Empowering Small Businesses: The Art of Culture-Based Hiring with Erin Longmoon

Hey, everybody. Welcome back. Wendy Sellers here, the HR lady, and I am here with my co-host, JC. Hey, Wendy.

How are you doing? Hey, I'm doing pretty good. I'm taking that low-key approach on the day. I'm having my evening coffees so that I could burn the candle at both ends.

Yes. All right. Sounds good. You know, I am not a big fan of caffeine because if anybody has met me, I'm highly energetic just when I wake up, but I did just have a Red Bull right before this.

Oh, cool. What are you doing? Let's jump in. Please note, I am going to a concert after this.

So that's the reason I had a Red Bull during the middle of the week. I do have to say, Wendy, I have to say those orchestra concerts around Tampa are gorgeous this time of year, especially with the good weather. It is not an orchestra concert, but we will pass on saying who it is. Anyways, I want to introduce everybody to Erin Longmoon, who is the CEO of Zephyr Connects, focused on matching small businesses with great employees.

Hey, Erin. Hello. Welcome to the show. Thank you for having me.

I'm very excited. And I'm super intrigued about this concert. You're going to have to tell me after. Absolutely.

It's to celebrate somebody's birthday. So, you know, today I want to talk to you about matching, you know, these amazing employees with small businesses, which is majority of the United States and very difficult for small businesses, the importance of mission and impact on the business, and of course, celebrating women in business. So thank you so much for your time today and tell our listeners about yourself and how you got to where you are, maybe even what inspired you to start Zephyr Connects.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, the story of like where I got where I am is kind of boring. I will start with what inspired me for Zephyr because it's a good story. Without going into the whole history of my career, I'm sort of like a Jane of all trades, tried many, many things.

But one of the things that I'm wired for is to be an entrepreneur. And I had, you know, started maybe four, I think about four small, like very tiny little solopreneur type businesses before Zephyr. And after the fourth one, I thought, you know, I'm good enough to be a business coach. So I'll just like go out and be a business coach, right?

You know, and help other small businesses, primarily focusing on those smaller businesses that maybe had two to four employees. And they really, the owner still was really super integrated into the business. And they are the ones with all the institutional knowledge that was in their heads. And helping them to get all that out, processes created, everything documented so that they could start building a team and start, you know, kind of more refining their role, what they really wanted to do.

So that was my focus. And what I started seeing with these small employers or these small businesses is that we would get to that place where it was time to bring on a new team member. And they, you know, because they still didn't have that extra help, they were still working too many hours. They often didn't have any recruiting processes in place at all.

They didn't know how to hire. They often made hiring mistakes because oftentimes they were small enough that they were just hiring, you know, someone that their friend recommended or their cousin or, you know, just whoever was kind of available. And it was time for them to, to kind of grow out of that phase. So I took, I took recruiting on as an additional service.

I had done it in the past. And like I said, I had this myriad of jobs when I was, you know, in my earlier years. So I had done it and I thought I can do that. No problem.

And I actually ended up doing a really great job finding really good people. And I went beyond what I learned or what I was learning to do was not just finding great people with a great resume set or great skills or even necessarily the right attitude. I was really finding people that were aligning with my clients' mission and their vision and their core values and their culture. And, you know, small businesses with even two employees have great culture or have culture.

Sorry, it doesn't need to be great, may not be great, but they have culture. They have something. Right. And so I was finding myself being a really good matchmaker.

And just, you know, then I started getting more and more clients coming to me just asking for that because it really turned out that there was a big hole in the recruiting space. There's not very many recruiters who work with small businesses. There's certainly not very many that focus on culture fit and really understand how important that is especially in small teams like it's it's imperative that that's aligned with small teams so i decided you know the entrepreneur in me was like you know this is more fun and more interesting and it's far more needed and i'm having a bigger impact than i was even as a coach so there you go then zephyr was born in the end of 2017.

Recruiters, they play a pivotal role in assisting small businesses. They help identify and secure suitable talent. Recent data reveals that 34% of small businesses utilize recruitment agencies for hiring purposes and specialized experts. Additionally, companies that enhance their candidate experience report a 70% improvement on the quality of their hires.

With that being said, I'd like to turn it back to the HR lady and the overseer of all things, Erin Longmoon. Yes, by the way, we love your profile on your website. What are you eating in that picture? A bucket of ice cream?

It's got to be coffee ice cream. It is. It is my absolute favorite ice cream. I'm going to plug Trader Joe's.

I don't know if I'm allowed to do that, but Trader Joe's has the best coffee ice cream on the planet. And so that is what I am doing. I am devouring my favorite ice cream. Well, we will definitely make sure that we put that link in the bio of the podcast of this podcast so people can click on there and just your personality just comes out in that picture alone.

And, you know, I love that you have on there that you dream of changing people's lives by helping them realize that they are deeply worthy and that your magic powers is empathy. I love it. I love you already. Thank you.

Thank you. I do want to switch gears a little bit though and continue this conversation about changing people's lives, but about the importance of mission and the impact on business. How does having a clear mission statement in a business influence a company's hiring and retention strategies? Yeah, absolutely.

It's kind of the foundation. It really has become, I think, a very mission critical component that allows you to find the right people. So you have to be able to understand what is your mission of your company. And, you know, I'll be honest, we do, we work a lot with small businesses in various industries, but, you know, construction, let's say, for example, is one of them.

And, you know, you get a lot of construction companies that are just like, we build things, you know, what do you mean mission? But when we can dig deeper and get something, we can get them to really articulate, well, why did you choose this? I mean, why construction? What is it about it that you love?

What is the impact that you feel like you are having either on your immediate community or the community at large or, you know, wherever you're located? And when they start honing in on that and realizing that there is a passion underneath it of things like creating spaces that people love to go home to and people love to like raise their children and their families in or the empty nesters, you know, but when you can get to something that taps into a deeper purpose or a little bit more of an emotional kind of purpose.

Then your employees, your prospective employees and your current employees are going to be more inspired. It becomes more than just a job, you know, the J-O-B paycheck job. It's like now they get what they're doing in those 40 hours a week or whatever it is, is actually having a ripple effect that's bigger than just the task at hand. Whether their task at hand is, you know, swinging in the hammer, for example, in construction or putting together the estimate or the office manager who's answering the phone, they all have such an integral part at creating that bigger impact, right?

So if you can start with the foundation of mission, now you're inspiring potential candidates to want to work for you, right? Because you're going to just be more exciting and compelling and interesting and have more impact through their job than the next person that they're interviewing with who doesn't even either articulate a mission, doesn't have a mission, you know, all of that. So, and then the retention piece, people, if they really, if you can add, then your job as the employer is to connect those dots all the time while they're working for you, making sure that they realize that their part is in truth.

It wasn't just smoke and mirrors. It really is having the impact and you show that impact. And there are a variety of ways of doing that. But then people, people don't want to leave jobs where they feel like they are making a difference, you know, in the in the world with with their small little with their little corner of the ecosystem.

Ms. Zarin, I've got a stat for you and a question on the backside. A study by Benevity found that companies experienced a 52 percent lower turnover rate among newer employees who participated in purpose programs, such as charitable giving and volunteering within their first 2.5 years.

news. Do purpose programs stay within the four walls of the organization or do we expand beyond those four walls? Is it up to HR? Is it up to the leader?

I personally like to always put things on HR. I digress. Back to you. Hey, hey, hey.

As the HR lady here, I'm going to give a little bit of pushback. And I just want to say, you know, I'm going to answer that. And then then Aaron could jump in, too, is when I was in corporate HR and then I've transferred this into, you know, my HR consulting practices, I try to encourage the businesses first. Yes, let's focus on your employees because, you know, that that's your bread, bread and butter right there.

But also getting their family and their friends involved to a it makes it easier to recruit them. Right. But it just makes it a lot easier when I used to work for an architectural engineering firm. Engineering and construction was mainly male dominated at that point in time.

And we're going to talk about celebrating women in business next. But, you know, I wanted to make sure that the spouses fell in love with us, too, so that when the employee at that time, most of them were men, would go home complaining about the company because they had a rough day, the spouse would send them right back to the work the next day. So, you know, it is because, hey, they even knew like they knew me, they knew the managers and they'd be like, call Wendy, call so and so, because you can work this through.

Don't walk out and quit. And I think we have maybe gotten away from that a little bit with hybrid work and remote work. And I really do think we all, as HR and business owners and small business managers, really need to start focusing on that, of treating our employees as a whole. Not forcing them to volunteer, not forcing them to be part of this purpose programs, not forcing their family to.

But if they're willing to and able, and it's going to cost you just a little bit more, in the end, it's going to save you a ton. What are your thoughts on that? Thank you. A hundred percent.

I love that you brought that up about families. I think, you know, I've always had that same philosophy. You're never just hiring an individual if they happen to be in some kind of a partnership with a family. You are truly bringing their entire family on board because they go home and whatever they're doing with you in the daytime or, you know, third shift, whatever shift, they're coming home and they're bringing that into their personal lives, whether they're just talking about their day, you know, whatever it is.

And so you have to, you know, it is very smart to nurture those relationships as well, if you know, if that's possible. And I do agree about the volunteering. I think, you know, yes, don't force it, but making it easy. I think so many people would actually love to give more than they do.

They just either don't know where to start. How do I volunteer? They don't have time to call the different organizations to figure out what the opportunities are. They don't you know know where to show up they don't know what they need so if the employer you know can can just make that easy it's like hey we've got this great volunteer it's all organized it's ready to go you just show up at this time here's what you need to you know here's what you're gonna do come and join us i think a lot of most people in my experience absolutely show up unless they just you know can't for some reason but i think that's a really wonderful almost like gift to give because people love to give they live they do they really enjoy and it makes everybody feel very good to get back.

So if you can give those opportunities, it's great. Yeah, absolutely. All right. Wrapping up our show here, I want to talk a little bit about celebrating women in business.

And before I jump in, JC has some stats that he'd like to share. Thank you, Wendy. As we move through 2025, women entrepreneurs continue to shape the American economy in significant ways. Today, there are more than 12 million women-owned businesses across the U.

S., generating nearly $1.8 trillion in annual revenue and supporting over 10.7 million jobs nationwide.

The momentum has not slowed. Between 2019 and 2023, Black, African-American women-owned businesses saw a remarkable 32.7% increase in average revenue, while Hispanic Latina-owned firms experienced 17.1% growth, both outpacing the 12.

1% revenue growth for all women-owned businesses. That growth rate is rooted in an extraordinary entrepreneurial surge. In 2018 alone, women were starting more than 1,800 businesses per day, a trend that laid the foundation for the expansion that we're witnessing now in 2025. Especially among diverse founders who are redefining leadership and ownership in the small business space.

Back to you. Wow. Wow. That's incredibly profound.

And yeah, I'm here for you. Yeah, I know. It was like, I just want to shout from the rooftops. That's amazing.

You know, and I know you yourself are an advocate for women's contributions, as am I. You know, how do you see the role of women evolving in the small business sector, you know, above and beyond these statistics that JC just said? And I would even say not just the small business sector, just all business. You know, where do you see the women, the role of women continuing to evolve in our past?

Far, far before us, of course, wink, wink. You know, most women were in support roles. And I see that changing a great deal. Oh, great deal.

Yes, yes. You know, I think that, of course, my world is small business. So that's where I can speak the most. I think seeing more and more women getting into not just owning, but really owning the leadership component of being an owner, which kind of sounds contrary, like you're an owner, of course, you're the leader.

But I think embracing what it means to be, you know, a leader, I'm noticing a big difference in my peers, just investing way more of their time doing leadership development, you know, reading books, taking courses, just really trying to up level their leadership skills. And then also mentoring, you know, and like, I'm just now getting involved with one of our local entrepreneur programs through community college here in Cleveland and becoming a mentor to, and I'm mentoring specifically other women entrepreneurs.

So these are like early emerging startup entrepreneurs taking this program and, you know, volunteering my time. And I noticed many of my other peers are trying to do the same, which is, you know, just kind of like... Lifting up the entire community right by through mentorship through networking through volunteering through increasing our own leadership skills i think is we're going to just continue to see this tide rise you know and i think that's even part of why the tide is rising with these amazing stats that jc had you know and then in terms of corporate i'd probably have to defer to you you know i'm not as well versed in what's going on in that in that world well the interesting thing is the majority of my businesses that I'm an HR consultant for are also small businesses.

It is the majority of businesses in the United States, and they're not ever going to have an HR department. So I teach managers and the owners how to be HR with, you know, 1,700 other hats they're working on. So, you know, it's one of those things that like we're all in this together. We're all here to, you know, help and impact the business, focus on the mission, and make sure that someone like you is helping people get other individuals on board.

And I wanted to just share with everybody here that, you know, as we wrap up here, Eric Longmoon, founder and CEO of Zephyr Connects, has over 22 years experience in business administration within the small business sector. And her business under her leadership has achieved a 98% placement rate for the residential remodeling clients. So congratulations. And thank you on behalf of them, because I've worked with that industry too.

And it's not necessarily an easy industry to deal with. So Erin Longmoon, chief idea generator and overseer of all things. Where can our listeners connect with you? A couple of different places.

We do have a great website, zephyrconnects.com. And Zephyr is spelled Z-E-P-H-Y-R, in case anyone's wondering. And you can always find me on LinkedIn.

I truly am the only Erin Longmoon out there in the world. So if you go to LinkedIn, just type and Erin Longman, you are going to find me as I am the only one. And I'll make sure to put those links in the podcast description. Everybody, thank you so much for coming today.

We hope this information has been helpful. I know it has definitely been impactful to me. Thanks for joining us, Erin. Thank you so much.

I've had a great time. Thanks. Good seeing you again, JC. Take care.