In this episode, Josh conducts a strategy audit for Andrew Gilliland and Dave Hunt of Action Holdings, an e-commerce asset management company in Tampa. The conversation explores their unique business model, challenges in hiring and team management, and the need for more frequent, effective performance reviews. Josh introduces a simplified review system focused on self-assessment, manager feedback, and clear KPIs, recommending reviews every four months. The discussion highlights the importance of aligning team roles, measuring creative work, and maintaining a strong company culture to drive growth across their portfolio of e-commerce brands.

Chapters:

Introduction to Action Holdings (00:00:00)
Overview of Action Holdings, its e-commerce brands, and the company’s background and structure.

Not an Aggregator: Business Philosophy (00:01:11)
Clarification on why Action Holdings is not an aggregator and their selective, family-like approach to brand management.

Biggest Challenges: People & Team (00:02:20)
Discussion of main business challenges, especially hiring, team management, and putting the right people in the right roles.

Performance Review Frequency (00:03:44)
Realization that annual reviews are ineffective; shift to four-month performance review cycles for better alignment.

Plan of Alignment and Growth (00:04:46)
Introduction of a simplified, rubric-based performance review system with self and manager assessments every four months.

Performance Review Rubric Details (00:06:48)
Explanation of the rubric: culture fit, problem-solving, performance, and KPIs, including self-assessment and manager scoring.

Implementing Core Values and KPIs (00:07:51)
How to document core values, create scoring rubrics, and establish measurable KPIs for each role.

Simplifying the Review Process (00:10:31)
Key takeaway: simplify the review process to make it easier for both managers and employees.

Challenges with Creative KPIs (00:11:20)
Discussion on the difficulty of setting KPIs for creative roles, especially in marketing and design.

Defining Measurable KPIs for All Roles (00:12:09)
Strategies for creating measurable KPIs for any position, including creative and customer service roles.

Evaluating Value and Role Necessity (00:14:30)
Assessing whether roles are necessary based on their measurable contribution to business revenue and goals.

Final Thoughts and Advice (00:16:05)
Closing remarks: encouragement to take risks, think big, and seek expert guidance for business growth.

Links and Mentions:

Tools and Documents 
“Plan of Alignment and Growth Document”: “00:05:53”

Key Concepts 
“Rubric for Performance Reviews”: “00:06:48”

Advice and Insights 
“Quarterly Performance Reviews”: “00:04:37”

General Recommendations 
“Get Josh on Your Calendar”: “00:16:06”
“Encouragement to Take Risks”: “00:16:13”

Transcript:

Josh 00:00:00  Today I am speaking with Dave Hunt and Andrew Gilliland, and we just conducted a strategy audit for their business. And you get to listen in on all the takeaways that we found for them. Let’s start here. First, Andrew and Dave, why don’t you guys just share with the audience. You know what it is that you guys do. You have multiple ecommerce brands. Tell us what it is that you have going on. Yeah. So.

Andrew Gilliland 00:00:25  in in simple terms, we have a holding company, called Action Holdings. We are an e-commerce asset management company based in downtown Tampa, Florida. the business was started five years ago, but I’ve been doing e-commerce since I was 8 or 9 years old. and we formulated Action Holdings to organize the various brands that we’ve launched, acquired. and we’ll build in the future. So that’s a little bit about Action Holdings.

Josh 00:01:03  So it’s like you’re almost like a mini aggregator in a way. You’ve got multiple brands under one roof and you’re trying to scale them. All right.

Andrew Gilliland 00:01:11  So I get this question a lot. And the short answer is not quite. So we do not consider ourselves an aggregator. we it’s kind of like a family owned set of brands that we’re managing like our babies. So we say no to that question when it comes up, because a lot of aggregators are taking in these assets and kind of just throwing them into the Wild West, Fashion Holdings doesn’t do that. We look for very specific deals that we are confident we can provide specialized attention in to grow.

Josh 00:01:49  Awesome. I love that, and I think that’s important. Like you’re approaching it with a very specific, you know, target and you’re you’re not just acquiring anything just to acquire it, right? I think that’s super important. And that definitely showed up in the way that you guys approach your business plans as well, which I think is impressive. So, Andrew, why don’t you kind of lead off with, you know, stating what was kind of one of your biggest questions that you had walking into the audit, and what were your hopes of what you were going to get out of the conversation today?

Andrew Gilliland 00:02:20  Yeah.

Andrew Gilliland 00:02:20  So the as I said to you, Josh, our team is good. We’re above average at most of the e-commerce related things that we do. But people has been one of the biggest challenges for our company, making sure we’re bringing in the right people, putting them in the right seats, and doing the best that we can to grow our team and business. so that was one of the biggest challenges that we came in with. you walked us through all of the behind the scenes of Hadley designs, and showed us simpler ways that we can effectively lead and manage our growing team. And we are going to implement the, I forget the name of the document, but what you showed us as a simpler way of handling performance reviews, hiring and firing so that we can attract and retain a level talent.

Josh 00:03:29  I love it. Dave, what were some of your biggest questions coming into the strategy on it?

Dave Hunt 00:03:34  Yeah, I think people was definitely, for me, the biggest thing. beyond, like Andrew said, the right people, the right seats.

Dave Hunt 00:03:44  I find we’ve struggled with timing. Right. How long do you give someone to fit that role? And one of the biggest takeaways I took was, you know, Josh, you’re saying every four months we’re reviewing these things. And previously we were we were almost looking at it, I want to say on a yearly basis. we did yearly reviews and now looking back and it makes sense. Why would that work? Because if you wait a year to evaluate whether somebody is in the right, see if they’re meant for the company, if they align with not only our core goals, but our overall strategy. you’re too late. and we’ve had that bite us before. So looking at that, I like the idea of, you know, quarterly or four month periods where we’re really taking a deep dive into the alignment and making sure that the right person, right seat, right time for them to be with us.

Josh 00:04:37  Yeah. I think that that is every, business leaders like struggle is how do you get the right people sitting in the right seat? Right.

Josh 00:04:46  And that is much easier said than done. But there’s logic in how you approach these situations. And I know you guys have heard my podcast, and even in my presentations where I talk about how the process I use to go find and attract a level talent into your business, but then the rubber really meets the road when you bring this person onto your team. And yes, the traditional like, hey, we’re going to do an annual performance review is they’re simply ineffective. as most of us, I think can attest, because you walk away and you’re like, okay, I was maybe falling short here, and guess what? We’re probably never going to talk about this again. We’ll see you next year. Right. So that what I shared with Andrew and Dave is, is a document we call it like our plan of alignment and growth. Okay. So what happens. And we balanced initially we were considering doing it every other month. But then when we started that that was like way too much. Then we went every quarter and I was like, oh, that still feels like we’re meeting two regularly every four months has been the right cadence for us.

Josh 00:05:53  because it needs to be done definitely more than once a year and arguably even more than twice a year. So four times or three times in a year every four months has worked out perfectly for us. So let’s talk about the details and share with the audience. Like kind of what it is that we discussed and how you would set this up. You need to evaluate your team members, on a regular basis. And here’s the exercise that I asked Andrew and Dave to do on the spot. Right. And I just kind of sat as a fly on the wall watching them. I said, hey, evaluate your team members on three different metrics their effectiveness with how they’re getting their job done, their performance, are they meeting their KPIs. And then three, you know, do they meet the team culture? And then as they kind of talked about each of their team members, you know, they had different opinions and perspectives of, you know, what culture meant. And Dave’s five was not Andrew’s five.

Josh 00:06:48  Andrew’s one was not Dave’s three. Right. and so what I helped them realize is that if you create a, I guess, a rubric. That’s one of the first things that you need to establish is a rubric that whoever is conducting these assessments, whether it’s a manager or yourself, everybody is on the same page. One of the unique aspects that we do with these performance reviews is that we ask each of the team members to actually rate themselves first, and so they get to share their honest feedback of how they feel like they’re performing. And then the manager goes in and adds their scores as well, and then they end up meeting together to discuss, hey, I see you scored yourself here. This is where I scored you. Here’s where there might be a gap in our alignment. Right? And then from there, those are the action items that you could have them work on over those next four months. So the way you kind of set this up is that you evaluate them first on the culture fit for the organization.

Josh 00:07:51  So how do you how do you determine, you know, if they fit your culture? Hopefully you’ve already documented your core values, Use, right? If you have your core values in place, we have seven within our brand. Then I can list out those seven core values, have a paragraph description about what those core values mean and how they apply, and then have a scoring rubric that says sometimes, often never, and specific examples of how those would apply, and then allow each person to be able to score themselves. Now we’re all on the same page when we score ourselves. Then when we get together, we can identify where those gaps are. So cultures first. Then the second part is kind of the results or the overall effectiveness of that team member. And so we evaluate them on three different aspects. Number one is their problem solving skills. So how often are they coming to their manager with just problems and relying on their manager to resolve them for them. Or number two they’re coming or sorry.

Josh 00:08:54  On that note of problem solving, they’re presenting the ideas and the solutions to the manager, right. That’s a very different type of team member, one that’s just bringing problems and somebody that’s bringing solutions to the table. Then secondly, we evaluate them on their kind of overall performance and effectiveness. Are they getting their tasks done on time? Are they, you know, doing it in efficient manner of time. And then last but not least, we evaluate their results, which is their KPIs. So in order to do this obviously you’ve got to have KPIs established for every single roll. Something that’s measurable, you have to define for them what the core values are. So you can see there’s a lot of upfront work. And the great news is Andrew and Dave, you guys had already done a lot of that upfront work. So all you need to do is kind of pivot and kind of reframe this to have these conversations every four months, have each team member evaluate themselves and their manager. Then you identify wherever those gaps are and you create a plan of alignment document that you then use to help that team member set up their goals for the next four months.

Josh 00:10:05  Here are the areas that I need to improve. It’s clear as day for them. And then at four months from now when you come back, there’s issues. It’s when you begin to have those conversations like, are you a right fit? Because we talked about this and that, we’re not seeing the progress. So I went into the weeds there and sharing those details because I wanted to give the context and the value. But Andrew and Dave, what were your kind of some of your biggest moments? That process.

Andrew Gilliland 00:10:31  So I had yeah, please. the biggest moment was we are currently way over complicating our review process. it’s like seven different tabs. And because of that, it’s confusing for both our employees and for Dave and I as managers. So one of my biggest takeaways is to actually use the document that you shared and remove the complexity so that it’s as simple as possible to implement into the organization.

Josh 00:11:13  I love it. Simplicity is key. What about you, Dave? Yes.

Dave Hunt 00:11:18  Simplicity is key, and I’ll agree with that.

Dave Hunt 00:11:20  you know, the complexity piece definitely wasn’t moment like Andrew was saying. the other one. Josh, I’d love to ask you this question that I didn’t get to, but it’s sort of the moment for me is we are not doing the people who work for us a favor right now in the KPIs we set for them. especially on my side, because I run the marketing piece of everything, and it’s almost a challenge to say, I want to measure you on a creative piece, because is the KPI we’re doing X amount of creatives, is it generating revenue? So I would love your take because that was an moment for me. It’s like, okay, we got to get back into the KPI game. Like how do you measure something that doesn’t directly bring in, let’s say a percentage or a number? which has definitely been a challenge for me with the people who work for me.

Josh 00:12:09  Yeah, that’s a really good question. So let’s dive into that. First and foremost, you need to define measurable activities that you could assign a metric to regardless of whatever that position is.

Josh 00:12:25  Okay. So even with customer service, right. It’s like I just want you to respond to all of my customer messages, right? One of our metrics is like, we want a five minutes or less response time for all of our messages, and here’s how we track that. Right. These are the hours. and then we also have kind of like an upsell process that we use and we say, hey, we want to generate X amount of revenue from this process, right. so it allows us to see like this person winning succeeding. Are they executing in this. So let’s talk about your example for like a creative, like a graphic designer. Yeah. In this case. So number one, you should have a reason as to what like what purpose is this graphic designer doing. So in this scenario, Dave, what’s your graphic designer creating and doing for you?

Dave Hunt 00:13:17  it would be Amazon builds. So all of the assets that go into Amazon, it would be all the emails that we send for all of our brands.

Dave Hunt 00:13:25  It would be PPC ads, anything that’s going on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and then, okay, web, web outside of that.

Josh 00:13:36  Okay. So you should already have and this should be part of your kind of like your monthly in the quarterly and annual planning of, you know, in general, how many different Amazon listings are are you needing done every month. Right. And what are all those assets that are required? And then how many different, you know, Amazon advertising images do you need in a given month? Right. So if you go back in time, you’re like, hey, if we launch this number of products and these are typically what’s required of them, you could start to map out like actual numbers that you will need. Correct. Same thing on the marketing side. Like if, you know, Amazon posts and social media posts are like super important to you guys, right? Then maybe it’s like every single week I need 20 new creative pieces that we could then schedule and post on Amazon.

Josh 00:14:30  Right. Those become your KPIs. And so at the end of the day, you need to go back. And first and foremost understand what value is this team member providing to the business okay. Because sometimes what you’ll discover in this process, if you don’t already have KPIs established, sometimes they’re just working on pet projects and you’re like, oh my goodness. They’re really like they’re really not generating much revenue for the business. And then you’d need to make the call of like, is this an actual role that we need, and is this the right person for this role? do we need a full time team member? Or, you know, maybe I just need somebody on Fiverr once every so often, right. because this is I’ve identified, like, the specific things that they need to create that does produce revenue, right. So Amazon posts, can you attribute revenue to those graphics and can you measure and determine like if those media graphics get better, if they’re different lifestyle shots, do they are they better? Do they get a higher click through rate? Same thing with your Amazon ads, right? You could test them and say like yes, this drives significant revenue for us as we level up our brand.

Josh 00:15:48  Right. You could argue, A-plus content as well. So there’s definitely ways, like as I showed you, it’s not always easy, but there are ways to create defined KPIs for any given role. David. Andrew, any last words you guys would like to communicate to the audience?

Andrew Gilliland 00:16:05  David, do you have anything.

Dave Hunt 00:16:06  You want to say getting get Josh on your calendar? I can I can fully attest to that.

Andrew Gilliland 00:16:13  I’ll go with that one. And the other thing is just I encourage everyone listening to go and and continue putting yourself out there and taking risks. because I’ve learned that there’s a lot of things that we perceive to be risky that, are actually more risky not to do. So I just always like to keep people thinking big and, encourage you to go out and do that thing that you may not be that you may be afraid to do.

Josh 00:16:45  I love it. Great words of wisdom. Well, thank you both for your time today, and I look forward to seeing your brand techniques over the next few years.

Josh 00:16:54  So thanks again for your time Josh.

Andrew Gilliland 00:16:56  Thank you man. Appreciate it.