Inspiring Better Lives Through Culture with Bejan Douraghy, CEO of Artisan Talent
Bejan Douraghy is the founder and CEO of Artisan Talent, a staffing agency which Bejan started in the Chicago area in 1988 when he was 25. The company tripled in size in just three years, and was recognized by Inc. magazine as one of the fasted growing magazines in America at the time.
Artisan Talent went on to be recognized by a myriad of awards and publications including Forbes and Entrepreneur. In 2018 Artisan Talent made the lists of Best Talent Satisfaction and Best Client Satisfaction from Inavero & Career Builders.
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In this episode, you will learn:
[01:28] What is Artisan Talent?
[10:53] What it means to “Inspire Better Lives”
[26:39] How culture affects the bottom line
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Episode Transcript
Speaker 3: Okay, From Core Values To Valued Culture, here is your host, Will Scott, interviewing another CEO about leading culture in their company.
Will Scott: Hello listeners and welcome to another Culture Czars interview where we talk to CEOs that care about corporate culture. We call this series From Core Values To Valued Culture, and our purpose is to help CEOs create environments where employees love where they work and why they work. Bejan Douraghy is my guest today. Delighted to be talking to him. Bejan is CEO and the czar of culture at Artisan Talent. Good morning, Bejan.
Bejan Douraghy: Good morning. Pleasure to be here.
Will Scott: Thank you. How are things today?
Bejan Douraghy: Things are great. I'm looking forward to ... It's a Friday, right?
Will Scott: It's happy Friday.
Bejan Douraghy: Happy Friday.
Will Scott: And CEOs that care about corporate culture love talking about culture. So [crosstalk 00:01:20] today too.
Bejan Douraghy: That'd be great. Looking forward to it.
Will Scott: All right. So, first of all, tell us a little bit about Artisan Talent.
Bejan Douraghy: Artisan Talent? We are a temporary staffing company, and we also place full time talent as well. We specialize in the industry of placing digital creative and marketing talent only. So that's our niche. That is what we do. I founded the company in Chicago after a few years of trial and error, of course, I didn't start off wonderfully. However, I did end up opening up offices in different cities. We're in New York, Indianapolis, DC, Denver, and have a sister affiliation in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Will Scott: Well, congratulations. So you started this company from scratch yourself, I think 20 years ago or something?
Bejan Douraghy: Hate to admit it. It's actually 30 now.
Will Scott: 30 years?
Bejan Douraghy: 30 years.
Will Scott: Okay. Well, congrats. Classic entrepreneurial Story and it a must be great having those different locations. What's corporate culture mean to you?
Bejan Douraghy: Corporate culture to me is actually the essence of my company. It's the essence of how I think. It's what I believe. It's how, I guess I call it, I walk the talk and my belief if the CEO isn't really into culture or doesn't believe what their culture is, that’s actually creating their own culture without knowing it. So I really, in essence, I try to talk the talk and walk it and if it doesn't start at the top, you really don't have control as to what it's going to be like with all your employees.
Will Scott: One of the questions I typically ask later is: where does it rank in sort of strategic importance for you, but I think you've answered that. Everything begins with culture for you.
Bejan Douraghy: Everything begins with culture, and I'd say even the title if you want. That's presumptuous, right? Chief Executive Officer. I really look at it as the chief empathy officer. Yeah. Meaning that you really need to understand who your employees are. You really want to know where they're coming from. I'm sure we'll go into more depth, but that's kind of how I look at things.
Will Scott: Okay. Is empathy brought into a culture, by the way? Is that something that you do talk about?
Bejan Douraghy: Yes it is. It's something we talk about. It's something we actually hire around. It's something, yeah, it's a key element in our hiring process. That is part of our, I'd say, differentiator is how we behave internally and that extends out to the talent that we are placing and also our clients and how we behave with our clients.
Will Scott: Sure, sure. So is empathy actually one of your core values?
Bejan Douraghy: Yeah, it's a driver. It really is.
Will Scott: Okay. How do you use that then? You talked about in hiring and everything. How do you go about the hiring process to make sure you're getting people that are fitting the culture?
Bejan Douraghy: It's not an easy thing to do. We do a behavioral interview and use any questions that we have. It’s a particular process that we have interviewees go through. And the characteristics that we're looking for, the cultural characteristics that we've defined, are more smart, caring, nurturing, creative, and driven. Those are the key values that we are striving to find. You're not going to get it with everyone, but those are the ones that we are looking for, and you can hire for that. You can look for those traits.
Will Scott: Absolutely. I encourage clients to definitely have behavioral questions, as you say, or even scenario based questions, and to tie the scenario based questions to real stories that have happened in the company's history, that have helped define the culture for that company. Then you kind of have the right answer too because you know how the story went and one of your cultural czars, one of your employees that represents the culture, and how they behave in that situation. So it's great to use that for scenario-based questions and for sure the more you do it, the better you get at it, and you can actually hire people that fit the culture.
Bejan Douraghy: Yeah. Then the other thing as an add on, maybe after we do make the hire, we do use it as an onboarding process. Of course to make sure that the language is clear and everything we do use a Strength Finder. That is something that we brought into the company maybe two or three years ago and I'd say that has really changed the way we speak actually, even to each other, and really recognizing what everyone's strength is. Sometimes someone's strength can look like it's a weakness, but, again, it enables us to really talk to each other at a different level and we have the same vocabulary going across the board. So I'd say culturally that has really helped us become a much better communicative company.
Will Scott: Interesting. So, yeah, that's from Marcus Buckingham's work, right? First, discover your strengths.
Bejan Douraghy: Yeah. Gallup. Exactly.
Will Scott: Yeah. Right.
Bejan Douraghy: Nuts and bolts, actually. Inexpensive, doesn't cost hundreds of dollars to do it. The thing’s about $25 or something like that per test and you get a great book. It gives you your five top strengths. You can go a lot deeper if you want, but we just focus on the five top.
Will Scott: Yeah I recently revisited what the results were from my profile. I presume you've shared that with the candidates too or the successful employees so that they learn something about themselves through that process as well.
Bejan Douraghy: Absolutely. We share it and we also have in our break room where everyone's top five strengths are listed so that you can go and have a better understanding as to who you're working with, who your coworkers are, and go back to your book and kind of read what those strengths are and how you can communicate with that person.
Will Scott: Okay. How are you evaluating existing employees on based on your core values as well on some sort of frequency?
Bejan Douraghy: After they've done the Strength Finder and all of that we probably don't do the testing, because hopefully by that time they are integral in our culture and they understand who we are. If there's a way of making sure that people are still behaving or having those behavioral traits, that is the only thing that we do send out to our clients and to our talent. We try to get our NPS scores, our net promoter scores. That's a really good indicator if we're doing well or not. I mean, we are preferred or we're not. So that we use that. That works very well.
Will Scott: So clearly that's a measurement of business performance, but you're also saying that it's kind of a measure of your culture, because if you're succeeding there then your employees are representing your core values, obviously your customers?
Bejan Douraghy: Yeah. And our talent.
Will Scott: And your talent, yeah.
Bejan Douraghy: So if we get a score I get flagged, so then I can talk about it or we can work through it and just find out what happened, how can we learn from this particular situation.
Will Scott: That's super interesting. Yeah. So clearly you're very adept at making the culture come alive and keep it thriving in the organization. Did you always have core values in your 30 year history?
Bejan Douraghy: No, definitely not.
Will Scott: I didn't think so. So tell us the story about how core values first came about at Artisan Talent.
Bejan Douraghy: I think it was more of a gut feeling for me initially because I really didn't know what it was, and I think what happened for me was, even at the beginning, I knew very early on what I wanted. If I were to create a company ... and I think that when I look back wondering why did I leave the company and start my own, really it wasn't a cultural fit for me. With any business, of course, you need KPIs, you need to be successful, you need to make sales, et cetera, et cetera. But my belief was I would want it to turn it around. What was missing was if you have the right people in place and you have the right culture in place, those numbers will follow. They will come.
Bejan Douraghy: But if you're just all about numbers, you're all about KPIs and everything else... I know that's just not the culture I wanted and I believe that you really need that human element, whatever that is, through discovery of course. But, that was a thing that to me was really missing. I said if I were to create a company, I would own a company where people felt that they were part of something bigger and not just a job, you know, that it was going to become a career for them.
Will Scott: Absolutely. Which is why we do the work that we do at Cultures Czars. It's just we think there's so much opportunity to work on culture and help employees enjoy where they work and why they work, and you just spoke to the why so they feel like they're doing something meaningful. That's awesome. How do you describe what they're doing, meaningful? Is it around what you're doing for your talent or your clients or…?
Bejan Douraghy: It took a while to come to that conclusion, and where we came to, I guess, was to come up with a phrase that explains what we do and explains our culture and that phrase for us is: inspiring better lives. That is us, that whatever we do, mission statements and all that stuff, that's gone, and we wanted to really bring it down to one phrase. And that of course was not easy. But for us it's about inspiring better lives.
Bejan Douraghy: So inspiring better lives. How are we doing that for our clients, how are we doing that for the talent that we represent? And then how are we doing it internally? I think that sometimes really gets missed. Everyone's focusing on the client, engagement and everything. Then it's for us, it's our other verticals, the talent that we represent and place. Then the piece that I feel that gets missed is your employees. And now culture is becoming this word that the C suite is constantly employing.
Bejan Douraghy: With the emergence of, I would say, the younger generation, they are much in tuned with culture. They're much in tune with who they are, where they want to go. If they don't like the company, they're going away.
Will Scott: I quite agree. Yeah. Millennials tell us all the time. It's really important to not just have a job but to be doing something meaningful. I think you're right. They also care about the way things feel. Culture ultimately, I think, is about the way things feel at work and how they feel when you walk into an office or into a room, or even if you're working remotely. What's the feeling that you get.
Will Scott: So yeah, the whole thing about a balance. So you use the word inspired, which of course is a great inspirational word in itself. Take us through this. What's an example then of how you know you can make your clients' lives better? An example of how you can make your talent lives better and your employees, just take us through that because so many people haven't figured out their why. So you clearly are focused on the ‘why’ at Artisan Talent. I think people would like to hear more about that.
Bejan Douraghy: I'd say from an inspirational aspect or inspiring better lives there's a couple examples. A simple one is more where a talent will become, if we have a good interaction with our talent and we may not even find them a job, but for us it's about building that rapport and building that relationship right at the beginning. So placing them or they get a job, and what happens is they will call us and say, "You know what? I really enjoyed the experience that I had with you. I want to work with you and your talent directly."
Bejan Douraghy: A lot of times they may get laid off and they'll come back and they become talent. So that happens quite a bit. Or, you know what? They maybe just need help with their resume and they want to have it be rewritten or their portfolio needs to be redone. We will help them with that, you know, there's no charge there. We just want to help them with their careers throughout their career.
Will Scott: Which helps them have better lives.
Bejan Douraghy: Yeah. And have better lives. Exactly. For our client side it’s making it easier for them to do their job, making it easier for them to focus on what they need to do to be successful in their position so that we're hopefully making them look good in the light of their managers, but making their job easier so that they can continue in their career.
Bejan Douraghy: One example was, for me personally, I guess inspirational in many ways was with a large Fortune 100 company and they were looking for talent and they had a position that they wanted for us to find someone that could be a software engineer, but to help people with disabilities. We found someone, I mean, he's an amazing person. He's inspirational himself. He's completely blind and we found him, we found him the position at United. He's become their top software engineer now. He was a freelancer for three years or so and we eventually got him hired there full time. And that's a great story. Yeah.
Will Scott: That's a great story, so obviously helped make his life better. United, obviously, the people there that we're trying to fill that role, their lives are better. And then what about your employee or associate that I guess placed that guy that worked on that project? He feels like his life's better as a result of that.
Bejan Douraghy: Absolutely. It's that bringing that happiness there. That is something that's not monetary, that feeling that you said, that culture that you come in, it's not a monetary thing. It's actually feeling that we get, and it's a good win-win, fun, positive feeling for that moment.
Will Scott: That's awesome. Do you think your associates, when they're doing their work and they're trying to place talent with one of your clients, they're not just trying to fill the post and put a bum in a seat. Do you think it's really in their mind that if I help make the content or my clients' lives better as a result of making this placement that of course builds Artisan for the long term, right?
Bejan Douraghy: Sure. And that's our, we believe, differentiator is we really do believe that. We really adhere to that. And if someone comes in that's all about the numbers and everything else, it's a very strong culture so they're either going to work out or they're not. When you have a strong culture, that's how it works.
Will Scott: Yeah. That's awesome. I'm glad we spent more time focusing there on your ‘why’. It also reminds me that I encourage CEOs to think of themselves as not just managing a company but managing a culture, which I think is a change in mindset and it makes you think more expansively about what you're doing as a leader, and you are clearly extending your culture to outside your immediate organization and employees to the talent and the people that you place and to your clients. So you really are leading a culture there, Bejan.
Will Scott: Do you think like that? Do you think broader than the four walls of the company?
Bejan Douraghy: Oh yeah. I really do. I really do think that way. In terms of culture itself, I mean, I just say culture eats strategy. You can have the best strategy in the world. You can have all these KPIs and all these metrics that you want to meet, but if your employees are not in alignment with your vision, with how you are as a leader because you're the one that is instigating that culture. They will create their own culture. They'll invent their own way of doing things.
Will Scott: Yes. Which, would you rather it be deliberate and manage a culture so you get the one you want, or just let it end up being the default culture?
Bejan Douraghy: And it will be because culture will define itself and you will see what happens if you let it go. I guess the other way for me in terms of getting to know my employees, I think, of course sometimes at the C-level that's quite difficult to get to know every single one, every single person. But there are little things you can do, having rituals that you have at your organization, whatever those rituals are. Celebrations. A real simple one for me is going on in the morning when I get there is saying good morning to everybody. Really simple, very easy. You know, and once I didn't do it, people thought that I was in a bad mood, something was wrong. What's Bejan thinking? You know?
Will Scott: Interesting. So that really is a ritual that's become part of culture and people expect it now. Yeah.
Bejan Douraghy: They expect it. And of course we get a new client or whatever it may be. There are certain rituals, birthdays, recognizing people for how long they've been at the company. I mean, there's a lot of little things that don't cost a lot of money, but it's just recognizing the person, you know? I think it's quite simple, but a lot of people forget about it. I guess one other maybe tidbit is, I call it the employee iceberg if you want. The employee comes to you, a tip of the iceberg, that's all the good stuff, right? Then underneath is everything that makes up that person.
Bejan Douraghy: I don't need to know everything, but I want to know the persons, or the managers should know the person's aspirations, their dreams. How are you as a company going to get them to get to the next level? Whatever that is. But you're not going to do that if you don't know what's underneath the tip of the iceberg. You have to know all of that. So yeah, I try to instill that thinking.
Will Scott: So how do you do that? Are you basically promoting conversations where people are sharing and talking?
Bejan Douraghy: Yeah. Being authentic. I don't know why that's so difficult, but yes, actually being authentic, transparent. You know, if you're not authentic, people know right away. You can't fake that. You don't have to be the person's best friend, but you really have to show that you care. Why should they care about you and your company if you don't?
Will Scott: Right. So you mentioned rituals and I like that word. Do you have any rituals that you use to keep the core values in front of people and keep reminding them about them?
Bejan Douraghy: It's kind of fallen off a little bit, but we did have a brand ambassador award or recognition. We spoke the words, really showed who Artisan is by how they treated someone or by their correspondence, little badges, that recognition, you know, things like that. But it's so instilled in our culture that it's very strong. I believe it's very strong as far as I can tell from what I'm hearing.
Will Scott: Yeah. If it's very strong and you're hiring people that also fit, and after enough time I guess you can get this culture where it doesn't need a lot of reinforcement for you because it's just happening naturally.
Bejan Douraghy: It happens naturally. Then the people that don't fit, those flags come up very quickly and I don't have to do discovery. Oh, is this person right or not? They come to me and were like, you know what Bejan, I don't think X, Y, Z is going to work out instead of waiting six months or a year to find out that they're not a good fit.
Will Scott: Yeah. So you came up with one nice story there, Bejan, around the blind talent that you're able to place. Any other sort of stories that you can think of that have helped define one of your core values, and just remind us what those words are, what they are again, the core values.
Bejan Douraghy: I'd say the words. Smart, caring, nurturing, creative, and driven. Then on top of that is our slogan-
Will Scott: Inspiring better lives.
Bejan Douraghy: Inspiring better lives. That's not on the outside. That's not what we're advertising, but that’s what we’re doing to inspire. I'm trying to think of stories to answer your question. There's been quite a few. I mean, especially there's been a few instances where a freelancer will come to town from out of town, they don't know anybody in the city. They really do need their job and we give them a place. Obviously they have to have the talent but usually we found people many jobs. We opened many doors to people that they would have missed. So there are many stories that teach their careers, and they've written in thanking us for giving them that opportunity, because we do have great relationships with many companies and unfortunately as an individual, sometimes it's hard to get in the door to a large corporation, and we have access to those doors.
Will Scott: So, Bejan, I know something that you're fairly passionate about in this subject is this word engagement. We hear so much about how so many employees at so many companies are disengaged. Tell us bit about your thoughts on engagement.
Bejan Douraghy: For me, an engaged employee, it stems around that word culture. What is your culture like? What are you doing internally to keep these employees, your top performers engaged? Are you spending time with your low performers? Are you spending more of your time with your engaged employees? And you have to really figure out who those people are, your engaged employees. With being that it's a candidate driven market, you know what? They can pick up and go very quickly and you're going to lose a leader within your organization. It's difficult to replace those people.
Bejan Douraghy: And it's not necessarily monetary. You know, you really need to find out what is keeping this person here, what are they happy about? What are their dreams and aspirations? I mean, those are the questions one needs to ask if you're not asking them. And if 50% to 70% of your employees are disengaged, then you, as a company, you're losing a lot of money. Calls aren't being made, things are being dropped. There's no follow up. People are coming in, as I mentioned before, doors are spinning at 5 o'clock. That's a terrible person to have as an employee.
Bejan Douraghy: The thing to really think about is those that are engaged, what are you doing to keep them internally? You must have a plan for those, the key people, key employees.
Will Scott: Yes, and of course you would know, having been in the place of business how expensive it is if you get the wrong employee in.
Bejan Douraghy: Yes, extremely expensive. It takes a lot of time. Your resources are being used, HR people, if you multiply her or his rate and then your own internal hourly rate, you know, by the time you interview someone and fly them in, et cetera, et cetera. That's a lot of money to make a wrong hire. So you obviously want to make sure that you're finding the right person, but what are you doing to keep them engaged?
Will Scott: Yeah. So first, define your culture. Have a great culture. Then make sure you hire people that are fitting the culture and you have processes around retaining those great fits. Then can you say that you've seen with Artisan, that you've seen a positive impact? I mean, can you tie it to financial success? Have you been financially more successful as a result of having a better culture?
Bejan Douraghy: From my own experience, absolutely. We've had good times and bad times, but I would say the last eight years we've really grown, and it's because of our ability to hire great people, and we don't have a lot of turnover. That's another thing that we're quite proud of is that there's very little turnover. Sure, you get it, a wave now and then. But I do have people that have been with me 15, 18, 10, 9 years.
Will Scott: That's great, yeah.
Bejan Douraghy: And there’s a reason why they stay, right? Because they feel culturally there's a connection, they’re engaged. And as a leader, I know that I can, personally, I can leave, you know? I can go away. I know that they're going to be taking care of the business. And I always tell them, it's not about working for me. It's actually I work for you creating an environment so that you can do the best that you can. And Artisan is the mothership, you know, you’re making decisions for the betterment of the company and yourself.
Will Scott: I think an interesting word to use here is safety. People, if feel they feel safe in their place of work, then of course they feel that they can be themselves and they can do their best work. It sounds like you make them feel valued, and they feel like they're doing something meaningful because they're helping inspire better lives. Yeah, why would those people want to leave?
Bejan Douraghy: Yeah. And I've had stories where people have left and they've come back.
Will Scott: Okay. Yeah.
Bejan Douraghy: I've had three or four of those. So that says something about who we are as a company and as a culture.
Will Scott: It does indeed. People think the grass is greener on the other side, they go and taste and they think, "Oh no, it was greener back around."
Bejan Douraghy: I'm like, "Are you sure about this?" They come back and they're really very thankful. Again, it gives them inspiration I'd say as well.
Will Scott: Yeah. So what we kind of have a missed over in terms is, what process did you use to go through determining your core values?
Bejan Douraghy: Basically, we did use a third party in terms of a company came in, a marketing/branding company at the time. This was quite some time ago.
Will Scott: So you were ahead of the curve on this cultural stuff, Bejan.
Bejan Douraghy: I'd say yes. You know, honestly, this is back in 2002 and people thought I was crazy, like, "Why would you be spending this much money on figuring out your culture? You know, go get more sales and et cetera, et cetera. And I said, "You know what? In order for me to build a company that has some kind of legacy, this is not just short term. I'm not looking at the short term. I have a vision as to where I want the company to go, because I want is I want it to work without me being there," and you know, getting it to that point.
Bejan Douraghy: But it was a long process. There was a lot of interviews, internal interviews, interviewing all the employees internally. Then of course interviewing, going outside and interviewing clients. Interviewing the talent that we chased. And you're going to get very different perspectives. Perspectives that you wouldn't necessarily know. So from that we got an idea as to what the key messaging was and what type of company. And back in the day we called it persona. But I guess we figured out what our persona was and stayed true to that.
Will Scott: Okay. That's awesome. So basically you used an outside service to help you come in and discern or determine who you are as an organization then put words that defined your culture and those were basically what became your core values. And you did this nearly 20 years ago.
Bejan Douraghy: Yeah, 20. I guess it's been that long.
Will Scott: Good for you. Yeah.
Bejan Douraghy: Yeah, we've kept it that way. It hasn't changed and yes, there's been tweaks here and there, but those, once you figure out the core value of your organization, your core value in your messaging and your why, then everything kind of works around that because then, you know, if you make a decision, does it really fit into the why? And if it doesn't, then what was the reasoning behind that decision if you made it, you know, why did you do that?
Will Scott: Yeah. And I think some hard driving CEOs would think that the softer side of things is a little, you know, is kind of overplayed and doesn't really have value, but it clearly does for you, right?
Bejan Douraghy: It does for me. And I think more and more companies are going to be doing that. They have to if they want to survive with the newer generations of people that are more in touch with their feelings, more in touch with their emotions and the cultural fit. You know, for me, really culture isn't about bringing in a ping pong table and some beanbags. [crosstalk 00:31:54]
Will Scott: Right, or the kegerator.
Bejan Douraghy: It doesn't work. It stems from the belief of the C-suite, it has to start there. If it doesn't start there then you've got a wild organization that's going to go its own way. Whatever that way is, good or bad.
Will Scott: Yeah. Sometimes I used the example of the US Constitution and how we coexist as a country with values that are really defined by The Constitution. And if we didn't have that, what would it be like? How would we coexist harmoniously?
Bejan Douraghy: Right. That would be pretty difficult.
Will Scott: Yes, and so the same thing in a company, why are we going to run a company without a constitution effectively, a set of values that you can go to as a compass?
Bejan Douraghy: I would say to add to that, if there's advice at all it is to make it simple and that's hard, right? It's hard to get it to that simplicity, but you’ve got to get it to the point where all your employees don't need a big message. I looked at it as a phrase, and just start with this phrase, inspiring, inspiring what? Inspiring something.
Will Scott: Although we call this sort of soft skills, it's actually quite hard to do, isn't it? It's quite hard to discern your core values and to manage that and to keep them alive and thriving.
Bejan Douraghy: Absolutely.
Will Scott: Yeah. But of course it's tends to be a good investment.
Bejan Douraghy: I'd say from my perspective and experience best investment. You can see how long ago I did it, we're still using it. We've changed it. We have a different brand in terms of look and feel, but in terms of the culture and the words that we choose. I mean, those are phrases that we are intentional. The wording that we have. As an example, yes, we're in the recruiting business, but we don't call ourselves recruiters. The recruiters are actually called talent representatives. There's a reason behind that. It's how we treat the talent, that we're not just recruiters and slapping resumes up on the wall hoping that someone will hire them.
Will Scott: Yeah. Well thanks. So think as we're coming to the end of our interview that perhaps you've reminded me about asking about the fun side of things, because I like to say that working on culture, it can be one of the lowest capital investments you have to make, right? Doesn't take a lot of capital or cash, but it can be very rewarding. So you've got very high return. And it's fun though too, isn't it? If the C-suite have this going and you're making people feel good, it's fun.
Bejan Douraghy: And who wouldn't want to be a part of that organIzation?
Will Scott: Yeah, right.
Bejan Douraghy: For me, you've got to have that spirit of fun. You have to come in. You have to have some laughter, yes, but you also have to work, understood. But if you have someone that's engaged, they're going to do it. They're going to come in, they're going to have fun, but they understand what their goals are. They know that we have to reach a certain amount, but for them I'd rather it not be a job. It's coming into a more of career learning, comradery, and celebrating certain goals once we meet those goals.
Will Scott: Absolutely.
Bejan Douraghy: It's fun.
Will Scott: It's fun, exactly. Okay. Well I think that's a great note to finish on. The fun one. It's certainly been fun interviewing you today, Bejan, and hearing about your great success at Artisan Talent, a 30 year history. Determining your core values almost 20 years ago and how today it's as important or more important than it's ever been for you as a success driver for your company.
Bejan Douraghy: Absolutely.
Will Scott: Yeah. So congrats
Bejan Douraghy: Well, thank you.
Will Scott: Yeah.
Bejan Douraghy: And it's fun.
Will Scott: Okay, right. Well, fun for you. You love to travel. Fun for you. Probably be opening offices outside of North America.
Bejan Douraghy: You know what? That has been on my bucket list, so we'll see. Why not?
Will Scott: Okay. I look forward to the update on that.
Bejan Douraghy: Thanks.
Will Scott: Thanks a lot, Bejan.
Bejan Douraghy: Thanks you.
Will Scott: Cheers, bye.
Bejan Douraghy: Bye now, cheers.
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