Finding the right people for your business can be a challenge. Fortunately, with recruiting companies around, you can easily tick that task off your list. However, not all recruiting companies are created equal. Peggy Shell’s Creative Alignments is one that is a kind of its own. In this episode, Elliot Begoun sits down with Peggy to talk to us about what they are doing differently in their company, along with what is happening in the recruiting space, especially at this time of COVID-19. She also shares what you could be doing to evaluate your team and their needs both now and in the future, all from a staffing and recruiting perspective. Addressing concerns about the current situation, Peggy then offers some great tips that can help organizations and employees get through the time of uncertainty.

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What’s Happening In The Recruiting Space In This Time Of COVID-19 With Peggy Shell

I’m here with Peggy, from Creative Alignments. A reminder of what this is all about, it’s you and your questions. We want you to have the ability to ask any questions around the topics that we’re going to hit upon and ask them in a way that can get you the answers that you need to go do the things that you need to do with the business such as staffing. All of these are weirdness. We’re in a weird moment. As I’ve been saying all along, there’s opportunity amidst the chaos. That could mean it’s the opportunity for that great hire.

I wanted to get Peggy on to give us an overview of what’s happening in the space from a staffing perspective. Also, what you could be doing to evaluate your team and the needs that you have for your team both now and in the future. Anything else tactically that she can offer about helping an organization get through this uncertainty and so forth. Without going any further, I will let Peggy share a little bit about her background and a little bit more about Creative Alignment, and then we’ll start answering your questions. Peggy, thanks for being here.

Thanks for having me. I founded Creative Alignments years ago and we do recruit. I started Creative Alignments as an alternative to the traditional model of being a contingency-based recruiting, which hadn’t served me in the past when I was internal. We offer to recruit by the hour. Time-Based Recruiting is what we call it. Years ago, we started to get a number of referrals in the natural product space being based in Boulder ourselves and that’s grown to be the half of our business. At this point, we have 33 employees. We do half of our business in technology, software and the half in food and consumer products.

How did you first get into the space?

I fell into it, as most recruiters do. I had been a high school Math teacher. I didn’t want to teach anymore. I left teaching to be in Boulder with my then-boyfriend and now-husband, who is entrepreneurial from the womb. He had an option to buy a design agency and completed that option. I joined him helping. Most of what I helped with was recruiting at the beginning. I ended up joining as a full-time staff member for about four years. I did everything from HR to recruiting to account management.

In 2003, when there was the dot-com bust, a lot of the work that we were doing out in Boulder was web-oriented. That business went away. We consolidated everything back to San Francisco, where the original design team had been. I didn’t want to move there. I did the recruiting remotely for a number of years. In 2010, my husband had started his business and he said, “We need a hedge on this.” I said, “I’d like to start a yoga studio.” He’s like, “Let me show you the math, a yoga studio P&L and a recruiting firm.” I’m like, “Recruiting firm? That’s what I do on the side.” He’s like, “Hire a few more people as you need and get some more clients. It doesn’t need to be a big deal.” I went out with a focus on design agencies, hence the name Creative Alignments, then it has grown from there.

Tell me how Time-Based Recruiting is different. It’s obvious, the way the fee structure works, especially to the people who are reading this, why is it a benefit to them?

I’m not going to say that all contingency-based recruiting is bad, by any means. I do believe if you’re aligned with a windfall, you’re not aligned with the client. The nature of contingency-based recruiting is that you want to win, if you will. It means that your alignment is towards the candidate, towards getting the hire and towards what the candidates are being paid. In our case, we want our clients to hire who they want to hire. We want to make sure they have the right people. The alignment, we feel like it’s more like an in-house recruiter outsourced. In the end, because we don’t do a whole bunch of work that we don’t get paid for like a contingency recruiter is, therefore they have to charge a lot when they are successful. In our case, we charge along the way and it allows our fees in the end to be a lot less expensive. We average somewhere between 8% and 12% of the first-year salary.

That’s a substantial difference. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re living in a weird time. You and I have known each other. I would have been in Boulder. We’re talking to each other from our living rooms instead of our offices, which is cool because you don’t always get the opportunity to get introduced to a pocket mouse. What are you seeing out there? Let’s talk about brands and their staffing as a whole. Are most brands trying to keep their teams intact? What are you hearing from your clients?

I wish I could give you a consistent, across the board answer, but I’ll give you the general experience we’ve had. First, our tech clients are putting things on hold because they’re uncertain and nervous. If there were tech service companies, they were losing business themselves. I thought, “Food is going to do well.” We then had a number of our food companies put things on hold because they were also nervous. Generally people thought, “I don’t know that I should be hiring during this period of time.” That slowly shifted. There are some that are challenged from a cashflow standpoint. There are some that are challenged beyond that too.

Many food companies are coming out realizing, “Sales were not well. I’ve had a decent boost in sales. Maybe it was not an overly organic or natural boost. I don’t know if it will last or not, but the revenue was good. I’ve got some extra cash reserves. I have some changes I want to make on my team anyway, whether it’s growth changes or leveling up their talent.” We’ve had an influx of clients again in the last few weeks. We’ve started seeing clients start to put their head back out and say, “Maybe I can be hiring.” I don’t know if that will continue or if we’ll see another dip. We don’t require our clients to be tied into a long-standing agreement. They can come and go as they need. It’s fascinating to watch.

Have you heard from a fair amount of people that maybe you were involved in recruiting them into a location that has been let go or most of your people that you have networks and relationships with are holding back? What has been the status there?

Yes, a little bit. A few people would be the place that we know saying, “I’m back on the market. I’m nervous about my company. I want to keep my eyes open,” but not as much as you would think. That’s coming is my guess or not. I suppose this all depends on how long this lasts. This ginormous spike in unemployment is not necessarily directly related to our target client base.

For a myriad of reasons for your natural product side, but us too, even the natural products business being in the food and beverage business, personal care, pet care, and things along those lines. We’re well-positioned as any vertical or any sector to weather it. Sadly, a lot of unemployment is coming from foodservice, hospitality, travel, and so forth. Here’s one question that came up and that is, are you seeing people who are aggressively building their teams?

Yes, we are. We had one company. We reach out to most of our clients and said, “What can we expect?” One said, “I took in funding. I know it’s an odd time to hire, but I’m going for it.” We have a handful that is aggressively building.

You made an interesting point there in terms of, it’s not a time to hire is the sentiment from some. Do you see it as maybe a great time to hire? People are available. Maybe they recognize they don’t have the salary leverage that they did when we were in full employment. It could be an opportunistic time to hire. What would your advice to the founders?

It depends on your company. You should not, if you’re not certain that that’s a smart thing to do. I am seeing a lot of companies thinking about how to be leaner in general. I respect that and honor that. If you’re somebody that knows with decent certainty that you’re in an okay position and you will likely need to either level up some of your team members or to hire additional team members, then it is the time. We’re seeing from the candidate side and we’re seeing both. We’re seeing some candidates that are saying, “I’m not comfortable moving. I’ve got a good thing going here. This company is dependent on me,” for some of the roles like finance and operations or supply chain. We have a number of other candidates that normally would’ve never responded. They may not have entertained a conversation saying, “I probably shouldn’t have this conversation with you because I don’t know what’s going to happen here for me.” We’re seeing both.

Here is another interesting question. I’m sure there are a lot of people who are feeling this way, “I’m scared. I’m an employee. Maybe even a critical employee, but I’m still an employee.” The uncertainty is palpable in our virtual offices. What do you advise those people are not necessarily wanting to leave or not looking, but they also don’t want to get caught completely unaware and ill-prepared? What should they be doing?

Hopefully, they’re in a place of employment where they can have those conversations honestly. Their employers will be honest and say, “We don’t know. Here’s why I wouldn’t worry about it or whatnot.” Not everybody is that transparent. You got to be smart. Do you have a little extra time? Can you reach out to some of the network people that you haven’t reached out to in a while? Keep some lines of communication open. I don’t think it’s that hard to at least open up some options that may not have been there. Otherwise, if you have any sense that you may not have your position for long. That’s smart business potentially anytime that there’s uncertainty around.

More so now than ever, and I would agree. If you do have that relationship with the person you work with and work for, having that conversation and asking them to be transparent. It’s hard if you’re a founder too. I’m going to flip this around so I won’t say what I was about to. Going and asking the team that you’re working for to be as transparent as possible and then in return, promising them that you will do the same. The one thing that you could do is by signaling that you’re nervous or signaling that you’re potentially looking and sending a warning flag across unintended to the person you work for saying, “I’m not all in. I don’t believe in the path or setting.” That could do a disservice.

That’s in the messaging. If you do it, you get to say, “I want to stay here for a long time. I’m loving what we’re doing. I’m all behind this. I also don’t want to be caught in a position that I am not sure of.”

That’s why I would say you’re on the side of over-communicating and asking for the same questions and being completely honest, rather than sitting at your desk at home and searching LinkedIn or elsewhere and doing things.

It’s a tight community. There are a lot of crossovers. If you reach out to somebody, they may know your boss. Be thoughtful about that.

Flipping around, I’ve talked to a bunch of founders and one said, “I have no idea what is going to happen. It’s day-to-day. It’s hour-to-hour. I still believe in our brand. I believe in where we’re going. We’re going to be able to convince investors and all of that. I’m getting asked all the time by my team and I don’t want to tell them, ‘Great, the sky is falling.’ How do I handle this situation?”

I get that. I’m at a recruiting firm. Even though we have some companies that are hiring, hiring is not exactly the best business to have in a recession or not in a depression. We have been hit and we ended up choosing to furlough about half of our team. We ended up getting the PPP funds and we brought everybody back, which has been fascinating. I can talk more about that if that’s helpful for anybody. I was honest throughout all of it. That’s my leadership style in general. First of all, I furloughed. I didn’t layoff because I would like them back. I’m optimistic that can still happen.

Secondly, when I brought them back, I said, “I don’t know if this is for eight weeks or if this is for the long term.” As founders, we get to choose our style. I agree. I’ve run the risk when I furloughed. I imagined this was the case that people were going to start to look elsewhere. That’s probably smart on their part. These are recruiters. Other recruiting firms are hit. I don’t know where they’re going to go necessarily, for their kids and their sake. Nonetheless, that’s risk founders have to take. If they create a culture and a place to work, that’s awesome. Likely, it works out in the end. If you still have a role for them, they’re going to stay. If there is something else they find that happens to suit what they’re doing better and their needs more, then that’s what’s supposed to happen anyway. I don’t know. I’m a fan of transparency.

I am too. I’m someone who goes full monty. That’s the best way to do it. If you’re a founder, you have to be authentic to how you’ve always been communicating with your team. Hopefully, you’ve always been transparent and honest. This is not a time to steer away from vulnerability. It’s not a time to steer away from truth-telling. You don’t want to walk into your employees in my opinion and say, “I have no idea.” Even if you’re early in your leadership career, you’re still a leader and you have to give your team confidence that you’re the right person to help them weather this storm. You have to be honest.

Panic is contagious, but so is leadership.

It’s okay if you have those moments of panic. Help yourself and say, “I’m having a freakout moment. I’m going to go step out.” Fortunately, most of us are working remotely.

They don’t even have to see them.

You just have to turn off the video on Zoom. You brought up PPP. There are a lot of people who were waiting and they’re still hopeful about PPP. What are you hearing out there in terms of community?

There are a number of companies that have gotten it that I know and then a number that is right behind them that will get it. I don’t know if this is enough in this next round. If they opened up enough, my guess is probably not. There’ll be a third-round that may or may not. For those who need it and got on it early enough in terms of applying, they will receive the funds.

Hopefully, you did it quickly and that you got in. Hopefully, you have a line of communication with your bank. I’ve talked to a lot of people that said, “I’ve put it in and I haven’t heard anything.” My next question is, “Have you reached out to them?” They’re saying, “No.” The squeaky wheel gets the oil. That’s one of the oldest fundamental truths. Get out there and ask and fight and do what you need to.

For me, I got it early and yet I was one who almost would’ve preferred to have the economy present a little bit more clarity on what’s going to be happening. I also am slightly nervous around the fact that the forgiveness rules don’t even have to be fully fleshed out for 30 days. I feel like we’re working under a little bit of a blind set of guidelines. We’re doing our best. We, 100%, follow the intention. We brought everybody back at full compensation. Hopefully, that will give us some points.

Here’s another question, “Given the change of environment, do you think candidates understand that a hire is quite meaningful these days? That founders and leaders are making moves for deliberate reasons, whether that will be to pivot or to add new talent or to address deeper skills within the team they rely on?” To add to it, let’s be honest, there wasn’t always that because we’re coming out of a period where we were flushed with employment that there was, to some degree, a growing attitude or belief in an attitude of almost entitlement and so forth. Those founders who were taking big risks of bringing people in during uncertainty, what’s your sense on the candidates’ mindset in those that you’re talking about? Are they going in, “I feel compelled to do even a better job for this person because they’re taking this risk on me?”

I don’t know if I can answer it, but I would guess so. That will change even more. You’ll be thankful for the opportunity. I’m seeing that with my team. Even though it’s only maybe eight weeks, like, “Thank you. I’m excited to come back to work.” I hope that’s the case. I don’t know that I can speak firsthand to that. My recruiters might be able to more than I can.

I would say the only thing to add to that is having that conversation before they come on and even in the interview process, “The only reason I’m considering hiring at this moment in time is that I see an opportunity and a need in the organization that I’m going to fit. It’s a massive risk that I’m going to be taking. I need to know that you’re in for this massive risk, that you’re committed to going all in.” If they start shaking, you see beads of sweat on their forehead, or they stutter in their response out of nerves, then that’s a signal for you. I’m going to change things around completely and say, what’s it like taking your business home, homeschooling with you guys?

The first word was chaotic, frenetic. The real word is having a lot of compassion. Everybody I’ve talked to, we’re surviving. We need compassion for ourselves. I haven’t even gotten to school yet for a seven-year-old.

He’s got a long recess.

It happened to be doing a lot of online games that probably would not normally be my top choice. We’re doing our best. It’s offset too by the positives and the things that we wouldn’t otherwise get, like family dinners. Every night we’re together for dinner, whereas that’s not usually the case because we travel and we work late and we have other things going.

These are the things we’re probably not talking about enough. We’re talking about staffing and all of that in terms of what you do professionally. We’re both entrepreneurs. We have real palpable realities that we’re facing like any others in their business. For you, is it adding to your stress, or is it a nice distraction to have your family and the kids around you? How does that feel as you’re navigating all of this?

It depends. There were a number of weeks of full-on triaging. I would say I was about a quarter of the parent I would have liked toward them. That was stressful even though they were around and that was nice. My guilt and judgment made it hard. At least for a brief moment, I have come out of that period of intense triaging. I can appreciate it and enjoy it more a little bit at least. It’s a day-by-day. The more organized I am on any given day, which is not my strength, the more I can preplan, the more I can come prepared.

It’s not as messy for us because our kids are grown.

There’s the full spectrum. I have two employees where they have kids 3, 4 and under. It’s nearly impossible for them. We’re having compassion. For me, I have a fourteen-year-old too. He’s got school. I barely know what they’re doing and it’s fine. Teachers are holding them accountable. Seven-year-old, school is dependent on me, unfortunately. I’m taking the long-term view. If he learns nothing more, he’s still going to be fine in the long run.

This is not the topic I intended. It’s important for anyone who’s reading this. On this uncertainty, this total upheaval, people always would talk about things like work-life balance, which for a long time I have said is BS. They are saying that life and work are separate and they’re not. Certainly now, there is none of that for most people because we’re in the height of the messiness of life. We’re in the middle of each other. We’re having video calls in each other’s homes and backyards. We’re letting people into our life ends that we hadn’t. That adds a whole layer of stress but also humanity and vulnerability and also a bit of level setting. This is a shared universal experience. We all have to remember before we get on our first Zoom call to get out of our pajamas, to brush our hair and that type of stuff. If your house is a mess, the whole world is going to see it. It’s different.

To tie that back to our clients that are recruiting, one of the biggest pieces of advice that we’re giving to our clients is having a little more leeway than you might otherwise. Like a kid walking in the background would normally be like, “It’s unprofessional.” A dog barking or maybe they don’t make great eye contact because this whole Zoom thing is not that comfortable for them. Unless that’s going to be their job and they have to be on Zoom calls all day from home with their kids at home, which hopefully will not be our reality forever. Have a little more leeway.

That’s a perfect segue into the next question that came up, which is, “From what you’re seeing here and being in the space that you’re in, how do you think work is going to change how we work, where we work? What do you see of all of this that sticks?

I believe that the remote is going to become more of a norm than it has been in the past. We’ll probably see an uptick of 25% to 35% on companies that will say, “I don’t need that office that I’m paying $7,000 a month for whatever it is.” I’m on the fence on that. I’m saving a lot of money, in theory, if I wasn’t paying, which I am. I’m also seeing that we’re not having the same connection. We’re trying. We’re doing all the right things you can do remotely. You can’t replace some of those on the fly connections and in-person things that happen. A lot of companies will find that balance more or go remote completely. Many will not and many will find that this was a great experiment. Many employees will either have loved this and have realized, “This is what I wanted forever.” Many will realize, “I was unproductive even if my kids were at home or lonely. I need to go to an office and feel productive.” I gave the full gamut.

What I think is going to happen is there’s going to be more choice in the equation and more flexibility. I envision shared office space and co-working spaces proliferating so that teams can come together when they want it physically, but also have that flexibility of not having to. Also, having the companies have the flexibility of not having to pay for buildings that they’re not fully utilizing. I do think the size of the average office is going to get smaller. There are some huge benefits to this if you can figure out how to work within your life. We all have different cadences to our work. There are certain days where we’re more productive than we are not, and so having that flexibility instead of having to be mandated at certain times. Sometimes, it saves commute. It’s hard to build a team. We have a question, “Do you think cool Zoom backgrounds are going to be the currency of the future?”

I heard they’re hot. I still don’t personally know how to even do it. I kind of do but not really.

Have you seen a change in compensation levels?

On the recruiting front, a number of people are seeking, not yet.

People are willing to pay for the positions. Are there people out there, for lack of a better term, bargain hunting?

Yes, for sure. The last couple of clients that I have brought in, new clients are hoping that they can pay less than they might have otherwise had to have for a little higher-level talent. I don’t know if that is going to be the case or not. I would guess it for sure will be over time. I don’t know about it yet. We’re not seeing a ton of talent from this industry flood the market yet either.

It’s a good thing.

It may stay that way.

You don’t want to ever hire on the cheap, in my opinion. If you do that, the likelihood is that when the economy does rebound and things returned to normal, that person will come knocking physically by then or at least virtually and say, “I need more or I need to leave.” What you could potentially do is have a candid conversation, “I want to make this higher. Do you want me to make this higher? We’re in a period of uncertainty, so I can afford to pay you X for the next period and then we can reevaluate in 60 to 90 days. If things have returned to normal cadence and the world has opened up, I’m prepared to pay you Y.” In my opinion, there’s nothing wrong with having that conversation and coming to a mutual agreement but it should be discussed.

Paying somebody less than that, which they are seeking significantly as long as they’re not delusional and they’re seeking, rarely works out in the long run.

What are brands not doing as it relates to staffing that you think they should be?

I don’t know if they’re thinking about the remote. The best practices around hiring and onboarding in a remote situation like we’re in. Everybody’s situation is unique that I don’t know if I can answer that. I honor and respect those that are seeking to figure out how to get leaner or wise. I also think it’s a good opportunity to make sure you got the right people in the right seats. If you have had some people that you’d been on the fence with, this is not necessarily the time to settle. It’s not a great time for that individual to be letting them go. I recognize that. You can do it in a human way. Eventually, overtime or right away, you can find somebody who maybe that’s what you’re looking for more.

Have a lot of conversations around the difference between being kind and being nice.

That’s good to change them.

It is time to be kind. You have to be kind first and foremost to your business. You take on responsibility as an entrepreneur when you hire people that you’re going to do everything you possibly can to provide the opportunities for them in which you told them you would when they came on or were implicit in coming to work. Part of that is being willing and being able to make the hard decisions about your team when you need to make them in order to preserve the business for the long-term. That sometimes requires you to not be nice because there’s no nice way to let a person go. There’s a compassionate way but it’s not going to be nice. Your job as a founder is to be kind. That’s a tough delineation to do it. In my experience and opinion, you can’t afford so more than ever, but at any point, especially as a relatively young and emerging brand, you cannot afford to lay off people who don’t perform. I would encourage everyone to take a hard look and ask the tough question right now and emphasize to yourself and to your team about being kind versus being nice.

That’s a great distinction.

I’m going to ask another question here in terms of overall recruitment. If I’m that nervous person, what do I do to position myself? If I haven’t been out in the open market for a while, what do I need to do that could be marketable?

I have a lot of compassion for those who are job seeking or are out in the market. If you’ve got the relevant experience, I do think there are companies in our industry that are hiring. That’s not a hopeless cause by any means. It’s an interesting time to try to find a job. Now more than ever, you work your network. You get on LinkedIn and you figure out who you knew, who you know and who knows who you want to know. You target specific companies that you’re excited about and that you think are doing well. You tell them the story about how you think that you can solve some of their problems. You don’t count on job boards and putting your resume into a black hole potentially. There’s going to be a lot of resumes. We are already seeing far more resumes that don’t mean they’re relevant candidates or applicable for the roles that we’re hiring for, but we’re seeing an influx in volume of the applicants. You work your network, make yourself relevant, and heard again by finding who it is that you know at that company and you tell your story.

Don’t hesitate. Prepare yourself for it. It’s an unfortunate reality to be out in this market but it could be a great opportunity. Be clear on what value you add. Another question is, “What do I need to be doing to make sure that when you talk about getting confused between kindness and niceness, I’m not the one that they’re being nice to? What do I need to do?” My answer is to make sure you ask yourself the real serious question consistently through your business day, “Am I adding value?”

Figure out where your accountability lies and make sure you’re focused on that. If that’s not clear, you get to talk to whomever about that and also being willing to be flexible. Companies need to shift their strategies and shift people around. I’ve got half my team or a little less than doing marketing and sales. These are recruiters, but they’re stepping up and it’s incredibly impressive and it’s going to go a long way in my head. They happen to all be stepping up, which is amazing. I don’t know if it’s putting one person above another in that respect. Being willing and flexible to go with the flow and find the results.

This is going to be a weird question. We’ve done a bunch of these Tig Talks. I wonder why when it comes to staffing and hiring and so forth, we see less participation and fewer questions. At this moment, this is such a critical question for founders and entrepreneurs. We’ve done a lot of other tactical conversations, “How to market my business on eComm? What do I need to do with my retailers and so forth?” This is critical. There will be a lot of people who will catch this post. I see it somewhat as a missed prioritization. I want to get your sense in general as you would advise companies and so forth, all things staffing.

You have a unique perspective because you see it clearly and your team does from three different ends. You see it as a business development person out trying to build relationships with new clients and new brands. What’s resonating with them? You see it, entrepreneur to entrepreneur, what they’re going through, what they’re doing, what’s sticking in their head and so forth. You see it from the person who is either in the middle of job seeking or is potentially being forced to be in the middle of job seeking. What would you want to be sharing with any of those audiences about what’s going on in the world?

I can’t blame entrepreneurs for not prioritizing hiring or even human capital needs. They’re triaging, at least that’s where I’ve been. I couldn’t pick my head up to do other not on-fire things for 3, 4 to 5 weeks besides figuring out my P&L and my staffing aids, doing forecasting on what work we have, figuring out how the hell does PPP loan work and applying for it. Getting the funds and figuring out how to bring everybody back and what are they going to work on. There have been many fires to put out. For food companies, it’s like, “Where’s my supply chain? How much do we need it? Amazon, the way they can keep things on the shelves.” There are burning issues.

I do agree with you that human capital is probably your number one most important thing you can and should be thinking about. I don’t blame them if they haven’t yet. We’ll see that happen more where all of a sudden, they’re like, “What team do I have? Where are my gaps? Where are my opportunities?” I don’t expect that to happen. I’m not surprised you don’t get a ton of questions. We will and everybody will in the next number of weeks and months.

In fact, one of the things I’ll tell you that we’re launching, we’re calling it Next Placement. If you know what outplacement is, that’s a concept around we do have to let some people go. How do you do that in a kind and empathetic way and give them some resources? As part of that, we’re calling it Next Placement. We are going to offer those jobs, search strategy, consulting services for employers to offer to people they’re letting go. We’re also offering services around, “What should I do? Is furlough the right option? Is layoff the right option? Is workforce rejiggering the right option? What’s the compliance in the paperwork side?” We’re teaming up with an organization called Cure HR and offering those services together.

It’s an awesome decision. Sometimes people are paralyzed with what to do.

We’re going to find that those are services that people feel like, “I need that now. I also didn’t need the hiring in a few weeks.”

I agree with everything you said about the fact that people are triaging. They’re in that moment to moment mob. A bit of admonishment to people is that even if you put it in your calendar or an hour of a day to lift your head up from triage and look at the landscape and say, “What are my opportunities?” You have a rare opportunity if you can to make certain strategic decisions to leapfrog your competition. If you’re caught in the throes of triaging 24/7, you’ll miss them. Put it on your calendar. You can call it to work on business time or something like that. Lift your head up and you say, “I’m shutting down my emails. I’m not triaging.” It’s one hour a week, two hours a week where I think about, “What are the strategic moves? How am I doing from a human capital standpoint? What can I be doing differently to put myself forward?” We’re trying to do the same thing for our business, making sure that we don’t get swept away at the moment to moment. We pause and think about, “What’s the market signaling to any of us that we should be looking to capitalize on?” My last question, how do people get ahold of you? Where do they find out more information?

It’s Creative Alignments, CreativeAlignments.com. You’re welcome to reach out to me, Peggy@CreativeAlignments.com. You can find me on LinkedIn, Peggy Shell. I also have an amazing team, so any number of them would be great to reach out to. I know you know Frank Milianti, he is our managing director for our CPG practice. He’d be a great resource. You may get emails from Arn Hayden. He’s working hard to figure out which of you out there are needing our services. You may hear from him from a business development standpoint. I was going to give a phone number but you can find that on our site. I don’t even know what our general phone number is.

Thanks for being here. The recording will be made available on YouTube. Thanks so much, Peggy. It was great.

It’s awesome, Elliot. Thank you. I appreciate it.

It’s a pleasure.

Good luck to everybody. Stay healthy and well. We’re going to get through this. The fact of the matter is this is where we’re at. As a species, we’ve been here before and we’ve come out of it and we will do the same. Take care. Thanks again.

Bye.

Important Links

• Creative Alignments

• Cure HR

• CreativeAlignments.com

• Peggy@CreativeAlignments.com

• Peggy Shell – LinkedIn

• Frank Milianti

• Arn Hayden

• YouTube – TIG Talks

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