115. Why Training Matters More Than Hiring

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Ops Experts Club Podcast

Episode 115: Why Training Matters More Than Hiring
Hosts: Aaron, Terryn (B), and Taran (C)
Date: May 28, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into why training your team matters even more than hiring the “right” people. Aaron and Taran draw from their extensive experience supporting high-growth online businesses, sharing lessons from the field on how intentional training and investing in people creates high-performance teams and sustainable cultures. Through stories, practical examples, and candid insight, the hosts make the case that the operational edge isn’t just in talent acquisition — it’s in how you nurture and develop that talent.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Hidden Gap: Training vs. Hiring

• Hiring without training is common (and risky):

  • Aaron highlights that most online businesses scramble to fill roles and expect new hires to be productive immediately, often providing only basic SOPs or pushing people toward app-specific trainings.
    • "A lot of times people just hire folks and we're like, train them. I just need them to do stuff. Like I'm not going to give them training... Just get in here because you said you could do this stuff, start doing it because we're drowning and we need help." — Aaron (B), [01:20]

• Company-specific training is rare:

  • Taran observes that most companies rely on generic or product-based training, missing the chance to define "how we do things here."
    • "Sometimes there can be a deeper training that would be, this is how we do things at a company." — Taran (C), [02:35]

2. Training Shouldn’t Stop at the Top

• Owner education doesn’t always trickle down:
  • Owners often invest heavily in masterminds and leadership development, but their teams don’t receive similar opportunities.
  • Example: Bringing concepts from masterminds (like Working Genius) into the team can be transformative, but it shouldn’t stop there.
    • "When do we give our people opportunity to receive that same kind of training?" — Aaron (B), [03:10]

3. Practical Ideas for Training & Development

• Book clubs and shared resources:

  • Start simple by sharing relevant books and running voluntary book clubs.
  • Build an internal library of courses (sometimes by pooling together purchased resources for team-wide access).
    • "Anytime they'd buy a course for somebody, an online course, they just open that access up to anybody who wants it..." — Taran (C), [04:32]

• Incorporate training into annual planning:

  • Use annual planning sessions to intentionally define training priorities for the year.
    • "If you're going to start somewhere, start with annual planning. Right? That's an opportunity for you to invest culture into your people." — Aaron (B), [06:08]

• Survey your team:

  • Ask employees what training they wish they'd received or what would make their jobs easier.
    • "Quickest way to get to introducing more training is send out a survey...what are the top three things you wish you would have had training on?" — Taran (C), [07:14]

• Offer continuing education budgets:

  • Empower employees to propose their own trainings, joining conferences or taking courses with employer support or matching.
    • "I'm willing to contribute this much money this year to your continuing education in your expertise. You go do the research." — Aaron (B), [07:40]

4. The Cultural ROI of Training

• Training demonstrates investment in people, not just roles:

  • Making development and education a perk signals you care about employees’ future — in your company or beyond.
  • Employees stick around longer when they feel their employer is invested in their growth, even if their goals eventually take them elsewhere.
    • "Leaders who don't treat employees as stationary objects...are going to...end up seeing people stick around longer." — Taran (C), [09:17]

• Training as part of the company culture:

  • Growth cultures attract growth-minded people, while clock-in-clock-out companies attract those just looking for a job.
    • "Are you okay with people just clocking in for the nine to five?" — Aaron (B), [05:35]

5. Embracing the Reality of Turnover and Career Growth

• Shorter tenures can still be highly valuable:

  • Reframing your role as developing the next generation, not just clinging to talent forever, creates goodwill and stronger alumni networks.
    • "What if we realized...we're actually investing in the next generation here?...That's not everybody, you know, so how can I change my mindset?" — Aaron (B), [10:09]

• Case study:

  • Sharing the journey of a Belize barista who was demoted and then rose to manager after years of investment and growth.
    • "We had to demote...but then ended up...he started showing some potential...and now he's just ascended to the main manager of our flagship store." — Aaron (B), [12:30]

• Candid about firings and why:

  • Not everyone will thrive even with support, but structure and honest feedback can lead to successful “boomerang” team members.
    • "There have been people that we've had to let go because...they've gotten their three strikes and it just does not seem like they're going to make change..." — Aaron (B), [14:23]

6. Grow from Within—Don’t Just Buy Experience

• Promote and train from within instead of defaulting to outside hires, especially for culture-critical roles:
  • "I wouldn't advocate a lot of times just go out and hire a C suite employee because they're going to bring their own culture...but if you can grow somebody...you're gonna have all that time of investing in, in your culture and learning." — Aaron (B), [16:14]

7. Onboarding Must Pair With Ongoing Support

• Onboarding without follow-up leads to flailing:
  • Many hires fail not because they weren’t qualified, but because after onboarding, they’re left to sink or swim.
    • "Sometimes they do want the job, but then there's no follow up on now that they're hired and they're kind of flailing..." — Taran (C), [18:34]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "You got to invest in people more. You put into them or you get out of them." — Taran (C), [06:03]
• "If you'll give me five good years, then I will throw any resource I can at getting you to where you want to be...Just put your head down, push hard for me here and I'll put my head down and push hard for you..." — Aaron citing Dan Martell, [11:53]
• "A lot can happen in just a few years too, you know... the evolution of people." — Aaron (B), [13:02]
• "Being willing to invest in your people, like being willing to have the hard conversations...and helping them dream a little bit." — Aaron (B), [13:45]
• "People are people...but yeah, sometimes...there's no follow up...they're going to leave, take another opportunity." — Taran (C), [18:34]
• "It's not just about pay and it's not just about benefits...A culture of investing in your people is a really big one." — Aaron (B), [19:06]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:20] — Setting up the training vs hiring debate
• [02:53] — Masterminds and owner-only training pitfalls
• [04:32] — Practical training methods: book clubs & course libraries
• [06:08] — Annual planning for training investment
• [07:14] — Surveying employees for training needs
• [07:40] — Continuing education budgets and empowering the team
• [09:17] — Employee retention through holistic investment
• [10:09] — Shifting mindset about turnover and generational contribution
• [12:30] — The barista turnaround story
• [14:23] — How to handle “three strikes” team members
• [16:14] — Growing leaders from within vs. hiring ready-made
• [18:34] — Onboarding vs. ongoing support: closing the gap

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Conclusion: Key Takeaways

• Consistently investing in training creates better outcomes than focusing solely on hiring.
• Training shouldn’t be a one-and-done onboarding; it’s a continuous cultural practice.
• Development opportunities are both a perk and a retention tool.
• Empowering people with choices in their growth leads to stronger engagement and loyalty.
• Promoting and nurturing internal talent helps preserve and transmit company culture.
• A “training-first” mindset makes your company a launchpad for people’s aspirations—whether they stay or move on.

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Closing Note:
“A culture of investing in your people is a really big one.”
— Aaron (B), [19:06]

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Transcript

[A]

Welcome to the Ops Experts Club. If you're at all interested in anything we talk about here in this episode, go ahead and check out the description down below and click any of the links there.

[B]

Or if you just want to know

[A]

more about us, click the links below. Now onto the episode.

[B]

If you. I just feel like, I feel sad because I never hear you like how many tunes anymore.

[C]

Maybe one day.

[B]

That was very non committal. That's like, yes, that was intentional and I'm not giving you that back.

[C]

Yeah, you know when you ask for it, you're not going to get it. It's just, just gotta come.

[B]

Is that like Ted Lasso? And I begged you, begged you, begged you, begged you, begged you, begged you. And you never would like watch it. But then when I stopped begging you actually watched it. I knew it. Ops Experts, thanks for joining us today on the show Ops Experts Club. Hey, so if you're running operations for an online marketer, an online business in general, this is the place to do it. We're going to give you lots of tools here, lots of insights. We're going to interview folks that are experts in the industry and really help you hopefully progress as an expert in operations yourselves. Thanks for joining us here. Taron Turner on the show, good dude has been around a long time, 11 years in business here at the Collab team. Within the first year I think I've been 12, 12 years in business this year and I picked up Taran because he was a sharp dude and he's only turned out to be sharper. Taran, thanks for being a sharp dude.

[C]

Thank you so much, Aaron. Yeah, I'll try not to poke you.

[B]

Love it. Hey, so Taryn, you know we talk a lot about on the show, all different kinds of things with operations. You know, we've been talking about recruiting lately. We've been talking about some different things about, you know, last week we talked about should it be fractional, should it be full time, Some different pieces along the lines of actually finding people, hiring people, bringing people in, what's the best fit. But something we don't talk a lot about and what we don't, I honestly don't hear a ton of people talk about. I thought it'd be good for us to have a conversation about today is training. I think that a lot of times people just hire folks and we're like, train them. I just need them to do stuff. Like I'm not going to give them training. Like get in here because you said you could do this stuff, start doing it because we're drowning and we need help. But I think that investing in people is a really good idea, you know what I mean? And I thought today we could talk about tricks of the trade, things we've seen people do, customers do through the years that we thought, hey, that's a smart thing to do for training your folks and, and then just lean in and really talk about, are we investing in our people? Because if we're not investing in our people, where do we expect them to get this knowledge base that makes them better and better at their jobs? Or are we okay with them just being stuck? You know, like they know how, they knew how, whatever, they knew how to do this back in 1995. That's still what they've got now and that's what they're offering. Or are we investing in folks and how do we invest in folks specifically around training? Taran, what do you think?

[C]

I love it. I mean, I hardly ever see training. There's, there's SOPs. They just want you to follow them. The only time they might point to a training is when it's within an app. And an app has its own training. Just go watch this, figure it out. But sometimes there can be a deeper training that would be, this is how we do things at a company.

[B]

Yeah, I think a lot of times visionaries in the online space, you know, masterminds has been something that, you know, has, has picked up a lot of speed over the last decade or so where people are actually, owners are actually paying lots of money to be around other like minded individuals in a mastermind together, which is great. I think that's awesome. A lot of times in those masterminds, whoever holds them oftentimes has industry experts on different topics come in and speak. And so that owner, that business owner is getting continual education that is making them better and better. But sometimes I've noticed it doesn't always roll downhill from there. Sometimes it's just like making the owner better, which gives them better insights, makes them hopefully a better business owner. But like when do we give our people opportunity to receive that same kind of training? And so I've seen some people say, hey, so when working genius, you know, Lincione is great at that. I saw him speak on that at our mastermind. I'm going to actually invest in that with teams. I know we recently have had leadership team go through working genius on like which area are we good at, do we love, are we great at? And how are we aligning roles based upon what our working genius is? It's an example where it was like an expert came in, spoke on it at a mastermind I was part of. I tried to incorporate it here. But I would say even more so, like, how do we put our people through trainings that actually benefit them in their role? Like, how are we growing our people in a way that's not just, but also fueling them as individuals? I've seen people do it with books, you know, where it's like, hey, we're going to club. Do you want to talk about that a little bit? I know Ayr, he was really big into that, you know, putting, putting out books for the organization that he wanted everybody to read.

[C]

Yeah, books are great. Also seen a company do, you know, anytime they'd buy a course for somebody, an online course, they just open that access up to anybody who wants it and they'd have their own little internal library of any of these topics interest you. You can access this course and watch

[B]

it totally like fraudulently sharing passwords, which is amazing. Like, just like absolutely ripping people off, which is amazing. That's an amazing thing to offer. No, but honestly, if you're, as a business owner, you've purchased this thing, you're like, this is really valuable to me. I'm going to let you consume as being an extension of me and hopefully it's going to grow our culture in this way. I think that's a really good thing. I think book clubs are cool too though, right? Where it's like, hey, we're going to do book club. Anybody that wants to be part of that? And maybe that's an opportunity where you can see people self select and raise their hands on. I want to be developed. I want to grow. I want to be part of something. You know, there are other people that are like, I'm not giving you one more cent of my time outside of work, so I'm not going to read books. I think it's probably good to understand where people are coming from when it comes to what kind of culture do we want to create here? And I think, you know, we just talking about it on Coffee Experts Academy, on the other Coffee Experts Club, on the podcast that, you know, we do for coffee operations, specifically infusing culture, you know, and, and finding people that are going to resonate with your culture. And if you're part of your culture is growth mindset. We want people to grow here. We don't want you just to stay stuck here. Maybe that is, hey, only people that are going to stick here in this culture are people that are going to Be willing to invest in themselves through books, through trainings. I think it's important to determine that. Is that part of your culture? Are you okay with people just clocking in for the nine to five?

[C]

Yep. Yeah. You got to invest in people more. You put into them or you get out of them.

[B]

Yeah, you know, I think that's something that we've really tried to do internally here and what we really advocate for people is if you're going to start somewhere, start with annual planning. Right? Like that's an opportunity for you to invest culture into your people. You know, to invest training, love. This is, this is what's important to us this next year. You know, we're going to make an emphasis of this and we're going to lean in to these particular things. I mean, that's where we talked about this last year as a leadership team working genius. And hey, we're going to try this. You know, I saw. I really, I really do think that it's a great thing for us to get clear on at a leadership team level. And if we appreciate a leadership team level, rolling that out with the rest of the team. So I think that if you're looking for a spot of maybe I don't know where to invest, Aaron, I don't want to invest a ton. Like buy a bunch of programs, put people through a bunch of things. Maybe just starting with an annual planning where you get some idea of where how do you want to invest in people for this year. And maybe just start with your leaders. Right. Maybe that's a first step that you could do that is going to be a benefit to the business, but also a benefit to your people. Get them away, give them some time. Lean in with some cultural training on something that's important to you.

[C]

I think that's a great idea. I mean, the annual planning's great place to start. I got other ideas to start, too. Quickest way to get to introducing more training is send out a survey to people on your team. Hey, what are the top three things you wish you would have had training on when you were starting here or you wish would have made your job easier? And you can get pretty big grouping of what you should start introducing and implementing now?

[B]

Well, I think especially like if your company is doing well, ask yourself, like, do you like paying lots of taxes? Because you could start to offer continuing education where you ask your people, hey, I'm willing to contribute this much money this year to your continuing education in your expertise. You go do the research. You go find something that you're passionate about and then the company will either pay for it or match it or do. You don't necessarily even have to pay for the whole thing. If, if you feel like it's something that's benefiting them, that's going to benefit not only you, but also them. I think that there's a lot of different ways you can do it, but it also doesn't all have to come back to you as the decision maker of the owner of the business. Like empower your people. Do you want to get better at hr? Great. Is there an HR course that's out there? Is there some sort of community that you could be a part of that we could pay for you to get trainings on or a conference once a year? You know, is there a technology piece? Like if you, if you've got people that are doing technology for you, could you put them through some sort of conference where they go a couple times a year, do a couple different things. Some of it's virtual, some of it's in person. But I just think in my mind like that's a perk for working for somewhere. I like that the business is going to pay for me to travel and go be part of this thing or the business is going to pay for me to be part of this virtual community where I can listen to it. My, my boss is okay with paying me for my time to consume certain content, to get better at this certain skill set. All of those things are investments in your people. Right. And it shows. Hey, it's not just about a job where I come and I clock in and I clock out and I'm only there and I maybe just give the bare minimum, but it's like no, no. My, my owner, the owner of this business is investing back in me. Not only investing in the business, but investing me as a person. And I think that that can be a really valuable thing.

[C]

Yeah. Leaders who don't treat employees as stationary objects, but see them as people with dreams and desires who might have other goals and help them get to those other goals they have are going to. Probably not probably, but they do end up seeing people stick around longer even if that goal originally was something outside of the company because they now feel valued and invested in and reaching that goal. Maybe it fits into the company in the future.

[B]

I think it's really good. Taran for us. Tara, that was super smart. Very insightful. Very good stuff. I think that just the idea of what's the lifespan of somebody working for me in this role, you know, I was just down In Belize, you know, we've got the coffee shops down there. I started the first drive through coffee in the country of Belize with my partner Drew, down in the country of Belize, obviously. But, you know, the conversation that we had was, how long can we expect for somebody to be with us as a barista, as a lead, as an assistant manager, as a manager, realizing that all probably has lifespan. What if, you know, because I think a lot of times we can want people to stay with us forever, you know, I mean, because it's. The longer they're with us, the more they know us, the less we have to put energy into them. The roi, right? We're getting the best return on our investment the longer they're there. But what if we flipped it on its head and we actually realized, no, no, most of the people that work for us are young, right? We're getting people 18 to 21, 22. That's the average barista that's coming in and is escalated in the journey. Right. What if we realized, no, no, we're actually investing in the next generation here in Belize, and they're going to be with us for a limited window of time, you know, and it's probably not going to be forever. Most people are probably going to stick with us for a few years, you know, and then they're going to want to ascend and go on to do like a bigger thing. You know, there are some people that want to grow and want to be managers and assistant managers and regional managers someday, maybe even franchise at some point, you know, but that's not everybody, you know, so how can I change my mindset? And it's not just an investment I'm making for the sake of the company, but it's. I'm making an investment in young people who we're going to grow up and go and do on to do other things. And that actually is part of my civil duty, part of my, like me being good, human to the planet of investing in next generation. And sometimes that helps too. Right. It's not just an investment in me for my own benefit, but it's me putting good back out into the world. What are your thoughts on that?

[C]

Absolutely. Three years doesn't sound like a lot, maybe, but three years is huge. Not even for a coffee shop job, for a lot of jobs. A lot of clients we have, they'll get turnover way, way more than three years. So getting somebody to stick with you for three years just by investing in them and helping them achieve their goals in life is going to be way better. Than having to keep turning people over every six months to a year.

[B]

Something I heard Dan Martell say once that I that really stuck with me is he'll have a conversation with people when they start of hey, what's your five year goal? Like where do you wanna be personally in five years? And it's okay for you to tell me, you don't have to tell me. You wanna work here. Like where do you wanna be in five years? And if you'll give me five good years, then I will throw any resource I can at getting you to where you want to be in five years. I'll open up my Rolodex, I'll introduce you to anybody you want me to introduce you to. I'll help you get into whatever it is that you want to get into. Just put your head down, push hard for me here and I'll put my head down and push hard for you once we get there and in five years. I think that the other nice thing about that is people can change a lot in five years. You know, we were talking about one of the kids that works for us down and believes that we had to demote, you know, was a system manager and he's just a kid, right? And so he's just making kid decisions, you know, and so he just wasn't pulling, pulling his weight. So we had to mow him down and bucked him back down to just a regular barista and then ended up, he started showing some potential, raised his hand, wanted to be promoted back up again. So we promoted him back up, you know, four years later into an assistant manager position and now he's just ascended to the main manager of our, our flagship store. But it was like a lot can happen in just a few years too, you know, I mean like the evolution of people and like this guy's met a lady and she's like really good for him and I know they want to get married and it's like before he was like a single young bachelor just surfing it out there, hanging out with the boys. I mean, but now it's like, no, no, I want to actually grow and, and I really enjoy working here and I have enjoyed these people who actually had the hard conversations with me and didn't just cut me loose, you know, but like gave me the hard talking to and disciplined me down, you know, bucked me down and then were actually big enough hearted to give me an opportunity to ascend back up. And now he's in this position, I think he's such a great fit for where we're at for this manager of this flagship store. But I think being willing to invest in your people, like being willing to have the hard conversations, being willing to not let it be. I'm just going to cut this person loose when they're, they're not working out, but like having the hard conversations and building back into them and helping them dream a little bit. Hey, is this someplace you want to be? Awesome. Well, how can we grow you here? And if is this not the place you want to be, that's okay too. Where do you want to be? Could we help grow you into that? And if you just will help us build in these formative years. For us, this is a brand new business down in Belize. We've only been open almost four years now. Like help invest, get a, give us a good foundation and we'll help you get to where you want to get to. But I think being more holistic in our outlook and not just being like my business is the only thing going on on the planet and I'm, I'm pretty close to my growing people, you know?

[C]

Yeah, I mean that's, that's a great story too because a lot of times demotions don't usually end up turning back around like that.

[B]

Yeah. And listen, it's not everyone, like there's been plenty of people we've demoted who've moved on or there have been people that we've had to let go because you know, they've, they've gotten their three strikes and it just does not seem like they're going to make change, you know, and so it's like, okay, well, you knew that from the beginning that this was in our handbook of three strikes are out, that at three strikes we have the opportunity to let you go. You know, it doesn't mean you were always going to let you go. But we do have the opportunity and I think that this is a good breaking point in our relationship. Just because it, it doesn't seem like you want to change. It doesn't seem like there's any intention in change. And so the best thing I can do for you is cut you loose. Because I realized that in cutting you loose, maybe there's something you want to do more or less. Maybe you need that consequence for the sake of growing up a little bit. I mean, realizing that there is loss for consistently just not doing, making your marks, doing the things you know you need to do, you know, So I think it's, it's valuable. I know. Taryn, we've been doing the show a Long time. I think we're like 116 episodes or something like that that we've done of Ops Experts Club. And so, you know, we actually have created a training from, you know, like that we built, we always talk about here on the show. We don't promoted a ton. I don't feel like probably, we should probably promote it more. But you know, it's something that we put together for operators for online businesses, you know, called Ops Experts Academy. You know, 35 modules, level one, level two, level three that owners can just plug their people into for an opportunity to grow in all things online marketing, online space when it comes to creating online businesses. And I, I feel like it's a pretty kick ass program. It's low price point, but give something to people that they can say, hey, just consume this at whatever rate you want them to consume it. But I think a lot of times owners just aren't sure where to point their people. So something we talk about a lot is training and it's actually something we give away to our clients when they come on with us. We're going to give you a seat in Experts Academy just for you to have something you can push your people through and be trained in.

[C]

It's a great program. I've personally gone through it.

[B]

I would hope so because you personally helped me create it. So I think it's a great thing. But I do think, like I would say when you're thinking about an investment in education for your people, the thing that I like about the Academy about Ops Experts Academy is like they're not super cumbersome episodes. I think it's like, like 40, 40 minutes to an hour. Each thing that they're learning, we try and give them a tool. You know, we've broken it out into four or five modules per whatever the block is, give them a tool we're going to talk about. So you get a free tool with the academy in every level that they're ascending and education around that. And so if you're like, hey, I'm going to grow people because I really do think growing people, I prefer versus hiring at the level. You know, I mean, like, I know Taryn, we talk about this a lot on the show. Like I wouldn't advocate a lot of times just go out and hire a C suite employee because they're going to bring their own culture, they're going to bring their own ideas, they're going to bring their own voice. But if you can grow somebody from a manager up to a director and from a director up to some sort of C level within your organization. You're gonna have all that time of investing in, in your culture and learning. So I think that for an operator, for us, we feel like this is a great place to start hiring somebody that's younger that you can invest in and give them some training. So for us, I would say like check out Ops Experts Academy if it's us or if it's somebody else that you're going to invest into them. But how could you have that be part of the training of, hey, it's not only stuff you're doing here on the job, but we want you to be consuming this other piece of education that's actually going to bring other ideas into this, invest in you as a person and invest in the business because most likely visionary isn't psyched on operations anyway. So find somebody that's good at operations, get them some good training and then have them start plugging some stuff in that's going to make your business better. Aaron, any good thoughts on closing out the show today talking about investing in people? We just, we do so much recruiting to you and I would love to say that we have 100% success rate of people sticking once they get hired, but it's just not the truth. Like there are a lot of people that do end up falling out. And I think that one of the best ways you can help people not fall out is help them to know how to do their job. Do you want to talk about that for a minute? Because I think that you've seen I can think of several clients in my mind of people that we've helped with onboarding, but then they were just left to flail out there and it was outside of our purview and outside of our like, ability to influence and they just didn't stick. But a lot of it comes down to giving them the tools and the resources to be able to be good at their job.

[C]

Yeah, I mean, I will say people are people, you know, always chalk things up to that they could have. Just maybe they didn't really want this job. Maybe it was a stepping stone and they just took what was available and were actually still looking. But yeah, sometimes they do want the job, but then there's no follow up on now that they're hired and they're kind of flailing and if they've got other opportunities, they're going to take them. If you're just throwing people out there and hoping they swim and they're good enough to be able to understand that this isn't right. They are going to leave, take another opportunity.

[B]

Yep. It's good. So it's not only about finding the right person. It's not only about getting them on the hook because there's it's a competitive job market a lot of times out there, but it's about what are you doing with them once you have them on board. Because it's not just onboarding them into your stuff, it's how do I make them sticky, how do I make my business something that's attractive and something they want to stay with? Because it's not just about pay and it's not just about benefits. A lot of times it's really about the culture. And a culture of investing in your people is a really big one. OPS experts, thanks for joining us today on the show. I hope that you enjoyed it. Taran Turner, you're always a scholar and a gentleman. Thank you for joining me as host of the show. And we'll see you guys next week here on ops. Yes.

[C]

See ya.