96. Should I Be Worried About Layoffs + That’s My Fault

Transcript – Episode 96: Should I Be Worried About Layoffs + That’s My Fault

Joe:
The job market is sizzling hot, and everyone is still understaffed. So why are you suddenly hearing about layoffs? Plus, I’ll give you a three-word script that earns the respect of your employees every time you use it. Let’s get into what’s happening now on Boss Better Now.

Suzanne:
You’re listening to Boss Better Now. This show is sponsored by Joe Mull and Associates. Now here’s your host – speaker, and author, Joe Mull.

Joe:
Hello again, friends, and welcome to your weekly dose of advice, humor, and encouragement for bosses everywhere. I hope your week is getting off to a solid start, and I thank you for spending part of it with us. We are here each week to help you create the conditions at work that lead people to thrive. I’ve been teaching leaders how to be better bosses for almost 20 years, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s the job. A great boss goes to work every day and says, I am gonna figure out what these people need to be at their best, and then I’m gonna fight like crazy to give it to them. So that’s what we talk about here each week when we gather on our podcast. And each week I am joined by my wise and engaging co-host, executive coach, HR advisor, and professional cave diver, Suzanne Malausky. Hello, Suzanne.

Suzanne:
Well, hello, Joe. Did I ever tell you about that awesome treasure I found in a cave in Hawaii?

Joe:
You did not.

Suzanne:
That’s because it never happened. I’ve never <laugh> dived in a cave or got a treasure, but wouldn’t that be wonderful to think about?

Joe:
Have you ever done anything like cave diving, or did I just completely make that up?

Suzanne:
You completely made that up. I, I can’t think. A little bit of snorkeling in, you know, in Mexico. Little bit of the, okay. When did we learn the lesson about stalagmites? Right? Is that…?

Joe:
Yeah.

Suzanne:
The ones that go down and up. I think there’s some caves here in Pennsylvania I remember. Yes. Touring and, you know, like a, you know, what’s that called? A school trip where we packed a peanut butter jelly, a field trip with our, that’s what we always called, butter and jelly sandwiches. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. I think that’s as close as I’ve ever gotten.

Joe:
Okay. How about you? We did the close, well, the closest I’ve ever come to cave diving, I guess technically it was cave diving oh, was about a year ago. We went to Mexico and my, we, my wife and I, and we did we visited Cenotes, which are these caves that are underground like they’re underground rivers and lakes, and I’m Okay absolutely butchering the definition, but it was really one of my favorite things we’ve ever done, cuz it’s just beautiful and, and Cenotes are only in certain parts of the world. And really just a, an amazing experience if you ever get to do it. Like you, you get the awesome snorkeling gear on, and you swim down under these caves and it’s really something else.

Suzanne:
Nice. Sounds like a blast.

Joe:
Well, let me make the not-at-all-strange transition to talking about vacationing in Cenotes and talking about layoffs. Yep. That’s a real smooth transition that we’re making right there. <Laugh> Actually no, I have the transition. Are you ready?

Suzanne:
I’m ready. Go.

Joe:
Speaking of travel, last week I spoke at a travel conference, and I got this question. Okay. That was a pro-level transition, right, Suzanne?

Suzanne:
Oh, very good. Bravo.

Joe:
I actually regret that I did not just plan it that way and that it didn’t just come out smoothly. I’m tempted to go back and edit and do it for real, but that would be inauthentic. So, we’re just gonna keep rolling.

Suzanne:
Okay. Let’s go with it.

Joe:
<Laugh>. But that is true. I was at a travel conference just recently in beautiful San Francisco. I got to speak to a whole industry of travel advisors, and these are specifically folks who book a lot of luxury travel. And I was there talking about employees and all the conditions that we need to create at work to get people to, to join and stay and care and try. And I got a couple of questions about layoffs, right? People saying, hey, you know, you’re talking about how sizzling hot the job market is, and it seems like everybody’s still understaffed, but all of a sudden, I’m hearing about layoffs. And so, I got a lot of questions. Is this something that we should be worried about or what’s really happening out there? And so, before I share my take, let me kick it to you, Suzanne because I know you have clients in all sorts of different industries. You have a manufacturing background, a healthcare background. Are you hearing concerns about this from the people in your world? Are people noticing this?

Suzanne:
Certainly, they’re noticing what media is feeding us with the, the large industries and the big impact. And, you know, those are some really big numbers, Joe, so they can be disconcerting. What I’m seeing with my clients is more of a, maybe there’s an adjustment here or there, which is the normal course of business. Yeah. Sometimes you do have to make changes because of contracts or budgets or things that are out of control. But that’s also the, I would say it’s, it’s very much in the normal ebb and flow of normal business. The hiring. Yes. And the adjustments. I have a quirky transition if I can digress for just a minute. You know, if you get laid off and I got a really good severance package, you should travel.

Joe:
It’s like you came right back around full circle.

Suzanne:
I did, I did. 

Joe:
Well done. You’re a pro. There you go. Total pro.

Suzanne:
Start out

Joe:
<Laugh>. Well, I’m gonna tell you, Suzanne, and I’m gonna tell everybody listening. What I told the folks in San Francisco at this conference when this question came up, and this is one of those moments where I’m just glad I had done my homework. Like when the jobs reports keep coming out each month and they tell us what happened in the month before, I found myself paying more attention to that than ever before because so much of what I’m talking about out in the world right now is tied to what’s happening in the jobs economy, right? There’s so many conversations taking place around the degree to which people are able to fill positions and is this really an issue of work ethic or is this an issue of not enough people? And so let me, let me kind of answer this in the way that I did when I was with those folks in California.

 Joe:
You hit the nail on the head, Suzanne, which is that fear makes us click and read and watch. And so, we are seeing a lot of hype-filled coverage whenever you see any layoffs taking place. But all the layoffs that people have heard about in recent weeks have been limited to tech media and e-commerce companies. And it’s really been limited to the big players, right? We’ve seen Amazon, we’ve seen Microsoft, we’ve seen Google and Meta who is the, the parent company of Facebook have announced layoffs. They weren’t massive numbers, but they were exclusively in these big tech spaces. Outside of that, everybody is still hiring. So, I’m gonna hit you with some data, okay? Because as I said, I’ve been paying attention to the job reports, and I am not an economist, and I am not a financial advisor or planner.

 Joe:
But from a layperson, I, I can pay attention to what’s going on out there. And here’s what I can tell you. We have had 24 months of unprecedented job growth in the United States. We have been adding on average about a quarter of a million jobs to the economy every month to the millions of unfilled jobs that are out there right now, fluctuating at any time between six and 8 million unfilled jobs in the United States. We are adding a quarter of a million jobs to the economy every month on top of that. That is 8,000 jobs a day added to the economy. That means there will be about 340 jobs added to the economy. In the time that people listen to this episode of our podcast, I figured out that there will be three jobs added to the economy in the time that it takes me to complete this sentence.

Joe:
So, there are, there’s so much growth happening in the market. We just finished the second-best year of job growth in the history of the United States. And this is after two years of warnings that a recession is coming. This is after a year of backbreaking inflation. This is a, a after a year of us being warned that, hey, the job market can’t stay this hot for that long. But it has. And a lot of it comes down to the fact that there are just not enough people to fill all the jobs out there right now. There are still 1.7 jobs for every person in the workplace. So nearly two jobs for every person. We also know that unemployment is below 4% right now. And I, I’ve said this on the podcast before, there were only a handful of months in the last 50 years when it’s been lower than it is right now. I saw a number the other day that said, if every single unemployed person in the United States got a job tomorrow, there would still be 4 million unfilled jobs here in the US. And so, all of that to say the layoffs thing is not a trend unless you work in these really big ponds in these tech companies. Is that the experience that you’ve been seeing as well? You alluded to that a little bit.

Suzanne:
Yes, Joe and I, I thank you for doing that homework. I think that’s a great lesson for all of us, because if you just read the headlines or you’re just, you know, riding the, the surface of the wave of media is feeding us, then you, you, you can get scared and get overwhelmed and, and then misinformed, honestly. So yeah, I, I’m seeing healthy budgets. I see a little conservative bent to what people are willing to do and spend for growth. I think it’s, it’s careful, it’s measured, but it’s, it’s healthy. There’s great optimism out there, and then there’s a responsibility for companies to not over payroll themselves, right? Yeah. And I, I think, you know, some of the research tells us that some of these companies I think saved jobs, maybe kept people employed for a long time kept things a little bit robust, and had to adjust at some point. What Albert else that might be saying about their industry, or their marketplace is probably unique by the companies themselves. But I think in some of those industries, they were very generous and what’s the word I wanna say here? Just open to keeping people employed longer. Yeah. And then there was an adjustment that was bound to come at some point.

Joe:
You, you alluded to this earlier, and you’ve just kind of hit the nail on the head there. We know that some of these really big organizations, over-hired in 2021, right? That we were coming back from the pandemic so quickly that these big organizations were just snapping up talent really quick to respond to demand. And so, what’s happening now in some of these bigger organizations and in these tech and media and e-commerce spaces, it’s just a correction. It’s a correction for some over-hiring that was done. And like I said, we’re not seeing it in any other place. I think what the bigger lesson is though, is you’re gonna see these little ebbs and flows over small windows of time. But when you step back and look at the big picture — i.e., the years leading up to, and since the pandemic, we are living in the middle of an era where people are more quickly and willingly switching jobs in pursuit of an upgrade. Right? We see that clearly in the hiring data. We see that clearly in the jobs data. We just got the jobs data in from the end of 2021. We know that more than 50 million people voluntarily changed jobs, but there were more than 75 million new hires in 2022. And so, I think I said 2021 earlier, I meant 2022, they all run together. Okay.

Suzanne:
Yeah.

Joe:
Got it. Yeah. but we are still seeing all of this trend towards people saying, the role that I want my job to play in my life has to change. I’m not willing to be overworked. I’m not willing to be underpaid. I’m not willing to do work that’s unfulfilling. I’m not willing to miss the important lives or moments in my kids’ lives. And so, when you look at those quarter of a million jobs that are being added to the economy every month, the next question is, how many of them are great jobs? How many of them are jobs that pay a living wage and that prioritize quality of life for people who employ them? Because if you are a leader or a business owner and you’re able to create those kinds of jobs, you’re gonna have a line out the door because you’re providing what people are looking for at a time where there’s this massive recalibration taking place around how work fits into our lives. And so, what people have heard of as the great resignation, it’s not an event, it’s an era. It’s been going on for more than a decade, and it’s expected to continue. We’re seeing that in the numbers

Suzanne:
Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, and it’s a consumer issue thinking if we think of our employees, our future employees as almost our customers, Hmm. We have to differentiate ourselves just like we do our products or our service. We have to be the company that is attractive because that’s the only way we’re gonna be competitive. And it isn’t, you know, we, we’ve had different discussions about salaries and compensation and you’ve gotta be competitive there. But I did see an article this morning from Forbes, it’s saying, uh oh, some of these people in the large companies might not be able to see their matched salaries. If they’re going to smaller startups and people. Right. So, think about that adjustment. Think about the total rewards, the work-life balance, the flexibility, the other benefits other than salary. Yeah. make sure you’re, you know, you said big picture. Make sure you use, looking at life from that big picture too. The totality of the things that a new employer can offer you. And as a boss, that you’re doing everything you can to offer what’s gonna track the right talent.

Joe:
That’s such a great point. And, and a conversation I was having at this travel conference with another speaker who was there, who really is in the tech world. She said the biggest issue is going to be that some of these folks who are getting laid off from these tech giants really prioritize working for tech giants. And so, for them, they may have a little bit of a harder time, but for people who do what they do, if they’re willing to swim in a smaller pond, they could still potentially do the same kind of work at or around the same kind of pay. It’s just that for some folks, there’s this kind of status I think that comes with working for one of those big-name organizations and for people who work Right. In those industries, having the next job on your resume be a company that nobody has ever heard of, might work against them, at least in their own perception, mentally Sure. Of what they’re going for. Right, right. But outside of…

Suzanne:
Even though it could be the next big giant that they can… 

Joe:
That’s right. 

Suzanne:
You never know

Joe:
<Laugh>, they could be joining, you know, Lyft before anybody ever heard of Lyft. Absolutely. That’s right. Yeah. But the opportunities are out there. Even if you work for a tech giant and you do get laid off, you know, you will at least be able to make a lateral move, if not a forward move to another organization if you’re willing to step outside of those big spaces. And I think the last thing that I wanna mention just to folks who are listening this, because some people do hear about the news coverage about layoffs in the economy, and they get nervous, they get anxious about it. And so, my advice to you is just to simply look around, look around where you’re working. Is your organization still struggling to fill positions? Are they hiring? Are they communicating to you and the other members of your teams? Like, hey, please refer people into our organization.

Joe:
Those are signs and signals that you’re probably not at risk. Are, are you getting high-performance reviews? Are you getting are your supervisors communicating your value back to you? If all those things are happening, then you can be like, Elsa and Let it Go. Because this, this trend of the quote-unquote trend of layoffs probably isn’t gonna be anywhere near your, your orbit. All right, friends, well, we’d love to hear what you think. Are you seeing something differently out there than what Suzanne and I just commented on? We welcome your feedback, your insights, and your experiences. All you have to do to email the show is fire up your email and send us a message at bossbetternow@gmail.com. That’s bossbetternow@gmail.com.

Joe:
All right, my friend. That brings us to two, the Camaraderie Question of the Week. We know that bosses build camaraderie on teams by making it easier for people to find things in common with each other. That’s why every week here on the show, we give you BossHeroes a question you can use at meetings to facilitate connection and build comradery. This week’s question is this – name someone in your life who makes you feel confident every time you interact with them. I like this question.

Joe:
All right. I gave you this ahead of time. I like

Suzanne:
It too. Yes, you did.

Joe:
This is a chance to shout out someone special.

Suzanne:
I will. Yeah. And I had trouble picking just one. Okay. As my friend Kim and my friend Kathy, and I think certain times my mom and my kids, Abby and Drew, and my husband Mike there, I’m throwing out names. 

Joe:
I see what you did there.

Suzanne:
But you see what I did there? The person that actually called me this very morning is the one I will give the special shout-out to, and that’s Trisha Earls, Uh huh <affirmative>. And Trisha and I were colleagues at business years and years ago. Okay. And then she hired me as a consultant, then hired me as a full-time employee, and now we’re back to being colleagues again, <laugh>. But no matter what, you know, she is quick to articulate what she appreciates in me. Hmm. She’s quick to kind of shore me up if I’m having a moment of doubt or quick to be a cheerleader. And you know, Joe, I think it’s important for all of us to make sure that we’re surrounding of us with people that can help us feel confident, you know? Yeah. And, and editing if we need to, the time we spend with those who, who maybe don’t. Yes. You know, great. And, and, and that we’re someone that people we help, we’re giving it back the other way too. Yeah.

Joe:
Yeah. Right. Absolutely. And this, this question’s fun to use in a team environment because you may end up creating a place where people are able to shout each other out a little bit and kind of say, hey, every time I work with you Yeah. You know, or every time I, I come into your office, and I plop down in your chair, and I’m just exasperated. You always just help me think differently about things. And, and that lifts me up. Right? So, there’s a real chance for some, some team building and some true camaraderie building here around this question. That’s why I like this one.

Suzanne:
And I wanna add you to that list as well. Of course, Joe.

Joe:
Oh my goodness! That’s so nice!

Suzanne:
Just by inviting me here. Time after time. It does boost my confidence. So, thank you.

Joe:
I’m gonna go back and edit this so that my name comes first so that you can say, well, Joe, you are the person I should name, and then that’ll make me feel even better. No, I’m just kidding.

Suzanne:
Okay. Awesome.

Joe:
I have someone in my life who makes me feel confident every time I interact with them. And like you, I could rattle off a whole bunch of names. I am very lucky to have a wonderful network of people who lift me up when I need it. But there is one person who every time I talk to her you know, have somebody in your life who believes in you as much as my colleague Jamie believes in me. Jamie is our producer. And that’s one of the like two dozen hats that she wears for me in my company. And I have known Jamie a long, long time. I knew her a long time before I ever hired her to come work here. And I think that’s one of the reasons it works really well because we have a, a, a long relationship. It’s almost like a brother-sister relationship at this point and a deep caring for each other. But she believes in me, and she knows my character and she knows my, my qualities and traits and characteristics and all of my flaws. And whenever I’m having a day where I’m kind of feeling unsure of myself, or maybe I didn’t think something went well, if I go talk to her about it, she’s always like, look man, this is how it really is. And every, and then she says very nice things about you know, what worked or what I need to remember. And so, shout out to Jamie. She’s the person who makes me feel confident every time.

Suzanne:
Yay, Jamie. Nice.

Joe:
And that’s the Camaraderie Question of the Week.

Joe:
All right, folks, before we get to our BossScript this week, just a reminder that if you’re planning a conference or a meeting or an event in 2023 and you are looking for a really dynamic, engaging program to open or close your event, then I know a speaker who would love to work with you. Hey, it’s me. If you’re interested in having someone, come to your meeting or event to talk about what it takes these days to find and keep devoted employees to talk about how to supercharge commitment in the workplace, to talk about what employees need to experience to overcome all of the burnout and exhaustion and frustration that has bloomed over the past couple of years. Then I have what you’re looking for. If you would like more information about bringing me in to speak to do a keynote at one of your meetings or events, just send an email to hello@joemull.com. And we will give you a call and we will learn more about your event, and we will be able to give you a custom program and quote and everything that you would need to decide whether I am the right fit for that. So, one more time, that email is just hello, hello@joemull.com.

Joe:
And so now a BossScript.

Joe:
We hadn’t done one of these in a while. When I was going back and prepping some episodes, I was like, whoa, we haven’t done a BossScript in a while, so let’s go. We do. Yeah, do it. Okay. Our BossScript this week is, that’s my fault. That’s my fault is a three-word turn of phrase that I promise you every single time you use it, it’s gonna up the trust factor and the respect factor, and the loyalty factor for the people who work for you. And so, this is really rooted in a very simple philosophy. And if you’ve read one leadership book or a hundred leadership books, you have heard this premise more than once, I’m sure. And that is that the best leaders give credit to others for success, and they take blame themselves for failure. And so, the idea of saying that’s my fault is a BossScript that you can use anytime someone sits across from you and acknowledges a mistake or that something didn’t go well.

Joe:
And I’m gonna give you a little bit of advice. I want you to try using this even if it’s totally not your fault. Because when you absorb ownership for things that don’t go right, people notice that, and that actually motivates them to not put you in that position again the next time. So, for example we have a new hire on my team named Frankie’s been with us for just over two months. He’s doing a great job. And in a one-on-one meeting that we had the other day, he remarked that he was really struggling to make sense of our project management software. And so, he hadn’t been using it as much. And I said, oh, that’s my fault. I didn’t really take the time to give you a deeper training into how we use that. I just kind of threw it at you.

Joe:
So, I’m really sorry about that. And about a week ago, we were refreshing one of the pages on our website. We were redesigning it, and the person who was driving that presented the redesign to me, and I didn’t love it. And I kind of had to say, hey, this isn’t really the direction that I wanted to go. And she apologized and I said, no, no, no, that’s my fault, because I wasn’t clear on what I wanted, and I wasn’t able to communicate it to you. And so, when we give voice to this right away, when someone makes a mistake and we say, well, here’s why that’s my fault. We are helping them save face. We’re removing the burden of that stress from them, and we’re souping charge supercharging their desire to prevent us from being in that situation again. Have you used language like this, Suzanne? What is the value in it? Or are there times when we shouldn’t use it? Hey, I threw three questions at you at once. Sorry.

Suzanne:
You did. So yes, I’ve done it, you know, might come across in the words like, my bad Yeah. Or I should have or I could have something like that. So, I think it does have value. I like it because it, it almost forces you to think through truly what you could have done differently.

Joe:
Yeah.

Suzanne:
So many times, we respond quickly to solve the issue, fix the problem, or give them feedback of what they could have done differently. But to think through that’s my fault lens, really makes your brain think through, oh my gosh, I should have been more clear on my expectations, or I should have given them more opportunity to talk through the process or giving them training, whatever it was. So, I really like it. Is there a time it shouldn’t be used? Yes. I think if it feels like a flyby night insincere sound bite, right? Yes. Oh, that’s my fault. And you roll your eyes, you know, something that it’s not, you know, going to come across as from your heart or that you really believe it is not worth saying.

Joe:
Yes, I completely agree with that. If you overuse it, it becomes inauthentic in the moment. I think the other time when we, we shouldn’t use it is if you have somebody who struggles to take ownership for their mistakes or somebody who makes a lot of excuses, right? Well, this didn’t go well and it’s this other team’s fault, or you didn’t gimme the right deadline, you know, we feed into that when we absorb responsibility for something that maybe really was their fault or where you really do need them to step up in a different way. So, in those kinds of circumstances, I’d probably keep this in my, my metaphorical pocket. But when right when someone’s sitting across from me and very quickly gives voice to owning a mistake, if there’s an opportunity for me to relieve that burden a little bit and say, yeah, you know, that’s my fault too because I could have blah, blah, blah. It ups the respect and trust factor.

Suzanne:
It sure does. And I think at times, back to our comradery question of the week, you’re not undermining their confidence. Yeah. Right. If you, if you pull back, you give them grace, you help them figure out a way forward, then they’re more likely to keep building on their confidence or their competency or that skill or whatever might be. So, I think that works too. Yeah.

Joe:
I use a lot of sports analogies and sports metaphors because I actually think sports can teach us a lot about leadership. And so the analogy here is when you see the coach come up to the podium for the press conference after the game where the team lost and he or she looks into the camera and says, you know, I take ownership for this loss because I didn’t make the proper adjustments at halftime, or I didn’t coach the team well around, you know, the adjustments that the other team made, they don’t throw the, their, their players under the bus and say, oh, well, if our quarterback hadn’t thrown that interception, or, oh, if our you know, our power forwards lifted some more weights in the off-season than they were a little stronger for such a physical game. They don’t do that. They own it.

Joe:
They say, hey, we didn’t perform at the level that we expect. And I, that’s on me as the leader as cliche as that can sound sometimes that has power and has, and it has tremendous influence and followers notice that. The other side of this too, and the times when I actually think this is even harder to do, the, the, that’s my fault BossScript, is when we have to say, that’s my fault to our superiors, right? If our, if our team doesn’t perform something well, or we haven’t completed a project, or we’ve been falling short, or there’s maybe a, a service-related disaster to stand in front of my boss, and even though maybe I didn’t have direct contact with the customer that experienced the service disaster to look at my boss and say, well, that’s my fault, that’s my fault for not staying on top of the kind of culture and responsiveness and training that we need to make sure that that service disaster doesn’t happen, but I’m on it and we’re gonna work to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Even if your followers aren’t in the room and they never hear you take ownership like that to your superiors, it still matters because it’s part of the hardwiring that leaders are required to have around ownership and accountability.

Suzanne:
I love it, Joe. And I, one more thing that came to mind as you were saying that is, you know, use the behaviors you want other people model the behaviors you want to see in others. Yes. That’s what I’m trying to say. So, if you’re modeling that and you take responsibility, that’s my fault in the meeting, they’re gonna feel like it’s okay for them to do that, or they’re gonna learn that accountability is around the table or around the team circle or whatever. And they’re gonna learn to be able to say it to either to the team or to their subordinates or they’re just gonna pay it forward.

Joe:
Absolutely. So, I feel like that’s our homework for our BossHeroes. If you don’t regularly engage in scripting like this or this kind of ownership of other people’s mistakes, I want you to try it this week. When you hear somebody acknowledge that they didn’t do something right, or well, I want you to immediately say, well, that’s my fault actually, cuz I could have blah, blah blah. And when you do it, I want you to notice their face. You’re gonna see them go, wait, hold on, that doesn’t comp compute. For some people they’re gonna say, hold on, like that doesn’t compute cuz I made the mistake. And there, there will be kind of a begrudging respect maybe there in that moment. And keep trying it and keep seeing the reaction that you get. I think it’s going to positively impact the relationships that you have and your ability to lead people more effectively. And that’s the BossScript.

Joe:
All right, friends, that’s our show. If you liked what you heard, we would love it if you would leave us a review, especially if you’re listening to this on Apple Podcasts. Just scroll down to the bottom of our show, click the little five stars, click write a review and throw a couple sentences in there about what you like about our show or this episode in particular. Believe it or not, reviews are really important to helping other people who are looking for a podcast on leading people or culture or engagement or management. It’s really important that reviews get, get updated regularly cuz it helps people find our show. So, if you could take a minute, write us a review, we would greatly appreciate it. It means a lot and it helps us continue fulfilling our mission to fulfill workplaces with better bosses. Thanks for listening and thanks for all that you do out there to take care of so many.

Suzanne:
This show is sponsored by Joe Mull and Associates. Remember, commitment comes from Better Bosses. Visit joemull.com today.