2. Joy Gendusa and Creating The Culture For Scale

There are two immutable laws of business:

1. You don't have to be a big brand to be a great brand.

2. All great brands have one thing in common: an authentic, definable culture.

In Episode 2 of a three-part episode with Joy Gendusa, Founder and CEO of PostcardMania, she dives into how she created a culture and framework so the employees could be as successful as possible.

And what does that kind of trust do? Well, if you've done the work to hire the right folks, it leads to a company that works together.

And, we all know that when dedicated, devoted teams work together, they're more likely to thrive.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

And we won't have we have a no office politics, no negative chat or policy at postcard mania. I don't want anyone to ever feel like they're being targeted or that there's clicks. This is not high school. I I I started this business partly because I hate office politics and I saw it every single place I worked. And I thought, I'm gonna just have my own company and we're not gonna, we're gonna have that. I'm never gonna have allow that in my company. And it I would say probably at close to 400 people, I think it's pretty, it's still pretty good.

SPEAKER_04 0:38

Welcome in to the Everywhere Small Business Podcast, where we speak with owners, leaders, and marketers from the world of small business. Look, there's a lot that small business owners can't control. But what they can control is how they grow. And one way to grow, well, it's by learning from other people who have actually done it, who've started businesses, grew businesses, and scale businesses, from the folks who are actually doing the work. My name is Chris Foster, and we are going to be speaking with business owners and leaders on their stories, how they passed from fear into focus, how they go from uncertainty to unwavering commitment, how they go from doubt to desire, how they balance all the things that are against them and turn that into energy to fuel their business growth. Brought to you by Postcard Mania, where we're on a mission to help one million small businesses grow through education, marketing, and technology, each episode is packed with insights, real conversations, true stories, and lessons you can learn and apply to your business so that you can grow too. And in this episode, we are gonna continue with Joy Genduza and her remarkable journey of scaling postcard media. Episode one was her origin story. We're gonna start kind of right exactly when we left off episode one. So if you haven't listened to episode one, you gotta. You just gotta. You gotta make sure you listen to episode one, because this is episode two of a three-part series. You gotta get her whole story. And in this part of the story, we're gonna learn how she scales. We're gonna learn what's important to her about scaling a business, how to scale businesses the way that she wanted to do it, to preserve the culture, and make sure that everybody can be the best versions of themselves to contribute to the business and to the customers. You're gonna love this part two of Joy Ginduce's story of postcard mania. Welcome in to the Everywhere Small Business Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

I was never one of those introspective trying to figure out why I do certain things. I mean, I I was more like busy, busy, busy busy trying to survive.

SPEAKER_04 3:12

Well, you know what though? I think so m so often you get caught up in, you know, people say, I've got these big visions, or I have this vision of a napkin I'm drawing in the bar, and this is my business, right? Yeah. Versus versus action. Right. Right? Taking action. And and I guess as you started to scale this business, were you thinking, man, I've got to figure out my lease and I've got to figure out my payroll this month, versus I've got this big vision of this big broad company? Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

I never had a vision. Um I'll tell you and and honestly, when I started the business I knew I wanted to work with small businesses, and it wasn't because I loved small businesses, it was because I never wanted to be owned by a big business. I didn't want one client to determine my future. I did not like it.

SPEAKER_04 3:55

Well, it's a very precarious place. I mean, there are there are companies where, you know, most of their revenue is determined by a client. I know. And that's a very scary place for a business to be.

SPEAKER_00 4:05

I know, I know. My husband's business was like that. He had giant banks as clients. Anyway, so I didn't want to be like that. So I did learn to love this, my clients. I and that's when I got really into like, oh my gosh, I've got to help these guys. Sure. And I started a blog before the word blog existed. I started documenting everything I was learning. Uh that's the book I have. When I my book is really a compilation of everything that I wrote. And then I hired a ghostwriter to put the chapters together and decide what chapter should be where.

SPEAKER_01 4:38

Uh-huh. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:39

And he was great. Yeah. Um, but I wrote the book. Just I wrote the chapters, I should say. Yeah. Um I just felt like, gosh, these guys need so much help.

SPEAKER_04 4:50

Aaron Powell Well, you know, small business is so interesting because they've either through a passion or through a family or through circumstances, they start their own. And there are so many things that a small business doesn't know when they get into it. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 5:03

Can I say something about that? I'm glad I didn't know a lot of things because if I knew what I know now, I don't I think it would have been too overwhelming and daunting. Sure. And I feel like that's why a lot of entrepreneurs are not from academia, because they know you know too much, you academia people. You know where all the pitfalls are, where you can fail. You know, I I didn't have I I kind of was my I knew that if I wasn't growing, I was shrinking.

SPEAKER_04 5:30

Right.

SPEAKER_00 5:30

And that comes from the hybrid management system.

SPEAKER_04 5:32

Trevor Burrus, Jr. It also comes from life, right? And that actually is what I think is so interesting about business.

SPEAKER_00 5:37

But I think But I didn't learn it from life. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_04 5:39

Right. No, I get you. No, I get you. But what I find interesting about life is that um it's never it never stays still. It always changes, right? There is a growth and there there are m maturities of everything. And businesses are a collective unit of people, right? It's they're not made by fire hydrants or pickles, it's people, right? And people grow and people change and people mature. So businesses do the same and they kind of grow and evolve. And so as you started to scale this and you said, well, this is the action I want versus the vision I have. Um do you find that that action-oriented approach has been the successful path?

SPEAKER_00 6:22

How do I know? It's the only business I've ever had. You know, I mean, I I don't I wouldn't be able to answer that question, honestly, because I only have my one experience, which is post-cartmania. I mean, I have other I have another little business now, and I have, you know, the other DM 2.0 and that kind of thing. But um, but this is really the only path I've ever taken. I never went and studied business. I've, you know, I've listened to books on, you know, Audible and I while I ride my bike, and I'm like, some of them I'm like, oh, I wow, we really we did that, you know, like you know, building a story brand, you know that I was like, this is this is what we did with Postcard Mania, and I never knew that that was something that I was doing until I listened to that book. So I've you know, so my journey is very unusual because people would ask me, like, who are your mentors and who did you, you know, learn from? And really, just like my husband, my current husband, who I've been with for 24 years, um is a great consultant for me.

SPEAKER_02 7:22

Great.

SPEAKER_00 7:22

Um, but I didn't really it was I feel that I have an innate ability that I didn't learn this lifetime.

SPEAKER_03 7:33

Right. Right.

SPEAKER_04 7:35

Somewhere in the city. It revealed itself.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

It revealed itself.

SPEAKER_04 7:39

Right, it revealed itself.

SPEAKER_00 7:40

And we talked earlier about it where And I'm not perfect at it by any stretch of the imagination.

SPEAKER_04 7:46

Well, well, no human's perfect, so no business owner's gonna be perfect.

SPEAKER_00 7:49

But I mean I probably could have grown way more if I took money from someone and did all that stuff.

SPEAKER_04 7:56

I I don't know. That's a tough thing. So just it's it's self-funded, right? Um and so the but I think that that's actually critical to a sense of hustle. I think that's critical to a sense of, hey, guys, uh this is us. It's not anyone else. I'm not beholden to someone else. Yeah. Right. There's also in some for some folks, maybe a cushion that comes and the security that comes, where if you don't have that security, you're more apt to work a little bit harder, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:24

Uh if you if you got it was more risky because I had nothing to lose, too.

SPEAKER_04 8:28

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 8:29

I was broke. I was married to a guitar player slash teacher. Right. Who had no he was a he was actually a programmer and played guitar on the weekends at night, and but then he wasn't it was my husband, he wasn't happy doing programming. And I wanted a happy husband. Sure. So I said, why don't you just play guitar and I'll figure out how to make money? And he was like, Cool, thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Yeah. So that marriage lasted 10 years.

SPEAKER_04 8:54

But but see, but through, you know, it's almost like, you know, necessity is the mother of invention, right? You actually have to do it. And so, but you're coming at that sense of survival with, I think, though, not an entrepreneurial background, but from a creative and designer background.

SPEAKER_00 9:12

But my dad was an entrepreneur.

SPEAKER_04 9:13

That's what I was gonna ask. Did that come from somewhere in the family? Did you have a model for that outside of books and the like?

SPEAKER_00 9:19

My dad left the house at 6 a.m. every day and he came home at 6 p.m. And he went to his office and he did whatever he did at his office. He was a transportation broker, I'd come to find out, I learned. And I did work for him. He goes to the office, whatever that is. Wherever that is. And it was in Queens, New York. And I did go to him one summer, I went and worked for him, and it was hilarious. The whole thing was hilarious to me. I was like, uh, why would anyone want to do this? It was like smelly in there. I guess people smoked it indoors back then. My dad wasn't a smoker, but it to me, I was like, ew. But anyway, but my dad, I didn't know where the roast beef came from. I c I grew up very privileged.

SPEAKER_02 9:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

Um my we weren't rich by any I I'm more successful than my dad was, but didn't want for anything.

SPEAKER_04 10:11

My I wasn't spoiled, but um, but also, too, you saw your dad leave at six and come home at six. So you saw hard work.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

I definitely saw hard work. Uh for whatever reason, I'm a hard worker.

SPEAKER_04 10:23

Yeah. I don't know why. You know, I think it's interesting. It's interesting. I don't know why that happens to folks either, right? I don't know if it's genetic, there's a predisposition, or if it's modeled. So my dad worked extremely long hours. Um and I've always worked. I just that's just what you do. You just work hard because that's what everybody does. And and and you get to a place where it feels weird if it if you don't.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

You get to well, for me, I know, and this comes from the hybrid management system, that production is the basis of morale. So I don't like to take credit for anything that's not mine. That's sure from there. So pr I knew that production is the basis of morale. And when I'm unproductive, my morale is crappy. Right. It's really low. Yeah. I go, I'm bored, I don't want to do anything, I don't know, you know. I I I need to be producing something. I need I've already worked myself out of a job at Postcard Mania once. I'm back on post. I mean, I never left, left, left. But if the stats are going up, I just leave it the heck alone. Sure. You know, and I and they needed me to come back this year, and I'm back. And um they would think that I never left, you know. You could ask, ask them I they probably think I'm gone now because I'm in Georgia all the time.

SPEAKER_04 11:39

But but it's interesting though that you talk about that that natural sense of, you know, or on the business side, where Hubbard codified the phrase of, you know, production is driver morale. But there's a human quality of being industrious. Of course. Right. And the people feel better about themselves if they're industrious if they're productive, right? You know, the lazy people aren't really the happiest people because they know that they should be doing something more and that we're producing creatures, right? We do this. Trevor Burrus, Jr.: It's true.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

And you can't and people who are on the dole are not happy. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_04 12:11

Correct, because they don't want to be that. Right. And so what that does, though, and I want to now, this is a perfect segue into this next part of the conversation, is what I'd call the authentic brand culture that's created within the organization. Trevor Burrus, Jr. It's very authentic. Trevor Burrus, Jr.: It's very authentic. Trevor Burrus, Jr.: It's so authentic. Trevor Burrus, Jr. And and and what happens is It was never planned. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Right. This is A, not planned, but B, it um as you start getting more employees, suddenly you go from 10 employees and then you have 25 employees, then you got 35 employees.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

Yeah. I mean I can tell you something. When we went we went from seven to eleven overnight. Right. And I felt incredibly uncomfortable speaking in front of eleven people.

SPEAKER_04 12:53

Yes. You know, and one of the questions I was going to ask, and we'll save this for later, because I want to ask, I was I even wrote it down, so it's so funny you say that. I was going to ask you to give the advice to a small business that has eight employees and going to eleven employees and what they should be looking for. So you have this interesting break point of seven to eleven employees, and suddenly that became more than 10.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

I was at staff meeting. I remember we we, you know, we do a weekly staff meeting here, a live weekly staff meeting, and we have a very small amount of remote staff, you being one of them. And um, so we do have a amazing. And it's great to live stream in. Yeah, we live stream in that YouTube. Yeah. I love watching it. Um I know. I like watching it too when I'm in Georgia. But um it was, you know, we do staff meeting every single week, Mondays, and this was my staff meeting, and I remember thinking, how am I- how do I have this many people here? I don't even know what to say. Like I got introverted, and I'm not introverted.

SPEAKER_04 13:50

Sure. Well, also, too, it might have been where you recognize that, oh, suddenly there's there's scale, right? This right scale?

SPEAKER_00 13:57

I didn't even know that word.

SPEAKER_04 13:58

No, I know you didn't know the word, but it happened. But it was there. It was there right in front of you. Because you went from seven to eleven. Well, gosh, Joy, eleven people, that's almost close to 14, which means you doubled in size. Exactly, right? That's the reaction you have.

SPEAKER_00 14:13

I know. And I didn't, I didn't have because I had at that point, I think that's when I realized I have something to lose. And not that I had anything to lose, because we weren't profitable for a while.

SPEAKER_04 14:23

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: But it was the collective had something to lose.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

It was it was more that like now I'm responsible for that person's salary and that person's salary. I need to make sure that I make the right decisions so that we don't if I'm not growing, I'm shrinking. And if I'm shrinking, I have to lose people. And I cannot lose people. Never, ever, ever do that. So that's a huge motivator for me to scale, quote unquote. It's like if you're not if you're not growing, you're shrinking. And if I'm shrinking, I'm harming people who work for me.

SPEAKER_01 14:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:53

And that's that's probably it in a nutshell. We can end this now.

SPEAKER_04 14:58

But it it goes back to a couple things. Um, a your sense of responsibility. Um, B, your nurturing core, um, where the um the sense of I am now not just responsible for you, but I want to be responsible for you. Right? And and and and with that is the burden is the um the motivator to keep the business thriving and to keep the business driving.

SPEAKER_00 15:28

It's always the people.

SPEAKER_04 15:29

And so it's interesting that, you know, you know, I feel that I've I've been at Postcard Mania for about a month and a half.

SPEAKER_00 15:36

He's our newest hire.

SPEAKER_04 15:38

Outstanding. Um But what I feel in the business is this interesting tension, which isn't a bad word, it's just a tension between a familial environment but a real professional environment. So there's this thing called the Netflix culture deck. I don't know if you've heard of it.

SPEAKER_02 15:54

Never heard of it.

SPEAKER_04 15:55

So it's on it's on slide share. So if you go to Google, do Netflix culture deck slideshare, um, the HR person of Netflix shared this to the world. Wow. To show what Netflix was thinking about when they went public. So Netflix, as you guys remember, used to mail DVDs in the mail. Yeah. And then they did a big transition. And they had this big moment in their career or in the in the course of their um business where they were moving to a place and they couldn't bring everybody with them because there were folks who just couldn't quite make that leap.

SPEAKER_00 16:30

Um, that has happened at postcard mania.

SPEAKER_04 16:32

And I'm gonna ask you about that. And so the story for Netflix was who are we? Are we a little league team with a bunch of family members, or are we a pro team with a bunch of all-stars? And we only want to hire all-stars. Right. So what I find interesting about the postcard mania environment is that there's this tension between a familial environment, because it feels like a family business, and it is a family business. We have whole families working for us. And there's also a group of all-stars. They're pros. They're really, really good at what they do. Um, I think that's an interesting tension. But before we get to that, at some point you must have said as we start growing, there's certain people that can't quite grow with us, and certain people who do grow with us or have grown with us.

SPEAKER_00 17:20

It's just a it just has occurred that way. Um, you get to a certain point. What I've noticed is some people can't handle power. If they get too much power, they become less kind or less like they can't handle it in a positive way.

SPEAKER_04 17:43

That's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

And we won't have we have a no office politics, no negative chat or policy at postcard mania. I don't want anyone to ever feel like they're being targeted or that there's clicks. This is not high school. I I I started this business partly because I hate office politics and I saw it every single place I worked. And I thought, I'm gonna just have my own company and we're not gonna we're gonna have that. I'm never gonna have allow that in my company. And it I would say probably at close to 400 people, I think it's pretty, it's still pretty good. I'm sure it happens, and I don't know about it.

SPEAKER_04 18:21

Well, I can tell you that in the intro videos, I loved your intro video because all the executives say welcome to Postcard Mania. And your request was if you see any chatter or negativity, just stop it. And you're gonna be the responsible for the policing this, and you actually, in that request, say you're the carrier of the culture.

SPEAKER_00 18:43

Oh yeah. I don't say those words. I don't say those words, but you do say I'm relying on you to keep it to keep it the way it is.

SPEAKER_04 18:50

Keep it the way it is. But what you're doing for every employee is you're giving us the gift of carrying the flag of the culture. You're right. It creates an authentic culture that we all want to be a part of and preserve.

SPEAKER_00 19:02

I love that you know how to take everything that I've done and figure out what it's called.

SPEAKER_04 19:09

I don't know what everything's called. No, but but it's there, which I love. And and I think that, you know, because the the responsibility for every employee is to keep the culture at 400 people the same it was at 40 people, the same it was at four people. Yeah. Because it can't come directly from one person, although it has come from you, right? I mean, that's the the through line of the culture comes from you, the founder. Yeah. And then you hire people who preserve and protect that culture.

SPEAKER_00 19:38

We do our best. And those that cannot don't last. Sure. It's either too positive here. We once had somebody once it's too positive. We once had somebody leave after a staff meeting and never come back. Like we hired them, they worked for a day. It was like staff meeting was Monday. They came to staff meeting and they left and never came back. I remember this happening years ago. Maybe we had 30 staff. We had the most fun staff meetings when we were much smaller, too.

SPEAKER_02 20:04

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 20:05

It's harder to make a fun staff meeting feel like everybody's like, get me out of here. I have work to do. But we try. And um, our staff meetings were such a hoot. And I this person was probably like, this place is whack. I'm out of here. That's hilarious. We used to be incredibly politically incorrect, incredibly vulgar. Uh-huh. We had, I can tell you stories that I can't even believe. Now I am so policed by my VPHR and Melissa. Melissa. She was like, Joe, you can't say that, George. You can't do that.

SPEAKER_02 20:36

Like, this is my company.

SPEAKER_00 20:37

I want to be able to say and do it if I want. We had these guys one time, um, probably in 2010, we did a girls of postcard mania calendar.

SPEAKER_04 20:47

Which was awesome, by the way. It's fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 20:49

Yes, and it's not sexist at all. It's excellent. It's beautiful. We did have a few clients feel that it was inappropriate.

SPEAKER_01 20:58

Uh-huh. We sent it to her.

SPEAKER_00 20:59

Yeah, and I was just like, whatever. I'm a woman.

SPEAKER_01 21:01

How I'm a woman.

SPEAKER_00 21:03

I'm not, I'm just anyway, it's a great calendar. The boys next year made a joke calendar that was hilarious. Yes. But they didn't use all the photos that showed me the outtakes. They had photos of like one guy who was in a box and that's all he was wearing. He was holding the box around to see, you know. Yeah. I mean, they did crazy, crazy things. You know, Anthony, who's my COO now, very serious, very professional person. He used to be in charge of, we call it the warehouse because it was pre-before we printed in-house. They just, I don't know what they did in there. They did all the shipping and inventory and whatever they did. And we had mail machines. I think we had mail machines. And we had this guy who worked for us, and then he got a real job, finished school, got a real job in an insurance company, and he used to come back to Postcard Mania for his daily constitution at lunchtime.

SPEAKER_03 21:58

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 21:59

And that one time, and they Would he would come in and be like, I'm here to use the bathroom. Right. And he'd use the bathroom. And the guys took, they knew he was coming and they took the pins out of the Yes, they did. They took the pins out of the hinges on the door. We had crazy shenanigans happening. I bet if you ever interview Anthony, they're shenanigans that I don't even know about. Sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:22

But that builds a culture.

SPEAKER_00 22:23

Yeah. And we and we have to be we have to be like way less cuckoo manga now.

SPEAKER_03 22:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

Probably could have been a sitcom at one time.

SPEAKER_04 22:30

Right. I get it. I get it. But it but that's part of the thing. When you scale, you've got other responsibilities, you've got more people, you've got sensitivities, and the world has changed. The world changed. Everybody's sensitive. Everybody's so sensitive.

SPEAKER_00 22:41

You know, and I'm not sensitive. Like anybody can make fun of me about anything, and I don't care, you know. But people are very, very sensitive these days.

SPEAKER_04 22:49

It's changed a bit. But and what's what I think is fascinating about this culture, though, is the not just the playfulness part of it, because it's playful, right? There's a playful nature to the culture which you never want to lose. But along with the playfulness, there's this other side of performance where everyone not only holds each other accountable for keeping the culture, but they hold each other accountable for their performance because everybody is performing.

SPEAKER_00 23:15

Yeah. I don't, you know, I I haven't been to all the staff meetings that you've been to. You've been to everyone since you I've watched everyone. Everyone you've watched. What I love is when I go to staff meeting and Desiree, like well, my my VP of VIP marketing, she'll get up and really acknowledge the production guys and the people who are making the work, getting it out on time perfectly, and what it takes for them to do that, and how we all have a dedication to the customer. We have a dedication to each other. Yeah. It's a really, it's really freaking amazing, amazing group. I mean, I am so proud of this group. It blows my mind.

SPEAKER_04 24:00

Yeah. Well, and it makes sense because you created that as the as the sense of it at the beginning, where we're all a team. I'm responsible for you all, but you're also all responsible for each other. And so, you know, the best teams are in it for the group.

SPEAKER_00 24:16

100%.

SPEAKER_04 24:17

Not for themselves. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 24:18

And you know, that's that's a that's one of the things from growing this big. I I wish I could come up with some kind of an education. I want all the staff to understand how business works and how profits work. Because if we're not profitable, there's no job. There's no more business. It's I don't ever want it to become, and I feel like it has a little bit like the man. I'm the man. You know, I'm like there's like somehow I'm getting super rich, but everybody else is is you know being shit on or something. It's not the case. You know, um, I I leave the bulk of the revenue in the company. Sure. I I need it there for times like COVID. Sure. Where I didn't lay off anybody. Which is awesome. But you they they don't understand that it if it that it at this size, it is so easy to become unprofitable.

SPEAKER_03 25:13

Correct.

SPEAKER_00 25:14

And I wish I could pay everybody so much money. I mean you know, and it's really hard. I want them, I need guys to understand the more educated they become as marketers, the more valuable they become to postcard mania and uh and our clients.

SPEAKER_04 25:29

And the customers.

SPEAKER_00 25:30

And and that's how they can it they need to understand the circle of life. Maybe they should just all go watch The Lion King again.

SPEAKER_04 25:38

Yes. Yes. But I think what's interesting about that is you pull the people into the organizational understanding of how businesses actually work, how profits actually work. And and I guess a question that I would have for you that um a small business watching this would ask is, you know, as you started to build that culture up, what did you do to ensure that the team was in it for each other? How did you make sure that the team was collaborative in nature and that their really their focus was on the greater good, not just themselves?

SPEAKER_00 26:15

It's in the hiring.

SPEAKER_04 26:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 26:17

It's definitely in the hiring because we ask very specific questions that will bring out that person's basic personality.

SPEAKER_05 26:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 26:27

Um you were not hired that way, because I just wanted you to be you know what I mean? We we we bypass the system with you.

SPEAKER_01 26:35

I get it.

SPEAKER_00 26:36

However, legally, I'm supposed to have everybody get asked the exact same questions. So the questions we will ask um, what is your most proud accomplishment?

SPEAKER_04 26:47

Great question.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

I don't care if it's raising my children, if that's the answer to the question.

SPEAKER_04 26:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:52

You have to have one. Sometimes people are stumped by that question in not hiring you. If you don't have something you're proud of by the time you're looking for a job, this is not the place for you.

SPEAKER_02 27:03

Right.

SPEAKER_00 27:04

So that's a question. Um we ask questions about tell me what your thoughts are on work life balance. Now, I was born in the 60s. Work work balance.

SPEAKER_03 27:21

Which work work balance exactly. Your dad went at six, came home at the time. He came home at six. My dad worked 80 hours a week.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

Right. And and you know, and my mom burned dinner every night for him. So um when, yeah, that's another story. He's she stopped cooking when I was 12. But anyway, she was done every with everybody complaining. Um I have a very like work is really important to me. So there's a lot of generalities that go around, like today's youth don't know what work is. Well, they've been saying that since like the 20s.

SPEAKER_01 27:51

Forever.

SPEAKER_00 27:52

Forever and ever. There are always people that feel that work is not important and that they, you know, if you watch, if you scroll TikTok, it's the what's in it for me thing. And that's what you see and that's what goes viral. What's in it for me, what's in it for me? No, we hire some amazing young people that have incredible work ethics that come from more or less. They've either seen hard work or they know that they're gonna, they don't want what they came from and they're going to work hard. And that's in the hiring. And you can definitely ask very specific questions. I don't have them all on top of my head because I haven't done it myself, but I had a big part in the writing.

SPEAKER_04 28:29

But oriented in their belief structure, right? Oriented in their belief about themselves, oriented in their belief about what they want to be a part of, right? Because I think that that also not only does it like a magnet to pull people who are ambitious and have that balance between playfulness and performance into the company, but it also shields us from people who wouldn't fit, right? Because you don't get the folks in who don't want to be a part of something more than themselves, right? Right. And I think that that's part of it too.

SPEAKER_00 29:02

Where I mean, I feel like we we definitely have people here that are in it for themselves. And they're of course. Yeah, I mean, we're at 400 people and I can't interview all of them.

SPEAKER_03 29:09

Of course.

SPEAKER_00 29:10

And I wish I could. But there are some wonderful, wonderful superstars. And if I get hold of those people and find out about them, they get elevated in this company. You know who's a great example, Janine? Sure. She is spectacular. She is a great designer, but aside from that, she's a great administrator and a great educator, and she has the most beautiful attitude. And I just she reports directly to me.

SPEAKER_02 29:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:40

She started here as a graphic designer not that many years ago. And then she became our nighttime supervisor.

SPEAKER_01 29:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 29:49

So she was designing and supervising, but second shift, which sucks. Um, but she did it, you know, and she excelled at it. And then I started having her design things for my other businesses and my other little things because Matt got is so busy. Matt, you know, Matt is our designer. Postcard Mania. Matt designs for postcard mania's marketing. He's done all the websites. I can't bother Matt. Everybody bothers Matt.

SPEAKER_03 30:14

Correct. I bother Matt.

SPEAKER_00 30:16

Yeah. Everybody bothers. And he gets it done. He gets everything done. So I was like, let me just bother Janine, because these are things that I don't want Matt rolling his eyes at me behind my back. So I figured let me take someone more um, you know, ambitiously excited about it.

SPEAKER_04 30:32

Yeah, but here's the thing that's interesting is that you're able to see those people who have that ambition, that have that spark. And also I think that there's um an interesting part about working in the business world where, and it applies in other places in the world too, where belief is such a critical component to the action first. Right? If you believe that you can do this, or you believe that you can achieve, or believe that you can be a part of something better and motivates you to do the right actions to follow up on that belief.

SPEAKER_00 31:06

Yeah. Right? You know, because I feel like everybody's fully responsible for their own condition in life and that they can make whatever they want of whatever opportunity, or they can make lemonade or lemons. They can, they it's up to them. So they can come here and see all the things that are not perfect about postcard mania, and they could kind of be annoyed about it and and decide that they're annoyed and this place is not as good as I thought it was gonna be, and da-da-da-da-da. And then you have people that can see how much care the senior execs put into making this a great place to work. It takes work to make a place a great place to work.

SPEAKER_04 31:43

100%.

SPEAKER_00 31:44

And it's not easy. And we can't make everybody happy all of the time. But we're trying. And the people who see that and know that we care so much about them, and they go, wow, I I want to be part of something like that.

SPEAKER_04 31:58

Right.

SPEAKER_00 31:58

It's their decision.

SPEAKER_04 32:00

And so that's ultimately and it pulls it pulls them into the into the culture. And so what I what I love about the culture is that it's getting to this um really interesting interchange of energy and connection between the business and the customers. So one of the reasons why we talk about education and really promote education to the small businesses is that A, we know we, because we were a small business, but we've helped so many. We've helped so many, we've seen it work for so many other small businesses. Then the question is why wait? Help us, let us help you, like have that sense of belief to come in and work with us because we can help. We've done it, we've done it before for 130,000 folks. And I think that that sense of wanting to help those businesses permeates in the culture. I think the culture is really driven towards not only helping each other out, but extending that towards our customers. Aaron Powell, I know.

SPEAKER_00 32:57

And isn't this when you hear the the acknowledgement at staff meeting about you know the how they're so they're working so hard to help that customer. Exactly. And they're acknowledging each other for helping helping the customer. It's a beautiful thing because it's really it makes me so proud. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 33:15

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: It It should. It should make you proud. It makes it makes me proud to be a part of it, right? And that this is the collective good that we're promoting. And so I think from a culture perspective, you know, if if I'm a if I'm a small business owner watching this, what would you say would be a maxim, which is kind of a a saying or a truth that you have. Um a maxim about building culture and protecting culture in their team.

SPEAKER_00 33:40

It starts from the top. And I believe that whoever is in charge has to have a lot of love in their heart for the people that are working for them and not look at the bad things about them. Nobody is perfect. And you know what? I'm gonna back it up a little bit. You have to hire people that really care for your business, and hiring is so important. But once you have someone that's really good, it's up to you as the owner to create an environment where they can thrive. And if you can't do that, you're always gonna be miserable with staff. That you know, the fact that that's the thing that I see. Like people have said to me, Oh, I never want to have staff. Oh, I never want to have staff, uh, staff is the worst part of my business. Staff, staff, staff. People can't stand having staff and all the issues that come with staff. And there are a lot of issues. The more the more staff you have, the more issues there are.

SPEAKER_04 34:33

Of course. Well, the complexity of the dynamics grows.

SPEAKER_00 34:36

So when you didn't even have an HR until we had like a hundred people. Sure. We didn't even have an HR.

SPEAKER_04 34:41

Well, and you and you would think about it when you had three or four people, right? When it's just you and Joy, you had two relationships. Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Joy and Joy. Uh-huh. Joy and joy. Then you have three, then you have four, and suddenly you've got multiple relationships, and then you got eight. Then it tr it quadruples and exponentially grows in terms of all the different relationships that have to be managed. So you, as owner, can't manage all those relationships. The team has to manage those relationships. Right.

SPEAKER_00 35:06

I feel like the owner manages it when there's when the team is like 11 to 20 people, the owner. Right. You know, and I also think that having an org board and having very specific roles for each person and what they're responsible for puts order in in the business and makes people not feel like a chicken without a head because they have their role that they have to do. I think that's really helpful.

SPEAKER_04 35:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:28

Um we need to take a break.

SPEAKER_04 35:31

We'll take a break. Well, that sounds like a pretty good time to take a break for episode two. And we're going to be moving on to episode three next. Um, this is just incredible. Thank you, Joy. And again, what did I learn from her today in this episode? You know, the first thing is that it starts with culture. It starts with intention. It begins with, hey, we're not gonna have any office politics, but most importantly, I want to create an environment where everybody can be their best selves and thrive. And what does that mean? That means clarity of role. That means clear purpose. That means alignment of the vision, and then of course the strategy, and then all the communications that follows in there. And of course, it also means learning from what you did and not getting too down on yourself for mistakes that you make and correcting and improving and always wanting people to get better. This is an environment where the culture creates the possibility to scale. The culture creates the opportunity to scale. It's not magic, it's really hard work, but more importantly, it's a guiding principle driven by the leader. Well, I hope you enjoyed this episode, and again, this is part two of a three-part series of how Joy Gendusa and team has grown postcard mania to a $100 million business. So stay tuned for episode three, which is coming up next. And welcome in to the Everywhere Small Business Podcast.