the point,

right? And we want to show we have

really great people and they're awesome, and

we call them unicorns. And we do that for a reason because they're

really good. So if I could play on that in words. So I do think

back to your point. It's like it is something that you have to

find. Your brand voice is in there. You just

have to think, stop and think

about how do I feel about this thing?

If somebody said this to me, what would my gut reaction be? And just sort

of curate that over time. Because

maybe a couple of years ago, if somebody would have

criticized something I was doing in that way, I might not have reacted in

the same way. But

as you get more confidence and you start to build and

curate who you are and really find out who that is,

then that stuff will bounce off, right? And once it starts to

bounce off, you're like, okay, well, this is me. This is who we

are, right? That's really

good. I love the 13 year old birthday party.

Now, like, everybody rush, go look at talent crowd's website

and if you need a little bit of fun and whimsy in your

day. But I think

with that, discovering it,

is that something? Because clearly most people are not discovering

that, right? Like those that are getting a disproportionate reward in the

marketplace, right? Like, they're the ones who get a lot of engagement. They're seeing

their businesses scale. They're a lot more lean in terms of

how many people they need to hire, which is great for profit, sustainability, like

longevity, which everybody wants, especially after seeing

what COVID did to destroy so many businesses

simply because they were on razor thin

margins and one speed bump broke the car

apart. So when we're

thinking about that, because it is so vital and

important, is this like solitary

work for a leader or

even a group of leaders to kind of go off and

reflect and ponder some things? Is it

better to bring an outside party that can be

objective and really ask them questions?

Right. What's the way

that people can start to discover that? Because I think if people already knew, they'd

already be doing it in droves, right? Yeah. So I think it's kind of

twofold. So you soul absolutely bring in somebody

external to help you with that, but sort

of the downside is you're going to get some of that person's brand

voice in it too, because no matter what, they can't turn it off,

right. Even the best designers, the best copywriters, they still have a

style. So I think where you start, and

especially in an organization and as a group of leaders, everybody's got to be on

the same page. Because if I come and say, hey, I want

confetti everywhere and nobody else wants

confetti, it's

not a good feeling and it's not going to be a good cohesive thing for

our leadership team. But if we go into this and say,

we want confetti, then it's like, this

is our thing. We're going to have confetti. It's going to be awesome. And we're

all on the same page. So that way when we go to that external person,

the copywriter or the designer, we have a vision and we

are all on the same page. So when we're having these

conversations, me and Josh and everybody

else in the organization, we're want we want

this exact thing. We want superheroes. And so

we're passionate about this vision that we have, and we're all on the

same page. So now that designer, that

copywriter, can say, I see it, I get it, and now

they're curating it. They're making it better. They're

doing their subject matter expert work with the vision

that was given to them versus coming in and them trying to make a

vision for you. That's really good. So it

sounds like you would advocate for a both and

but the order of operations is sort of that

solo work or at least small group if you have a leadership

team to get clear on your thing before. You go in so

that you're not just tossed to and fro by whatever happens

in the room that day or the voice that that

expert brings. Even if they try to remain perfectly

objective, they can't stop being a

human. Right? There's always a bit of a filter. Yeah. And then the

other downside of that is, even if they did bring you some great

ideas, you could end up settling because,

hey, this designer, this copywriter, brought me this great idea. And I'm like, yeah, I

really like that, but is. That me? Is that

us? And so there's a risk in that as well.

Right. So having clarity, some level of

clarity, maybe not perfect clarity, but some level of clarity on your

own ideas and where your voice may be

going can help you filter some of the ideas that are brought to you. That's

not that they would bring bad ones, but like you said, is it me? Is

it us? I'm

curious in doing that and finding,

discovering and adopting your

brand voice sounds like point of view is

critical. I think the other thing I heard you say

repeatedly is, is this a benefit

to my audience or our audience? Right.

So it's taking the focus off of me.

And my bottom line, certainly I care about I'm in business

to make money, and I'm not ashamed of that right. Sort of thing. Like, let's

take that. We're not saying that, but there is

an other centered perspective

shift that I think you're saying. Those seem

like two critical elements to make good on what you

described at the beginning of Changing Hearts and Minds.

Yeah. Is that fair to say? Absolutely. And I think

maybe ten years ago or so, the big push

was you have to take care of your employees. Because if you take care of

your employees, they'll take care of your customers. Right. We all learned that.

I think it's the same thing here. If you're taking care of your

audience, they will take care of you. So if you're focused on

providing value to the people who are out there engaging with

your content, that are getting your emails, that are seeing your social media, if they're

getting value and they're feeling

reciprocation from what you're doing, they're going to reach out. They're going to

remember you. They're going to schedule that discovery. They're going to engage when it's

time, they're going to recommend you to somebody else. So it's very much

that same dynamic. But instead of us now focusing internally, there

was a big time where people didn't care about their employees, and we

all had to learn that, right? Oh, these are people.

Okay, that's cool. Not widgets. Got. You

focus on your employees and they'll focus on your customers. It's the same thing. Now.

Focus on your audience, focus on your potential prospects,

and they will focus on you. So it's that same thought

process, but now we're focusing it externally instead of

internally. That's really good. If somebody

hears this, and again, we're tackling something at a huge level. It's

like, let's change humanity, which I'm all for, and I do

have optimism for that. And maybe I'm on

the what is it there's the top amount, stupid.

Like Dunning Kirk or whatever thing of

black. Barely any information, but

you got maximum confidence. Maybe I'm

posted up there with the flag and binoculars,

but I'm all about making a dent in the universe,

so I love talking about these sort of things and having someone

else to talk about it with too, and not see my friends and family's eyes

glaze over. So that's refreshing. But if somebody who's

listening to this says, yeah, I want to help do that, I want to be

a part of that and what we're talking about,

but it does feel enormous. How can we shrink that

and help somebody take a baby step in the next 24 hours? Something

very simple that would get them started on

the path to doing that. What would you recommend to that

leader? Yeah, I mean, I think there's a couple of things you can do that

is like a bite sized chunk, right? So I think the first thing

is looking at where you're at

today in your social media. So the data, if

you're not collecting that data already, let's make a plan to start collecting

the data. Look at your post engagement, look at your email

engagement, your open rates, your click rates. At least make sure that you're

capturing it. I've seen a lot of companies that don't have

the ability to see open rates or click rates or deliverability or

any of that stuff. So at least make sure that a step

one, let's start getting the data. If you don't have it already, if you're there,

great. Awesome. Step two, take a look at the data.

What is it showing you? What story is that data telling? These are all

things that you can do in a couple of hours, right? Set up a

meeting. What does our funnel look like? We're sending

this many emails, we're getting this much open rate, we're getting this click rate.

And our bottom of funnel is this. What is that

curve? So that's another quick, easy thing then, if

you're already doing that. Okay, well, how successful are you?

What are your goals? That's another thing you could do. You could sit down and

you could really identify, do I have a mission? Do I

have a statement of what our

goals are for all of this stuff that we're doing? And if not, sit

down for an hour or two and talk to your team about, well, why are

we even doing this? What are we trying to accomplish? And if the things that

we're doing aren't in line with those end goals, then we need to make

a plan. So, I mean, it's a lot of little bite sized things that

if you add them all together, eventually you can kind of get to this picture

of, this is where we are, this is where we want to be, and

this is how we can slowly start to transform that to

be the kind of company that we hoped that we would be.

Yeah, that's really good. I'm sure there's plenty

of resources you would recommend as well. A couple that came to mind. I mean,

obviously, if you have trouble getting data, I mean, every platform

offers some form of that so you can find that.

If you have trouble pulling that and getting the reports you want, I

do recommend get like a free account with databox. You can

pull things in, study it. It's beautiful. Pretty graphs. So if you like

pictures, you'll enjoy that and then

just that clarity piece. If you have some tools, I'd love to hear

your recommendation. There's a book, Clarity Field Guide

that I would highly recommend. It'll ask you some questions, some that

will make you mad. And I say that because they'll ask you to go

deep on that. But

I'll link to a tool that I share with people

that does go through some of the clarity of, like, what am I the only

app? Where really am I going? What's the hedgehog concept from

good to great? Some of those questions to help

find that intersection of the different pieces you feel and think

about your business. So I'll link those up as well. Are there any

tools that you found helpful for these sort of processes?

No, I think some of the books that you mentioned are really good

resources. I think if you have trouble really

identifying who you are, what your brand voice is, there's a lot

of different really good authors out there who have defined

that. So for sure, read as much as you can. That is always

my recommendation. Right? Although,

to be fair, my wife tells me that audible does not count as reading.

And we argue quite a bit about that. I was like, I

consumed it. It's knowledge in my head. Like, who cares?

But I don't know. I get defensive every time it gets brought up.

I was like, I drive a lot. I can't just read a full book while

I'm driving. Not yet. Not yet. I'm waiting. Fully autonomous

cars. Amanda, if people want to know

more about you, more about talent crowd, I would love you to

do sort of like the blurb of what even is talent crowd.

And then for your book, where can they be

looking? Or can they go ahead and buy it if they're listening at

the appropriate time? Yeah, so I guess first blurb on

talent crowd. So we are a technology consulting

company. We also do a lot of staff aug and

placement, but ultimately what we are is a platform.

So we build a community of really awesome technology

consultants that span every aspect of technology.

So we've got data engineers, we've got software engineers, we have

quality assurance, project management. I kind of like to think of it as

the scene in The Lion King where Mufasa is like everything that the sun

touches, everything that

technology touches is what we do.

And even if it's niche or kind of off the wall

or you just need help thinking through a problem, like anything as it relates to

technology or consulting, we're here for. So we are

happy to talk to anyone on the book side.

So kind transparency is the name of my book.

It kind of is going through my management style and the many years

of experience that I have had just in the corporate environment and

sales and marketing and really understanding that to be

successful, you have to engage with people. And people can be

difficult, and I understand that. But

there's value in taking the time and

really being genuine and authentic to who you are. And

as you do that with other people, you build trust. And that's how

you get the most out of your team. If you're a leader, it works with

your family, it works with your neighbors. If you have something

to say, say it. But there's a way to say it. You have

to be kind, you have to be authentic, and you have to be able to

build that trust so that when you do say something, people believe you. So that's

kind of the gist of the book, and hopefully soon, within the

next few weeks, knock on wood. Here we

are launching Kindtransparency.com, which is

the website that will promote and house Kind

transparency and other blog information about

just kind of the whole concept. Awesome. We'll

definitely link to that and try to get in my

preorder. Maybe I'll get an autographed copy. I'm just

floating that out there.

But thank you so much for coming on and

sharing your wisdom. I definitely would love to have you on again to talk more

about Kind transparency specifically, because I think it's

a robust but timely concept that I think

more and more people need to learn as they get into leadership. But

until next time, change the way you think, you'll change the way you

lead and live. We'll see you next time. The.