- Speaker #0
Many of you know I am a Canadian and I have been living in the States now since 2014. And one of the things that I have grown a great appreciation for is the servicemen and women of the United States. Living in Canada, our perception and the news we get isn't true or accurate of what people in the service in America... are committed to what they go through, the sacrifices they make. So as a Canadian, I am grateful for the servicemen and women of the United States, and I appreciate their service. Today is a very special episode. We're going to be talking to a veteran and the CEO of an amazing organization for veterans called Combined Arms. And what we really want to dial into today is what are the pros and cons of hiring people that have served and as a business owner what how can you utilize them better in your business and maybe what are some of the accommodations or ways to think about integrating them into your business so i think this is going to be a really interesting and insightful episode and i can't wait to get it started but first i'd like to welcome you to the key hire small business podcast where we cover the issues that help owners scale their small business I'm Corey Harlock, creator of Key Hire Solutions, and I'll be your host. Our guest today is Mike Hutchings, and he is the CEO of Combined Arms, where they're raising the standard of how we support and empower those who have served our country. A couple of interesting notes about Mike. He did serve in the U.S. Army as a parachute infantry officer. I'm interested to learn a little bit more about that, see how his knees are doing. Uh, he lives in Rhode Island with his wife and three kids and he enjoys outdoor survival activities with the family. I bet you his survival activities are a little different than most, but anyway, let's bring Mike onto the show. Hey, Mike, how are you?
- Speaker #1
I'm doing well, sir. Thank you, Corey, for having me. Thank you for the, the warm introduction. Thank you for the support of our armed forces. Uh, and thank you for everything you're doing for the, uh, small business entrepreneurial, uh, economy in general. It's wonderful.
- Speaker #0
Hey, I appreciate that. And I appreciate you spending some time with us today. Like I said, as a Canadian coming down here, I remember the news in Canada and we're seeing it now, especially with the political climate. Right. Whether you agree or disagree, what we hear back from our friends and family in Canada is not what we are experiencing today as I sit here in the US. Right. And. And unfortunately or fortunately, Canada doesn't have a huge military presence. Right. And it's not a badge of honor for Canadians who have served. I have an Uncle Scott who was a firefighter in the military, joined when he's 18 and retired from the armed service. And it was never celebrated. It was just like, oh, yeah, he was in the military. He was on ship. Right. He worked on the provider and one of the fuel Canadian fuel ships. But when you come to the United States, it's... so embedded in the culture and it's such an amazing thing where people want to serve their country right they they make a choice and or they go to school or they enlist or they do whatever and it's it's very different and it's something I've learned to appreciate at a really deep level like being able to sit here in America free you know doing what I do and it's not lost on me that there's been a lot of sacrifice for me as a Canadian to sit here in Houston, Texas, running my business and being able to talk to guys. Yeah.
- Speaker #1
Yeah. You know, I think it's, it's a great point and not to touch on the, you know, political space, because I know that's not the purpose of our conversation here today is, you know, my personal stance are, you know, the, the countries that we're allied with are, is in the best interest of the world from a global security perspective from an economic. impact perspective, right? And so I've had the pleasure and the distinct honor of serving alongside our allied partners in various theaters. And I'm a huge proponent of the work that we all do together. And, you know, it honestly hasn't always been that way in America's history of a warm reception for people that have gone off in times of conflict. But we are at a current place in the United States where there's a tremendous amount of support. And it's been that way for quite some time now for our, you know, our armed servicemen and women that have deployed to theaters of combat and come back and return. And there's been amazing programs and processes and procedures established by not just our federal agencies, but our corporations. to welcome, you know, those active duty service members home, and then to help them assimilate and integrate into society and into economic opportunities post service. Because the thing I'll always say is, at some point in time, you will become a veteran, it is not a lifelong job, even if you do it 20 plus years, you have to hang up the hat. So at some point in time, you will be done with your time and service, and then you need to be a contributing member to society. And luckily, there's been a lot of focus and attention on how to make that kind of transition happen better for our population.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. And that's that's a great segue into what we're going to talk about today, because that assimilation for some, every experience is unique to every individual. Right. And some people are probably. um, assimilating much easier and, and kind of having a much easier transition. And then there's people that are really, really struggling with those transitions. And that's kind of what we want to talk about today. So, you know, we always like to start with definitions and maybe that's a really good place to start, you know, in, in your, um, in your world, walk us through kind of maybe some of your experiences and working with people in the differences and transition and, and what it might take or what the commitment of a company is to have someone join their team, understanding that they may have served, that they may have been in combat, and they may be carrying some baggage with them?
- Speaker #1
Yeah, that's a great question, right? And so let me try and unpeel and unpack this as best I can. It's a lot, I agree. Yeah. So let's kind of start, you know, maybe big to small and frame out the foundation is right now and in most recent years past, it's You're looking at less than 1% of the population of the United States population serves in the armed forces, right? So even though it's massive numbers in the millions, it's still just a microcosm of the general population of the US. And then of that 1% that served during a time of war, the most recent one being what we refer to as GWAT, the Global War on Terror, less than 1% of that 1% that served. get engaged in direct ground combat, right? And that's some of the most recent data. So, you know, there's a lot kind of going on. And a lot of the mechanisms of our armed forces are supportive and critical and necessary infrastructural entities that stand up to empower and support the warfighter, right? All your logistics, your fuel specialists, aviation mechanics. So the, you know, our armed forces has. as many niche and unique jobs that are incredibly transferable if you can find the right way to navigate it, just as the civilian sector. And so you hit the nail on the head that individual results may vary, right, on the transition piece. So let's talk a little bit about kind of what transition looks like. So right now, Department of Defense, there's you know, there's a bunch of programs out there, but Department of Defense kind of its paramount program is the Transition Assistance Program. It's called TAP. And it's essentially about a week long, kind of cutting your teeth, LinkedIn, resume, writing, introductions, some PowerPoint briefings on what your transition may look like. It's a part of your out processing procedures once you decide to separate from the military. And there's... You know, there are some concerns about the duration of that, whether or not soldiers and service members are supported to go to that transition program, and whether or not it's successful from an outcomes and outputs perspective. And there's some government accountability office GAO reports that have kind of looked into this. And I would argue that that is not enough to support someone who's transitioning, whether it be four years they they serve to 20 years you can't a week long courses it's not enough So essentially, once you decide to make a transition, there are certain programs like Skillbridge that you can take advantage of, which is almost like a site for free. Both the company gets to try you if you're picked up and then you get to try the company and it's completely covered before you transition.
- Speaker #0
Similar to like an internship, maybe.
- Speaker #1
Exactly. And it's called Skillbridge. Great, great program. We've heard fantastic things about that, supported a lot of people going into the Skillbridge program. So you have some things like that. But by and large, the majority of personnel transitioning out are just doing kind of the TAP program. And they're trying to find employment on their own druthers, Google searches through their networks. And as you can imagine, just like everyone else that's trying to find a job at any point in time, it's a very difficult environment to navigate through. So to kind of give some more of the contextual metrics, if we're looking at someone who's going to be a veteran, right, they're transitioning from, you know, active duty, you know, and they're, you know, made the decision to leave the service. Right now, there's 11 federal agencies with 45 programs that support veteran transition. At the state level, you're about 56 different agencies, because it includes territories as well, that have state programs that are comprehensive, not just career search and placement, but a bunch of other benefits and things that they can provide, claims, education. Then you look at the nonprofit ecosystem. There's 45,000 registered veteran nonprofits in the U.S. right now that are providing services for veterans. Of that 45,000, look, there are about 30,000 that are... installation and post commands of the American Legion, veterans of foreign wars, VFWs. But still, we're talking a massive ecosystem out there. If we're looking at counties, there's over 2000 county programs across the US for veteran support mechanisms that cover career search and placement, starting your own business, things of that nature. And I'm not even getting into the corporate programs that are out there and or just the general support programs that are out there that veterans could use, just identifying with someone who needs help with placement. There's, we add all of that up, we're over a million. So the biggest issue becomes is actually how do I navigate this to find the resources that I need to get whatever I need taken care of, taken care of, right? Whether that's employment, whether that's starting my own business, whether that's using my education benefits. whether it's mental health services, marital counseling services, how do I navigate this ecosystem? So transition in general is not just the employment piece. This is a full life continuum of care from a massive change. Typically to an environment you're not familiar with, right? So you leave your last duty station and most people are either going to where they can find employment, right? So no. no or limited social connectivity, unfamiliar with really to the grassroots level of what the company's actually doing on a day-to-day business, unfamiliar with the employees there, purchasing a home for the first time because it's all been military housing before. That's a potential as well. So a lot of life changes. So I can give a personal vignette where I have like a success story, but almost not. Right. So, um, I was, you know, served as a parachute infantry officer. And it's funny because on paper, I don't think I ever should have been hired. I majored in German at Virginia Military Institute, right? Doesn't transfer very well. Played football while I was there. And then, you know, really aligned myself to serve in that infantry officer position. One of the parachute infantry regiment was able to make all of that happen. and then Really, my job was to lead people in combat and direct round combat engagements against the enemies of our country. That's actually in our doctrine to close with and destroy. And then went overseas and did that in southern Afghanistan and learned a lot of things, right? From people that worked for me that were far better than me. And so it was a lot of listening, right? People that had been in longer imparting tokens of wisdom and a lot of things I learned. during kind of that experience with my time in the army. But when I made the decision to get out to better support my family, I will never forget reaching out to my sister, who had served as well 10 years ahead of me. And she was working at Procter & Gamble. She had gotten out, gotten her MBA, and then was working as a brand manager at Procter & Gamble. And I sent her my first cut of my resumes. And she called me and said, Mike, you are never going to get hired. Right. And I remember laughing, right, because it cut me deep. I was proud of everything I had done. I hadn't translated anything. Right. I'm talking about, you know, a combat infantryman's badge award, a valorous unit citation, all this stuff. Using all the language,
- Speaker #0
right.
- Speaker #1
Right. And so I was lucky because she took me under her wing and really counseled me and mentored me and did mock interviews with me. Case based behavioral based interviews and prepared me. to when I was approaching companies, I at least had done a lot of the groundwork and preparation. So ultimately, I ended up getting hired by General Electric a year before I even was slated to leave the military. So I dropped my papers. I had about a year. They gave me an offer letter a year in advance. Um, and so fantastic on paper in terms of like securing employment, uh, well in advance, I get to GE, GE has great company benefits at the time, you know, this is like 2015. Um, they're just crushing the market. Uh, I was specifically working for GE transportation and, um, I get to the company. I would say I acclimated and assimilated. Well, you know, I left all the military jargon behind. I just tried to focus on bringing the key. components of leadership and the positive things I experienced in the military and leave kind of the bad stuff behind and bring that with me and then just be open to learning and asking questions and working really hard. And I did that, but where I ended up having a problem later down the road, I was successful, very successful in my corporate career was when the other things from the military, I hadn't taking the time to focus or think about from a health perspective, how beat up my body was from what I did, even as a young individual. From, you know, a brain injury, mental health thing, there was some components of things I needed to get resolved and work through. And I became so focused on, you know, working with the company, I put kind of that health and wellness aside. And it, you know, ultimately to me was just a good learning point in maturation as well of you got to take care of yourself. Right. You know, you got to take care of the company and impact the bottom line of the company. But you also have to take care of things going on at home, things internally. And so it just became a life lesson for me that. While you can have something that on paper, if people read my resume and my bio now, they'd be like, wow, incredibly impressive. But they wouldn't see the hurdles and things I had to navigate through. That is just kind of my own personal story. Every single one of us had those. And over 250,000 servicemen and women leave active duty every year. So we have 250,000 deviations of that story in some form or fashion. Right. Yeah. So I think it's fascinating environment.
- Speaker #0
It is. And then as you were talking, the thing I was thinking of is how, you know, you didn't understand how to break all your information down and make it make it relatable to someone who wanted to hire you. Right. But on the other side of that, as as a business owner looking to hire, I feel and I've experienced it because. I once asked someone from the military who is in the army rangers about do they make all of everything confusing on purpose so people can't figure out the hierarchies and what's actually going on in the army from the outside you know the armed service and they kind of said yeah they do that's why we do that right like it's a complex system because we don't want everyone to know exactly how it works right of course yeah and but that works against you when you come out because no one knows how it works. So when I'm looking at someone and thinking, what is it they really do? And then if you're not able to break that down in simple terms for me, I could talk to you for 20 minutes and go, that's great, but I still don't know what it is you were doing. Right. And that makes it hard for someone to say, hey, I understand what you do. And I think there's some transferable skills here to bring on. So I think there's. Um, work has to be done on both sides because it's not fair to put the onus on the service person to say, you need to be able to break everything down for us. I think there's some onus on our side to say, okay, let's kind of ask the right questions and try to get through to what, what is it truly that we're trying to do here?
- Speaker #1
Yeah, I think that's a great point. Um, and I agree with it, Corey. I really do. Um, the, the stance I have, I think is, is similar. to yours, but I envision it the way I, it resonates with me is if I'm going on a vacation with my wife abroad, let's say to Portugal, that's our annual vacation. It's on me visiting that country to pick up some key phrases, some lingo, whatever, because I think it's, it's a respect thing for me, right? I want to be supportive of the cultures that I'm visiting with and not do anything miscalculated or that can be seen as a slight. So I think, you know, in my stance, it's on the veteran and the systems of support for the veteran and the transitioning veteran to do that, right? But it's also helpful when you go to that country and people are willing to work with you, just as you have mentioned, right?
- Speaker #0
Exactly,
- Speaker #1
exactly.
- Speaker #0
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- Speaker #1
I can answer this kind of from. from two sides, if you don't mind. One, I think is potentially the business owner or a hiring manager. And one is on the transitioning service member, if that's okay with you. So I'd say, you know, the biggest mistake from the transitioning service member perspective is, is the mistake I had of not doing enough kind of homework, right? There are systems of support out there. There's organizations like Combined Arms, Hire Heroes USA, Next Stop, upstanding organizations that you can go to completely for free. um military programs dod programs uh that you can take advantage of that can help put you under their wing and say hey we saw your linkedin you got to change from your official military picture and put on a suit right if you want to be taken to things like that you don't really it's so funny how we don't think about it at the time and we should right um
- Speaker #0
they're thinking what would sell like what what is most impressive and you're very proud of your service and your accomplishments so So you want to showcase that, but it. it doesn't align with what people are expecting to see on the other side. So it makes sense from that one side. But like you said, when you, when you start doing your homework and thinking, okay, maybe I need to be a little more strategic in the way I approach this.
- Speaker #1
Exactly. Yes. And so, you know, you gotta do some homework. It's not gifted to you. Right. So you do have to do a little bit of grinding, talk to people, you know, build a network, engage with, engage with upstanding programs that are out there. which you can find by connecting with some of those organizations that I mentioned. And by and large, I think you'll be successful, right? From the business owner slash hiring manager perspective, I think there needs to be an air of caution, of reverence. that doesn't detract from accountability in a hiring process, right? So what I mean by that is just like any ecosystem and anyone in the world, not everything is all good. So not all transitioning service members are going to be great employees at your company just because they served. It could be the wrong industry for them. They could have been in the military and skated by or had administrative proceedings. Like, you know what I'm saying? millions and millions of population, this stuff happens, right? So I've seen and been a part of interviews and corporations where it's because someone was in the military, they translated their resume well, they put on a suit, they almost got a little bit of a pass in the interview process where you should still ask the hard questions, right? You should still ensure that that individual has researched the company and understand certain things. And so, you know, you make your future veteran employees better and your company better by holding everyone accountable during your interview and selection process.
- Speaker #0
Okay. Here, this just jumped in my head. As a business owner, I'm interviewing a veteran. What am I allowed to ask them about their service? And what should I not be asking them about their service? Because people might get curious or they might not know, or they might, well, tell me about your time in the military and what, what are they looking for and what's acceptable? Because, you know, we talked right off the top. Some people are not comfortable talking about their service and some people are right. And so there might be some gray area there too, because it's always, I always go back to fear, right? People might not, they might. see a veteran's resume come across their desk and think, I don't know anything about the military, this confuses me. So I'm just going to pass on them and find someone who doesn't have all this on their resume, right? Because it would be, maybe they perceive it as an easier interview, easier integration, whatever it is. But if we can arm them with some knowledge and say, hey, it's easy. Here's what you can do. Here's what you can't do, right? You know, just like before we got on air, I asked you, are you comfortable talking about this stuff? because I would never want to put you in a position where you're uncomfortable. So as a business owner sitting there thinking, well, this is all great, but what am I allowed to ask and what can I ask? What advice would you give?
- Speaker #1
Sure. So I don't want to be the step in the role of the key spokesperson for the 20 plus million in my community, but I've been working in this ecosystem for quite some time now and I have yet to come across. a veteran who doesn't want to talk about their time in service and is not open to answering questions about their time in service, what they did, where they were at, what does that job actually consist of? Can you help me understand what an 11 alpha is? Oh, yeah, this is what it means and this is what I did. And yeah, I served in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, or I never deployed. I was stateside, which is fantastic too, right? There's different variations of what you're to do by the federal government. So and I'm talking about even catastrophically wounded friends of mine that were hurt overseas are very vocal about their time in service. You know, so honestly, I've never experienced any hesitation for people to talk about their time in service. More so they're they're nervous that they're going to talk too much about it. So sometimes they might be hesitant to bring it up because it's once again, the language kind of barrier. is am I talking too much about this? Are they going to think I'm stuck in that past life? Right. And that I can't, they can't now see me in the, in their company. That's what a lot of the fear from the veteran side comes from. And maybe fear is not the correct word, but maybe hesitation is if I'm talking to GE and all I have is my military stuff. And even though I've translated it and I've had stories I can translate over, if I talk too much, do they see me as not a good fit. And so, you know, there's, I would say, if at any point during like an interview or a conversational process, you see from an emotional perspective, and the only time I've seen this is when people potentially, you know, recollecting times when a fellow service member was killed, beside them in the proximity or someone that they knew about, people can get emotional in that regard. but that's, that's about it. So I'd say like, maybe ease off that, like, right. Conducting an interview process, but you know, you know, I've had that happen and I've been able to tell the stories at a higher level of where I was comfortable with and still translate to decision-making time constraints, things of that nature. So I would encourage business owners and hiring managers to be very inquisitive ask. And then they're going to want to talk about their time and service and how it could translate to help your company.
- Speaker #0
That's awesome. And so this, it relates kind of, but not really. But way back when, when I was in Calgary, I was working with this guy. He used to be a professional boxer and he actually fought Razor Ruddock for the heavyweight championship of the world,
- Speaker #1
right? Wow. Yeah.
- Speaker #0
Super cool. But his problem was he would go into every interview and tell people that. So what would they spend their whole time talking about? his boxing career and he never got an offer and and and you know he said to me he said you know i think i think it's you know he was a black guy right and he said i think i i'm being discriminated against and i said i don't think you are what i think has happening is you're talking about boxing and not your skills you have for their job and they're probably saying man that guy's incredible but i don't know if he has the skills we need because he didn't really talk about that so what i what i advised him to do was if they asked him about his boxing career say man when i'm working here I'm happy to go take you to lunch and tell you all about it. But I'm here to talk about IT today, right? Exactly. And get back on point. So, and he took the advice. man, I'd have to go back. But I remember getting an email follow up from him saying, hey, thanks for the advice. I think he ended up landing the job. He was just just a great guy. But he was just kind of, you know, he was really proud of his accomplishments. But I think it was overshadowing, overshadowing his ability in the in the realm of the job he was trying to find. Right.
- Speaker #1
Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's that was great sage advice that you gave him. And it's you can see it sometimes be a friction point. in the veteran community where there's at times too much attachment to the veteran identity. And it takes a little bit of sometimes mentorship, sometimes feedback. And I've seen it personally at companies that I've been at where there was a great hire, but still had some of those military potentially traits that didn't translate as well. That took a little bit of coaching to kind of hey, we can't do that here and here's why. Here's how the company performs to inform people of these kind of matters. And for the most part, that stuff gets rectified in a small spot, nothing crazy.
- Speaker #0
Cool. Now, what would you say in terms of bringing someone in, you hire someone and you bring them into your business, would you recommend any, I think accommodation is the wrong word, but... expectation in terms of how quickly they're going to kind of fit in or, you know, you might have to work with them a bit in terms of if, you know, you said there's a lot of other stuff to deal with other than getting a job, right? Like assimilating back to society, back into family life, buying a house, doing all that stuff, right? Mental health, all that good stuff. So what do you expect as a business owner when you bring someone in? And again, it's not a one size fits all. I understand. that it's very different, but, you know, maybe give us an idea of what kind of expectations you should set as a business owner, bringing a veteran in and, you know, wanting to support them through their journey.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, I think it's, one, it's going to depend on the size of your business, right? Because, you know, large major corporations have a much better opportunity to create intentional large-scale programming. to capture and provide systems of support that could be beneficial for that veteran and help with retention. Smaller businesses aren't going to probably have the runway to be able to do that. But there's other things you can do. At the end of the day, I think open and honest conversations and malleability is what would be mutually respected from both sides, right? And, you know, there might be some. some people in the community that disagree with this concept with me, but the era I was in is from a garrison perspective, meaning that if you're back stateside, it's very much regimented, right? Here's when you're doing physical training, here's the uniform of the day, you're doing this, you're doing this, and all your time is consumed. And there's a task, a condition, and a standard for almost everything that you do in training manuals. And you either perform to the standard or, you know, or you fail and other stuff happens. Right. And so so like that's garrison. That's the stateside operations. But, you know, keep in mind that we are in the theater of war for 20 plus years. When you get in the theater of war, a lot of those things, especially if you're outside of the wire, outside of a major base, you become a small business owner immediately. Everyone does, right? And so technically it's the officer and the senior NCO on the ground that really are the battle space owners, the ground force commander. But think about all of these entrepreneurial businesses getting pushed out into different markets across the US and saying, you know, you have a million seed investment and your job is to grow this, you know, 10X in the next 12 to 16 months. And here's other things you need to accomplish. So you will get high level metrics, but then you very much become an entrepreneurial force of nature and operate almost as a complete entity, right? And so down to the lowest level of the organizations you manage, people are accountable for major things. But you are separate from the guidon is what we call it. You're separate from your bosses. Sometimes they're not even able to travel to you. And you have this large overarching task and you have to figure out a way to accomplish it. Whatever way you decide is the best, right? So you form your own approach. And so I think that people of that era appreciate. malleability instead of rigidity.
- Speaker #0
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- Speaker #1
And so if I'm meeting with a new business owner or excuse me, an existing business owner that's welcoming me to their team, what I would feel really awesome about is they're like, hey, Mike, we're excited to have you with the company. Um, we're going to let you get a feel for the business. You know, I know you're going to, you know, bring some heat. I know you're going to kick, kick butt here. Um, and let's just kind of work through some stuff together. I have this person here, you know, designated as a mentor for you, or I'll be a mentor for you when I have time. If I can, you know, if the company can afford to do it and with the personnel or even someone in their network, and then let's get a feel. And then after, you know, 30, 60 days, why don't we convene and let us start, uh, you know, targeting some metrics and, and see how you feel comfortable with that. And then let's just have an open conversation of what's working and what's not. In my opinion, that would be the best trajectory of mutually beneficial success for both the business owner and the incoming person that's coming into a new climate, a new environment, right? I used to think it, right? And I think it's a preconceived notion that if I come in and you say, Mike Hutchings, take this hill and you have 13 days. I don't know if that's going to make me successful anymore. And I don't think that's going to make our, you know, our population successful before. I think that's a little bit of a misnomer where we've just had so much experience of figuring stuff out on our own that sometimes a little bit of kutchen and just open dialogue is potentially the best way to go about it. So as like, if you're a small business owner and at the minimum, you can do that, just have transparent conversations with good hires. I think it's always going to be successful for all parties involved.
- Speaker #0
Well, I think you just made an incredible distinction that I wasn't aware of. So people that have seen combat and been out in the theater of war, they come from a highly structured environment, and then they're just turned loose and said, hey, figure this out. And then there's people who haven't been in that situation who might be used to a highly structured environment. So it might be important if you're bringing someone in to figure out. where they were in their career within the military. Because having said what you just said, I might hire someone and think, oh, this person is going to be able to think on their feet. But they were never put into that situation. So they never exercised that muscle and they never got that experience. So it feels like there might, I mean, to really simplify it, but there are people that have been pushed out into these entrepreneurial environments, as you called them. But then there might be people, like you said, that stayed stateside and stayed in this highly regimented. highly structured area as well. And there's a bit of a distinction to be made there.
- Speaker #1
You know, there is. And at stateside, you'll see it at smaller dosages, right? So you'll have people that are working in the logistics realm that will order parts and the parts won't come on time, but they have to get their vehicles 100% ready by this point in time. So they will navigate a bureaucratic process and be innovative to find ways to make that happen. So it's a smaller dosage. It still occurs stateside, but you do have that overarching rigidity. Overseas, I mean, we used to call it VUCA was a term. So volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous. People who had that experience over there are no better or no less than anyone that was stateside or not in an operating theater of war. But those people typically have an experience that you cannot replicate in any environment of navigating a VUCA environment. You become a master of solving problems, a master of solving problems. It is probably one of the most fascinating things to be engaged and involved with, because at the end of the day, it's up to you and the people that are directly beside you. I've had so many scenarios of where, I mean, I would say minimum in the hundreds of where something didn't go according to plan and we had to find ways to instantly adjust, sometimes under direct fire conditions. Sometimes in no fire whatsoever, but now we don't have any shelter and now we don't have food because this happened in the country or this got delayed. And the amount of innovation I've seen, I have yet to see replicate anywhere outside of my time in the service. So it's incredibly fascinating. And so you get the doses at a smaller level in the stateside, but it's unbridled. outside in an operating theater of war. It truly is like a shark tank atmosphere. It's absolutely incredible to be a part of.
- Speaker #0
Awesome. You do such a great job at translating it back into business terms. I appreciate that.
- Speaker #1
I'm trying my best. Yeah,
- Speaker #0
yeah. So let's, yeah, you're practicing what you preach. So let's kind of get into, you know, what pieces of advice would you offer a small business owner out there? And I'm looking to bring in someone and it could be... an associate level person to get them into the business to see how they perform. It could be a mid-level or a senior level leader in the business. What advice or tips would you give a business owner who's looking to make a commitment to bringing some veterans in on their team and get them on their team and give them an opportunity? What are the top three to five pieces of advice you might give them?
- Speaker #1
So I'd say look at the community that's around you, right? you're a part of that community you're a leader in that community and i see it one of the best cities i've seen is in houston where you have small business owners that um are veterans or supportive of veterans go to community based organization events um to any affiliation right veterans just kind of one of them um that i've seen just take off in houston Well, Houston also has the second highest, largest population of veterans in the United States. So that's probably really important. It does. And Texas has the number one population for veterans in the U.S. So, you know, Texas is the breeding ground for veterans from tons of benefits of living in the state. So what Houston is great at doing is aggregating business and veterans together through events. So there's like a I believe it's called like Veterans Leadership Houston, which is business owners that are affiliated or connected with the veteran community. They bring in veteran nonprofits to come speak about what they do. They go and visit veteran nonprofits, veteran nonprofits go and visit them. So you have small business owners, almost like many chambers of commerce of like they're just organically building it themselves. And so those people will reach out to the nonprofits and say, hey. you know, we're looking for these types of positions. Can you help us? Do you know anyone? The nonprofits all know them. Those are the clients, right? So if you don't have that communication with the community that you're residing in, it's going to be a lot harder to find those people. Right. And so I see Houston do a great job of it. Virginia does a fantastic job as well. So does South Carolina. So connecting with local organizations is always, non-profit organizations always a home run out of the park. Go to their events. They have events all the time. Go to their events. Sit in on a Thursday night from 6 to 7. Have a drink. Shake a couple hands. See what everyone does. And you are going to immediately find overlap of where you could work with them and they could work with you. It happens at every single event that we have. The other is to think about the state components as well. So there's great state agencies. All of the states have them that are supporting veterans and military hiring. They run hiring fairs all the time, right, all around the state, all the major metropolitan areas. They're looking for businesses to come there and help do screening, help provide input, help with hiring, that are open to hiring. They broadcast them all the time. And a lot of times people are just unaware they're not on the distribution list. Go to your state veteran department, Department of Veteran Services, sign up for their mailing list. You will get events all the time. If you have the time, pop out there. You can get tons of repairs from there. In Texas specifically, because that's where our headquarters is, we'll have these events co-hosted with the state. 1,500, 2,000 veterans will show up. They're looking for businesses left and right to tell veterans about their company, and they get the chance to kind of feel each other out. Um, and you know, maybe you start a process and the other thing, um, it's under the federal, but the small business administration, SBA does a lot of stuff, um, with veteran hiring, um, and emplacement entrepreneurial support for the veteran community as well. So the SBA does events as well. They do it with community-based organizations. So key component is my biggest piece of advice, look in the community around you. Um, you're going to have more efficacy doing that than looking on LinkedIn, right. Or like cold kind of interviews. It's the community, the network, and I guarantee you, you will find the right people that you're looking for through whatever network you're able to build by going to a few of the events or just calling organizations and asking them what they do. And if they can't help you find talent, they will know someone else immediately. They'll be like, oh, you need to talk to Hire Heroes USA. Here's Ross Dickman's number. I'm going to send it to you. And then boom, one of the top career search and placement agencies completely free. right.
- Speaker #0
so that would be my top piece of advice corey that's amazing yeah thank you for all that information i appreciate it so hey mike i've enjoyed this conversation and could continue it on but we're getting getting a little short on time and i want to make sure i i leave you time to let everyone know um about your organization combined arms and what you guys are doing and how we can reach out to you and um we already talked we're going to put the donate link in the liner notes and I hope people go there and to help you guys out with that. But, you know, give us the overview of Combined Arms and what you guys are doing.
- Speaker #1
Well, absolutely. And thank you for including the donation, you know, component of it. You know, everything is welcomed. Everything is incredibly helpful for the people that we serve. And so Combined Arms, we exist to really serve as a one-stop shop, single point of entry for all social service resources that veterans and military families ever need. So we built a proprietary, smart, intelligent technology platform for veterans to come on and basically say, hey, I need help with career search and placement. I need help with physical fitness. I need help with my benefits. I need help with education. Anything you can think of, it is a trusted, vetted and validated network of the top performing service providers out there. You can connect directly to just like an Amazon shopping cart experience, but it's completely free of charge. And then that organization is held accountable. to start and deliver the services to you. So we, that navigation, complexity, hyperinflation, oversaturation I talked about early is like, where do I go when I need all of this stuff with millions of resources out there? You go to combinedarms.us, create a profile, takes about two minutes and you will only see the resources that can serve you, that can help you and you will be taken care of. So we have now served over 100,000 unique individual clients on platform. Great outputs, great outcomes. And all throughout the U.S., we do this. So we're here to help. We built this. We're run by veterans, founded by veterans. We built this because we weren't happy with the transition process. So we decided to make it better ourselves. And we built something that right now is serving veterans and military families in all 50 states to U.S. territories. So thank you for the time. Corey, I really enjoyed the conversation. It's been great.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, me too. And then we have a couple other links. How else can we get you? We put the combined arms up there. There's your LinkedIn. Good way to get it.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, absolute. Great way to see what the company's doing. You'll see events on there can follow us. We post job postings when we're hiring internally. About 90% of the combined arms employees and growing are veterans or military spouses. So we're always looking for top tier talent as well. And yeah, that's a great, great. resource to track everything we're doing as a company.
- Speaker #0
Awesome. And don't forget to donate. If you're listening to this, look in the liner notes, hit that donate link, support a good cause. Mike, thanks so much, man. I really, really appreciate it.
- Speaker #1
Hey, thank you, Corey. You're doing great things out there. Appreciate you.
- Speaker #0
We're trying. Thanks. I appreciate it. All right. There you go. Mike Hutchings from Combined Arms. Thank you for tuning into the Key Hire Small Business Podcast. If you got value. out of today's episode and you want to keep up to date on our new content make sure you leave a comment below you subscribe to the youtube channel let us know if there's any other topics you want us to discuss we're here for you if you prefer to listen to your podcast you can find us on apple spotify or your favorite platform by searching up key higher small business podcast Thanks for listening. I'm Corey Harlock. Until next time, stop grinding, start growing.
