Employee Experience Stories

Welcome to 📈🧠 Scale Smarter.

Before we dive into this issue, I’d love to know what you’ve thought so far! This is issue #4 and writing a newsletter is new for me, and it would be great to hear:

• What you’ve liked so far

• What you’d like to see more of

• What you think is missing

You can simply reply to this email. I read every single one!

Thanks,
Jake

Okay, now back to what you came here for…

Today’s issue at a glance:

• Scaling Your Startup → Employee Experience Stories

• Scaling Yourself → Weekly Email Updates

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🚀 Scaling Your Startup: Employee Experience Stories

When I was working with Veho, we needed to hire 200+ people in the next 6 months 😳

And that’s exactly what we did—We helped Veho grow 4X from 70 to 285 employees. 

A big part of hitting that target was focusing on employer brand. Over those 6 months, me and my team increased the number of monthly inbound applicants by 500%.

One way we did this was by creating social/blog content that highlighted our employee’s real experience working at Veho—in their own voice. 

Here’s a real example from Veho. And another one.

This helped us:

• Show candidates why we’re a great place to work

• “Sell” them on joining our small startup

• Convert the applicants in the “middle of the funnel”

After our first post, one of our recruiters told us:

“I’ve had 3 candidates so far say that this blog was the reason they ended up taking my recruiter phone screen!”

Steal this content system: Turn employee interviews into “employee experience stories.” Here’s how ↓

1️⃣ Interview Employees About Their Experience

Interview employees that match your company's hiring priorities. Show candidates what life is like at the company from the viewpoint of employees like them. For example: Hiring engineers? Interview other developers.

Ideal employees also have:

• Gut-level understanding of core values

• High level of credibility with their peers

• Strong brand advocate abilities

📝 Interview question list:

• How long have you been with us & what do you do?

• What did you do prior to working here?

• What convinced you to join our team?

• What’s most exciting about the work you do?

• What company values resonate most with you?

• How do we promote diversity & inclusion?

• What’s your favorite benefit/perk?

• What’s the most unique part of our culture?

• Why do you love working here?

Use Zoom or Loom to record.

2️⃣ Transcribe Videos & Send to Copywriter

Next, transcribe the interview video. I use Fiverr for transcripts & clean-up (i.e. get rid of the “ums”) and I pay $5 for 30mins of video. Google Search "Fiverr + Audio Transcription."

I edited the first few myself, but found working with copywriters much more efficient. I send them the draft template and instructions, with a target word count of 1,200 - 1,500 words. Google Search "Upwork + Copywriters."

3️⃣ Clean Up, Final Edits, Post and Share

First, let the interviewee review the draft. Let them make edits to better reflect their voice. Next, have a final editor proofread and approve.

This editor should also:

• Keep it real, yet positive

• Maintain the unique voice

• Position to attract candidates

• Avoid negativity and liability

Once approved, publish to the company blog (or Medium), then post the link on LinkedIn and share with team over Slack. Bonus: Ask recruiters to add blog post links in their outreach to candidates.

✅ Pro Tip: Gather Testimonials

Pull out great "sound-bites" from the interview as quotes and testimonials. Use these testimonials on your website and careers page. Most employer pages have a testimonials section (e.g. Glassdoor and LinkedIn).

💪 Scaling Yourself: Weekly Email Updates

I have a weekly habit I’ve used to scale myself at Uber and every company after that. I get more time back + impress my boss (and clients) in the process. It’s my secret weapon 🔫 🤐 

I send a weekly update email to my manager/clients.

It sounds so simple, but I’m shocked that so many people don’t do this at work. Each week, I draft my update in a template. It helps me create beautiful, formatted emails that impress my boss/client.

In its simplest form, my updates have 3 key sections:

1. Actions/Asks/Questions

2. What Happened Last Week

3. What’s Happening This Week

I use a Google doc that you can simply paste right into your email draft. The best part—you can have people on your team all update the email together in real-time.

For example, I used this while I was reporting to the COO at Industrious:

• He was spending 3-4 hours collecting updates from multiple departments.

• He was constantly delayed and late sending his weekly update.

• I gave him my template so the team could add their updates in real-time into the same doc.

• And it worked! This simple change cut the time it took him down to 45 minutes.

📉 That’s a 75% decrease! That’s so much time for activities :)

This same tactic worked with my consulting clients, too. I used a simplified version to keep them up to speed on our progress week to week:

• My clients didn’t have to ask for status updates.

• They didn’t have to dig through a project management tool.

• They could skim our email and see what we accomplished last week and what we were prioritizing this week.

Steal this: Start sending a weekly update email and get your time back. Here’s how ↓

1️⃣ Interview Your Manager / Key Stakeholders.

You want to understand what info and metrics are important to them. Because—and this is important—you want them to actually read it.

✅ Pro Tip: Think One Level Up

Ask your boss what their boss is looking for — does your boss currently send a report? What info can you start sharing on a regular basis to make their life easier?

2️⃣ Design A Draft With These 4 Sections:

1. Summary/TL;DR (Too Long; Didn’t Read):

(For quick skimming; if your boss only reads one thing):

• Highlights and key takeaways

• Asks (with @ mentions)

• Actions (with @ mentions)

2. Key Metrics:

• Screenshots of charts

• Tables (copy/paste)

• Links to full dashboards or reports

⚠️ Important: Investigate and explain what you see from the data (e.g. increases, decreases, other trends). Anticipate and answer questions before they're asked.

3. Wins/Misses:

• List big wins: Celebrate other people & teams. People usually love shoutouts!

• Own your losses: Take responsibility. Don’t hide them. You build trust this way.

4. Progress Updates:

• What I / my team completed last week

• What I / my team is prioritizing this week

• Where I / we need help

3️⃣ Share The Draft With Them For Feedback

Find out: What was useful? What was not useful?

And iterate 🔁

4️⃣ Turn That Draft Into A Template: 

This is how you really start to scale yourself. Don’t start from scratch every time. 

Plus, if you’re collecting input from multiple people/teams, you can use a shared doc so everyone can update their section of the template in real-time.

P.S. ✋ Want this template? Reply to this email and I’ll send you a copy!

5️⃣ Determine The Best Time To Send

Consider a few things:

• When does your manager need this info?

• When’s your weekly 1:1? (send as pre-read)

• When does the data become available?

Pick a day (e.g. Friday) and be consistent week over week. I like Mondays to recap the prior week’s results and outline this week’s priorities.

✅ Pro Tip: Slide Into Their Inbox

Draft on Friday, and schedule to go out Monday morning. Now it’s one of the first things they will read, and you can skip the progress update meeting, lol.

6️⃣ Start Sending Each Week

Send it to your manager and other key stakeholders & departments. Copy your teammates and directs for visibility.

And any time someone asks about your team/project, you can add them to your distribution list and avoid extra meetings and progress reports.

#GoScaleYourself 

🎬 TL;DR—Your Actions For The Week:

• Scaling Your Startup: Interview one employee, transcribe the conversation and turn it into a blog post to boost your employer brand.

• Scaling Yourself: Send your first weekly update email this week. Start simple with two sections: (1) What happened last week, and (2) what’s happening this week.

Whenever you're ready, there are more ways I can help you:

💼 Hiring? I built an expert bench of recruiters from companies like Uber, Amazon & Spotify to run the full recruiting process for you. We’re on-demand, can flex up & down, and there are zero commissions or hidden fees—Learn more here.

💰 Need more sales? This private 3-week B2B Sales Bootcamp will teach you the system startups like Neon used to 10X revenue YoY and grow to over $1M ARR without running any ads. I’m running 1-1 and small group sessions to maximize results, so space is limited—Join the waitlist.