Episode Overview:

In this episode of the Staffing Buzz Network, host Bob Pettke sits down with Robert Reid, a principal at Butler Street and former Randstad veteran, to preview his two sessions at the upcoming Midwest Staffing Conference. Robert brings a unique background to the table, combining over 13 years of staffing experience with a serious improv comedy resume that includes performing at Second City in Chicago. He explains how that combination is actually a perfect fit for corporate training, where keeping an audience engaged is half the battle. The conversation kicks off with a look at his opening keynote, built around Butler Street’s four cornerstones of success: attitude, personal accountability, perseverance, and habit. Robert makes the case that these fundamentals, not market conditions, are what separated growing companies from struggling ones in a tough 2024.

From there, the discussion shifts to Robert’s second session, focused on asking better questions and having the bravery to follow them wherever they lead. He pushes back on the idea that there are no stupid questions, arguing that too many salespeople stick to the same comfortable, transactional questions because they already know the answers. The ones who stand out are the ones willing to go down the rabbit hole, asking deeper consultative questions that make clients feel genuinely heard. He also puts a heavy emphasis on preparation, noting that Butler Street treats pre-meeting planning as a non-negotiable, right down to a three-page prep document before every client call.

The episode wraps up with Robert sharing the two things he thinks every staffing professional should focus on: genuine interest in the people they work with, and regular role practice. He makes a point that even the best improviser in the room will stumble without a solid game plan, a lesson he says he learned firsthand after joining Butler Street.

Listen to the Episode:

Episode Transcript:

Bob Pettke: [00:00:00] Coming to you from the Ultra Staff Studios in Chicago, welcome to the Staffing Buzz Network with your host Bob Pettke.

I’ve said it before, I’m gonna say it again. It does not get old. It does not get old listening to that intro. Hi everybody. My name is Bob Pettke. I am the chief sales officer here for ABD, Automated Business Designs, Ultra-Staff EDGE. We are an organization that offers a solution, an ATS CRM solution for both your front and back office, and so we’ve been in the staffing industry promoting some different things right now.

And we are on another installment where we’re actually promoting on this podcast, the Midwest Staffing Conference, yet again. A little bit about the Midwest Staffing Conference is going to be held April 23rd and 24th at the Drury Lane [00:01:00] Conference Center in Oak Brook, Illinois.

And it’s gonna be a fantastic conference for people that are like-minded in staffing. It’s a highly anticipated two-day event. It’s designed for staffing professionals from all over the Midwest. They’re all converging and coming together to share their experiences, to collaborate, and to learn from industry leaders, and what I’m gonna recommend for those that are watching and haven’t enrolled yet, you can go ahead and enroll.

I believe the early bird enrollment is getting close to expiration, so you’re gonna wanna check on that. But if you’re an ISSA member or a WAS or a MAS member, you can go ahead and email info@issaworks.com.

And again, good event. Tremendous, big, good event. We’re gonna have experts in staffing on both the sales side, the recruiting side, operations. So that’s something to be excited about. We’re gonna have a lot of partner [00:02:00] companies there, so if you’re looking to partner with different companies, as far as some of the things that you bring in to run your staffing business.

All the best or best are gonna be there. With that said, I’m gonna transition here this morning, and I’m excited to bring on stage today’s guest, Robert Reid. Robert. Good morning. How are you?

Robert Reid: I am well, Bob. Thanks so much for having me. It’s great to be here.

Bob Pettke: Yeah. You’ve been like Willie Nelson on the road again, right?

Robert Reid: Yes, I am. I am on the road right now. Be on the road next week. But it’s fun. I love ’cause I work from home, getting out of the house, and traveling around, and getting to meet with people. Always a great part of my job.

Bob Pettke: Perfect. Hey, Robert, for people who don’t know who you are, and I know you’re really well known on the circuit in staffing, just to, Robert is really a principal at Butler Street.

13 years of staffing experience from business development to recruiting and key account management. Additionally, Robert is highly successful [00:03:00] improv theater talent and a creative content writer. His ability to add fun factors as he does instruction, through his trainings, and his e-learning, and his learning sessions, is really helping increase retention of the Butler Street’s highly successful methodologies, processes, and skills training.

A little bit more about Robert. He utilizes those skills and his ability as a corporate trainer to perform for various theaters, including the famed Second City in Chicago. And Robert has facilitated training sessions for companies and organizations looking for a unique approach to training on topics such as communication, collaboration, innovation, anything else that ends with a nation skills as well as team building.

A little bit more even so, about Robert, he’s performed both improv and sketch comedy for corporate entertainment offerings. And prior to his role as a corporate trainer, Robert actually began his [00:04:00] process with Randstad, an international staffing firm that’s currently ranked as the second largest in the world. Robert, there’s a lot of things going on right there that I think people are gonna be drawn to.

First and foremost, people love to be entertained, right? So you’ve got that going for you. And then side by side, your experience. Your experience in driving business because when you were with Randstad, you were handling some onsite key accounts, for both Jacksonville and Chicago. And then, recruiting manager, you worked for PPR, and then you were at Human People Services.

So you got a lot of experience, both on the how would I say it? Entertainment and then also staffing. And I think in staffing, we’re often easily entertained anyway, so to have someone with that chemistry, welcome again.

Robert Reid: Thank you. Yeah. Hearing you rattle all that off, I was like, man, I guess I’ve done a lot in my life.

But yeah. It’s interesting. I found the perfect marriage of the two worlds that I live in with Butler [00:05:00] Street. Being able to be a, because I do a lot of training, okay. And training for me is performing. I am on stage, and all of my participants need to be entertained if they’re going to learn.

So, being able to bring that staffing knowledge and the entertainment background, it’s a match made in heaven for me.

Bob Pettke: And I imagine, right? ’cause you gotta bring your A game, you gotta be up, you gotta be motivated. I try to do that even here in this segment. And I’ll tell you, an hour doing this, it’ll exhaust you.

Robert Reid: Yeah, I know, right?

Bob Pettke: Because, yeah.

Robert Reid: Yeah, I think I did yesterday. I did six hours straight. Training you really, sometimes you gotta dig deep, but it’s worth it. I love it.

Bob Pettke: No,

absolutely. So you’re at Butler Street, and we’ve had Mike Jacoutot on, we’re, I’m familiar, and Mike’s a great guy, worked with Marianne as well.

Tell us about what you, more specifically, but besides the bio, tell us more about your day-to-day, or your life with that group.

Robert Reid: Sure. Yeah, it’s interesting. I’ll be coming up on six years with Butler [00:06:00] Street this May, and the vast majority of what I do is training.

I think last year I did 673 hours of training, the way that this year’s shaped up to be, I’m gonna surpass that this year. We are super busy. I think I’ve got 97 hours of training this month. So that is the vast majority of what I do is I’m running sales training sessions, recruiting, training sessions, leadership, account management, chat GPT workshops, all of that stuff.

So that is the vast majority of what it is that I do. A little bit of what you heard in my bio is the content creation, which, anytime we have an initiative to do an overhaul of one of our e-learning programs, I’m oftentimes doing the voiceover for it. I’m coming up with funny videos to make it entertaining, a lot of that content creation as well, which is nice.

You get to scratch that creative itch from time to time. But yeah, lot of training, and I do, I love it. I love getting to connect with people [00:07:00] and watching them blossom and get better. Yes, probably the most satisfying part of my job.

Bob Pettke: One of the things we know in staffing is competition’s high, the world is small.

So when people that are looking to maybe bring on different training features and functions or options to their organizations and staffing, there’s some other choices out there. But why is Butler Street the place to go?

Robert Reid: I think when you think about a training organization, so we do management consulting, research, we do all of these things.

We’re not just a training organization. But I think what really makes us unique is we all worked in the industry for many years before we came together and said let’s up the game of the entire industry. Sure. Let’s put together a game plan where we really elevate the staffing industry.

So I think that’s what sets us apart is our unique and in-depth staffing knowledge.

Bob Pettke: No. Yeah. And that’s one of the things, a lot of Ronstadt folks there, a lot of people that have [00:08:00] earn their keep in staffing. And again, it’s funny how everybody seems to know each other the more time you spend in the industry.

Yeah. Like myself, many years in the industry, and here I am on the other side of things, but nevertheless, talking staffing every single day.

Robert Reid: I know. We tend to fall into this industry, and we stick it out. We like it.

Bob Pettke: Robert, it’s funny you say that, and I bring it up all the time.

I usually tell people. And I’ll run it by you, too. I say that you don’t choose staffing. Staffing chooses you, I think about as a kid, when you were a young man, if you had brothers or sisters or friends and neighbors, it’s not like you played staffing, right?

Unless there’s something to talk about here. Somehow, some way, staffing chose you. How did you get into staffing?

Robert Reid: It’s interesting. I think the way what you just described is what happened to me. I graduated from the University of Florida with a degree in advertising.

I didn’t know what I wanted to study in college. I chose advertising because it seemed to have a little bit of the creative elements to it, but after college, it was very difficult for me to find a [00:09:00] job. I was going on interviews, and my brother worked at Randstad, so I feel like a lot of jobs happen because you’ve got that personal connection.

He introduced me to the local team in Jacksonville, got me an interview, and the rest is history. I had an awesome career at Randstad, such a great organization to work at. 11 years was great.

Bob Pettke: Awesome. The purpose of why we’re here, obviously to learn about you and to get people interested in the Midwest Staffing Conference.

April 23rd, 24th. Don’t forget—email info@issaworks.com. Don’t forget about that, you’re gonna be doing two, you’ve got two sessions. And the first one is it’s the opening keynote. And that’s gonna be, it’s titled From Challenges to Champions Building Success in 2025.

And it’s empowering resilience and driving innovation in the rapidly evolving world of staffing and business. That’s a mouthful, [00:10:00] brother.

Robert Reid: It is.

Bob Pettke: So, talk to us a little bit about that. Let’s put the whistle and talk a little bit about what you’re gonna cover, and through the process, maybe talk about why people want to come and hear that.

Robert Reid: Yep. The first thing that I thought to really mention when I talk about the speeches that I do, the workshops that I do, is they’re interactive. I think just in my career, I would go to a speech and it was the speaker talking and talking and talking. And I think for me, as a training facilitator, I’m always looking to engage.

I’m always looking to draw the audience in. And so one thing that I really do with my speeches is there’s a lot of audience interaction. I’m gonna ask questions of the audience. We’re gonna field that information and use it. But when we think about the focus of this keynote, Butler Street is really built on a foundation of what we call the four cornerstones of success, which are attitude, personal, accountability, perseverance, and habit.

Mike Jacoutot, who you mentioned, raised his children on the four cornerstones of [00:11:00] success. One of them owns their own marketing company. One of them owns their own staffing company, and the other one is a successful lawyer. So he did something right? Sure. And so when we think about 2024 was tough, not an easy year.

It was tough for us as well. But what we do at Butler Street is we really lean into those four cornerstones. You’re gonna, if you’re gonna be successful, you gotta have a positive attitude. If you’re gonna be successful, you have to be personally accountable and stop using all of the excuses to justify a lack of results.

We’re big on let’s get a little bit better every single day, and then developing those great habits. And I’ll tell you double-digit growth in 2024. It was not easy. We had to buckle down and fight. But if you have that foundation of those four cornerstones, that fight is easier. You have that foundation to really back you up.

So when we think about entering 2025, that’s gonna be a big part of my speech, is [00:12:00] you gotta master these four, and they’ve gotta be a daily priority because I think we can all agree, is it better to have a positive attitude or better to not have a positive attitude? This is a rhetorical question that we all know the answer to.

And so it’s just, it’s mapping out how am I gonna make that a priority? So that’ll be a big part of my keynote, as well as I always weave in improvisation into every event that I do. The exercise, the speech will have a lot of different improv-based concepts and exercises as well, because improvisers are great at dealing with change.

Because that is what improv is on stage. It’s one change to the next change. None of them were anticipated, and so being able to share some of that knowledge and techniques is a great way for people to learn how to navigate, change, and find success.

Bob Pettke: You talk about, in that heading, driving [00:13:00] innovation. So tell us a little bit about that.

Robert Reid: Yeah. I think this is taking the world we’ve always lived in and flipping it on its axis. I think when we think about innovation is committing to thinking differently. It’s committing to looking at the world differently.

It’s committing to being creative. And I think most importantly, it’s committing to failing. Which is, I think, something we’re all terrified to do. But what we miss is that failure is the ultimate growth opportunity. And it’s actually a big part of improv. We actually see failure.

We call them gold nuggets, okay? Because when I’m doing an improvised scene and somebody makes a mistake on stage, all the actors jump on that mistake, and it now becomes the new reality to the delight of the audience. Because it’s so refreshing to see a mistake become the central focal point.

And so, encouraging people to fail forward [00:14:00] and innovation is a result of all of those things.

Bob Pettke: When people are afraid to take a chance, and it’s on that same process about that whole failure thing. What’s been your experience when people don’t get out of their way, and they just stay reclusive? Are people able to thrive and survive in that? Or is it something that they just always have to be considering, is like looking for the next thing? ’cause the world’s always changing and it’ll pass you by.

Robert Reid: It totally will.

And I think just as we experienced with the advent of the internet, we’re in the same kind of situation with AI. And the one thing that I’m really pleased to see is probably a year and a half ago, I would do a speech and ask people, “Who’s using AI?” “Who’s using the ChatGPTs or the copilots of the world?”

Not many hands went up. The good thing that I’m seeing is now when I ask that, a lot of hands go up.

Bob Pettke: Sure.

Robert Reid: Which is good. But that should tell the people who are in the I’ll wait and see holding pattern that they’re now the minority. So the [00:15:00] whole sit back and wait and see what happens is a very dangerous mentality in thinking about how quickly our world is changing.

You cannot do that. And so it is this idea of don’t worry about making the big changes, make all the little changes, ’cause all the little changes lead to that progress. So you got people who are in a wait-and-see pattern, uh-uh, start making little changes.

Bob Pettke: Which leads us into your next segment when you’re at the Midwest Staffing Conference, into the rabbit hole and bravery and uncovering client truths, asking the right questions, embracing the answers, and following them fearlessly.

When I see, ask the right questions. I thought there was no such thing as a good or bad question. So tell me about asking the right question.

Robert Reid: Yeah. There is that mantra. There’s no stupid questions, to which I would say yes, there are.

Bob Pettke: Okay.

Robert Reid: There are absolutely stupid [00:16:00] questions. You sit down with a customer and say, “So tell me what you do here.”

That’s a stupid question. It’s interesting, Bob. I think one thing that really started to buzz around in my brain during 2024 was I, because again, all I do every day is train salespeople and recruiters, staffing professionals all day. And the one pattern that I started to see was that people don’t know how to ask great questions.

People know how to ask the questions they’re comfortable with. These are those stock pre-planned questions. The reason that we’re comfortable with those is we’re comfortable with the responses. So the reason that I added the word rabbit hole to the title of that workshop is. You ask a really great question.

You’re committing to go down a rabbit hole, and there’s a lot of fear that comes with that. ‘Cause when we ask a really deep, detailed question to get that customer to open up, now we’re stepping into a situation we may not be as familiar with because [00:17:00] we don’t know what that customer’s gonna say. But if we think about the most valuable question you can ask, it’s the one that leads you right down the rabbit hole.

’cause that’s when the customer says finally. I’m not getting what feel like transactional questions. I’m getting really deep, thoughtful, consultative questions. Thank you.

Bob Pettke: Yeah, consultative questions, right? That’s where I’ve always gone because we live in a world where I think the average person shows up, and for maybe a discovery meeting, and they ask all of the transactional questions.

Some of them might border on transactional, like maybe they say, what are the things that keep you up at night? As far as trying to staff and do recruiting. But it’s really those consultative questions. Questions like what happens when you don’t have a full staff?

Asking people things like, “Are you rewarded through KPIs internally and bonuses if your whole team shows up and your productivity’s better?” “Now, these are different things than what’s the start [00:18:00] time?” “What’s the end time?” “When do they take lunch?” “Who’s the supervisor?”

Things like that. So I’m on board with you. I think about those consultative questions that really separate everybody from the pack, because we’ve got, if you’ve got a hundred people that are out there doing the same thing, there’s probably 93 of ’em.

And as you get to more of them, that number will decrease. But they’re all just asking the same things and then just asking for orders, and then they’re not coming in prepared for these meetings. What do you think about preparation when you’re having meetings and asking right questions?

What kind of prep work are you recommending or seeing?

Robert Reid: Sure. One thing I’ll do, just to comment on the last thing that you said. Everybody’s doing the same thing, and we wonder why customers say you’re all the same.

Bob Pettke: Yes.

Robert Reid: I’ve dealt with one agency. You’re all the same.

Just because everybody’s behaving the same way. So I think for people who are listening to this, who coming to the conference in April, you wanna break out of that mold. Asking better questions is a fantastic way [00:19:00] to do that. And to address the second thing that you asked Bob, was planning, we like to say the Benjamin Franklin quote, “A failure to plan is just a plan to fail.”

At Butler Street, if you don’t plan for a customer meeting. It’s probably gonna lead to some pretty serious disciplinary action. Like we, we don’t mess around with that. Okay. We are big on planning, so when I say planning, we’re identifying every single person that we’re meeting with, and we are stalking them.

By that, I mean we are doing tons of research. We’re finding them on every social media outlet. We are doing a ton of research. We’re setting goals for the meeting. We’re putting together questions for the meeting agenda for the meeting. We’re anticipating, practicing, preparing for those objections that we know they’re coming.

So let’s not just wing it. Let’s have a solid game plan. So yeah, we take that very seriously at Butler Street. The amount of planning that we do is [00:20:00] tremendous. Typically, it’s a three-page document that we fill out before each meeting.

Bob Pettke: Now you talk about the objections are coming, and one of the things that I always would tell the teams that I was working with is, imagine that you’re on your way home from work and you knew that a bridge was out. You would anticipate that was out. You would have a plan to detour that, right?

And it’s the same thing, right?

If you know what some of these objections are, you don’t just run into them. Sometimes you can craft and draft your verbiage to eliminate it and answer it all at the same time, and then when you do get those objections, I’m a believer in like turning those objections into your objective.

In other words, if somebody says to me. You guys are all the same. You brought it up just a second ago. It’s funny you say that. And now I need to turn my objection into the objective. I need to demonstrate to you that I am not the same. And I think it’s a tremendous message that you’re bringing to the table here.

And prep work, I think, is key. I think you what even led me to even ask you that question, [00:21:00] ’cause I’m not scripting on this one here, is you said something along the lines of, “What do you guys do here?” And it’s what the heck? What the heck is that? Yeah. What do you see?

What happens? And you got some before and after, right? Because you’ve worked with people that are probably doing things where they’re just doing the textbook questions that are very just very factual. And then you’ve got people thinking what are any kind of one or two stories of somebody that’s really taken it to the next level after going through some of the things that you and your organization have presented.

Robert Reid: I think in my role, where I see that growth is from session to session. Typically, I do a nine-part series, and one of the things that we do is we start talking about questions, and then we get people into what we call role practice. We call, we don’t call it role play ’cause we’re not playing.

We call it role practice.

Bob Pettke: Sure. Makes sense.

Robert Reid: And that’s where I really see that growth happen. And oftentimes you’ll see that transition of somebody who was very [00:22:00] transactional. You can see them taking that, although sometimes reluctant because it requires that bravery, but they take that step to really ask that deep question, where we say something like, all right, so what I’m hearing you say is that your third shift is never fully staffed.

You’re having to shut down lines. So let’s talk about that. How does the first shift team feel having to pick up the slack ’cause third shift couldn’t do it? Let’s talk about the truck drivers that are in the warehouse. They’re at the bays waiting to take off, but they can’t get the product on the truck.

And you see these types of questions begin to emerge from training participants. And, like I mentioned earlier, that’s the most satisfying part of my job.

Bob Pettke: No, that’s great. And so the folks that are gonna be coming to the Midwest Staffing Conference, April 23rd and 24th, are in for a treat. And we’re gonna be excited to have you here.

You’ve probably got a lot of things going on between now and then, but we know you’ll be [00:23:00] refreshed and ready to go on the 24th ’cause you’ve got two sessions on that day, brother. As we start to wind up our conversation here, you’ve been doing this for a while, you’ve worked in staffing.

You’ve got some of the, probably, the scars, the blood, sweat, and tears that all of us have shared. There’s a certain fraternal order of staffing. If you can think, let’s fast forward a year from now, and people are gonna just now listen to what you’re about to share, because I’m gonna ask you if there’s one or two things that people can implement in their day-to-day, staffing, recruiting, sales, whatever it might be.

If there were one or two things that they can do that might not be on their radar right now, what would you recommend? And then if we pulled these folks a year later, they’d be like, yeah, you know what, Reid was right. Do you have something in your in your toolbox that you can share?

Robert Reid: Yeah. I think there are two words that I think are most important for people to think about who work in [00:24:00] the staffing industry. And that is genuine interest.

Bob Pettke: Genuine interest.

Robert Reid: If you think about our industry, it’s people from every angle. It’s candidates, it’s customers, it’s each other. It is people all day, every day.

And I look at people who’ve worked in this industry who don’t wanna connect with people. And I encourage them to find a different industry because if you think about it, it’s relationships, and if you are not genuinely interested in understanding people, finding out what they did with their family the previous weekend, and genuinely being interested in what it is they have to say back to you, you’re gonna struggle in this industry.

And I think there are people who may. That comes naturally to them. I feel like our industry can attract a lot of extroverts sometimes, and I got this, I think, but for the people who may not naturally feel that desire for genuine interest, you can still work on it. You can still get good at it, and it is taking your needs in once.

Just set [00:25:00] ’em to the side, you’ll get to them. Everything is about the needs and wants of your candidates and customers. We got two sets of customers in this industry, candidates and customers, so you make their needs and wants, like your North Star. That’s everything you’re focused on. I think that is a great adjustment.

On top of that, what I would add to that is if I could get every single person to role practice regularly, we would all be much better. But people choose to improvise versus planning. I’ve been doing improv since 1998. I would never step into a conversation with a customer without a game plan, and I’m real good at improvising.

Bob Pettke: I was gonna say, that’s gotta be a learned skill for a guy like you who loves to improvise.

Robert Reid: Yep.

Bob Pettke: Or have you always been talented to be able to do planning and improvise?

Robert Reid: And I think probably, I probably learned what really strong planning looks like when I joined Butler Street.

Bob Pettke: Okay.[00:26:00]

Robert Reid: Because the planning and the preparation and the structure in the organization is at a higher level than anywhere I’ve seen in my entire career. And so I think understanding that you could be the best improviser in the world, but you will stumble and fumble if you’re not prepared for what the customer’s gonna say to you.

And so don’t insert that variability in the process. Have a game plan.

Bob Pettke: Have a game plan. Robert, it’s been a treat. We’re excited to have you at the Midwest Staffing Conference. I have a feeling you’re gonna be very well prepared for these sessions, and I think just people need to come in and they also need to be prepared to have an open mind and to just really take in what you’re gonna be able to share with them based on experiences.

Robert, thanks for being here, and we’ll see you in just a little over a month and a couple of weeks.

Robert Reid: Yeah. Bob, it has been a pleasure. Thank you for having me. Likewise, excited about this conference.

Bob Pettke: Awesome. [00:27:00] Thanks, Robert.

Robert Reid: All right. Take care.

Bob Pettke: You too. Robert Reid from Butler Street. What a treat.

And I’m looking forward. I’ll be there. I’m interested to see what he’s gonna share. I know he’s gonna have a plan, but I’m also wondering about his improvisation, and what are some surprises that he’s gonna have in store for us.

Again, if you haven’t done so already, make sure that you are setting yourself up to attend the Midwest Staffing Conference, April 23-24, it’s gonna be at the Drury Lane in Oakbrook, Illinois. If you’re in the Midwest or even if you’re hearing this and you wanna come on in, you can always go ahead and register for that. You can do a Google search on Midwest Staffing Conference 2025, or to zip you in a little bit closer to that, you can always go ahead and email.

And again, I’ll give you the email address, it’s info@issaworks.com. That’s info@issaworks.com. April 23rd, 24th, if you’re coming in and flying in, it’s close to both of the Chicago [00:28:00] airports. There’s accommodations right there on the property. So you guys are gonna be a good space for that.

Just a reminder of who we are, Bob Pettke here at Automated Business Designs. Chief Sales Officer here for our software, Ultra-Staff EDGE. If you’re interested in learning more about how we integrate in the staffing world and how we have just really been a fixture for over 42 years, providing this type of a service and solution make sure you reach out to me as well.

But with that said, everybody, thanks for joining us on another episode of the Staffing Buzz Network. Make sure, if you haven’t done so already, go ahead and hit subscribe on your favorite podcast platform, and also you can watch these on YouTube as well. With that guys, we will hopefully see you all at the Midwest Staffing Conference.

And until next time, Bob Pettke signing off with the Staffing Buzz [00:29:00] Network.