In this episode, Jordan Yates interviews Sean Walters, the general manager of CAPTRON North America. They discuss Sean's early days at CAPTRON, focusing on brand awareness challenges and establishing a strong brand presence in Europe and North America. Sean shares his journey of leaving CAPTRON for a new opportunity, only to return after realizing the importance of supportive culture and leadership.
Sean emphasizes the value of failing fast, the importance of asking the right questions in interviews to ensure a good organizational fit, and the critical roles of transparency and genuine care in leadership. He also discusses CAPTRON's growth, hiring opportunities, and offers insights to listeners on career navigation.
Key Takeaways
Brand Awareness: Building brand awareness is essential for startups and companies entering new markets, as demonstrated by CAPTRON's efforts in the mobility space.
Culture and Leadership: Supportive culture and leadership are crucial for employee empowerment and satisfaction, highlighted by Sean's return to CAPTRON.
Career Decisions: Reconsidering previous employment can be beneficial if it aligns better with personal and professional goals.
Interview Questions: Asking about company culture and leadership during interviews can help ensure a better organizational fit.
Leadership Qualities: Transparency, genuine care, and balancing autonomy with support are key to empowering teams without micromanaging.
Opportunities: CAPTRON's expansion offers opportunities for those seeking roles in innovative and employee-focused companies.
Sean Walters' experience underscores the importance of aligning with a company's values, the impact of leadership, and the courage to pursue professional growth.
SPONSOR LINKS: This Episode was brought to you by David Turner at Process & Automation Specialists. https://processandautomation.com | Visit Process & Automation Specialists at The Assembly Show South in Nashville on May 1st & 2nd at Booth 1360! Reach out to David to get a special registration code for free registration!! Connect with David: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-turner-enterprises/
In this episode, Jordan Yates interviews Sean Walters, the general manager of CAPTRON North America. They discuss Sean's early days at CAPTRON, focusing on brand awareness challenges and establishing a strong brand presence in Europe and North America. Sean shares his journey of leaving CAPTRON for a new opportunity, only to return after realizing the importance of supportive culture and leadership.
Sean emphasizes the value of failing fast, the importance of asking the right questions in interviews to ensure a good organizational fit, and the critical roles of transparency and genuine care in leadership. He also discusses CAPTRON's growth, hiring opportunities, and offers insights to listeners on career navigation.
Key Takeaways
Brand Awareness: Building brand awareness is essential for startups and companies entering new markets, as demonstrated by CAPTRON's efforts in the mobility space.
Culture and Leadership: Supportive culture and leadership are crucial for employee empowerment and satisfaction, highlighted by Sean's return to CAPTRON.
Career Decisions: Reconsidering previous employment can be beneficial if it aligns better with personal and professional goals.
Interview Questions: Asking about company culture and leadership during interviews can help ensure a better organizational fit.
Leadership Qualities: Transparency, genuine care, and balancing autonomy with support are key to empowering teams without micromanaging.
Opportunities: CAPTRON's expansion offers opportunities for those seeking roles in innovative and employee-focused companies.
Sean Walters' experience underscores the importance of aligning with a company's values, the impact of leadership, and the courage to pursue professional growth.
SPONSOR LINKS: This Episode was brought to you by David Turner at Process & Automation Specialists. https://processandautomation.com | Visit Process & Automation Specialists at The Assembly Show South in Nashville on May 1st & 2nd at Booth 1360! Reach out to David to get a special registration code for free registration!! Connect with David: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-turner-enterprises/
Hello everybody, welcome back to another episode of Failing. For you. It is me, your host, jordan Yates, and today I'm really excited to be joined by Sean Walters, the general manager of Capron North America. Now, today's episode is going to be fun because, as you guys know, recently your girl was laid off and she's been looking for a new job, and I always love getting advice from people who have unique experiences and have, you know, had a longer career than me and learned quite a bit. So Sean has had a little bit of experience working at a startup and kind of the struggles there, as well as what it was like to make the decision to leave a job with really good culture, to take more money and then come back to that company, because he was, like, you know, culture culture seemed to have won. So, sean, without further ado, say hello to everybody.
Speaker 2:
Well, hello everyone. Jordan, thank you for having me on your show. I'm really excited about this opportunity and hoping that this will bring value to people.
Speaker 1:
But real quick. Before we get started, let's hear a quick message from our sponsors.
Speaker 3:
Hi there, I'm David Turner from Process Nonvation Specialists. In our world, process improvement isn't just a phrase. It's the key to unlocking efficiency in your operations. With over 20 years of hands on experience in the heart of manufacturing plants, I've walked in your shoes or alongside teams like yours, and understand the ins and outs of your daily challenges. My journey from the plant floor to leading process solutions means I know exactly what it takes to elevate your operations. Interested in transforming your process efficiency? With a partner who's been there, let's connect on LinkedIn. Don't wait for the future of automation. Let's create it. Process and Automation Specialists engineering efficiency together.
Speaker 4:
Go ahead, push our buttons. Actually, you don't have to physically push our buttons at all. Here at CapTron, we specialize in innovative capacitive sensor technologies, which means better ergonomics for your workplace and, unlike mechanical buttons that break or malfunction after repeated use, our sensors are rated for 100 million operations. Durability is the name of the game and we're winning, and you can be too. Visit CapTron at Automate 2024 in Chicago, illinois, on May 6th through 9th at booth 2886, or visit CapTroncom. Captron Install once, replace never.
Speaker 1:
Absolutely. And, guys, by the way, CapTron is sponsoring this in a couple other episodes, so shout out CapTron Before we get into it. Sean, do you have any plugs that you want to give to CapTron?
Speaker 2:
I think the big one is we are really trying to get our name brand out there in the market. We do strive to bring value to customers and help them with their products. We will be displaying at Automate. We're at booth 2886. So if you get an opportunity and you're in Chicago, we'd love for you to stop by and check us out.
Speaker 1:
Well, you heard it there and you're probably going to hear it again in this ad in about two seconds. So there you go, and now we're going to get back into the actual topic. So, sean, speaking of startups, tell us what it was like working at CapTron in early days, when it had really low brand awareness, and what that was like for you.
Speaker 2:
Well, I think I mean, first of all, we're still in this position where we have low brand awareness and we're trying to build it. And a little bit of history beyond that is I came from a very large organization and then I started that CapTron, which had a very much so startup feel, in August of 2022. And it was just a completely different dynamic from what I was used to A lot of moving parts. The owners of the CapTron had decided that they were going to take the organization from New York and move it down south here to Fort Mill, south Carolina. So it was a challenge from the get go. It was. It was. You know, hey, we're going to take operations, we're going to move it. We feel we're going to better serve our customers from this area, and so there was just a lot of different moving parts and, at the same time, still trying to grow our brand awareness in the market and gain customers right, and we have a very neat product. Captron. North America was was always on the radar of our owner. He wanted to expand into North America as well as Asia. Fortunately, a very large customer found us Amazon and they ended up using us for their picking stations across every Amazon location on the globe that launched Caption North America. It was a little bit of a whirlwind for the previous manager, but the focus always was Amazon and trying. You know, hey, we got to figure out how to grow our business outside of this large customer, because the products do bring value into other markets. So you know, starting back in August, it just was a whirlwind and a lot of great things we were able to accomplish, you know, obviously including moving this business to South Carolina and getting an operation set up that was a little bit more conducive to being able to serve our customers more quickly. I mean, we have a lot of product here but we didn't have that ability in New York to serve the customers and get it out the door. And that's really been our core focus as we're moving forward is just being able to serve our customers with the fastest service possible.
Speaker 1:
So you guys are CapTron's originally based out of Germany, is that correct?
Speaker 2:
It is. Captron has been an organization that started 1981. I hope I got that right. And ultimately it got started in the sensor business level sensing and it moved into mobility sensing, meaning took that same capacitive technology and all of a sudden we figured out, hey, we can use that on buses and trains and that was really the launch in the early 90s into button technology. So we took it from level sensing into buttons and, frankly, that's where Amazon saw the value right. They said we have issues, we don't want to move forward with our mechanical buttons because, as you can imagine, people are touching orders or confirming orders all day long. And they saw these buttons on buses and trains in Europe and that's how they come to know who we were and taking that technology into other spaces like the automation space. So that's really where it got its start in the button area.
Speaker 1:
So in Germany, where the headquarters was or is for them, is their brand awareness pretty good over there in Europe, like, do a lot of people know who CapTron is? Is the brand presence strong over there?
Speaker 2:
I would say in the mobility space very strong. We have a very high market share. Buttons do very well. Outside of that, I think the growth into the automation space, into building automation as well, hasn't been a focus into the last couple of years, and that's really where we're striving to grow more brand awareness, because it was hey, we're a button on a bus, on a door, and that's how Europe does their whole transport. We don't do that function here. They open the doors only when people let them know to open the doors. So that's a different technology we use here. So in that industry, yes. Outside of the industry not so much, but it's been a core focus of ours for the last three or four years.
Speaker 1:
Yeah. So the reason I ask is I'm curious when you guys started over here in North America, what was it like working with leadership over there where maybe they already had good brand awareness and they're like, hey, why does nobody know who you guys are? Like get it together. Or were they pretty understanding in the time that it took when you move a product to a new country or continent, like, what was that like being a part of the team moving from somewhere where there is good brand awareness to like, hey, we are so, so fresh.
Speaker 2:
That's where I get a smile on my face, because that's, I had a lot of warnings going to work from, you know, an American publicly traded company to a privately held German company. Like there's cultural differences, they go to business differently. That was not the vibe I got from CapTron at all. It was like hey, we're bringing you on because we think you know this market better. We want you to grow it, we want you to take what you know from your American market and grow it there. So that's, I mean, I'm kind of getting goosebumps already. That was the autonomy that I had from my leader at CapTron. There was no like, hey, this is how we're going to do it, you're going to do it our way, or it's the highway, it's no, we want to work together. We want to figure out what and that's what's going on right now, even as you and I are talking we're learning from each other inside our organization is how do we best grow brand awareness in our market, how do we best serve our customers? And that's really what's at the core of our leadership at CapTron. And kind of to your original question, that's what I'm passionate about. I mean there's no like this is the way it's going to be. It is really a team. I wasn't used to that. I was used to having to politic for what I wanted. It's a completely different field than I'd ever had before in my life.
Speaker 1:
That's like so nice to hear because I've had a couple of my customers where they're experiencing something similar. Where they were, their parent company is over in Europe and they're starting up over in the US and realizing there is a bit of a culture shift of how you have to market to the US versus somewhere in Europe. And a couple of the guys that are on, like one of my customers, telecontrols they're such nice, cool guys and some of them are like from Europe and they're coming here and they're like I don't know how to talk to these people, so they have a couple of Americans on the team like teaching them some stuff and it's really interesting watching them learn the market. And we're going to have another episode on that where Daniel comes on and tells us like about moving from that area over to the US and like the shifts there. But it's nice that you got to work somewhere where they did give you so much autonomy to make these decisions rather than second guessing you constantly. Because last week I was on a call with somebody and they said that their parent company was in the Netherlands and they had to explain like every part of American culture to them like hey, we need health insurance here, like we need benefits, like we don't have, like you know, government health care here like you guys do over there, and so it's interesting. Some companies get it that it's different on the other side of the world and some don't. So I'm really happy that CapTron is a company who understands the cultural differences and how to empower their employees. So that kind of moves us over to Sean. You loved CapTron but then you quit. Why did you do that?
Speaker 2:
I did and, interestingly enough, somebody had known from a previous work environment had that came to me and said hey, sean, I'd really like you to look at this opportunity of running our sales and marketing department. And it was almost a year ago. At this time I'm like, no, I'm not interested at all. He had continued to pursue me. He said hey, I'm not asking you to dive in this one. I mean, I kept pushing him off. It was somebody I knew I had liked this person working with him. I didn't work a ton with him directly, but I mean, I have to use a good person to work with, I said. Finally, he said well, just go talk to these investors. I met with the investors and they seemed pretty cool. It's like all right, we want to invest in you and we want you to get into this private equity deal. We're basically buying a company and they put all this altruism around it. We're going to give it this best home and we treat the employees right. It sounded really good from my perspective. It was my language. In fact, he knew me. I think he liked how I led a sales team. He was looking for some of that. It wasn't anything negative on his part. Ultimately. Here's what really was the interesting part. This is the culture we have at Capcom I went to. My boss's name is Philip owns the company. It was one of the most emotional calls I've ever made in my professional career. I mean, I really enjoy working for him. We're a team. We have a leadership team. It's him and Al. We all get along very well and getting to know each other over the last I don't know what it was at the time, a year, year and a half. It was emotional. I didn't want to leave. Here's the crazy part about it. He supported me in that.
Speaker 1:
He did.
Speaker 2:
He's like Sean because I told him. I'm like, hey, they're giving me equity, there's a big chunk of money here I'm getting paid. Well, it's going to be game changing for my family. He's like Sean. I hate that this is happening because he was heavily reliant on me. I was there for a lot of the business in North America. As far as managing the business, he was supportive. It made it worse for me. We had a contract, which is typical in German environments where you have a long parting. I worked for him for two months. I said, hey, I'll help. I'll do my best to help you find my replacement. I did interviews with him. You can imagine I'm doing interviews with people on my job and explaining to them how much I love this culture. I'm like listen, this is the real deal. The short story is, I got into this private equity and I started to realize it was a bit of a smoke show. It wasn't what you thought it was. He's called you. Well, I wasn't going to have the ability to have the impact that I wanted. I thought I was hired to help create the culture, do all the things that they talked about bring this company into the fold, show them that we care about them. It wasn't that case at all. I was being micromanaged and I was being expected to micromanage, and I said time out. It was a seven figure deal. I'm like this is not how I work and it became very tenacious for me. I think to your point, jordan. When you're in the situation or you're looking around and someone comes and offers you seven figures or a high level income, you want to come at it and really understand what you're getting into Money. And I learned very quickly my piece wasn't worth that money. I might have been able to make it to the finish line or not, I don't know. When you're spending nine hours, 10 hours of your life a day and you don't like what you do, it ain't worth it, absolutely. I had a good living. It wasn't any capron. I'm able to do what I want to do and I have a great lifestyle. I had a lot of wrestling internally and it didn't take me but a week at this new job. I called a Philip and I said Philip, I'm like this is not what I thought it was. Of course, he's really like I didn't expect this call. I said, well, I didn't either. I liked what I had. I don't like what I have now. I said I could stay here, but I'd like this opportunity if you haven't found somebody which he and I had still been in communication with some of the folks that he was interviewing with. He flew into the US and I picked him up at the airport. We had a great discussion sitting in my back yard. We just decided we were going to move forward and I was grateful I've been back now, for that happened in a very short timeframe in early October. I feel grateful to be part of an organization. It's kind of weird. Should we be weird about this? It's not weird, it's no we're here we're moving forward and we've been able to bring on some additional team members here in North America and you've had a chance to meet Eileen and she's doing some wonderful things in our marketing department and we have Aaron who's running the books and it's just high energy here now. This culture is definitely, I mean your audio bounce for a second. It did. Am I back?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, you're back.
Speaker 2:
So I mean everything starts with the leadership and really when and I know there's a lot of different influences out there, like when Simon Sinek talks about leadership, it's true, I mean, I've been in the industry now for 20 plus years and if there's a leader and they're about themselves and they're about grinding people and not really caring, you will feel it at every level in the organization.
Speaker 1:
So, sean, clearly like the culture at Capron sounds like it's very inviting and welcoming and it's pretty cool that they were fine with you just coming back after leaving. But I know a lot of people have a lot of pride and would be kind of nervous to even approach the situation and say, hey, I know I left, but I want to come back Like how hard was it for you to work up the courage and kind of kill your ego and be able to go and make that conversation happen.
Speaker 2:
Jordan. That is a great question and for me, the biggest part of that is what kept echoing through my mind is fail fast.
Speaker 4:
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:
You know the theme of your podcast, the failing for you. And if you make a bad decision, that's okay, life's short, you can fix it, and maybe Philip would have found somebody and I wouldn't have been able to come back. But to me that's where you cash the ego. You say, listen, this wasn't the right decision for me. I enjoyed working for Capron, I enjoyed building something and it wasn't a thing. It was just fail fast, make the decision and frankly I think that's good business, right? Yeah, you make a decision, it wasn't the right decision, you fix it, you move on. So for me there was a little bit of hesitation there, but ultimately the direction was to go with somebody you enjoy working with.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, no, there's the big sunken-cost fallacy of like you know, I put my time into this, I put my new effort into this, like should I just stick it out and see how it's gonna be? And recently my mom had started a job and she was training like 12, 13 hours a day and she's like I hate this so much. It's not what they told me it was gonna be. And I was like quit, like it's okay to quit, like just because you said you were gonna do it and you told all your family about it and like you're so excited and it was like a whole thing. Like just quit, who cares? Like it's fine if you really realize quickly it's not gonna be good. Just sticking it out for like the sake of pride is never a good idea because like then it's just gonna be wasting more time doing something you're miserable with. But I'm curious, as somebody who's been interviewing for jobs, and to a lot of young people that are listening, who don't realize that when you're interviewing, sometimes the interviewer is trying to sell you on the position and they can be really good salespeople. And that's why I'm always hesitant when a salesperson is interviewing me, because I know that they're gonna make it sound really good, because they're just used to selling, rather than what they mean to. They're just used to selling. So can you kind of tell us, like questions you wish you would have asked or things that you wish you would have kind of honed in on to better understand what you were getting into?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I think your question goes to two different points here, and it was something I wish I would have said at the very tail end of what I was saying is one is you gotta trust your gut a little bit. And it's a weird thing when somebody says trust your gut and I was like I don't know, but there were some red flags that stepped up along the way that I kind of like I pushed down and part of me just is oh, this big chunk of money sitting here right, and you kind of get the little like lotto ticket mentality and it made me miss some of those red flags. So if you're out there talking to your audience, if you're out there, you're interviewing to me. It's a two-way street. You really gotta see it both ways. They're interviewing you and you're interviewing them, and if there's something in your gut that tells you I'm just not comfortable with it, you keep digging at it and you keep digging at it until you're either confirmed that no, that was just, that was a thought, we're okay, or no, that's a problem. And even if you're in a situation where you need a job, I say don't just keep finding that place where you feel comfortable, where it really suits your personality and where you're gonna thrive. Because jumping on board with something and I do see this across the market a lot of folks who are just getting into the industry it's tough to get into right and you may want to just jump at the first opportunity that comes along and there's a lot of bad opportunities out there. You really have to work to find the right organization and just really do your vetting well. If you feel like it's going well, don't rush to that finish line to get to an offer. You know, say hey, can we set up another meeting? I'd really like to talk or is and here's something that I do personally and I would recommend to the audience. If somebody who's interviewing them doesn't offer this, but this is something I'm offer I say here's some numbers to my team, illinois Notch room. Call them, ask them whatever you want, because I'm giving you the sunshine and roses here. Here's a question. You can talk to them completely independent of me and they can tell you no, sean is, that's how Sean is or he's full of it. And if you get that opportunity with an organization or they don't give you that opportunity, try to take that thing. Can I talk to somebody on your team? Yeah, is there a chance that you have somebody that you recommend? That would help me understand how you go to market a little differently? Ask those questions that allow you to get a different perspective, other than that person you're talking to in the interview.
Speaker 1:
No, that's such a good point Because I actually had a phone call with someone recently and they're, like you know, before we even interview you, like get to know some people on our team, get to know, see if the culture is even a fit before we officially interview you, because, like, you want to know if you would like it here before you try to go put on a show and, like you know, be like sell yourself, and so I thought that that was a green flag. I was like, yeah, yeah, like I'd love to talk to people and get the tease, see what's like really going on here and see, like you know, what people actually think of this job and this culture. So I definitely agree, that's a great move from the hiring perspective. Have you, when you were interviewing people like I know I keep harping on ask the questions, interview them back, but have you ever been asked a question as an interviewer where you're like, ok, that was like a weird question, like maybe that was a little inappropriate or like something that kind of turns you off of somebody because they asked like kind of weird questions? Like, is there any like boundaries in what you've heard as somebody who is interviewing people?
Speaker 2:
I don't know that there's necessarily a bad question, but your questions can certainly to me, can kind of give me your intentions. If you know, going into any interview and this is what I tell your audience if you're going into an interview and you want a job that's 100% work from home, do your homework and make sure that if it's a company that wants you to work at the facility, don't start asking questions like well, is it OK if I leave at 1 o'clock in the afternoon? Like those kind of questions aren't going to work in. A lot of applicants You've got to you know you're going to get you're going to set yourself like OK, this you may not have meant it to sound that way, but it just may come across that way. So I don't think any questions are off limits, but I mean, if you want to set yourself apart, especially in today's environment you know there's certainly there's some dynamics changing around from working from home and all of that stuff. But I think the biggest thing is I want to get to a point where I feel comfortable knowing that we're going to work well together and we're going to work towards a common vision, right, like we have a goal to achieve. You know, if we're in this because we just want to pay check, that's somebody I'm going to steer clear of. Yeah, and it's part of the interviewing process. I see it. I mean it's a relationship and I'm not into. Hey, you know, I don't want to be hiring somebody every six months. You know, I want somebody who wants to grow with our organization and be part of it, because, one, that's just a better way of doing business and two, when you have people you enjoy working with, it just makes a lot more fun. So I don't know that I answered your question well, but I would just say make sure your questions are relevant. Make sure that if you have an initiative whether it be work from home or having flexibility here or flexibility there make sure you look at what they're looking for first and then, if you know that that's what they want, then don't waste either of your time.
Speaker 1:
It's really weird when you have the experience of interviewing people and then you go take an interview and you're the one being interviewed, because you really can hear how a question comes out and how that would come off to an interviewer. Because I don't think I understood that until I was probably 19 or 20 and I was working at Oil and Gas Service Company and I was interviewing welders and manual laborers and stuff like that and a lot of other questions was first thing, how much does it pay? And they're like that's a dollar more than my other place. Ok, when can I start? And I'm like honey, you haven't gotten it yet. Like, calm down, like if you're going to leave for a dollar more an hour, that's a bit of a red flag for me, because if somebody down the street offers you a dollar more an hour, then how do I know that you're going to stick around? So I can definitely see the importance of somebody asking about the culture and the work environment rather than just the money, because then you know that they're easy to pull away from if there's just like a tiny bit more here or there. But when it comes to I guess we'll shift over to like fostering a good work environment and being a leader of people once they're on your team. Sean Eileen says that you are an awesome leader and have some really good experience, so can you tell us about your leadership style when it comes to running a team?
Speaker 2:
Well, I think there's a couple different components. I think one of the most important pieces is transparency. It's tough at times Internally, I don't even know who I am. Sometimes I've got to figure out where I'm at, but that's part of it, right, and that we can be. We don't have to be perfect here. I think a big part of vision, or big part of leadership, is vision, and the good news is I have somebody that has vision, who believes in people. I believe you have to like people. I mean, you have to have a genuine care for people, and I see a lot of leaders in organizations that don't, and that's you just don't start off on the right foot when you don't care about people. If you're all about yourself, then how can you be a good leader? And for me personally, my faith plays a big part of it. It's treating people well, it's treating people with respect. I think there's just a big component of leadership that is just around the people's skills, and that's something that I'm always working on and something I'm striving for. I don't think I'm a great leader. I'm very appreciative of the fact that. I think that I'm somebody who strives to be a great leader, and I think you constantly have to work at it. You constantly have to think all right, how do I put my own selfish ambitious aside and focus on enabling them to be the best they can be? And I have to fight that. I mean because sometimes I want to do what I want to do right. But I learned early on in my sales career and it's something I continue to fight is if I don't take care of my customer, they don't take care of me. So I have to put them first. And to be honest about the fact that I struggle putting them first, right Now I got a number to make. I want to sell, I want to do well, I want to prove myself All of those ego things you have to figure out how to put in the right place. So I have to take care of my team and the team has to take care of the customer, and then the customer takes care of the team and then the team takes care of me. It's really that simple and it's selfless and selfish at the same time. But when you really put your team first and you say, hey, since someone's down, we're going to figure out how to pick them up, everyone responds. But if you have a team culture where it's all about me and I'm going to make my number. And if Philip was like it's all about me and I want to grow my business, I wouldn't be working here. It's about it. We want to grow. I mean it's fun when you're able to engage customers and figure out a solution for them that works well for them. That's fun and you can get to that mindset. I think that's where great leadership comes from and that's where great organizations come from.
Speaker 1:
Would you consider yourself somebody who I feel like? I know the answer to this based off of something you saw earlier, but you hated when you were micromanaged at the company you went to for a week. How do you balance making sure everyone's doing the right thing without micromanaging, but also making sure they have enough help? How have you worked through that of trying to empower your team but also keeping them on track?
Speaker 2:
I think that's a balance too. I try to do an 80-20 rule. If something's detrimental to the organization, I'll step in. But, frankly, philip does this with me too and I love it. He's like, well, what do you think I'll give him my business cases, do that. And I do the same thing. You're like, well, what do you think? Okay, do that. All right, 80%, that's good. Let's go so, really giving people that autonomy, because I love autonomy.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
I love autonomy. I love the fact, hey, we're doing this, we're engaging in something completely different for me, it would be completely different for the German culture, but we're doing this and I get to have that autonomy, and my boss is encouraging me to do this, and so if I like autonomy, why wouldn't my team like autonomy? And then there's challenges in big organizations small organizations all the same. We don't have an endless amount of money. Larger organizations have huge marketing and we're trying to figure out how to strategically grow our business and all of that. But just giving people the ability to do their jobs. Here's the expectation. This is what we're trying to get done. And you asked another question and you asked a different question about leadership. I think that's also. A huge component of leadership is, if we're not on the same page and I've screwed this up more times than I've gotten it right but if we're not on the same page, having a conversation in a candid, kind way, to say, hey, we're not on the same page here. What can we do to get on the same page? And I'm very open with my team. Like, I screwed this up, but please give me the grace if I screw this up. And we have to have a candid conversation that we can move forward. But I have your best intentions in mind, but hey, we're not on the same page. Because I do think great leaders have to have those tough conversations sometimes and demand that of their team. Which is the toughest thing when my team says to me hey, sean, I don't time out, I don't think you're right here. To me that's the biggest compliment that if a team member can come to me and say I don't agree with you, then I've created the environment for growth.
Speaker 1:
Sean, what if people really liked you and now they're like we want to work at Capron? Are you guys hiring?
Speaker 2:
We are growing at a pace that we can manage. So, interestingly enough, I had a conversation not too long ago and then Philip was like well, you better get ready. I'm like Philip, I'm not ready yet.
Speaker 3:
He's like.
Speaker 2:
we're investing, we're growing, so we are moving forward here. We're moving into an additional market here that we're both very excited about. Well, we're all here very excited about. So obviously, a big claim to fame is Amazon. We love that. On a resume, it's great. They bought over a half a million buttons. Nothing arrives at your door without them touching a Capron button which. I think, speaks to our durability, because that's very important to Amazon. But we're moving into a space now where, hey, we have the hardware but we're offering a solution now on the software side of it so we can help small and medium-sized companies with their warehouse logistics, so helping them be more efficient, helping them reduce errors, stuff like that. So we are going to be hiring in that arena in the very, very near future. We just had a couple of customers that we've launched in Europe, like Festool companies like that. So come June I'm nervous and excited we're going to be launching up here in the US.
Speaker 1:
All right guys. Well, keep a lookout for that if you are trying to join Sean's team this summer. So I'm sure people will be like, yeah, sounds like a pretty good place to work, so keep that in the back of your minds. But, sean, we're just about at our time today, so is there anything else that you want to leave the listeners with before we sign off?
Speaker 2:
No other than thank you, jordan. So much for this opportunity, a little out of my comfort zone, but just I've really enjoyed it. And to me it's about helping people. And if any of your listeners I mean aside from working specifically here at Capron, but if anyone listens and they just like some insight from somebody who's been in the industry for a long time, I'm glad to help in any way I can. So just I'm here to help.
Speaker 1:
Awesome. Well, I'll put his LinkedIn in the description of the show notes so you guys can connect with Sean and talk with him more if you want. But, guys, that is all I have for today. So thank you for listening to another episode of Failing for you. I hope you guys learned a lot and had a good time. So, yeah, anyways, I'm your host, jordan Yates, and in the meantime, I'll be failing for you. See you next time.
