We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Joe Klein. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Joe below.

Joe, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear you experience with and lessons learned from recruiting and team building.

When Axis Culture Group was started, I moved away from my design company of 6 years and looked for a more fulfilling purpose in helping business owners and nonprofit organizations succeed. The design company was plenty busy, but I wanted to do more than make things look good on the outside. A close friend proposed that we start a marketing and consulting company that helped our target market in a more holistic approach, and Axis Culture Group was created in late 2016. Shortly after, my business partner had to attend to some pressing matters in her other business and stepped away from Axis in 2017. After that, the company was finding a lot of great growth and success as I worked with organizations from all over the state to build culture, strategy, and design to reach their goals. With a few big wins early on, I found myself not as fulfilled with the work as I would like to have been. It was obvious that I am not built to operate alone every day, and needed to build a team environment.

The timing worked out well that I was able to recruit a talented web development/graphic design team member that worked for my previous company, and we hit the ground running. Within the following year, I recruited team members specializing in organization, leadership development, videography, and overall business consulting. The Axis team grew fast, and the right people seemed to be falling into my pathway as I needed them.

Most of the team members were not previously involved in business strategy and marketing consulting before joining the Axis team. I was less interested in their current skillset as it applied to the company and more in the people they were. Every Axis Culture Group team member genuinely cares for other people and their wellbeing. From there, we were able to build positions and utilize their passions for helping others succeed in a way that maximized their potential.

I did not execute my team building as cleanly as it may sound on paper. I was building a team full of wonderful people with minimal team-building experience. I knew how to bring in business, create satisfied clients, and energize people, but I failed early in recognizing the character traits that make a unified team. Over time, that has been my most significant focus within who I am hiring; their ability to be a foundational piece in the organization’s overall culture.

Over the past 5+ years, a couple of team members have come and gone, but finding caring people first and talent second has paid off significantly. The skills needed can continually be developed or built on, but attitude and authentic care cannot be developed as easily.

My advice; set up your hiring process in a way that finds out how your candidates care for their friends, families, and themselves. Once you feel they are qualified to do or learn the position, really make sure they are going to add to the growth of your company culture in more than just professional abilities. Turnover is very disruptive and expensive for everyone involved.

Joe, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I have always loved art and creating a reaction or emotion in people with the way I approach problem solving. While I was going through business school, I had a marketing professor approach me and tell me that I had a unique way of looking at problem solving that impressed her. I had honestly always been more of a smart-ass that tried to create unorthodox ways to present solutions to problems to create a reaction, and never considered any part of that as a gifting.

Years later, when I was ready to explore becoming a business owner, I leaned into my creative thought process to see if there was any value in using it to help business owners think differently about their approach. It worked, and I was off and running without having a clue how to actually run a business of my own. Thankfully, by the time Axis Culture Group was founded, I had gone through a tremendous amount of trial and error in leadership and management to build a stronger foundation to be built upon.

Currently the mission of Axis Culture Group has moved well past it’s original services and specializes in supporting community-minded business leaders, experts, and nonprofit organizations in building meaningful brand recognition and community impact. We offer Consulting & Strategy Services, Marketing Media Services, Networking Services, Organizational Management Services.

To break those down:

Consulting & Strategy Services:
Collaborative efforts between the partner and the Axis Culture Group team in creating a unique brand strategy that will represent the organization’s mission, vision, and values through various avenues of exposure.

Marketing Media Services:
Collaborative efforts between the partner and the Axis team to consistently capture media that best engages target markets and invites participation in the overall story.

Networking Services:
Collaborative efforts between the partner and the Axis Culture Group team in identifying and developing strong collaboration efforts with like-minded brands, people, and nonprofit organizations.

Organizational Management Services:
Collaborative efforts between the partner and the Axis team to efficiently achieve project deadlines and partnership communications.

We operate everything from the approach of our Authenticity Model that our team has developed over a long period of time. We truly believe that the process to earning loyalty involves the following four principles of authenticity:

– Authentic enthusiasm for the services provided
– Authentically developing and following a mission and purpose
– Authentic customer service/empathy
– Authentic Storytelling

I am definitely most proud of the fact that we have a mission and a team that works hard every day to carry out successful campaigns and internal culture development for our clients, that is centered around direct community impact. We often see local nonprofits and schools benefit greatly from the marketing/communication strategies that we develop with our clients. Each of our clients provide very different services from one another, but they all have a heart to use their business or organization to change their communities in a positive way. This creates a very fulfilling workload for each of our team members. I am very proud to have a company that lives in that mindset every single day.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

As mentioned, our mission statement is: Supporting community-minded business leaders, experts, and nonprofit organizations in building meaningful brand recognition and community impact.

I am honestly very tired of seeing business owners and nonprofit organizations throw good money at bad marketing efforts. There seems to be a disconnect in the understanding that video production, website development, photography, social media management, etc. are communication channels and not a marketing plan. Too many people are spending big dollars on the production of these “arms” (messaging resources) without developing the “body” (values and strategy).

We are high-level professionals in all areas of our creative services. Still, we collectively consider our most significant value to our clients as being the process of working with them to build the internal culture and messaging strategy that will truly impact their community. Once a community of people is thankful that you exist to serve them authentically, the loyalty built from that cannot be created through a checklist of creative deliverables. In short, we want people to approach “marketing” with a new perspective.

Any advice for managing a team?

This is something that I am forever learning and trying to improve. My best advice, which is a combination of advice from other people a lot smarter than me, is to listen to what your team members are passionate about inside and outside of work and strive to give them the freedom to pursue both.

If it works for your company, I highly recommend leading through trust and not having requirements on workdays and travel. Axis Culture Group only has one stipulation regarding vacation time away from the office; it is mandatory to take at least two weeks away each year. Our team comes and goes as they need throughout the day (outside of meeting times), and they take care of our clients and their work wonderfully. It takes a lot of pressure off of myself and them.

Also, when someone does something that personifies the company’s mission, make a big deal of it to them and the rest of the team, ensuring that you are consistent in highlighting everyone’s commitment to the company’s core values reasonably evenly.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.axisculture.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/axisculturegroup/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-klein-90126a30/