Hey, everyone! On today’s episode of Growth Everywhere, I share the mic with Didier Elzinga, former CEO of Rising Sun Pictures and current CEO of Culture Amp, which is a product that seeks to help companies create better corporate culture in order to get a higher rate of employee engagement and retention.
Tune in to hear Didier discuss how he went from software developer to CEO over the course of his career, how they attract new business and double employee retention, what CEOs rate the importance of culture for the success of their company on a scale of 1-10, and Culture Amp’s motto that brand is what you promise a customer and culture is how you deliver that promise.
Download podcast transcript [PDF] here: Why Didier Elzinga Asks New Hires at Culture Amp How He Can Help Them Get Their Next Job TRANSCRIPT
Time-Stamped Show Notes:
- [00:33]Before we begin, please leave a review and rating and subscribe to the Growth Everywhere Podcast!
- [01:15] Didier ran a visual effects company and worked on major film projects.
- [01:37] So much of running a successful business is people and culture.
- [01:45] He was good friends with the people that started Atlassian and found their business model was far more successful than his.
- [01:58] So he started the Culture Amp.
- [02:48] They were one of the first companies who captured employee feedback, turned it into usable data, and put the company in control.
- [02:59] They now work with over 1,300 companies globally.
- [03:17] Culture Amp gives you access to the collective intelligence and not just the data.
- [03:58] The challenge is building a culture in order to deliver a specific product.
- [04:30] Companies use Culture Amp to get a sense of how their employees feel about the office culture and the product they are creating. They then use that data to allocate appropriate resources in order to improve upon their current methods.
- [05:11] They are a classic SaaS business: based on subscription.
- [05:33] The pricing structure is based on the size of the organization using the service.
- [05:55] Culture Amp has four offices now: Melbourne, San Francisco, New York, and London.
- [06:01] They have nearly 170 employees overall, which about doubles every year.
- [06:24] Employee effectiveness is about giving individual feedback.
- [06:49] Performance reviews are once per year, but you want to give people feedback that gives them tools to succeed on a regular basis.
- [07:57] When one company was hemorrhaging employees, they did a survey and found their engagement score was only 50%.
- [08:22] Engagement measures how happy employees are, if they believe in the company’s mission, if they are willing to stay long term, and if they would go the extra mile.
- [08:35] If someone isn’t engaged, it’s basically just a gig and they don’t like the company or the product.
- [08:48] Engagement measures employees’ emotional commitment to the company.
- [09:00] You will never get 100%, but you can get close.
- [10:00] Look at your retention and attrition as a basic way of determining ROI.
- [10:40] Brand is what you promise to a customer and culture is how you deliver that promise.
- [10:55] Think about the experience you want to deliver to your customer and consider what kind of culture you would need to achieve it,
- [12:49] Smaller companies tend to have more involvement from the CEO when it comes to creation of culture.
- [13:00] When presenting, Didier will ask a room full of CEOs how important culture is to the success of their company. On a scale of 1-10, they often rate it an 11.
- [13:21] CEOs often care deeply about culture.
- [13:45] Customer acquisition was hard at first, but a lot of it was networking.
- [14:35] In the early days of Culture Amp, they would host a meetup group where you could meet in a bar and talk about corporate/office/company culture. That was a big part of their engine.
- [14:51] They will soon embark on a Culture Amp tour.
- [15:30] They do webinars and master classes.
- [15:44] Over time, they have gotten better at curating these events.
- [16:05] The thing that has worked the best for Culture Amp is the fact that they are not just doing one thing to gain customers.
- [16:42] You can spend money, but the biggest cost is time and people.
- [17:03] When companies plan events and task a single person with putting it on, it rarely succeeds, because you need to have the company culture the encourages learning and networking.
- [17:14] Big events work for Culture Amp, because their employees truly believe in the company mission and like having a lot of face time with others.
- [17:28] What has been interesting to Didier is seeing the increasing sophistication of account-based marketing. Particularly how the multi-touch model works.
- [18:05] When Culture wants to connect with a company, they make sure to have many points of contact (marketing strategies), so that when they reach out personally, the company in questions already knows who they are.
- [18:14] Events have proven to be a great way to bring people into the Culture Amp community.
- [18:47] Didier explains his Letting Go of Your Best Employees blog post.
- [19:24] Don’t pretend you will be together as a company forever; be realistic about each employee’s time at the company.
- [20:00] When people are hired at Culture, Didier asks them how he can use his network to get them their next job.
- [20:18] If Didier knows where you’re going (your goals), then he can help guide your time at the company so that you head in that direction (within and without Culture Amp).
- [21:07] Didier talks about his blog post, The Seven Year Overnight Success.
- [21:53] The first product Didier had, he found that there was no repeatable sales cycle.
- [22:17] In the moment, it always feels like you’re just one feature away from succeeding.
- [22:22] Eventually, you have to set a deadline for success and if you can’t grow, it’s time to close up shop.
- [23:23] Didier worked for Rising Sun Pictures. He started as a software engineer and then ended up as the CEO.
- [23:43] He could have stayed there, but he felt he needed to leave and challenge himself.
- [24:25] Didier is a bit of a tool junky, but he feels like the following tool has helped him stay on top of his business: Donut, a slack tool.
- [25:50] In his personal life, he likes to use Bullet Journal and Todoist.
- [26:28] Didier recommends everyone read The Effective Executive.
Resources From This Interview:
- Culture Amp
- Didier’s blog posts:
- Donut for Slack
- Bullet Journal
- Todoist
- Must-read book: The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done by Peter F. Drucker
- DidierElzinga@cultureamp.com
- Didier on LinkedIn
- Didier on Twitter
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