Hiring A-Players When You’re Still Unknown | Ep 272

Summary

Build with Leila Hormozi: Hiring A-Players When You’re Still Unknown | Ep 272

Host: Leila Hormozi
Release Date: May 13, 2025
Description: In Episode 272 of "Build with Leila Hormozi," Leila tackles the challenging topic of hiring top-tier talent ("A-players") for businesses that are still establishing their reputation. Through a series of live calls, entrepreneurs share their unique hiring struggles, and Leila provides actionable insights to overcome these obstacles and build unshakeable businesses.

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Introduction

Hiring exceptional talent is a pivotal step in scaling any business. However, for entrepreneurs and businesses that are still building their brand and reputation, attracting "A-players" can be particularly daunting. In this episode, Leila Hormozi delves deep into this issue, providing tailored advice to various entrepreneurs grappling with hiring challenges. From startups in digital marketing to established firms in logistics and education, Leila addresses a spectrum of concerns, offering strategies that leverage brand credibility, effective training, and cultural alignment.

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Caller Insights and Leila’s Advice

1. Frederick: Scaling a Digital Marketing Agency

• Business Overview:

  • Industry: Digital Marketing for Ecommerce (Fashion & Apparel)
  • Revenue: $200K/month
  • Goals: Achieve $400K/month by year-end and $1.2M/month in three years.
  • Challenge: Difficulty in acquiring high-quality talent quickly enough to match marketing lead generation.

• Leila’s Advice:

  • Establish Track Record: “If you don't have a track record, it is difficult to get A plus talent.” [00:33]
  • Leverage Recruiting Firms: “Borrow brand credibility from a recruiting company.” [02:00]
  • Invest in Training: Develop a system akin to “mini internships” to groom talent internally.
  • Retention Through Investment: “The more you invest someone, the more skills they acquire... the more likely they are to keep staying.” [06:30]

2. Trish: Expanding an Online Sales Team

• Business Overview:

  • Industry: Sales Team Installation for Online Brands and Influencers
  • Revenue: $16M/month
  • Goals: Scale to $100M/month
  • Challenge: Balancing efforts between marketing and compliance, struggling to delegate effectively.

• Leila’s Advice:

  • Prioritize Based on Resources: “Which one do I have the resources to solve right now?” [12:34]
  • Implement Structured Meetings: Make team meetings mandatory to ensure participation. “You need to like the person... you need to want to talk to them.” [50:36]
  • Reinforce Culture and Accountability: “Defend your business and your dream more than anybody else.” [47:46]

3. Kiana: Managing Escalations in Legal Services

• Business Overview:

  • Industry: Legal Services for Immigrants
  • Revenue: $24M/year, running at $60M
  • Challenge: High workload in handling escalations, risk of team burnout.

• Leila’s Advice:

  • Enhance Training and Morale: Implement routines such as daily huddles to celebrate wins and review performances. “They need someone who's willing to pour into those people.” [19:20]
  • Hire Dedicated Trainers: Bring in a trainer focused on skill development to boost team resilience and effectiveness. “Skill development so that they feel like they're getting better through the hard conversations.” [20:00]

4. Finn: Transitioning from Contractor to Employee with Phantom Equity

• Business Overview:

  • Industry: Financial Education for Professionals
  • Revenue: Dropped from $10M to $5M
  • Challenge: Retaining key contractual staff without the intention to sell the business.

• Leila’s Advice:

  • Align Compensation Strategies: “They get a profit share and then upon exit, it vests...” [22:00]
  • Focus on Recognition Over Equity: “People are more likely not to leave if you give them recognition, praise, and reward.” [23:06]
  • Strategic Hiring: Prioritize hiring a VP of Operations to manage and scale effectively. “You need to find somebody who has built a business similar to this to 20 or 25 million.” [27:06]

5. Angie Kalin: Scaling a Private Preschool

• Business Overview:

  • Industry: Education (Private Preschool)
  • Revenue: $68K/month
  • Challenge: Staffing shortages, compliance issues, and cultural transition post-acquisition.

• Leila’s Advice:

  • Reset Company Culture: “You essentially need a new team.” [39:26]
  • Set Clear Expectations and Consequences: “Write down what those expectations are and what's the consequence if the expectation is not met.” [49:09]
  • Hire Experienced Leadership: Bring in a director or operations manager to manage staff and enforce new standards. “You need to get support... there's going to be too much.” [40:16]
  • Mandatory Training and Meetings: Implement strict attendance policies to ensure team alignment. “It's a mandatory meeting. People will show up.” [50:36]

6. Jay: Developing Leaders in an Amazon Advertising Agency

• Business Overview:

  • Industry: Amazon Advertising Agency & Coaching
  • Revenue: $3.5M, aiming to double
  • Challenge: Scaling leadership from young A-players, fostering accountability.

• Leila’s Advice:

  • Demonstrate Accountability Practices: Take over team meetings to showcase effective accountability. “I'm going to run the team huddles for you.” [56:09]
  • Encourage Skill Development: “Reward progress and effort is far more important than rewarding the outcome.” [67:59]
  • Iterative Feedback: “The market's going to tell us more... it's a painful process.” [81:24]

7. Karen Vets: Optimizing Logistics Services Profitability

• Business Overview:

  • Industry: Logistics Services for Freight Companies
  • Revenue: $500K/month
  • Goals: Increase to $1M/month, boost EBITDA
  • Challenge: Retention of owner-operators leading to low profit margins.

• Leila’s Advice:

  • Reevaluate Incentive Structures: Either reduce operational costs for owner-operators or increase their rewards to secure loyalty. “Take away more of their pain... or add more reward.” [59:07]
  • Innovative Recruitment Models: Offer commitments like subsidizing truck training in exchange for contractual obligations. “This is gonna fix your problem.” [66:20]

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Key Themes Across Callers

1. Importance of Track Record and Brand Credibility:

   • A strong reputation significantly enhances the ability to attract top talent. Without it, businesses must find alternative strategies such as partnering with recruiting firms to borrow credibility.

2. Structured Training and Development:

   • Investing in robust training programs ensures that new hires can quickly adapt and excel, turning potential weaknesses into strengths.

3. Cultural Alignment and Accountability:

   • Establishing a clear company culture with defined expectations and consequences is crucial for maintaining high performance and reducing turnover.

4. Strategic Delegation and Leadership Hiring:

   • Founders must delegate operational responsibilities to experienced leaders to focus on strategic growth areas. Hiring the right leadership team is pivotal for scaling effectively.

5. Innovative Compensation Models:

   • Rethinking traditional compensation structures, such as incorporating profit shares or performance-based incentives, can enhance employee retention and motivation.

6. Utilizing Recruitment Channels Effectively:

   • Leveraging platforms like LinkedIn, social media, and industry-specific programs can broaden the talent pool and attract candidates aligned with company values and goals.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Track Record’s Role in Talent Acquisition:

  • “If you don't have a track record, it is difficult to get A plus talent.” — Leila [00:33]

• Borrowing Brand Credibility:

  • “Borrow brand credibility from a recruiting company.” — Leila [02:00]

• Importance of Investing in Employees:

  • “The more you invest someone, the more skills they acquire... the more likely they are to keep staying.” — Leila [06:30]

• Resetting Company Culture:

  • “You essentially need a new team.” — Leila [39:26]

• Demonstrating Accountability:

  • “I'm going to run the team huddles for you.” — Leila [56:09]

• Innovative Recruitment Strategies:

  • “We have to think backwards and engineer the job postings and the incentives differently.” — Leila [66:20]

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Conclusion

Hiring "A-players" remains a formidable challenge for businesses still building their reputations. However, as demonstrated through various caller scenarios, strategic approaches such as leveraging recruiting firms, investing in comprehensive training programs, resetting company culture, and redefining compensation structures can significantly enhance a company’s ability to attract and retain top talent. Leila Hormozi emphasizes the importance of proactive measures, cultural alignment, and continuous development to overcome the inherent difficulties of hiring exceptional employees in the early stages of business growth. By implementing these strategies, entrepreneurs can build unshakeable foundations that support sustainable scaling and long-term success.

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Remember: Building a team of A-players is not merely about filling positions; it's about creating a culture of excellence, continuous improvement, and aligned vision that propels your business forward. Leila Hormozi’s insights provide a roadmap for entrepreneurs aiming to assemble top-tier teams, even when their brand is still in its nascent stages.

Transcript

[Leila]

How you guys doing? Wow. Okay. We got so much.

[Alex]

Oh, hi.

[Leila]

We have energy in the room. I always joke. I'm like, I think it's like the leftover session because you guys meet the team and then you talk to Alex. I'm like, I don't know what you're gonna ask, but we can go for whatever you got left. I'll take it. So what you got?

[Frederick]

Oh, hey, Leila. My name is Frederick. I sell digital marketing to ecommerce, specifically within fashion and apparel. We do 200k a month in revenue. Right now, we want to go to 400k end of year, in a month. 1.2 in 3 years. A month. What's stopping us right now is basically acquiring a talent at a quick enough scale because when we start marketing, it is exponentially more efficient at finding new leads and new clients compared to acquiring new job interviews with a talent. To give some context, we're from Denmark. We, we were 5.5 million people. So it's a small pool. And we've, like, considered doing signing bonuses to get like the high stasis profiles from other agencies because we want to, like, get people to our office because we have a really strong culture. And obviously we've also considered doing it remote. We're not sure what is the best option here. And just to wrap it up, we are also, like, really investing heavily in doing content like you and Alex essentially is doing, like building that brand. But that's just something that takes time and we need to scale like the job interviews with A plus talent. And that's really difficult right now.

[Leila]

Right. Okay, so tell me, what did you do prior to this?

[Frederick]

What do you mean?

[Leila]

Like, did you have a business prior? Is this first business like.

[Frederick]

Yeah, we started in the 21st of February.

[Leila]

Okay, understood. I think it's a good lesson for everybody here because I think it's something that a lot of people aren't going to tell you. And I want to tell you the holistic picture and then tell you what I would do if I were you. Okay. First off, if you don't have a track record, it is difficult to get A plus talent. It's double difficult to get A plus talent if you have an opportunity that is no different from other people in this room. Right. Digital marketing agency, even though you have niche down, it's not something that it's not novel. It's not like we're building Tesla. It's not right. And so, like, we just have to look at the facts of the situation. I also want to say there's nothing wrong with this, but I wish somebody had told me that when I was building my first company as to like, why is it so hard to get talent? And I had to find out the hard way, which was when we started acquisition.com. and all of a sudden it was so easy. And I was like, I don't understand. I actually feel like, if anything, I had even. I had. I tried even harder in that company to get A plus talent with the signing bonuses and the compensation and the fandom equity and all these things. But it just felt like I was like up against a brick wall. And it was because of the opportunity vehicle and the track record. Why is that? Okay, because suddenly now we had a track record when we built acquisition.com where people can point and say, oh, they've been successful before, therefore, like, I want to tie my cart to your horse or whatever the phrase is for that thing, right? And so they're like, okay, like, I trust this is going somewhere. This isn't just a pipe dream, right? The second piece to it is that now that we've. We have this company, the opportunity size is bigger, right? People see private equity, they see venture capital, they see workshop. They're like, wow, this is like some meaty stuff I can get into. And everyone wants to be able to say that they do M and A and private equity. It's like, I don't know why, it's like terribly boring at times and, like, actually not that fun. But, like, people want to say that they do it. And so those were two things I didn't know in my first company. Now, that being said, I think that you should know that you should not focus on it. What you want to focus on is you want to know what you're up against and then you want to say, okay, how can I overcome that? Right? So, like, at this point, you don't have a track record. The only thing that you have is you have to attract top talent, in my opinion, is that you have two ends of the spectrum that you can go for, which is one end of the spectrum is people who are in the later part of their career. Now, why would they want to work for you? The reason they would want to work for you is if you're humble, if you're coachable, and if you want to learn. Because a lot of people in the later part of their career want to help somebody out who has a really big dream, is trying really fucking hard, and doesn't have an ego because they feel like they'll say, like, I feel Called to help. I feel like I can provide so much value. I feel like I can help you avoid mistakes that you might otherwise. And so finding people who work very closely with CEOs or founders that are in the later part of their career is one. Now the other end of the spectrum is people that are early in their career and that you have to train up. And so the ideal scenario is that you're able to get enough of these people in that they can help you train these people that would be ideal for you. Now the question is, well, what do you do right now? Because it's not gonna be fast to find these people and you don't have the brand credibility. Right. The first thing that I would suggest you do is in this scenario, when you don't have the brand credibility and you have a tough market, borrow brand credibility from somebody. Now where do you borrow brand credibility? From a recruiting company. You find a recruiting company. I begged, borrowed, and I did not steal, but I begged and borrowed from some of the top recruiting companies. When we had our company, Jim Walter, I was like, please fucking take me. I, I am a golden retriever over here. I don't know what I'm doing and I need top talent and I cannot grow the company without it. And I know that I don't qualify for your parameters, but like, I literally just like laid out my soul on the floor and I got some of the top firms to take me on. Now why was that important? Because they were able to get access to talent that would never have responded to me. Because if you reach out to top talent right now, like if I were to tell you, do the LinkedIn strategy, reach out, blah, blah, I can do it, it'll work just fine. If you do it, it probably won't work that well. They'll be like, I don't know, this guy's making some videos online, I don't know what he's done. Another digital marketing agency. That's just the truth. And so what you've got to do is borrow the brand credibility from a recruiting company. That's the first thing I would do if I were you. And I would try to get a couple of those people. And here's the thing, you have to listen to what they're going to need, compensation wise. But you're going to learn way more engaging with a recruiting team because you're going to actually get access to way more top talent to at least have the conversations so you get feedback from the market way faster. In terms of what compensation would it take for them to come there, but they're going to be most attracted to your character. So the only thing you've got right now is your work ethic and your character to attract those people. And they want to know that they're going to be able to have a bigger impact in your company than in another company because you're open minded. That's the only thing that me and Alex had going for us. And I swear that's why we were able to get those people. They felt like they had influence in the company. We were more influenceable, whatever, right. Because we didn't know what we were doing. We were looking for direction. We want people who knew more. And so that's the angle you have to take with that. And I do think if I were you, I would engage with the recruiting company to do so. Then once you get a couple of those people in, the next piece is, okay, how do I create a machine that builds these people? It's essentially like you want almost like mini internships, right? It's like mini interns that are constantly being groomed by these people so that you don't have to try so hard to get these people. Because here's the other thing. These people are in the later half of their career. What's that mean? We don't know how long they got these people. The more you invest in somebody, the more time you invest in someone, the more they learn at your job, the longer they will stay. People think it's the opposite. They're like, well, if I invest in them, then they're just going to leave. It's like, actually the studies show that the more you invest someone, the more skills they acquire on the job in your place, the more likely they are to keep staying there. Because they're like, I'm getting what I want out of this place, I continue to gain more skills. Why would I go somewhere else?

[Frederick]

Yeah, what would the skill level be in the like if we acquire, let's say two really senior people from someone reaching out. If, let's say we have the HR firm, like what skill would they have if they come in as a graduate, for example, would that be straight off university? We have someone that was associate in another agency or something like that.

[Leila]

Are you talking about what skill level they come in at the low end or the high end?

[Frederick]

Probably the low end. Yeah.

[Leila]

That's something that you have to figure out. You're going to have to test and learn. Because the question is what skills are you able to teach and what are you not able to teach? And what do you have the patience and the time to teach? So if somebody comes in and they're like, you know, I want to join your sales team. And I'm like, all right. Have you ever done. And they're like, oh, no, I've never done cold calling. I've never done. I've only done enterprise, this, that. And I'm like, okay, well how, what have you done with enterprise? Like, well, I've done phone calls. Enterprise. You know, we have to qualify people. We have to really make sure. I'm like, oh, okay, that's actually tracking. Because like it's not transactional. You're actually qualifying people. You're actually. Okay, that can transfer. But then if I talk to somebody and they're like, you know what? I, I have a hard time. I get nervous when I talk to people. I'd be like, dude, that's, I'm not going to teach you how to be confident. Like, that's beyond the scope of the job.

[Trish]

Yeah.

[Leila]

So you got to play with it. It's not a black and white answer.

[Frederick]

We have some leverage and we have like some of the biggest passion cases actually in Denmark, even though we are not that old. So we have some leverage in that. And I mean, I totally get what you're saying and I think that's also the long term play. But right now, like when we start marketing, it's really efficient. Like we, we get a lot of leads. But then again, like is, is it just going to that HR firm and saying you need to find these people at whatever cost and then just showing them we are open minded because like we want someone to come in and be able to just take on the task from these bigger clients.

[Leila]

I would like that too. Yeah, that's not how it works. No. With anything. So like you, you have to have patience. You can bring in the most competent person in the fucking world. And if you expect that in a week they're going to be able to make the best decisions for the company and the client, it's just not correct. Because even if you take somebody that's at an equivalent business to acquisition.com and I put them in, into an equipment, they came from the exact, we did the exact same thing. You have different preferences, you have a different culture they're going to make. And people make decisions based on the culture and the preferences of the founder. And so they have to learn you. And that's going to be the biggest learning curve is the more time you spend with them up front, the faster they're going to get up to speed in terms of getting them in. This is a forever problem for you? Yeah. I just want you to understand that this company that you've built, this is your problem forever. So you have to get really good at understanding it. I think it's a great first step.

[Frederick]

All right, thanks.

[Leila]

Of course. Hello. Hi.

[Maria Quiroga]

So my name's Trish. We, we basically help online brands and influencers install their, their sales teams. So we do about 16 million in revenue. We'd like to be at 100 million in revenue. The main thing that's stopping me right now is I own a lot of the processes that are happening for the company and I think I've kind of narrowed it down to, you know, which two are going to have the most impact. One is going to be marketing. The second is going to be compliance. I'm in the process of having built out the processes and like delegating the other things. So those are the main two. So the question is, you know, if you were me, where would you say that I should spend majority of my time and effort building out, you know, either marketing or compliance?

[Leila]

Tell me what the difference between those two things are when it comes to.

[Maria Quiroga]

The processes for marketing compliance.

[Leila]

Yeah, because I would actually see that marketing has compliance in it. So I just want to understand.

[Maria Quiroga]

Oh, well, so, so when I think compliance, I'm thinking about like the outward messaging of our organization, but also how the sales team is conducting their calls and all the audits. Basically like the maintenance of it.

[Leila]

Yeah.

[Maria Quiroga]

And then the marketing is really. We don't have an in house marketing department right now and we have one that we're starting to kind of work with on a more regular basis as far as outsourcing. But there's no standardization. There's no like, you know, again, branch specifically built out for that, which in turn will help us grow a number of different accounts that we oversee right now.

[Leila]

And so you feel like these are both, if I hear you correctly, you feel like these are both of equal importance and you're trying to figure out which one you spend more time on right now.

[Maria Quiroga]

Yeah. My issue is that I sell myself on why they're both equally important.

[Leila]

You saw what I said.

[Maria Quiroga]

My issue is that I sell myself on why I think they're both equally important. I know probably one's more important than the other, but it's me talking to me.

[Leila]

Okay, well, let me ask you this question. There's. Okay, what's the constraint of the business? What takes up the most amount of your mental bandwidth? The marketing or the sales.

[Maria Quiroga]

If I think back to a normal day, it's going to be both. I tend to get pulled in all those different directions.

[Leila]

Okay, so, like, right now, though, not having fixed this or being in the middle of it, is there one that takes up your mind, share more than the other? Not necessarily, no. Okay, which one? Do you have more resources right now to solve compliance? Let's do that. Fair enough. They're both of equal importance. And so if two things are of equal importance, the way that you decide, which one do you. You do first is two questions. Which is, which one do I have the resources to solve right now? And the next question is, which one gets worse with time? They both get worse with time. So the next question is, what do you have the resources? So let's start with compliance. Yeah. Okay. Fair enough.

[Maria Quiroga]

Thank you.

[Leila]

Absolutely.

[Kiana]

Hi, my name is Maria Quiroga. We sell legal services to immigrants, an immigration law firm. We closed at 24 million last year, and we're at a run rate of 60 million. And as chief legal officer, we. My time is. A lot of my time is spent under this unit that I created that's called the Internal affairs unit. Basically, when things go wrong or something's wrong or somebody's making a complaint or they want to cancel a contract. And so I have a team that helps me with that, but I'm trying to exit that to work on bigger other things. So if you think about it, we have about 10,000 open cases, and we call them escalation. We get about 20 to 30 escalations a week. So this is a very small percentage of our caseload. But it's very important because somebody has made a complaint, somebody has left a review. So it has a lot of my attention. This team that I developed to do this, I find it very dear to my heart because they had very interesting skills. It was like a mix of sales, a mix of customer retention. It's a mix of all of that.

[Leila]

Yeah.

[Kiana]

So I'm having a very hard time kind of exiting and not leading it, but I really need to do greater things to keep growing the business. And so that's one of them. And the second thing is, it's exhausting for that team because even though it's a very slow percentage of the big thing, they're constantly dealing with a problem, like a problematic client. So I'm worried that the steam that I hold so dear. Because it's taking a lot of my time.

[Leila]

Yeah.

[Kiana]

Is going to burn out on me. So those are my. Those are my issues.

[Leila]

So Right now, do you have somebody else that can lead the team, or do you not have that person?

[Kiana]

Yes, I do have. I do have. So out of. Out of the. Let's say, 20 calls. Yeah, I might get on the phone for three of them because it's really bad. Like, because it needs to. Right. So they are handling most of it.

[Leila]

But.

[Kiana]

But I do a lot of training, a lot of talking with them, a lot of. And then I do see them. I mean, I get exhausted. So I do see them in. How do I keep them? And I said to them, hey, guys, remember, you're in this position because you are the rock stars. They understand legal, they understand customer. They know how to speak to the client. They do better than my lawyers do in that kind of thing. So I'm trying to keep their energy up. We've thought about cycling them, like, just. But I mean, it's a really hard skill to train. I can. I can train and bring talent fast enough for that team.

[Leila]

I understand. So basically, you're leading the team right now. You know that you, with your magic can make it work well, the fear is you step out. Can they keep it going? Because it is a really hard job. It is draining. It is not rewarding. Can they keep it going without you there in multiple ways? Right.

[Kiana]

And the other part of it is, I mean, since I am the face when the customer gets the call, it's easier for me to solve it because, I mean, think of it like Alex, or you get on the phone with one of us, Right. You immediately have an advantage over the team because they're not talking to the owner.

[Leila]

Right.

[Kiana]

So that's kind of what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to. Now it's worked. But there are times that I do have to come to the phone, like.

[Leila]

Yeah. So I'll give you a few frames to think this through with. One, does this get easier or harder with time for you to get out of this? Harder. So it does make sense that you think about how do I get out of it right now? So it makes sense why you bring it up. The second piece that I would be thinking about is most people get exhausted because they are not getting poured into. So, for example, if. If people have space. So a lot of people in their jobs, if they're making progress, they can do anything that's hard. And if they see the progress of that thing. The most important departments that do not measure progress, but need to measure progress in order to do their jobs well are in the customer support, success collections escalations departments. Why is that? Because they're dealing with the hardest problems, the worst conflict. And yet those departments often have the least training. We tend to focus training, game tape reviews, drilling with sales and marketing, specifically sales. But what we want to do is we want to replicate that for that department. Because if you think about it, why are salespeople able? Because we say it's like we celebrate the sales. That's one. The other thing is how we train them, how we invest in them, how we keep a scoreboard, how they can constantly see that they're getting better. And so I had a CS department that had escalations and it was three people. And when I stepped in, they were like, morale is just super low. It's looking really bad. This was like seven years ago. And I was like, okay, let me see the entire cadence for the department. Let me see what you guys are doing on the phone. Let me see the meetings. There was no celebrations. There was no sharing of wins. There was no peer to peer, like, encouragement. And more specifically, they were pouring all day into these customers and nobody was pouring into them. And so what I said is, okay, you know what I need to do is I need to put in place because I can't be the one to oversee this. Cause I'm overseeing 13 other departments, right? But we need to put in place a cadence that keeps their morale up. And so I said, okay, let's just copy some of what we do with the sales team. Let's start them off with the day with a huddle. Let's review the wins. Wow, you resolved this conflict. You did amazing. Let's talk about, what did you say? Let's review the call. Let's go over this and then let's end the day with our wins, which is like, what did I get done today? Like, what conflicts did I resolve? And then we kept a scoreboard of conflict resolution and we were constantly rewarding people for it. In our, like, Slack channel that we had that cadence works incredibly well for teams that have just very emotionally exhausting work. Now I would say the second piece to that is I hired somebody to be a full time. It wasn't even a manager I needed. I didn't need a manager. I needed a trainer. Somebody who is constantly training them on skills, conflict resolution, communication, you know, managing your attitude, emotional resilience. And this person came in and their whole job was just to pour into them. Because I said, like, what is it? Actually it's going to retain people in this team. It's actually not the, like, managing Their skip like they're self managing to a degree. Right. The management actual piece of it is not that, it's that they, they need skill development so that they feel like they're getting better through the hard conversations. If you're just having shitty conversations all day and you don't know if you're getting better, it is diminishing. And I can tell you this because I have terrible conversations all the time. I have very hard conversations and I try to tackle the hardest problems. How do I look at it? I take the time to look at it like a game. How do I get better at this conversation than I did with this one? How can I get more skills to handle this better? What did I say to this person that I could say to this person? What should I not say that I said in this conversation? It's the same thing. It's just that they need somebody else to prompt them and do it for them. And so what I think you need to find is that person who's willing to pour into those people like that and has the skill to do so. And here's the thing, if they don't have the skill to do so, they need to facilitate pairing them with somebody who does. Meaning they bring in outside people to help train, they bring in outside conductors, they get them training courses and they work on their skills. They put together their development plans and I don't think that you need to cycle them with jobs but I do think that going with that you can pair how they can stay stair step in their current role based on how many conflicts do you resolve? Right. How many internal affairs have you de escalated? Like you could make benchmarks where they're like they're a junior, they're mid level, they're a senior, they're a whatever. They get a fucking jacket at this level, whatever it might be and then you gamify it for them where it's like they're getting rewarded for overcoming challenges. Because right now I would bet that they just don't feel a reward from it. It's just like no end in sight. Does that make sense?

[Kiana]

That's very helpful, thank you.

[Leila]

Great. Absolutely. Hey, Leila.

[Finn]

Hi, my name is Kiana. I sell financial education to high level professionals. We do well, we are doing 10 million dropped to 5 million because I thought I can remove myself from the business. Apparently I can't. It's now at 5. We would like to get to a hundred million per year. What is stopping me is people. I have two main people who are my like one of them is my assistant who is really growing very fast and that another one is kind of helping me manage my coaches and my support team. However, they are both contract brokers. The first part of my question is is this an issue? The reason they're contract workers is because I consistently am talking about the benefits of having your own business for tax purposes. And they love it. And so now they don't want to become employees. My cure to that is giving them fathoming equities. So the first part is, do you think that's an issue for people that I think are really good for my company, giving them equity, Phantom equity? Yes. Do you think that much? I don't know. And that would be a good question for you as well.

[Leila]

Yeah. I've got default to. No. Why do you look surprised?

[Finn]

I heard you saying something like phantom equity before right now, so.

[Leila]

Yeah, yeah. To people that had, you know, built and helped exit billion dollar companies. Have they done that?

[Finn]

Well, well, I was thinking of saying, okay, if we get to 10 million, I'm going to give you this much. If we get to 20 million, I'm going to give you this much kind of thing.

[Leila]

Here's the thing. How many years into the business are you? 12. Okay. How long have they been with you?

[Finn]

Four years.

[Leila]

Four years. Okay. And then in that time you said that you stepped out of the business and it cut in half. So how much influence do they have over this business? And it growing.

[Finn]

They, they don't. So they, they are growing. I came back, so. And then we, we rescued the business. As one of them. Being my executive assistant, she is leveling up like she has, she's learning all the skills and she really is showing a lot of potential and I, I know that if I don't grow into her vision, she might actually leave.

[Kiana]

So.

[Finn]

But I think she's very capable.

[Leila]

So. Okay, it sounds like we have two, two problems, right? You said you have people problems.

[Finn]

We have many problems.

[Leila]

This is part one of me. Jesus Christ. Okay. And then we have the problem that you're human risk. Right. Okay. So looking at this right now, based on where you are with the business, based on what you just told me, like what do you want to have happen by giving them phantom equity?

[Finn]

Them not leaving me. I'm not gonna. So I'm not gonna focus on the KMA risk anymore based on what I learned here. I'm gonna focus on like being in the business and building it.

[Leila]

Are you trying to exit it?

[Finn]

Not at all. The reason why I went out before, cuz I wanted to fix my marriage. I did it. We're good. So I'm, I'm like, I'm, I'm, I'm all.

[Alex]

So, no, you're good.

[Leila]

So I ask you that because phantom equity is for, if you exit a business, it has essentially like if you put together a phantom equity structure, there's multiple structures for it. But like most of the time what it means is they get, if you say you give somebody 1% fan equity, they get 1% profit share, and then upon exit, it vests and they get 1% of the sale. If you're never going to sell, then you might as well just give somebody a profit share and not have to worry about the entire structure for phantom equity. You know what I'm saying?

[Finn]

Gotcha. Okay.

[Leila]

And it's much easier to change as well. So that's, the first thing is like I think just thinking through the vehicle. The second piece is that there's irreversible decisions and there's reversible decisions. I think depending on where you want to go. If you want this company to be a hundred million dollar company, then I am, I will, I will put pause in your mind to give anybody equity right now because what it needs to turn into to get to that level, you're not a software company, okay? You're the face of the company. You're key man risk. Right now you need to figure out what structure you have. Is it the right structure and do I have the right team to help me get there? And you need to know what kind of team do I need to get me there and then think like, I wouldn't, I would not give out any sort of equity, any sort of profit share until I know how many executives get me to a hundred million, how much am I going to get, need to give each of those people? All right, well, a CTO needs more. A CFO usually needs more. What if I need to hire a president? Okay, okay, then, you know, I got a COO that's a little less. I got a CSO that's a little less. I got a CXO that's a little less. And I'm, I'm structuring out ahead of time what my compensation needs to look like to get me to hit my goal. So then when I think, okay, should I give this person something? Well, how much do I have left of the pool? Say you want to dedicate 10% of your business to give away so that you can hit whatever goal you have, that's fine. If you want to do that and I think it makes sense for a lot of businesses, but I think you have to get really clear on future equities that you're going to have to give away. Because if you build that, like, never build a compensation plan for one person. You build it for the company and to get the company to where it needs to go. And then you fit a person into the compensation plan. And if they don't fit into the compensation plan, then you need to think differently. Is this person special? Are they unique? Do they have skills so relevant to my business that it. It doesn't need to fit in the box? I'm not sold on either of your people being there. I think you just don't want them to leave. But people are more likely not to leave if you give them recognition, praise, and reward than they are if you give them phantom equity, which doesn't really matter because you're not gonna sell the business. You know what I'm saying?

[Finn]

Yes.

[Leila]

Okay.

[Finn]

Can I ask a second question?

[Leila]

Yeah.

[Finn]

So based on everything that your people have told me, I need a lot of people. And my question is, who do I prioritize? I still do my own ads. I don't have an operations person. Do I need a chief of staff first, or do I need an ads person first?

[Leila]

What are you best at?

[Finn]

I am really good at everything. No. No.

[Leila]

All right, all right. So there's two things. Don't say that to your team. There's zone of excellence, which is like, things you're very good at, but you don't actually like doing. You're very good at doing. People pressure you to do them. You feel like you've got to do them, but you don't like doing them. And then there's your zone of genius, which is like, you're really good at doing them. They have a high impact, and you like doing them. So could you differentiate between these?

[Finn]

Yes, absolutely. So I'm. I'm better at making videos and content and coaching and empowering people.

[Leila]

Understood? Yes. So it sounds like you have a lot of people you need to hire. There's a lot of operations in the business, and there's a lot of things that you haven't structured or done before to get the business to the point where it could recognize those goals that you have. Yes. So it sounds like it would probably make sense to prioritize somebody like a chief of staff, a director of Opera, a VP of operations, probably for the size you're at.

[Finn]

VP of operations.

[Leila]

You need a people person, somebody that wouldn't say they're Good at everything. I'm fucking with you. There's nothing wrong with confidence, but you know what I'm saying. You want that person who can speak to the team, they can figure out what's the compensation, how do I manage people, how do I make them feel good? They. They're high empathy, very understanding, and they can help bring in the talent that you need. Because that's a whole job of its own. Like it really is. Because you need somebody that's constantly thinking about recruiting and developing, recruit, develop, recruit, develop. That's what I think about all the time. It's like, how do I recruit people? How do I develop people? Because if I develop people, I don't have to think about people leaving because I'm developing them. And I know that's what keeps people. If I recruit the right people, then I don't have to worry about firing people because I made sure I got the right people in. So you want somebody who's constantly thinking about that. If you're the face of the business and your best time is spent being in the ads, being in the videos, being the brand, it's very difficult to do both because it requires a lot of discretionary effort, especially if you want to get to a hundred million or even if you just want to get to 20 million without wanting to jump off cliff, you know, so the job.

[Finn]

Title as VP of operations or chief, I think.

[Leila]

I don't know why you would do chief of staff. I would do VP of operations because I think based on the size you're at, that's an appropriate size title. And I don't think. Now, the key is this. You have to make sure you don't hire somebody who sucks and then give them that title.

[Finn]

I did that before and I had to fire her. And that was very, very hard.

[Leila]

Right. So you want to find somebody who has built a business similar to this to 20 or 25 million. Now, they haven't built it from scratch, but they have been there and they've been able to help build something. It doesn't need to be the exact business you have, but something similar. It was, you know, there was a face of the business, there was a service aspect to it and an education aspect, and they helped scale that business, an education, service business, from 5 million to 25 or 30 million.

[Finn]

It doesn't need to be somebody from like McKinsey or like a Deloitte.

[Leila]

Why would you need that?

[Finn]

I just heard that here that you could get talent from consulting companies.

[Leila]

You can for sure, but I think what you're looking for someone to do is operate, not consult. Gotcha. So if I have people in acquisition.com, am I having them operate or having them consult? Some people are better at consulting and not good at operating. Some people are great at operating, not good at consulting. Some people have both, which is, like, what you would love, of course. But I think for your business, you need someone that can operate, they can do the thing. That doesn't mean they're good at talking about doing the thing. People always mistake this. They think because you're good at talking about it, you must be good at doing it. No, those people usually suck at doing it. You want the person who's, like, bad on the interview. They're like, I don't know, but I did it. You're like, let's trust it.

[Finn]

And if you. If you were like, this personality, like, what kind of personality would be good? Good for that? Do you guys do that at all? Like, hiring based on, like, personality types?

[Leila]

I think you want to make sure that you like the person.

[Finn]

That's it.

[Leila]

Because you have to want to talk to them. You want them to be like your right hand, and they have to like you. And so you have to think of the people who have the most affinity to you. What kind of personality types do they have?

[Finn]

Typically, like a C. On a disc. Yeah.

[Leila]

What?

[Finn]

On a disc profile. They're typically like a C or an S type.

[Leila]

Yeah. And so I think it's just about trying it out, having conversations with different people and seeing what I would say. Like, if they're competent, if they've done what they've said they've done. And then if you like talking to them, if you would be like, you know what? I would like going to dinner with them. I would look forward to that. That's a win. Anyone that works in proximity to you, you have to be able to, like, want to go to dinner with them.

[Finn]

Oh, and all of my business is remote. Nobody. Like, is that okay? Yeah, that's fine.

[Leila]

Okay. No, I don't know. You were just so serious. I was like, I don't know. Yeah, no, that's fine.

[Finn]

That's fine.

[Leila]

Right. I'm just saying, like, hypothetically, you don't need to go dinner with them. But I don't like you. No, I mean, like, want to have the desire to. You know what I'm saying?

[Finn]

Thank you very much.

[Leila]

Yeah, good.

[Angie Kalin]

Thank you.

[Leila]

Of course.

[Angie Kalin]

Hi, I'm Angie Kalin, and I own a private preschool. I just purchased it in September. And primarily, our clientele are working parents, we do 68,000amonth in revenue. And, you know, I want to be big revenue. And I don't know that number right now because I'm still in a transition that's a little, you know, I'm not sure where to get to. And that's kind of the nature of my question is I have some constraints with staffing. I would also say that one of the constraints is compliance, you know, in terms of looking forward to maybe acquiring a second location. We rent space from a church. That's been very good symbiotic relationship. But just as I look to grow, there are specific regulations with that. So I'm not sure how easy that will be. And I just want to lay a firm foundation for solid growth moving forward. And I'm having a really hard time just getting people to show up to work.

[Leila]

Understood.

[Angie Kalin]

Do you know what I'm saying?

[Leila]

Yeah. So few things that'll help me context wise. You bought a preschool, but it's not a preschool. It's like you bought the students.

[Angie Kalin]

I sure did. Yeah. But it's not a trafficking situation at all.

[Leila]

No, no, I meant like, you bought the customers, which are the kids. Man, that was so bad.

[Angie Kalin]

So. So it was. It had been around for like, 36 years, and.

[Leila]

And they've just been using a church.

[Angie Kalin]

They have? Yeah. For the past 10 years.

[Leila]

How does that work? Like, because the church is only on the weekends and at nights, and so.

[Angie Kalin]

Exactly. That's what works out really nicely. Because when we don't need it, they're there, and then when we're there, they're not there or however that.

[Leila]

Yeah, okay, understood. And what did you do prior to purchasing the preschool?

[Angie Kalin]

So I. Well, I was in education. I taught public school, and then I homeschooled my own children, and I had a. A really small Spanish tutoring business that I did for homeschooled students who needed their foreign language requirement. I did curriculum development and things like that.

[Leila]

Understood. Yeah. So you were in education?

[Angie Kalin]

I was. And we also. I was married and we had. Well, my ex husband had a. An insurance brokerage that was a family business, so I helped him with that, too.

[Leila]

Got it. Okay. And so you want to scale to two locations or more?

[Angie Kalin]

Girl. Yeah, I'm. I'm. I got big dreams, but I just don't even know what's realistic, to be honest.

[Leila]

You know, anything's realistic. You just do the strategy.

[Angie Kalin]

Yeah.

[Leila]

Know what I'm saying? And so it's just like you need to figure out how to get there. So why aren't they showing up to work? How are you finding people to work for you primarily? And why are they not showing up? Have they told you why they don't show up?

[Angie Kalin]

First of all, like I'm finding them based on or basically, like indeed has been my primary place of finding people. I would say because I am a little bit newer at hiring people, my process of interviewing and like finding the best talent has improved over these months. I've had lots of opportunities to keep trying and, and so also referrals. Some people have referred some people to me. Those people tend to be more loyal and everything. You know, we're around kids who get sick and then they, you know, the staff gets sick and that's all okay. Like I have subs, you know, ready. But the only challenge is we don't have subs who can be called at the last minute. So I do ask the staff to let us know the night before so we can try to find someone because we are a compliance based business and we have to have that. So that doesn't always work. So I've tried to over hire and then I just had two people quit. I mean, it feels like it's. Well, I don't know if it's just industry specific, maybe it's just me, I'm not sure. But people quit without notice. So I just had two kind of back to back. And I'm trying to be wise in who I'm hiring and like taking enough time and you know, having them, you know, do all the things to make sure it's the right fit and it just takes a little bit longer. And so it's kind of put us in a bit of a pickle. And then people are, you know, they're, it's, they're burning out. Right. And so. And I'm also trying to, because I'm bilingual and so I'm trying to incorporate like a bilingual aspect of the curriculum because I just want to, because I like that. And if it's not a good idea, of course I'll stop. But I hired someone who is monolingual, Spanish speaking and I have two who are bilingual and that caused some kind of a rift there. And I'm not exactly sure what that is because this is, was in the last week and then I've been here, so I haven't been able to get to the bottom of that one yet.

[Leila]

It sounds like the biggest constraint is that you don't know how to manage people.

[Angie Kalin]

Yeah, that's probably really true, unfortunately.

[Leila]

That's fair.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Leila]

Yeah. Because you were nailing me. Exactly the issue. I'd be like, all right, well, yeah, but you don't even know the issue. You're like, it could be this, it could be that, it could be this. And so I think that's. Thank you for being vulnerable and sharing that. Um, let me ask you this in terms of you keep. Like, the main problem that you have right now is that you don't know when you're hiring people. The expectations, the training. It sounds like it's probably all wrong, which is like, how are you finding people? Are you setting the right expectations? Are you reinforcing the culture? Are you doing all those things? Yeah, this sounds like. Have you ever read the E. Myth?

[Angie Kalin]

No, but I have it in my audible.

[Leila]

Oh, you remind me of the pastry chef.

[Angie Kalin]

Oh, okay.

[Leila]

So they talk about this pastry chef, and they start up a bakery because they're like, I love baking pies. It's like, you know, like, I love education and kids. And then when they get into it, what the fuck? I have to buy all these ingredients. They go bad. There's expiration date. These fucking customers. The. The tenant told me this. There's a fucking flood in the back. And then all of a sudden, you're like, I forgot about the goddamn pies.

[Angie Kalin]

Yeah.

[Leila]

Yeah. So I think you have a fundamental question you have to ask yourself, which is what kind of role do you want to play in your business? Because it's up to you to decide what that looks like. And in the beginning, it does feel like it has to be everything, but you have to have a guiding light of, like, this is my long term where I need to put the most value into the business. Because if you're really passionate about teaching children and education and teaching them different languages and doing all these things, then the rest of this is going to exhaust you, and you're never going to be the best at it. And so then I would say, cool, let's reverse engineer and try and find somebody who can. They wouldn't be the perfect person right now based on where you're at as business, but there'll be somebody, and it won't be you. Yeah, but if you want to say, like, no, I want to become a businesswoman, and I want to understand operations and CS and how to please the parents and how to scale to 20 locations. And I want to know that I don't care as much about the education piece. I will hire somebody to do that. Mm. That's kind of the route you have to pick right now. And then that determines how we solve the problem.

[Angie Kalin]

Okay. Yeah. Because I think what I. When I came into it, what I really wanted to do was be able to develop. I wanted to develop a curriculum specific to our location and do everything kind of the visionary piece Right. In implementing those things and have. Because I. When I purchased the business, there was a leadership team in place that had been with the former owner for, like, 20 years or something like that. So when I came in, it would just, like, not everybody, you know, that was a harder transition. Right. The former owner is still with us. I think that might be part of the challenge because she's working as a teacher, and so a lot of people go talk to her rather than to me. So I think that's a minor challenge there. And so she was also the person who was, like, major key person. You know what I mean? So she was there all the time doing everything. So I feel like the. The staff expectation of me is to be there all the time doing what she did. That. That shows that I care because I'm there, you know, 12 hours a day, five days a week, and I have kids and I have a life, and that's not how I want to do it, although I am there eight hours a day. So I feel like there's a. I think it's the building of the culture that I really need to clarify, which I haven't done well enough, but I. And I feel like the. The expectations are not being met, and I'm having a hard time with that.

[Leila]

Okay. Thank you for adding the extra context. So this is gonna be hard because you're gonna have to reset the culture, and you will likely lose most of them.

[Angie Kalin]

I know. Yeah. It sucks.

[Leila]

So what I. What you have to balance is essentially resetting the culture in lockstep. Like, enforcing it only to the degree that, you know, you can keep the business functioning until you get enough buffer by getting enough people that aren't those people. Because I'm just gonna tell you, like, if they're very loyal to her, I mean, she's the main issue. The fact that she's still there.

[Angie Kalin]

Yeah.

[Leila]

You essentially need a new team.

[Angie Kalin]

Yeah, I know. I wish I would have known that when I bought it, but I was like. So I just was like, this is great. Everything set? Leadership team. Yes, girl. But no, no, no. It was not that. It was not.

[Leila]

Tell me about it.

[Angie Kalin]

Yeah.

[Leila]

Right. Fucking shitty. Yeah. So I think you need someone to help you.

[Angie Kalin]

Yeah, for sure.

[Leila]

I think you should consider bringing in somebody to help who knows the business side of things and understands how to recruit staff, how to train them, onboard them expectations. And you have to help outline the transition because. So you have a couple things you do. Okay. I think first, rather than focusing just on the teachers, you need to focus on getting somebody who can help put the expectations into place, train up the teachers, manage the day to day, do all the little operations. Whether you call that a principal or a vice principal or whatever, I don't know what the director, director of the preschool. That's what we need.

[Angie Kalin]

Okay.

[Leila]

That person needs to come in. Why? Because this is a fucking mess to clean up and you can't do it alone. Right? Seriously, I've cleaned up, I don't know, 13, 14 departments now in like terms of, like, I go in, I gut it. I usually end up turning most of the people. And the one thing I do first is I partner. I say, who am I going to recruit in my company to help me do this? It is very hard to do alone and there's going to be too much. You need someone that can block and tackle. Like, you don't want to do it just by yourself. So the first thing I think you need is you need to get support. Now once you get support, then you can say, okay, great, now I can tackle. Like, what's the root cause of this? Oh, the root cause. Is this person still here who owned the company for forever and I don't even know why she sold it and still fucking works there?

[Angie Kalin]

Yeah.

[Leila]

Right. Which beyond me. I don't get it either. So she likes me.

[Angie Kalin]

No, I'm kidding.

[Leila]

Just joking. Maybe you let her do whatever the fuck she wants. Sure.

[Angie Kalin]

No.

[Leila]

Gave her a bunch of money. Yeah. And said, keep doing your thing, like she's got it made. I'm like, cool, time to get you out. Yeah. So I think the next step is looking at what would happen if you got her out and you want that director to help you manage. Okay. How many teachers would we need to backfill if we're going to start really enforcing these new rules, accountability and culture that we want. And it's going to be a dance. It's going to be like, all right, we're going to try and flip these two teachers out, get these new ones in, and you guys are going to have to figure that out together. The question is just, do you have her there while you do it or not? My concern is that if she's there, she's going to poison every single thing that you do. And so I would see it as like, you get this person to help you, you get her out, and then you got a clean house.

[Angie Kalin]

So I have a contract with her until June, till the very end of May, the 1st of June, and then her contract is over.

[Leila]

What's her contract? Well, that's for you, not her. Right?

[Angie Kalin]

Well, yeah. Well, I guess I thought it was, like, for both people, just because when I. When I took over, then the pre K teacher who was, like, very popular, announced her retirement in December. So, yeah, it was really awesome.

[Leila]

And so tell her thanks for selling you this.

[Angie Kalin]

Yeah, I know. It was really excellent. And so. And that you should have known the director that we had. But anyway, so I. She, the former owner, offered to stay on for. From December till the end to carry those pre K students through so that we didn't lose those parents, you know, at that time.

[Leila]

Okay, well, what is it right now? It's March. Yeah, exactly. You have to find a director.

[Angie Kalin]

And I actually am. I do have one who. She's internal. Who I've been training, but I'm having the hardest time, like, giving her the time to accurately train her. She knows early childhood care education much better than me in terms of, like, compliance and regulation.

[Leila]

Does she understand how to help hire these people and find the teachers and manage them?

[Angie Kalin]

She's helped, like, recruit. Recruit. Actually, a couple of really good people. But I would say she's still in development. Like, she needs training in that way too. Like, in terms of. Because she was always a teacher, so she hasn't done all of the leadership stuff.

[Leila]

Well, if she hasn't done it and you haven't done it, then who's gonna do it? Who's teaching who? The blind, leading the blind.

[Angie Kalin]

Yeah, I know. It's really. It's so much fun.

[Leila]

So you need somebody who's done this before to help you eat. Somebody and not even done this exactly, but, like, somebody who has a little bit more of experience in the area that you're lacking. It doesn't even need to be in education specifically, but they need to know how to go hire people for your business, train them, set expectations, manage a schedule, manage expectations, reinforce the culture.

[Angie Kalin]

Can I do that? Like, could I hire a temp? Like, as a project? Like, who would teach us how to do that? You know what I mean? Where it would be a person who could come in for a few months to get us over the.

[Leila]

You could. You're just gonna need it again in six months.

[Angie Kalin]

Gotcha. Yeah, just a. Like a full person.

[Leila]

Yeah. What. What. What's the. What's the fear around bringing somebody in to help with Those things. Who's not this person?

[Angie Kalin]

I think just being able to afford to pay everybody, that's really it.

[Leila]

That's fair. So let me ask you this. The woman that you have now, what's she doing every day? Is she actually just teaching, so director level?

[Angie Kalin]

Her title right now is assistant director, because technically I'm the director. And so she teaches in a classroom. She helps with. Like, when I'm gone, she steps in as director. And then she does other things like compliance things like files, student file information, communicating with parents, you know, kind of the operations, breaks during the day, supporting the staff, that kind of thing.

[Leila]

Got it. All right, well, if you don't have the money, then it's you.

[Angie Kalin]

Oh, God.

[Leila]

Seriously?

[Angie Kalin]

Okay, I can do it.

[Leila]

Yeah. Here's the thing I'm getting from the conversations. I think. Yeah. I think the unlock for you is going to be more certainty in yourself.

[Angie Kalin]

Okay. I. You're so right about that. I'm always sorry. I am really, like, second guessing myself because I don't have, like, this awesome resume of being right.

[Leila]

And what's happening is, like, you bought this business from this woman. She has certainty. She's done this forever. They don't. They don't have confidence in you. Right.

[Angie Kalin]

Yeah.

[Leila]

So then they look to her.

[Angie Kalin]

Yeah.

[Leila]

Until she gets out. It's gonna be tough. But if you can at least be like, give yourself a fighting chance. That's just how you show up to them, which is like embodying a new version of yourself. And I think you might have to do that for the next few months until she's out. And then once she's out, you don't have to, I assume, pay her anything, and then you can revisit. Okay, can I bring somebody else in to help?

[Angie Kalin]

Yeah, that would be a great thing. Because then it would free up the. The, you know, her.

[Leila]

Her. That's what I'm saying. Paycheck.

[Angie Kalin]

Yeah.

[Leila]

But in the interim, the bottleneck currently is you. We don't have the cash. And so this is the hard thing about hard things, which is like, how do you have to show up? And it's like, how do you have to get yourself in the right mindset to know how you have to show up every day to reset the culture and drive things forward?

[Angie Kalin]

Because then it's like, I feel like, you know. Cause I tend to be sort of a kind person and then. But then I feel like I kind of, like, can't be that. I'm still figuring it out.

[Leila]

Yeah. Like, kind. Not nice. I think you're being very nice.

[Kiana]

Yeah.

[Angie Kalin]

Okay. That's honest. Thank you.

[Leila]

Yeah, but that's not kind. It's like we can't sacrifice. We have to confront everything. That's hard in the short term. And it's like letting things slide, letting them call in sick, letting them do things last minute. Like, you have to be like, this is unacceptable. I'm going to fire you if you do this. Like, this is the consequence you lose your job. Like, we have kids depending on us.

[Angie Kalin]

And then. But it's been so hard to find good help. You know what I mean?

[Leila]

It doesn't matter. Because if you act this way, you turn your good help into bad health. That's right. If you don't uphold the culture, the mediocre help, you have disintegrates into shit anyways. And it's better without them.

[Angie Kalin]

Yeah.

[Leila]

The kids might as well stay home.

[Angie Kalin]

Yes.

[Leila]

You know what I mean? Like, you have to defend your business and your dream more than anybody else.

[Angie Kalin]

Yeah.

[Leila]

And you know what's unacceptable and what's acceptable. That doesn't mean you have to be mean, but it means you need to defend the business so that you can make sure these kids actually get the education they're paying for.

[Angie Kalin]

Right. I see.

[Leila]

And that's you. You're the only one who protects the kids, not them. Right. They're thinking the buck stops with you. Like, if you don't hold the line, you will get whatever you tolerate.

[Angie Kalin]

Yeah, that's really true. Because I've been afraid of like finding new help and everything and upsetting the parents. Like if somebody leaves, you know what I mean? That they're gonna feel like, what, what kind of place is this? You know, I mean, maybe for the.

[Leila]

First year, because it sounds like a shitty situation. Yeah.

[Angie Kalin]

Yeah.

[Leila]

I think you just need to accept this is gonna suck.

[Angie Kalin]

Yeah.

[Leila]

But what would suck more is if you degrade your own self respect and confidence when you come on the other side because you didn't stand up for what you knew is right. Because you let the other people dictate what you said because you were afraid of their judgment or what they would do.

[Angie Kalin]

Yeah.

[Leila]

And if anything, the biggest lesson for you is who you can become through this process. Because it's gonna suck. This year is gonna be tough. The next six months gonna be the toughest. It's gonna get a little easier after that.

[Angie Kalin]

Yeah, that's great because it's already been six months. It's already sucked.

[Leila]

Right?

[Angie Kalin]

I mean, I can handle it.

[Leila]

You're in the swamp of shit.

[Angie Kalin]

Yeah.

[Leila]

No I mean, that's actually what I call it. It's like this is a swamp of shit. It's just like slugging through shit. Just awful smells. Can't get out. When you do get out, you reek of it. You can't stop thinking about it.

[Angie Kalin]

So true.

[Leila]

It's just thing after thing.

[Angie Kalin]

Yeah. So just to. To like make sure that I don't overlook some things. The main thing that I need to do is establish like my minimum standard of tolerance.

[Leila]

You need to tell people what you expect from them.

[Angie Kalin]

Yeah. Okay.

[Leila]

Here's what I would do if I were you. Okay. Literally write down all the things that have been going wrong. Okay. And then say, why did those wrong? What expectations did I not set? That if I had set those expectations, these things would not have happened. Gotcha. Then you write down what those expectations are and what's the consequence if the expectation is not met. Not talking about punishing people, we're talking about informing them of consequences. If you steal from the company, you lose your fucking job. This is not me punishing you. Right. It's you being unethical. You chose to be unethical and you chose to steal. I didn't choose that for you. So you need to lay that, like, if you choose to call out the morning of when you knew you were feeling sick this many days, like, what's going to happen? It's like, well, you, you get a strike or whatever it might be, or if you choose not to tell me and you just don't show up, you get a strike, whatever it might be, like I'm just playing on my ass, but you know what I'm saying?

[Angie Kalin]

I do.

[Leila]

And then you have to present this to everybody.

[Angie Kalin]

Okay, yeah, that. And that is one other, one other challenge that we've had is like getting the whole team together because we are compliant. So trying to schedule everybody. I have, we just had our like first full staff meeting in a morning, but not everybody, you know, will come, like part time people and stuff like that. So I'm just.

[Leila]

Yeah, I wouldn't either if I said it like that. Seriously, like, you gotta like show up, I'm gonna fucking pay you and you need a meeting and if you don't come to the meeting, it's a mandatory meeting. This is what you say, it's a mandatory meeting.

[Angie Kalin]

Yeah.

[Leila]

People will show up. You can't. Okay, zoom in. Call in.

[Angie Kalin]

Yeah, okay, that's easy.

[Leila]

You need to diminish the uncertainty.

[Angie Kalin]

Gotcha. I see my. I see my flaws. Okay.

[Leila]

I'm trying to help no, no, this.

[Angie Kalin]

Is helping because sometimes it's like I feel it, but I don't articulate it.

[Leila]

Yeah, yeah. Okay. This. Yeah, yeah. Remember that?

[Angie Kalin]

Yeah, yeah.

[Leila]

It's more like. You know what I'm saying?

[Angie Kalin]

Okay, thank you.

[Leila]

A little bit of that.

[Angie Kalin]

Yeah, yeah. More of that.

[Leila]

Put your foot down. Okay.

[Angie Kalin]

They're gonna be.

[Leila]

Hi, Leila.

[Jay]

My name's Finn. We sell Amazon Advertising as an agency and also a kind of coaching training side. We're doing about three and a half million. We're trying to more than double this year.

[Leila]

Amazon Coaching.

[Jay]

Is that Amazon Advertising? Sorry.

[Leila]

Advertisement. Okay.

[Jay]

And I truly believe people. And scaling our people is one of our biggest challenges and particularly the kind of leaders below me. You spoke about this earlier. We really have a lot of those really young A players who are very spiky, but we're really trying to develop them into leaders. How can I really maximize and accelerate that process? Hold them accountable. I would love your thoughts.

[Leila]

So I would ask this right now, what's your team structure look like?

[Jay]

So you've got CEO, we've got myself as a coo, and then we have an operations manager who oversees the agency. But I'm kind of finding myself also managing his direct reports right now as we're training him up to be more of a leader. We have sales, marketing, finance, HR functions as well, but they're again, more kind of one, two people in each function, not necessarily kind of fully taking ownership and leading.

[Leila]

Okay, so let me ask you this. What is not happening that you would like to have happened them?

[Jay]

Really holding the people underneath them to account and maximizing the overall output of the business.

[Leila]

So when you think of them holding them accountable, what does that mean to you?

[Jay]

Making sure that they're really showing up, doing the best work, both growing as individuals, but also helping the business as much as possible.

[Leila]

So what do you do to hold people accountable that they don't do?

[Jay]

Try and have kind of more honest conversations. And it depends on the individual person as to what their kind of weaknesses are. But, you know, really try and praise specifically behaviors that we want to have. Again, trying to get better at calling stuff out more quickly after it happens where we don't like behaviors.

[Leila]

Yeah.

[Jay]

And really trying to, you know, one of our big company values is extreme ownership. So really like taking responsibility and ownership for anything that happens and then trying to embody that at every level in the business.

[Leila]

Okay. How do you think you've contributed to this problem?

[Jay]

I mean, in every way I take ownership.

[Leila]

Yeah. Specifically.

[Jay]

Yeah, I would say you Know I need to do a better job of spending more time allocating, training them, holding like I can do more. Everything's been very busy. Focus on different things and kind of not focus on this as much as possible.

[Leila]

Understood. Okay. So I think short term, long term, short term, the best way to train any of them on anything is to demonstrate. So it's first, like, if I were you, this is the first thing that goes to my mind is I'm like, okay, I have multiple people in the business who don't know how to hold their teams accountable. What am I going to do? I'm going to show them what that looks like. I'm not going to tell them. I'm going to show them. So what am I going to do? I'm going to get in there and I'm going to run their team huddles for them. I'm going to run the team huddles for a week. I'm going to show them what it looks like to have accountability. Up, down, sideways. I literally did this, like not even a month ago. I've done it. I probably did it two, three times last year. It's constantly a practice I do. So I'm like, cool, I'm going to jump in, I'm going to run the huddles for you because I want you to see what it feels like, what it looks like, what it sounds like to hold these people accountable. Because a lot of times people don't have a communication commute, communication cadence in place. And they don't. When they have it in place, they're not effectively using it. So people are like, no, no, I'm having one on one. So I'm telling them. And then I'm like, let me see the recording. And then it's like, they're like, yeah. So the other day, did you know what happened when you just didn't hit the quota? Quota? And then they're like, oh, yeah, yeah, I know. Sorry about that. And it's like, oh, yeah, okay. And I'm like, dude, So I think the best thing that you can do is show them what it takes. So what? I. If I were you, I would go back and I'd be like, listen, here's the problem we have right now. You guys or this group are fucking amazing. You're killing it. You're doing all this, you're doing that. I would tell them all things are doing well. But the biggest issue to get you guys to level up as leaders is that you're not holding your teams accountable. I'm not Seeing enough, the accountability. Because accountability is the glue between a promise and a result. And if we're not getting the result, we don't have accountability. So I want to show you guys how accountability works. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to take over your team for a week. I'm going to take over the calls and the meetings. I'm going to run them. And I want you to see how I communicate with them. Shit, if they don't do that many of them take over the one on ones, whatever it needs to be. And I want you to watch all of these and then I want you to document what you learned by watching me and document the process that I am essentially doing with the team so that you can follow it once I step out. And if that doesn't fix your problem, I don't know what will. Because once people see you do it, there's so many nuances to, like, your voice, the influctuations, et cetera. Like, one of the best things I've ever done for two of my strategic leaders. Like, they're like, I want to see your interviews. So it's like, okay, I'm recording the interview so I can train them so they can see. And they're like, when they talk about the things they learn from watching it rather than hearing me instruct it, it's just way more impactful. So that's the first thing I would do if I were you. And I, you would be shocked at how effective that is.

[Jay]

Okay, that sounds really good. I'll definitely do that.

[Leila]

Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. The next question you have to ask yourself is this. If you don't see super quick improvement after putting that much effort in, that's a problem. So you want to see a fast rate of improvement when you work with them in that manner. Because demonstration is the fastest way to teach anybody anything. It's not you writing an sop. And everyone always tells me, I wrote the sop and then I felt like, no fucking shit. Like, nobody knows what it looks like. It's like, somebody could write me an SOP right now on how to build a, I don't know, $20 billion company. It's like, it's a different thing to watch somebody do it. Perfect.

[Jay]

Thank you so much.

[Leila]

Of course.

[Karen Vets]

Hi, Leela. My name is Dho Preet and we sell logistics services to general freight companies. We do 500,000 in revenue a month and we want to get to a million a month and also increase our ebitda. So what's stopping us. So when I talk to Ed, we kind of realize we have, like, two companies in one. So we make about 20% margins on our company trucks, but the owner operators, we only make 8%. And the issue that's kind of making us stopping us from buying more company trucks is that the drivers, once they get more experience, they go out and they buy their own truck and they want to become owner operators. So that's kind of the problem.

[Leila]

So you're trying to figure out which one to do.

[Karen Vets]

Yeah, and I think we're in a pretty, like, kind of dug ourself into a pretty deep into the problem because we, like, we need the trucks to service our existing customers.

[Leila]

Explain that. Why is that a problem?

[Karen Vets]

Because let's say right now, like, we have 22 trucks. Like, we need all of them to service our existing customer base.

[Leila]

What would this decision affect? How would this decision affect that?

[Karen Vets]

Because if we. If we get rid of the owner operators, we would have, like, seven trucks, which are the company trucks.

[Leila]

And. Okay, let me ask this thinking through what Ed might have asked you, but how much time have you spent with the. Like, how much time you spend managing the owner operators versus your internal trucks?

[Karen Vets]

It's. It's both the same.

[Leila]

Okay, that's good to know. So why would you just kill it?

[Karen Vets]

Because it's. It's really hard. Because once. Once they come in, the. The new drivers that drive the company truck, they're typically new, so we have to train them and get them to, like, the experience where they can actually drive the company truck. And once they start driving, they get good, they buy their own, and then they become owner operators in the company. And the issue is, like, that's. The profit margin on that for us is like, 8%, right?

[Leila]

Yeah. Okay, so let's think about a few things, which is, what's the goal of this business?

[Karen Vets]

To get to a million a month in revenue.

[Leila]

And you have a goal beyond that. Like, do you want to keep it around for a long time? Do you want to sell the business? Like, why do you start it?

[Karen Vets]

We want to keep it for sure.

[Leila]

Okay.

[Karen Vets]

Not. Not sell it.

[Leila]

Is it to produce cash flow? Is it because you like doing it? Is it because you want to see something different in the industry? No, seriously, this is important cash flow, for sure. Okay, so this is a problem because. It's a problem because you want cash flow from the business. The business doesn't produce a lot of cash flow with the owner operator model.

[Karen Vets]

Yeah.

[Leila]

Okay, so can you explain why it has so low Margins. Is there a reason why it could not be higher?

[Karen Vets]

Yeah, so the owner operators, they're in charge because it's their truck. They're in charge of covering the fuel, the maintenance, insurance. And so they endure all those costs and we don't.

[Leila]

So what do you do for them?

[Karen Vets]

So we. We have the. The business. So we have, like, the. The customers, and we. We give. Give them, like, shipments to complete.

[Leila]

And so what's the split look like?

[Karen Vets]

They get, like, I would say, for profit, they get 20% and we get 8% of the. Of the profit per shipment.

[Leila]

They get 20. You get 8?

[Karen Vets]

Yeah, 12. Yeah, yeah, 12. Sorry.

[Leila]

Okay, so they get 12, you get 8.

[Karen Vets]

Yep.

[Leila]

So you bring them the business, and they would not have a business without you, but you get less.

[Karen Vets]

Yeah, but the, The. The. The reason we can only do eight is because it's very easy for them to go to a different company and then we lose the truck.

[Leila]

Well, there's two ways that you can think about incentivizing people, which is like, you can think about taking away a negative or a cost, which is like acquiring customers. That's a negative. It requires work. It's a cost. You can also think about adding a positive. Right. And so actually, we've done diligence on multiple different companies similar to yours. I've seen some really interesting models that are very profitable because they incentivize people by continuing to pour into them in terms of their education, their abilities. They, like, fancy up the trucks, like they do all sorts of things like that. And so I'm just thinking, like, either we can take away more of their pain of operating the truck, or we can add more reward to operating the truck. Those are the options that we have so that we could then take more of the split. How much money are they making? Okay, actually, let me ask you this. How much money are they making per year, annually? The owner operator model, on average, they.

[Karen Vets]

Take about like 10k a month. So 120.

[Leila]

Okay. And then through your. I would say where you own the truck, and it's not the owner operator model, it's just the company model. How much are they making a year?

[Karen Vets]

I would guess around like 4K.

[Leila]

4,000Amonth?

[Karen Vets]

Yeah.

[Leila]

So that's why they want to do the owner operator model. Which one did you start first?

[Karen Vets]

It was just the company trucks first.

[Leila]

Why did you start the owner operator? Because they started leaving.

[Karen Vets]

It's because the company. The company trucks we needed, we started with, but then as we got more businesses, we like more business, we needed more Trucks. And to buy a truck, it's capital intensive. So we needed the owner operators come in so we can service our clients.

[Leila]

So the issue is not necessarily that you're losing the people from the company models that you couldn't keep up with the cash flow constraints. Yeah, so funny. You started this business wanting cash flow. No, I mean, it's an interesting one to go into in general. Like, you know what I mean? Because it's very capital intensive.

[Karen Vets]

Yeah. It was actually my family's business.

[Leila]

Okay.

[Karen Vets]

And I just grew up in it.

[Leila]

Okay. So you know, it. What other options? Okay. We can go back to the second week, we can solve this, which is like either the owner operator model, you find a split where like I would be thinking if I wanted to get people to take that, which I didn't realize you went out to get them because you need the trucks. Right. But if I were engineering that backwards, I'd be like, okay, I could get a significant amount of money back if I just said like, hey, if you want to make 100k a year and then you get the $20,000 back, that's one piece. So it's like how you position it to the marketplace, but if you're not going out and getting them, if you're just finding people that already exist, that doesn't matter. So the question is buying the trucks up front. That's the main problem we have.

[Karen Vets]

Yeah.

[Leila]

Do you have a line of credit with a bank?

[Karen Vets]

We should. Yeah.

[Leila]

So you can't get enough drivers for the. Sounds like there's.

[Karen Vets]

It's.

[Leila]

Okay. So you actually do have trucks and non drivers.

[Karen Vets]

Because. Because what happens is once they get experience and they make enough money, they buy their own. So then the trucks we already have there, they go driverless.

[Leila]

Has this been happening the entire time and has the problem gotten worse or better?

[Karen Vets]

Probably, yeah. Worse.

[Leila]

Okay. Has anything else changed in the business?

[Karen Vets]

No. Other than that? No.

[Leila]

No. Have you been paying them the same since the business started?

[Karen Vets]

The industry average is 20%.

[Leila]

And you pay them 25.

[Karen Vets]

Yep.

[Leila]

What state are you in?

[Karen Vets]

We're in Canada. BC.

[Leila]

Okay, understood. Maybe that's fine. I'm gonna. I almost just wonder if there's an option because like right now you're only doing the owner operator model because you need drivers, not even trucks. You just need drivers. But it's low profit margin. So the question is, which problem do you wanna solve first?

[Karen Vets]

Probably the driver one. Yeah.

[Leila]

Yeah. You're already paying them more than the competitors and they're leaving. Is their work any different than the competitors, like are they working more shifts, are they working, driving more routes, anything like that? It's all the same. Okay, is this a problem with other people in your market as well? And with the owner operated model? Is that what a lot of other people are resorting to as well?

[Karen Vets]

Yeah, other than like the whales, they have their own own fleet.

[Leila]

But do you have any associations with driving schools, like truck driving certifications?

[Karen Vets]

Yeah.

[Leila]

Do you get fed people from those programs?

[Karen Vets]

Uh, we, we typically find people that we send there to train.

[Leila]

I'm wondering if there's a way, because this is what I'm actually thinking, because there was a business that I looked at and this is what they did, is they found they essentially advertised like, we want truck drivers and you'll make this much money. And it was like anywhere between eighty and a hundred thousand dollars a year. And then those people signed a contract with them to go to truck driving school, get certified, and then they become one of their drivers and they have a contract that because they're one of their drivers, they paid for their school and they drive for them for a certain amount of time. And then because of that, it's essentially like the owner operated model, but they're not, you're not paying them, they're not making the 12%, they're making like 6 or 8% on that. And it's because of the positioning is different. Essentially. It's like this is a job or a job opportunity that we're advertising. They're coming to you versus you going and finding them. Right. It's a large shift in what you're doing from a business standpoint. But I mean, it was working like crazy for this guy is in. But it was, you know, New Jersey, New York, Philadelphia area, but he expanded to like three different states doing this. You see what I'm saying? Because like right now you have the underhand, like you don't have the leverage. You don't have any leverage because you're going out and finding them. But if you can get them to come to you by saying like, we have job opportunity for you, we will send you to truck driving school and you will be able to make $80,000 a year. And then that right there means that you can do the owner operated model, but you make more money on it. And the only difference is that they're coming to you versus you going to them.

[Karen Vets]

Right.

[Leila]

I feel like that's the way out of this.

[Karen Vets]

Thank you so much.

[Leila]

Of course.

[Karen Vets]

That was helpful.

[Trish]

My name is Jay. I sell architectural metal work to the Construction industry. We do 2.7 million revenue. I'd like to be a 10. And what's stopping me is, I believe a great team and a better leader. How do you go about positively reinforcing your team when your standard for execution is far above theirs? And to clarify, I'm the leader.

[Leila]

Understood. Well, one, if your standard was not above theirs, then you shouldn't be the leader. So I think that that makes a lot of sense. I would say second to that is that rewarding progress and effort is far more important than rewarding the outcome. So I'll give you an example. Like if you're training somebody in sales and they're new and they come in and you're trying to make sure that they can close deals, you want to reward them even if they lost the deal. Reward them for sticking to the script. Reward them for practicing for three hours the night before. Reward them for picking up the phone and calling the person. Because you can see that if you continue to reward the process, the outcome will come. And so for me, that's how I think about it, which is like, if they've put in the effort or improved, I don't really care about the outcome. I'm only focused on that. And so I focus on did they do better than last time? That's like the question you could ask yourself, did they do better than last time? Did they do one thing differently than last time? And if so, it's worth rewarding. I think the question is like, you can. You're frustrated still.

[Trish]

What if they don't do better than last time?

[Leila]

What if they don't?

[Trish]

Yeah.

[Leila]

I would ask them why.

[Trish]

Right.

[Leila]

What's the problem that you're experiencing right now?

[Trish]

Not overly happy with the team. Culture's a bit average. There's no accountability. And that's my fault.

[Leila]

What are you not doing?

[Trish]

Easiest one would be there's a guy who's late every day and it's always a different excuse. And in one of your videos you mentioned that if someone's late every day, they lack a skill. What if that skill is discipline?

[Leila]

That's a skill, Yeah. I think discipline is strategy, which is setting ourselves up to prioritize long term success when in the moment we have short term emotions. And so it's like in the short term I am tired and so I press snooze and then I'm late.

[Trish]

Yeah, right.

[Leila]

I don't have discipline.

[Trish]

So how would you go about overcoming that?

[Karen Vets]

Or would you just.

[Leila]

I think you have to ask yourself what position this person has and is that something that they need to come with as a prerequisite? So a lot of times there's like, maybe you're not doing a good job of holding them accountable. Correct. But usually there's two problems that exist, which is one, not holding them accountable and two, not having to hire people with the skills needed so that they have at least a base level of the skills so they can have a certain amount of success in the role when they walk in. Yep. So a lot of times it's. It's. We have to look at it both angles. Which is like this, for example. I don't know what position. What position is this person?

[Trish]

Libra. Full stuff.

[Leila]

Okay. And so how much is that person being paid?

[Trish]

70.

[Leila]

And they're late every day?

[Trish]

Yep.

[Leila]

How late?

[Trish]

15. Half an hour. An hour?

[Leila]

What's significant as fuck. Yeah. And have you told them that that's not acceptable?

[Trish]

Yep.

[Leila]

And then how many times do you think it's happened?

[Trish]

Four out of five days a week.

[Leila]

Oh, God. Okay. Well, I think that goes with. If we don't have a consequence, then it means nothing. Because essentially what you did is you said words to someone's face and then allowed them to keep their job the next day. So all they learn, like, truly, this is behavior. They have learned that being late, you still keep your job.

[Trish]

Yeah.

[Leila]

And so I think this is a great opportunity, actually, because, like, this, for example, I'd be like, this is like the perfect example of like, now I will inform you of what the consequences are, which is if you are late again starting next week, then you will no longer have a job here. It's your choice. You can be late or you can have a job here. It's up to you.

[Trish]

Yeah. The next problem is hiring people. That's one thing I really don't like doing.

[Leila]

You don't like doing or you're not good at doing?

[Trish]

Both. Well, I don't like it because I'm not good at it.

[Leila]

I was like, do you like managing the people at all?

[Trish]

Not really.

[Leila]

I don't get that vibe.

[Trish]

I just like doing the thing. Doing the thing?

[Leila]

Yeah. So what are you best at managing?

[Trish]

Operations and design.

[Leila]

Okay. Could you find somebody else to help with this stuff?

[Trish]

Potentially.

[Leila]

Eventually.

[Trish]

Potentially.

[Leila]

Because I suppose I don't know your profit margin, but, like, with how much money you're making, like, I assume you can support the salary.

[Trish]

Uh, yep. But I've worked so hard to get to where I am and I'd like to keep a. Oh, shit fund.

[Leila]

I mean, basically we spent the first.

[Trish]

10 years being broke.

[Leila]

Yeah.

[Trish]

And now I'm not broke.

[Leila]

So now you're not broke, you're just locked in.

[Trish]

Well, I was miserable back then as well. Except now I'm not broke, so it's not as bad.

[Leila]

Yeah, you just traded up. Here's the thing is, like, if you don't, this is all stuff that, like, you can do and go through the motions, but if you're not excited about it, it's just going to be. It's going to drain you of all your energy towards the things you are good at that keep growing the business. And so, like, the thing is, is that I think it's like playing to win versus playing not to lose. And I get it because I've been there. But when someone told me that it was one of my mentors, he was like, dude, you're playing not to lose. You're not playing to win. You have to take risks on these people. You have to take risks to get people in to help you. Otherwise you're not gonna be able to make more money and keep making that money and keep that. I see you in the same spot, which is like, this clearly is not your passion. No, no. I can tell. Like, I'm like you. We're not the same. So it's like, I love that shit. I'm like, accountability, like, developing people. Like, I literally get excited. I think about in the shower. Like, it's like. You know what I'm saying? It's like, discretionary effort goes there. Yep. It's not for everybody, and that's fine. And so it's like, okay, find somebody who it is. And then the question is this. You will continue to make just as much or more money if you know what you're gonna do with your time. The mistake most people make is then they delegate their work. And then they say, okay, I've delegated my work. Amazing. And they're like, I'm making less money. I'm like, well, what did you do once you delegated the work? And they're like, oh, I went out to dinner more. I'm like, okay, well, fuck. Like, the job is that. Now you say, okay, what opportunity, if I were to take my time, could generate more revenue for the business? If not, probably not. Not even just what you pay their salary, but also probably is like five or ten times that with the time you get back.

[Trish]

Yeah, that makes sense.

[Leila]

I think that's what you need to do.

[Trish]

I also like being busy, like, at least 12 hours a day, six days a week.

[Leila]

Well, you're going to be busy. It's not going to go away. The thing is, is that you just don't see. It's like the moment that you hire somebody to come do part of your work, you see all the shit you've been missing right now, and then you're like, holy crap, I'm so glad I brought that person in because now I really know how I can grow revenue. Right. Okay. It's just you don't have the space. Growth requires space. It requires space of mind and, like, capacity. Like, you need capacity in your schedule to grow. And so I don't see any downside to bringing this person in, aside from that you don't want to.

[Trish]

Yeah, there is no downside.

[Leila]

Yeah. It's just that what you did worked well, and you don't want to stop doing what works well to possibly do what's better because you don't want to lose what you have. Yeah, but then you'll never get better.

[Trish]

No, no.

[Leila]

But you need to hire the person.

[Trish]

Yeah.

[Leila]

I don't think you're going to. Or a. Just tough cookie to read. I don't know, though.

[Trish]

I don't know. My wife can hire him or her.

[Leila]

Who?

[Trish]

My wife.

[Leila]

Oh, yeah, please.

[Trish]

I've tried in the past. It hasn't worked out well.

[Leila]

You're not. You're not hiring, so maybe she is.

[Trish]

I also hired the first person who applied.

[Leila]

Both times you hired the first person I applied.

[Trish]

Yeah.

[Leila]

That makes sense.

[Trish]

The.

[Leila]

The who presentation. That's all for you.

[Trish]

Yeah. So I'm actually going to interview 15 people and then pick the best one.

[Leila]

Yeah, yeah. See what's out there. I mean, like, even, like, I'm interviewing right now for like a C level position. I was like, dude, this guy I just talked to you is amazing. And I was like, oh, man, I'm desperate as fuck. And I was like, this is the first person I talked to, and he just happens to be amazing and perfect. I was like, oh, man. So, like, I literally said. I was like, I don't care how much I like this person. I need to speak to 10 more people.

[Trish]

Yeah, yeah. I've always hired out of desperation.

[Leila]

Yeah. I mean, we can all fall prey. That's why I have like 15 people, because it happens to me. Literally the other day. And then I was embarrassed. I was like, I can't believe I'm falling for my own bullshit. Which is like, let me tell you, that's personally. Wait, what about this? That I didn't ask about those things. I don't know. Yet. Yeah. You're not going to stop making money. And here's the worst case scenario. The worst case scenario is that you fire the person, go back to what you're doing now and you keep making the same money.

[Trish]

Yeah.

[Leila]

It's not going to go down. It just might not go up if you don't hire the person.

[Trish]

Yeah, yep. I'm going to try. I'm going to put ads out and I'm going to interview 15 people.

[Leila]

Okay. Guaranteed. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, thank you.

[Alex]

My name is Karen Vets and I sell leadership and soft skill training to B2B and B2C through the Dale Carnegie Company in the state of Nevada.

[Leila]

All fun.

[Alex]

We're at a million dollars revenue. We survived the pandemic when we were at zero for much longer than we wanted to be. And so what we're looking at now, what's stopping us now is great salespeople.

[Leila]

Right.

[Alex]

We've got the great brand, we deliver, we've got results, we've got testimonials. So what is your advice in today's market? To find great salespeople when everyone's looking, are they. It feels like it.

[Leila]

Yeah. It's interesting. What kind of sale is involved for the process? Is my question like what does the sales process look like right now for you guys?

[Alex]

Sure. The one we really want to focus on is the B2B that's the deeper level up to an enterprise level. So we're a global organization so we can connect with our business partners around the world and we can service them in many countries in many languages or it can just be businesses within the state. We focus on medium sized businesses. That's our sweet spot. So it's really just helping them identify the need. So it needs to be consultative type selling.

[Leila]

Okay. And what's the compensation look like that you're. Or I could say like what compensation are you putting out there right now for that role?

[Alex]

It just depends. Certainly their experience level. Right. So the latest you know that we've looked at, we're looking at between 60 and 80 to start plus commission.

[Leila]

What's the OT like? 60, 80 base. What would be the on target earnings like total comp for the year?

[Alex]

It could be 120 to 200 depending upon after their ramp up time. We've got similar salespeople and other offices and similar demographics around the country that are making that.

[Leila]

Okay.

[Alex]

So we can show them it can be done.

[Leila]

Yeah, I'm just thinking. Okay, so you're looking at medium sized businesses and is this an in person or remote sales role?

[Alex]

Ideally in person. We certainly do a lot of our meetings and screening and lead generation and that remote. But we are seeing that when you get into the negotiations, really to be in person.

[Leila]

Okay, understood. And then with the compensation package, like right now, do you have, I'm guessing, your sales manager?

[Alex]

I'm the owner.

[Leila]

Right. But do you act as like you. Would you be managing these people?

[Alex]

I'm coo. We have a. The. My business partner is the salesman manager.

[Leila]

Okay, got it. And is he good? He's good at sales.

[Alex]

She is, yes.

[Leila]

She. Sorry. Okay, fantastic. So do you have any right now at all? 1. 1. How'd you find them?

[Alex]

They were a student in the past.

[Leila]

Oh, okay. That's cool. Yep.

[Alex]

They were a student in the past. They got laid off because of cuts at their prior business. And so. Yes. So they're starting on the path to be both the certified trainer as well as sales.

[Leila]

Okay. So there's really two ends of the spectrum you can come from, which is like, either you find the people who are experienced and that's. They're harder to find, but there's less training.

[Alex]

Right.

[Leila]

Or you go the route of finding people who are easier to find, but you have to put more training into them. I'd say the benefits on finding people who are younger and less experienced is that they'll probably stay longer when you pour more into them, and they'll be more likely to do it the way that you want it done on the other end, because it takes time. You have finding somebody who's already done this before, and it's not super difficult because I know what you're selling, and there's lots of people who have. I will say those people are typically a little less enthusiastic. They tend to hop around from company to company and all kind of sell the same thing, and they just do their thing. Right. I would ask this, which is your business partner, does she have time to train people?

[Alex]

No.

[Leila]

Is she doing the sales right now? Yes. Then she has time to train. That's true. Because how she has time to train is they watch her. Right, Right. So I did this in the beginning of our first company. I just said, like, I'm gonna fly you out. You're gonna sit in my fucking apartment and watch me for three days.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Leila]

Literally, I did that. Dylan McCall. And I. I was like, dude, sit with me. It's like. Or the thousand square foot apartment and just like, listen to me do the sales. And that was how I trained the guy. I was like, it's Gotta be quick and dirty and scrappy. Cause like we're fucking five person team. I can't like do a whole training. And by the way, that's more effective anyways than watching.

[Alex]

I think that's the natural path that's starting because now when I really think about it, that is what we have. This new part time feeling us out, seeing if it's gonna be the right thing. That's what she's doing.

[Leila]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Sitting beside Corey and she's you know, job shadowing and listening and absorbing.

[Leila]

So I think what you have to figure out is what are the prerequisites? Cause I also, I will say this for the compensation you're offering. It makes sense to me that based on it like they're a little earlier in their career, they're not like the seasoned vet. Right. So the question is, where do we find those people? You said one of them was from the program. Is there a way that you could get a list to more of the people that have gone through the program? Absolutely.

[Alex]

I think you have a really good point there, that graduates are certainly familiar with the brand. They've got those testimonials from themselves as well as their classmates, people they were in programs with. So I think that's a very good resource for us.

[Leila]

Yeah, that's where I would start. I would say the second is, you know, for that type of role, probably. Do either of you guys have social media followings? Yes. Posting on your social media. Have you done that?

[Alex]

Some.

[Leila]

Yes. More. Let's do more.

[Alex]

Do more.

[Leila]

More of that. And then for that compensation also if you have LinkedIn, I would say like you could use LinkedIn Recruiter for the tool. But I think honestly finding people who are how. Tell me the demographic of the person that you have right now, like age, experience level, not anything else. Yeah.

[Alex]

40S and she held not C level but VP level in a medium to large size local business.

[Leila]

Got it. So maybe what you're looking for is people who are looking for a career transition and they feel really passionate about what you guys are teaching.

[Alex]

Yes.

[Leila]

And you need to speak to that. So in the very beginning when we were starting gym launch, I would post on my Facebook and say I'm looking for someone. I remember one of the roles is for a director of operations. I'm looking for somebody who's looking for a career change. You're seasoned, you've worked at these big corporate companies, but you're sick of it. You're sick of the red tape. You're sick of the fact that you can't get any change through. You're sick of the fact that you've got to ask for permission left and right and you can't make any decisions. Right. That ad got me like so many amazingly qualified candidates. It wasn't even an ad, it was a Facebook post.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Leila]

But people kept sharing and resharing it and that's how I got a bunch of people. You'd be surprised. The reason that a lot of people can't track the right salesperson is they're not speaking to the person that they're looking for. So that's what I'm. I've been trying to understand is like, who are you looking for? Who's the best person for this sale? And especially with the brand that you're representing, I think it makes sense that you find somebody that has gone through the program, but they've gone through the program. They might be scared to make a leap on their own. And so it's like this is actually a really great interim step. It's not dissimilar to what we did at gym launch. People would go through the program, they'd do all stuff. They're like, ah, should I expand locations or I could be a coach for gym launch. I could help other people and I could teach them how I scaled my gym and sold that instead of like going into a brand new business for them.

[Alex]

Lots of benefits, it's lower risk, it's.

[Leila]

A great transition and it's good compensation and it's steady.

[Alex]

Yeah. And I thought of your advice previously about bringing in perhaps a senior person because this could be part time for someone as well. It's a great part time fit if there was someone that was on the other end of their career who might just, you know, be advocates for the brand. Like to see us do well. Right. Make that cultural connection. But then also kind of set a good example for a junior talent at the same time. So yeah, I made notes of what you said.

[Leila]

Oh, good too. How have you tried to find people thus far in the past?

[Alex]

Has been word of mouth.

[Leila]

Okay. Yeah. So doing the organic LinkedIn, I've got.

[Alex]

A good local following and so I.

[Leila]

Think it's good to do all that posting and such. I want you to do this though. If, if you're not getting the traction, I want you to post it on LinkedIn or Indeed. Okay. As the thing is, is that people might be like, I don't know if that's the right platform. You just need feedback from the marketplace. The reason that you're not dialed in on who needs to be there is you don't have enough feedback coming at you. The thing that I do constantly is I'm constantly watching our screening calls and culture calls because I want to see the feedback. It's not about is it perfect? Is it right? Let's get it up and then get the feedback from the marketplace. The market's going to tell us more. It's kind of like when you're starting a business, except we have to do it a million times when we're hiring. But when you start a business, you're trying to figure out, do I have product market fit? Okay, let me pitch this to potential customers. Right? And that's how people, especially in like Y Com or Silicon Valley, they get feedback. It's the same with hiring, except you're doing it for new role every time. So it's like this painful process. You're like, I have to put out this role, I have to see what the market says, I have to get the feedback and I have to iterate quickly. And so that's what we want to do. But if you're only posting it to your intimate following. Right. The issue is volume of feedback. And so that's why I'm advocating for posting on some of the formal platforms because then you're going to get so much feedback, it's going to become impossible for you to ignore who the is the right candidate for this role. I promise you. Great.

[Alex]

It's great advice. Thank you so much.

[Leila]

Of course. Absolutely.

[Alex]

Thank you guys.

[Leila]

I appreciate your time.