← Growth Triggers: Content Marketing & AI
Growth Triggers: Content Marketing & AI
AI Hype & Where the Jobs are REALLY Going with Chris Martinez with BPO Solutions
00:47:59
Loading summary
Transcript74 lines
- [00:00]
A
I think that the AI companies are trying to sell themselves as something that they are not yet able to do or that they will never be able to do. There are some that are going to revolutionize the world, but every single AI company says that they're going to revolutionize the world. It's just not possible.
- [00:18]
B
That is Chris Martinez. He's a four time author, two time Stevie Award winner, and an expert in scaling companies. Chris is currently a new partner and president at BPO Solutions, where they help high growth companies and private equity firms scale their labor operations profitably through finding and sourcing talent in Latin America. And today we get into all of that, plus a ton more on how AI is changing the hiring landscape. So this is super important. If you're a person who's hiring for a company, you're a founder of a company, or maybe you're someone looking to get hired by a company in the next two, three, four years. This is something that you're going to want to pay attention to. So I hope you enjoy my interview with Chris Martinez. I've helped generate over 50 million podcast downloads and work with over 250 different podcasts. And the great thing about that is that I get to use all that information to share at least one helpful tip every single week to help you grow your influence and your online presence with video podcasting. Hey, my name is Luis Diaz. I run a company called Top 10 Podcasts and this show is dedicated to helping you learn at least one helpful tip every single episode to help you grow your influence and your online presence with video podcasting. So that sounds good. Let's get into it. Chris, it's good to see you again, man. It's. It's been a while. I think. Last time I saw you was in San Diego and I think it was at your agency Freedom Live event, which was a lot of fun.
- [01:43]
A
That was a long time ago. That was almost a year ago.
- [01:46]
B
Almost a year ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [01:48]
A
Time flies and obviously many things change. So yeah, that's part of the reason why we're here.
- [01:54]
B
Yeah, Big time. Big time, man. Well, the reason I wanted to get you on is because at the time of this recording. So funny. So yesterday I didn't intentionally plan to do this, but I was driving around and I'm using Spotify now and Spotify has this weird thing where unlike Apple, which I used for years, it'll just autoplay the next episode. It'll just kind of like find an episode in your feedback. Like that you from a podcast you subscribe to and just start playing it. And the funniest thing was like, it kind of prepped me for this interview, which. Well, which I want to talk about, which is around hiring and AI, which is a huge topic right now. But the interview in in particular was with Diary of a CEO guy, Stephen Bartlett and some other dude who worked for Google. And the, the crux of the conversation was around the displacement AI has. And everyone knows and heard and heard the rumors and stuff. And we've also seen it in the headlines. I want to chat with you about it because you actually work with companies and help them hire people for a living. So it's kind of what you see. I kind of want to hear what you see and not what the headlines tell us. And I guess before I get into that question, also talk about what you're seeing. You mentioned earlier, lots changed since we last spoke. So what are you up to now? And yeah, when we can tackle AI and hiring.
- [03:09]
A
Yeah, for sure. And I'm gonna probably give a little bit more info because I, I'm guessing a lot of people that are listening don't know my background. So just if we go back to the early 2010s, I started a marketing agency. And like most people at the time, I was hiring people in the Philippines and, and India because that was where, you know, everybody was going for labor, especially when you're broke and can't afford to hire people in the US and then after doing that and building a team up in Philippines for, with about nine people, I decided, you know what? I can't stay up to one o' clock in the morning anymore. I can't deal with the power going out and every other week and, you know, all the challenges that come with that. And I was, and I'm living in San Diego and I was like, you know what? I bet you I can find people down in Mexico, down in Tijuana. And I didn't speak great Spanish back then, but ended up setting up a company down in Mexico, which is like incredibly difficult, and started hiring people for my agency. And we had a couple, you know, people down in Tijuana that we started with and couple bumps and bruises along the way, but eventually built a team and my little marketing agency, I grew that from around 50 clients to over 200 clients. And, you know, with a little team of like five, six people managing all of it. And it was amazing. I personally was driving from my house in San Diego down to Tijuana to the little office that we had down there every single day. I've Crossed the border thousands and thousands of times. And so that was great for my little marketing agency. And I started telling people, you know, like, hey, you gotta, you gotta try and hire people down in Mexico. It's like this hidden gem of talent. And the, the issue was that it was just really hard for people to, to set up shop down there and to, to do it all. And especially when you're remote. You know, like, if I had an issue, I could just drive to the office and, and fix it. If somebody needed a computer, I could literally just go to Best Buy, grab it, and then drive down and give them the computer, you know, so I had that advantage and other people didn't have it. And it was very intimidating for them to get up and running with, with team members in Mexico as much as they wanted to. Also back then, it was very, very difficult to pay people because people in Mexico didn't have like PayPal, for example. They could not set it up and they didn't have a lot of these other platforms that you could pay people through, like deal or rippling or these other services. And I had the company in Mexico, so I was able to do a wire transfer from my US bank, which is where I would receive payments from my clients down to my Mexican bank, and then I could do the payroll transfer to the employees. So, so long story short, I started an outsourcing company, this is around 2017, helping people to get out access to talent in Mexico. And it was revolutionary back then. And, and that, so that that company ended up growing. 2018 was probably our breakout year. And fast forward 2021, we had, you know, over a hundred people working for us. It was great. And then I just kind of like decided to do a little bit of a pivot and I kind of shifted from doing just the outsourcing into consulting and helping people to hire people on their own, but also to scale and professionalize their business. That's actually how you and I met.
- [06:29]
B
And
- [06:31]
A
then let's fast forward to end of last year. I had a client and friend. We'd been friends for almost a decade. He also had a outsourcing company in Mexico, but he wasn't working with marketing agencies. My niche was always marketing agencies, primarily staffing, design, development, project management. So my friend Chrisman, he had launched an outsourcing company. They started off as like a call center and, you know, have hundreds of employees, zero marketing. Like, it was all through relationships. I don't know when this is going to air, but as of June, we still do not have a website it is a horrible one page landing page with a form. We just updated the form so it goes through high level, by the way. So, you know, built this eight figure outsourcing company, went from being a call center to now staffing all kinds of different positions. We typically work with companies that are a little bit bigger, you know, like on the low end. They're around 10 million in annual rev for the most part. They're, you know, 20 to 500 million a year in rev. And so Crispin approached me last December and said, hey, you know, like, I want to, I want to scale and basically I want you to become the CEO. And I was like, completely taken aback. I had no idea that this is what we were going to talk about. He and I had worked together too on some projects in the past, so.
- [08:03]
B
Gotcha.
- [08:04]
A
But he's just been following me and you're like, you know, gone to my events and like, seen my podcasts always, obviously, and you know, knows people that I had also worked with. And he's like, dude, like, I've seen what you've been doing. I know what, we're, where we're headed. I need you to come on board and help us do it. Because I, I can't do it. Like, I'm not the guy. Which is pretty amazing. Like how, how incredible how, how much humility do you need to be able to, to recognize that in yourself? And so, you know, after going through a couple months of due diligence and I went through everything in the company just like I do with my, did with my consulting clients, I went through all the financials, the team, I went through everything. And we decided like, hey, let's do this, you know, so brought, brought me in as a partner. I'm kind of coming in as the president and just professionalizing some of the things that have never really been needed to professionalize and building our business. And honestly, this is, it's so much fun. And what makes it more, what even more fun is that we have an amazing product. Like, this is the outsourcing company that if I were to go back to 2017, I would have done it exactly like this. Yeah, we'll talk about this in a bit. But like, we have the most frictionless sales process in the world and the clients that we're working with are great. You know, like they, they already know how to hire, they already know how to train, and they're growing very, very fast. And, and basically like, we don't require any like, deposits. It's, it's like you come to us. And you say, hey, I need these positions. I need, you know, tech support, I need sales, I need cold callers, I need hr, I need accounting, like, whatever. And then we say, okay, well, this is how much it's going to be. You know, let's just say 13, 14 bucks an hour. And then they used to give us the thumbs up. And then we set up interviews. No con, no contract signed, no deposits, nothing. Literally. We just give you interviews, and if you like the people, then we start and then they work, and then, you know, they work for two weeks, then we give you your first bill. So, like, how amazing is that?
- [10:15]
B
Dude, I. I love you told me this the other day on the phone. I just had to have you on the podcast. I'm like, that is the craziest. Like, it's an eight figure business. No website, no fancy about us page or anything like that. And the sales process, you just walk through, which is same when you walk through with me on the phone. I was just like, how. I'm like, I'm. I was honestly thinking, like, how do I do this in our agency? Like, just send us stuff, we just start doing it for you and we send you a bill. I don't know, maybe that's what we do. But. But yeah, I wanted you to come on and share it because I'm just like, we can get. I want to get into the AI stuff and hiring, all that stuff too. But just that whole process is insane to me. And then the fact that it's been so wildly, wildly successful, it makes you think maybe we're all overthinking this or maybe we're all, well, you know, overcomplicating.
- [11:02]
A
I mean, absolutely. But at the core of it, it's understanding the clients, you know, and like, what they want. And then what Crispin and Patty, his wife and partner, what they did so geniusly is they just reverse engineered how to make it work from the business perspective, you know, so, like, we run very lean. Like, we. We have a very, very lean and mean team that runs the company. You know, like, we operate like a startup in the sense that we are very conscious of every dollar that gets spent. And it's just such a cool environment and our clients love us. The other thing, and we're very, like, upfront about this, transparent about this, is we basically gross a couple bucks an hour from every person that we staff. So we are not basically like, you know, trying to get rich off of every single person. It's a. It's very much a volume play. So we want everybody to get to like, let's just say 10 agents, right. So for them to be able to do that, they've got to be growing very quickly. We've got to be doing a great job. So we're taking the risk in that, you know, we're only making a couple bucks an hour. You know, we don't even really make a profit until like three months into the relationship. And you know, so like it's, it's very much long term thinking. And we, on our side, we, we do an amazing job of recruiting. So let me, let me be clear about this. Like, we don't staff entry level positions. We are basically staffing like, you know, mid tier. Like these people have been doing this for a long time. And, and so on our side we pay top dollar. We offer, you know, great benefits and all that good stuff which attracts better people to us. And then in turn we have a much better product that we give to our clients. So when our clients come to us, they know that they're getting the best of the best. Um, I was just onboarding actually a new employee this morning. Um, we usually do kind of like a, a day one, like, here's our company, here's how we win together. Um, we even tell them like our margins, like, which nobody ever does.
- [13:20]
B
No, no one does. No. That's good.
- [13:21]
A
We tell them, we're like, this is the, this is the deal. Like I need you to perform and do all the things that we know that you're capable of because that's how you're going to win. That's how our client's going to win. That's how our company's going to win. And it's so, it's very much long term. You know, let's, let's get the best of the best, let's empower them. And then over time our clients will be like, you know, we need more because they're so amazing, they're so crucial to our business.
- [13:50]
B
Yeah.
- [13:50]
A
So yeah, that's our company. That's BPO Solutions Group.
- [13:54]
B
Yeah, I love that. And you, you mentioned something in there that made me sort of think around like, you know, you mentioned it's not entry level stuff, it's like mid level. These people have been, have, have experienced their quality talent. What are the, you seeing people hiring the most of right now in, in an age where everyone's afraid of jobs going away or being, you know, really ruled out by an AI and a, you know, Claude and a couple of other bots and agents. Yeah. What do you see, what are you hiring for the most right now?
- [14:29]
A
It's, it's kind of all over the place honestly. And you bring up a great point because I've actually had some people say like, you're going in, you're going to go work for an outsourcing, outsourcing company. Like I thought everything's going to AI And I was like, yeah, that's what the AI companies want you to think. And this is what's interesting is like there are definitely things that are going to A.I. you know, like from me, coming from my agency background, design, development, I mean that's definitely getting, getting impacted by AI as it should. But we just started, you know, a tech support team about a month ago, 35 people. And so they had 35 people in their U.S. operation. And you know, they were experienced. So this, if I were to say like what is getting move, like what are people hiring for? At least from like an outsourced perspective, it's those middle tier people in the US that are now, because of the cost of living in the U.S. you know, 60, 70, sometimes $80,000 a year to get the right talent in the U.S. you say, like, it's really hard to justify keeping those positions when we can have people that are just as capable. Typically what we see when you move, you know, those, those seats over to, to Mexico is about a 40, 50, sometimes 60% reduction in labor costs. But you also see a 20% increase in productivity. Our work, our work week here is also 45 hours a week. So you're going to get a little bit more hours. Yeah, you're going to get a few more hours a week out of our team down here. And so when you compare those things and so the quality doesn't drop obviously because the standard that you hold them to is the exact same standard that you were in would in the US it just doesn't make sense to keep those positions in the US Especially when almost all companies revenues are down or flat costs are going through the roof. It seems like every day the cost of something is going up and you know, so like yeah, we just, you know, we had 35 tech support folks that started with us. We started a team of 10 salespeople last week. We've had a number of executive assistants that just started. Let's see, what else have we had? Appointment setters. We get really, really good appointment setters down here. People that speak perfect English. The other thing, and this is like, I know this is a little bit of a sensitive subject, but because of all the Deportations, whether that be ICE deportations or self deportations because we're on the border here in Tijuana. We get a lot of people that essentially grew up in the US that are as American as me and you. They just didn't happen to be born in the US and so for them to try and find a path back to their life in the US they'll self deport and then try and find that. Well, while they're here they can build a really, really nice career with us. And they've already got, you know, like the cultural understanding of American work ethic and personal accountability, things like that. And so, you know, it's a great place for them to land. And so we get a lot, a lot of people applying to work with us. I think we get over like a thousand applications a month.
- [18:06]
B
That is, it's so interesting to see because like, you know, like we were saying before, like we hear all the headlines but there's still people tiring, there's still a need for humans, maybe less humans in the future coming, coming to us, you know, sooner rather than later. But you still need people all these positions you, you mentioned. So I think there's still a, and, and the, and here like the companies, the caliber companies you work with, like they're still hiring, be it less, but they're still in need of, of talent. And I live here in the Midwest and it's like the companies that I see are very, the older and more established ones are very comfortable and their employees, this from what I understand and like talk people in the community and the other business owners, like there's just like kind of like a complacency that I've seen with older, more senior. And I'm not saying older like 50, 60, I'm saying like 35 to 50 more senior type of workers and labor here in the Midwest where they're happy making 50, 60, 70 grand a year and it's comfortable. However, we are seeing costs raise up, I can tell you just as a person living here. And also it's like, like you're saying like you can probably find that similar position or someone in the, in Central America, Mexico or somewhere else, you know, that can do the same job for 40, 50 less. So it's, it's getting, I, I do see a, a bit of a complacency here that will unfortunately likely get replaced or get like, you know, you don't want people to get the rug pulled out from underneath them. But I've seen, you know, you've seen it happen before. So, so it's interesting to, to hear companies aren't stupid. Like they're moving and trying to figure out like, well, if we can get better talent here. Plus AI makes us much more, much more lean.
- [19:55]
A
Yeah. So here's another thing that we've seen. This isn't super recent, but this is always like when you are a growing company and you don't have unlimited, you know, funds, you're always trying to balance, you know, like I know that I need these five to 10 new hires like yesterday, but I only have the budget to hire two to three people. And so like what am I going to do? Am I going to cut expenses somewhere? Am I going to take out a loan? Am I, you know, because the, the, the cost to hire in the U.S. or the cost to hire in the U.S. it's just, it is what it is. This is an, we are essentially an alternative where you can get the talent that you need and stay within the budget that you have available and ultimately you'll get the outcome that's going to push the company to grow with. The other thing that we're doing is support staff for us based on team members because maybe you have that, so maybe you have that $100,000 a year person in the US and they're just maxed to capacity and you can't afford another $100,000 person like them as much as you would like. Well, let's place, you know, a couple 12, $13 an hour folks to support your $100,000 a year person and maybe still leverage technology like AI. And now we can get 3 to maybe 5x productivity out of that little team at a very, very insignificant cost. Right. Because people forget that AI is just a tool and it, it'll allow you to perform at a higher level if you know how to use that tool. It's still, it's still going to be a person though. There's still a person that's going to be, you know, flipping the switch and making the decisions.
- [21:52]
B
Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's almost, it's getting close, but it's not quite there. Like for example, I use a, recently started using a tool called Victor inside of Slack and it's when you connect it to ClickUp and you know, your calendar and your email, like it can draft emails, it can move stuff on your calendar, it can reach out to people and book calls. So it takes that. But I still have my assistant to do the payment stuff and do a lot of the other high level functions. It's actually made her More efficient because now she can go and use it. Right. So, like, there's still an assistant. I think it's like you said, it's. It's now enhanced the human and made them more efficient.
- [22:28]
A
Yeah.
- [22:28]
B
And that's.
- [22:29]
A
That's ultimately where. Where a lot of our placements are falling. It's like we're that human element to the AI where you still need a very intelligent, experienced person to make the final call or be that final touch point for the client. And so, you know, like, we are busier than ever. I mean, we've placed over 70 folks in the last 60 days.
- [22:56]
B
And.
- [22:57]
A
Yeah, and I mean, these are companies that are growing very, very fast. So they're still hiring out there. It's just. We just give them the best alternative and when. And for those that are, you know, kind of doubting the capabilities of the talent here in. In Mexico, that's why we have the. That's why we give them the ability to just do the interviews. It's like, hey, you know, like, why don't you just interview some people and. And you can see for yourself the talent level. And if you like them, just say yes. Otherwise, you know, no harm, no foul. You know, maybe we'll get you on the next one.
- [23:34]
B
Yeah. That's such a simple sales. This. It's a great sales process like, like the way you guys have engineered it. So it's frictionless. Right? It's what I want to dive into, what your plans are as kind of the new president coming in to grow a business with no website, but an amazing, amazing sell process. And yeah, I want to kind of hear your. Your thoughts and how you're thinking through it. But before we get there, are there certain industries that you see hiring more than others? Are there certain industries that you think in the next couple years based on what you kind of on the front lines of hiring are gonna boom for you.
- [24:15]
A
So the ones that we have that are doing very, very well are typically like medical, healthcare. Like medical and healthcare. We see those ones growing a lot. We work a lot with private equity groups as well. And so they usually have a portfolio of clients. You know, PE comes in, and they're all about growth, growth, growth. So I. I might have a little bit skewed perspective as to what's growing, but, like, from our clients that we see that are growing very fast. Medical, healthcare, financial. Financial services is growing a lot. I also can't tell you exactly who the clients are, because it's called. But certain aspects of financial are. Are growing very quickly. SaaS. So this is the irony is that we have some SaaS companies that are coming to us and SaaS. SaaS is supposed to be all AI everything. Right. But they are also seeing that there is a need for people. Right. Like, and I don't know if you're seeing this personally, but there is absolutely a backlash towards AI and I, it's, it's kind of like a black swan where I don't think it's going to be adopted and it's completely irrational in my opinion. Like it is very emotional based that I think that we're going to start seeing a bigger backlash towards AI technology from people and I think that they're going to want to start working with humans.
- [25:43]
B
Yeah.
- [25:45]
A
So the SaaS companies are coming to us in droves, especially if it's consumer facing SaaS. If it's a consumer facing software, they are absolutely coming to us needing support. Let's see, there's another role that we, we are placing a lot of right now which you know, we didn't see this a year ago. Accounting. So we're, we're seeing a lot of companies coming to us basically needing staff accountants, controller, junior controller. And you know, these are people that are, that have worked with American companies. They understand, you know, gap accounting, they already know QuickBooks or whatever, zero. Whatever it is that you're using. Those roles are coming to us because you know, we placed a controller a couple weeks ago. This person was running a $400 million oil and gas company. Cross border is $23 an hour. You know, like in the US this guy's hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.
- [26:49]
B
Yeah, he's a C level executive. Phrase.
- [26:51]
A
Yeah, as a C level executive. So those ones, you know, people that are growing and they're like, hey, we need somebody to, we need a full time in house accountant. Because the outsourced CFO solution that we were using just isn't cutting anymore. You know, we need somebody that's actually in our business every single day. Hr. Like we're getting a lot of people that need HR assistance as well. And let's see, what are the home services? We get a lot of home service companies that still need appointment setters.
- [27:22]
B
Okay. Live appointment setters, roofers, painters. Like we need people to set appointments for sales and stuff like that.
- [27:27]
A
Roofers, plumbers, painters, you know, and again, these are high growth companies that are investing in their marketing. Even though we know that all those industries are down, these companies see the opportunity and they're just, they're turning up their marketing and so we, they need a human to reach out to the leads and start booking appointments. We have a roofing company actually out of Florida. They were hiring people in the midwest and they could not find anybody that would do the work that would make the calls. Like three months hiring, you know, multiple US Based appointment setters didn't book anything. They get two people from us and they have never had more leads booked in their entire life. I mean, these are actual like inbound leads. So the guys that started it were marketers and so they were generating leads and all the people needed to do was follow up and just book the time for the guy to go out and do the roofing inspection. Nobody could do it. And our guys are booking like 30 appointments a week. Two people.
- [28:35]
B
Oh my gosh. Now you have a sales background, Chris? Yes. Do you, do you think, do you any idea as to why that is? I'm just super curious to hear your, your thought. Obviously there's not, there's only limited context of what you have based on why
- [28:48]
A
they can't find people in the U. S to do it.
- [28:51]
B
Yeah, like what was, was it a skill gap? Was it a hustle gap?
- [28:54]
A
I'm just, I think it's, I think it's a, I think it's a hustle gap, you know, based on what I know, maybe, maybe their hiring process wasn't as good as ours too. So maybe they weren't able to screen people the way that we can. Appointment setting is hard. It's just very difficult. And I don't know what they were paying, but it was probably like 16, 17, 18 bucks an hour plus, you know, a bonus to set the appointment. Maybe the people were just like, it's just not worth it. You know, they do it for a couple, couple days and they're like, oh, this sucks. And they're like, I could go make more money at, you know, I don't know if you have in and out but like in n out is now paying like $22 an hour. It's a burger joint here in California. Maybe they're like for the, for the aggravation and just how difficult it is to be an appointment setter. I can just go do something else and make more money. I don't know. You have to keep that in mind too, that people in the US have options, you know, maybe they can do fiverr work and make more than that, you know. So I, I honestly don't know. I don't want to be the guy that says that nobody in the US Wants to Work, because I don't think that that's true.
- [30:02]
B
Oh, yeah, yeah, we know. Yeah. I just curious here to hear your perspective on it because I just, it's. They're inbound leads. I mean, goodness, like, they're, you're not doing cold outbound.
- [30:12]
A
You would think it's like, you know, shooting fish in a barrel, but for some reason they couldn't, they couldn't find the folks.
- [30:17]
B
Yeah.
- [30:18]
A
And my people are hungry, you know, so I'll just be very like, transparent. Like the, they're getting paid, I think it's around 1450 an hour. And then they get, I think it's like $5 an appointment is their bonus. And these people are hustling, dude. Hustling.
- [30:34]
B
I mean, hey, if you live in the, if you don't have anything else, if you have limit options and like, this is, that's a, that's a, that's a green light path to making a lot of money in a good, good spot.
- [30:46]
A
So, yeah, yeah, this is an amazing job opportunities for these folks. They take it very, very seriously. Like, that's the benefit of hiring seasoned professionals, is that this is not a, you know, temporary job for them. One of the gentlemen that's on the, on, on this campaign, specific one, he's been doing this for almost 20 years. Just had a baby like 3 weeks ago too. So this is what he's going to do for his life, you know, or at least for the foreseeable, foreseeable future. He's very, very motivated. You know, he's got to take care of his wife and new son. And like, this is what he's passionate about. It's not a temporary thing. And, and this job, this is the other thing that a lot of American companies that are a little bit smaller don't recognize is that your employees in the US Just look at you as a stepping stone. You know, like when I was working in the, in the marketing, when all my clients were marketing agencies, they would hire folks and these folks would be like, I'm going to work with you until I can get that job at Amazon, you know, so I'll accept your $80,000 a year, knowing in the back of my head that I'm going to use this to get the $150,000 a year or the $200,000 a year job in the next six to 12 months. So it's very comforting to know that you are not the stepping stone anymore, that this person is coming to work for you and they want to work for you for the long Term like you are it, you know, and they're going to do everything humanly possible to keep their job and then do a better job so that, you know, there's promotion opportunities and raises and things like that. So that's just kind of like a psychological thing that comes with hiring people that are just hungrier in a different country.
- [32:42]
B
No, totally. That totally makes sense.
- [32:43]
A
It.
- [32:44]
B
It tracks with my experience, too, being coming, like, hiring. Now, we primarily hire from Central America, so that's like Mexico, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, sometimes South America, too, but that's last two years. That's where we focus our energy on because we just have. We have really great teammates from there. So not to say the other ones aren't. Aren't great too, but it's been harder, I think, in my experience.
- [33:10]
A
Right, right.
- [33:13]
B
I want to switch gears a little bit here and just talk a little bit. I want to understand your thought process because you were my coach for almost two years, and I learned a lot under you. And I want to kind of see, you know, what's your thought process in building this business now? Like, if you could walk me through mentally, kind of like how you've laid it out in your head.
- [33:33]
A
So, you know, our goal at my consulting company was always to identify some companies have the ability to scale and then ultimately help those folks to exit. And, you know, we would broker the deals and basically make, you know, a commission off of helping them to sell for. The minimum that we would do was like 5 million bucks on the exit. But we were really looking for those companies that could sell for 10 million plus. When Chrisman approached me and said, hey, do you want to be a part of the company? You know, we do have a goal of building this company and selling it. Now, part of the reason why they're bringing me on is because when we do sell the company, I will be going with the new. With the. The company to the new owners, and who knows what happens, right. Like, maybe I will help facilitate the next acquisition that we do or so for me, the mission of being able to help a company to scale and exit was kind of still the same. It was just in a much different capacity. And so the things that I've done with BPO in my first four months are kind of the exact same things that I was doing with you and with other folks. It's, you know, going back through the financials, it's identifying the team, identifying the roles and responsibilities. A big push that we have now is lead generation. Right. Like, we need to have a lead generation system. And so, you know, we're doing some things to test out cold, lead generation and testing, testing, looking at the numbers, seeing what works. We gotta get the website up, you
- [35:23]
B
know, so, like, finally get a website.
- [35:25]
A
These are all things that I've been doing for the past, you know, four years.
- [35:30]
B
True.
- [35:30]
A
It's just now I have skin in the game, you know, like, I'm a partner in the business and, you know, like, when I saw the product and the sales process that we have already, I was like, man, this is awesome. Like, we're going to blow this thing. And I'm starting to build out team members. Like, I'm bringing in team members to help us scale, which is also really, really fun.
- [35:54]
B
And.
- [35:54]
A
Yeah, so, I mean, like, the things that I'm doing, I've been doing for the past few years. It's just now I have a much more clear path to, you know, a more senior leadership role within the company. And, you know, I have equity in the company as well.
- [36:10]
B
Love it. Love it. Yeah, A lot of the what you just shared kind of reminds me of, of what we work through and just clarity around defining roles, defining positions, looking at financials, making decisions based on the actual data, and then, and then, and then lead generation. Because like you mentioned, you didn't. I don't really think you had to fix the sales process in this.
- [36:28]
A
Right.
- [36:29]
B
That sales process I've heard of.
- [36:30]
A
It's more so an awareness. It's just an awareness. I, you know, not to brag, but I did a podcast two weeks ago and the owners have never done, like, Crispin has never done a podcast interview in his life. He's never been on a podcast. He and I are going to start a podcast. I'll be reaching out to you about that because we're going to need your help with that. But he and I are going to start a podcast and our goal is to interview, you know, like, our. Some of our ideal clients, you know, private equity firms, things like that. But did a podcast interview a couple weeks ago and I booked five leads and we're looking for staff for two of them right now, you know, so, like, it is so much just an awareness and like, you tell people about what we do and they're like, wait, what?
- [37:17]
B
Yeah, like, you expect more.
- [37:19]
A
You're not gonna make me put down a deposit to do the interviews or nothing? Like, no, no, man. And then it costs how much? And then you're gonna bill me after the fact? Like, they, I get to have them work for me for two weeks and then you're gonna send me a bill? And I'm like, yeah, dude. Like, that's how it works. So, you know, like, developing awareness, going on podcast interviews, like, this is like, you know, some of the big things that I have to do. But it's just so fun, man. Like, I'm telling you, like, it is. I, I, I get so excited to wake up every day and to start chipping away at this thing, and I, I, you know, it's good for my, it's good for my soul.
- [38:01]
B
Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's funny. So I want to touch on that because I think the reason I, I want to make a guess, an educated, somewhat educated guess of, like, the reason why that is the reason why it feels so aligned with you and, you know, is because the things are in place. Like, the, the business is really, really good, and it's set and it's on the right trajectory. It's not like you have, like, headache employees, and there's like, a bad, you know, a bad money model and stuff like that. Like, you've kind of. Now it's just adding gasoline to the fire. So. So, yeah, I would, I would guess if those things are out of alignment, then it wouldn't be as, as fun, maybe. You know, it's.
- [38:39]
A
What's also interesting is that I've had, After, you know, people have learned that I've taken this role and become a partner in the company and things like that. I've had other people reach out to me and be like, dude, I've been thinking about doing this. Like, I've been thinking about, you know, stopping what I'm doing because it's just a grind and I don't enjoy it, or they're actually worried about A.I. you know, like, there's a lot of consultants that are out there right now that are thinking about shutting it down because AI, like, their clients are just going to AI and getting all the answers. And a lot of those answers are the same ones that they would give them for, you know, 2,500, 5,000 bucks a month. So that, that is a legitimate threat. But like you mentioned, like, I saw the company, and I've known. We've had a relationship. I've had a relationship with Kristen and Patty for almost a decade, you know, so, like, we've been friends. They came to my wedding, you know, like, so that made it much easier, too, that I knew the company and when I saw how. How amazing the, the business is already with almost doing nothing. Like, I mean, they built an amazing business, but, like, From a marketing perspective, there's like, nothing. And my experience of just doing this exact thing for hundreds of other companies in the past, it was just so easy. You know, I was just like, you know, this, this feels like the right thing that I need to do for where I'm at. There's a very, very nice pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and it's going to be super fun. And, you know, like, obviously my, my, my pay along the way is very, very nice, and it's just exciting. It's just fun and it's. It's exciting. And I'm excited to, to be on board and to start spreading the word about what we do. And, you know, the next three years are going to be very, very quick growth, but it's all going to be worth it.
- [40:34]
B
Well, I'm excited to watch. And yeah, just. I'm going to be. I'll be on sidelines, but I'll be sending people your way when they're. When it's a fit for them, because it's like such, such an easy thing, easy value proposition for you guys. Chris, I want to ask you one last question. And, you know, as we, as I grow, this new Growth Triggers podcast put more energy into it than I used to trying to figure out a signature question. But I'll go with this one. If there's one thing that someone listening out there, let's just say they're that consultant who's kind of like on the, on the edge about AI and not sure about they're shutting it down or whether they should or not, what's the one question you would ask them to help them to kind of look themselves in the mirror and say, like, is this, Should I continue the course or should I shut it all down? If there's a question you would ask somebody that was your coaching client or something along those lines, this is, this
- [41:29]
A
is a good one. Maybe a little bit of a loaded one, but no, no, no, because it's hard to wrap it up into one true question. Right. If there's multiple, go for it. I would ask yourself, based on the stage of life that you're in, what do you want to do? Because it's different, you know, like, I'm married. I don't have children. We're not going to have children. Right? If, If I was married and I had two young kids and, you know, or if I. Two kids are actually going into college or something like that, maybe my decision would be different, you know, but with where I'm at, I'm I'm ready to go back into the grind and work 60, 70 hours a week. You know, I, I, I, I'm, I'm well compensated for that, obviously, but the time and the travel, you know, so like we're gonna start going to conferences and we want to start doing a conference, at least one, one conference a month, you know, and, and you've gone to conferences before, you've spoken, you know, it's a lot of work. It almost takes like a week to recover from the conference, taking clients out, you know, like I, I'm in our office in Tijuana this morning. I left my house at 4:30 in the morning because I had a meeting here at 5:00am and so yeah, and I, and I, I was on vacation this past weekend, so, but I didn't get home until 6:30 last night, ate dinner, went to bed, Woke up at 3:30 and got ready and drove down. So these are things that I'm willing to do based on the stage of life that I'm in right now. So I think that if you are not seeing that what you're doing now aligns with what you want out of life, you need to do some soul searching and figure out like what do I want to be doing right now? And maybe it's joining a company and maybe you can find an opportunity like I did, you know, come in as a partner. Maybe there's a very clear trajectory, maybe they've got a great company. You know, there's a lot of things that you can do. I do think you need to be honest with yourself about whether your business model is going to be viable in the next, even in the next two years. I do believe that there's an AI bubble coming and it's going to burst hard. I think a lot most people think
- [43:55]
B
that when you say AI bubble you mean like it, like the AI companies are going to kind of be at a, this precipice of then suddenly dropping in value or like the. Yes.
- [44:07]
A
Workers. I think that's happening. No, I, I think that the AI are trying to, the AI companies are trying to sell themselves as something that they are not yet able to do or that they will never be able to do. There are some that are going to revolutionize the world, but every single AI company says that they're going to revolutionize the world. It's just not possible. There's not enough, there's not enough need, there's not enough talent to be able to do it. You've also got to time it right, right? So like Every AI company is getting funding and, you know, they're hyping themselves up and what goes up must come down. It's, it's just not going to, you know, boom forever. People are going to figure out what are the good products and what are the not. What are not the good products. And like, from a marketing perspective, almost all industries, it's a two, two horse race, right? There's just, there's two industry leaders and then everybody else shares the crumbs. That's what ends up happening with everything. Coke and Pepsi, you know, Ford and Chevy. If you're American cars, what are the Japanese? Toyota and Honda. So, like, that's going to happen in the AI world too. And so getting back to the original thing, like, if you're, if you're not sure about your place in the world, look at the things that are going to change, but also look at the things that are going to stay the same over the next two years and see if your business aligns with that. And also from, like I said, like, ask yourself where you're at and like, do you want to. Do you want to do this?
- [46:03]
B
Yeah. Yeah. Bigger question there. That's one you can't ask a prompt an AI to answer for you. Chris, thanks so much for coming on, man. It's always fun talking to you. Thank you. Seriously, I always enjoy it. And for those who are interested in exploring what you guys do at bpo, what's the best place? Assuming the website's not up by the time this goes live, there's a landing
- [46:28]
A
page and a form so you could go to bposolutionsgroup.com that's B as in Bravo, P as in Paul. O is in October, solutionsgroup.com you can also just email me chrischrisposolutionsgroup.com and more than happy to have a conversation, as literally, like I mentioned this before, that's our sales process. Let's just have a conversation, see who you need. I will preface this that, you know, you do need to be a little bit more, A little bit more seasoned, a little bit bigger. You know, like, it's not that we don't take clients on that are under 10 million, but our best clients are a little bit bigger and they're growing a little bit faster. The biggest thing that we're looking for in a client is somebody that has experience, hiring and training, because we find the talent, we screen the talent based on what you need. It's your job to train them. And so you do need to have some experience there. Otherwise it's just, you know, like, we could give you the best player in the world, but if you can't coach them, then they're not going to be able to thrive. And this is, you know, this is somebody's livelihood, like they are. Also anytime you hire, doesn't matter where you hire, they are investing in your company because they have personal goals that they want to hit and they're believing in you and trusting in you. And so it is your duty as an owner to put them in the best position to be successful. So, you know, if you're interested, just reach out to me and we can have a conversation and see if it's a good fit and just take it from there. Like, you know, more than happy to chat with anybody who has, has a need and wants to talk.
- [48:14]
B
Love it. Chris, dude, thank you so much.
- [48:16]
A
Thank you. Love being here.
- [48:20]
B
Hey, just so you know, a couple things. Number one, this is the end of the episode. Number two, I have a completely free, no strings attached, no email opt in required gift for you and it's called the Podcast Scaling Framework. Now this essentially is a Google Doc that lays out the long process we take clients through from ideation to monetizing. It's going to take you through things like the seven podcast formats that you should test or at Beast consider the five different monetization systems we use for all our clients and how to execute them, all the KPIs, all the different types of podcasts you can set up based on your business, your size, your goals, et cetera. It's a very comprehensive document. Again, I teach my team on this. We also walk through it with our private health and wellness expert clients. We walk them through this and we work with them on this stuff every single month. So it's a living document. You may see me in there sometimes changing things or tweaking things because again, it's a framework that we're confident constantly updating. But check it out, it's completely free. Again, no email opt in required, which may change in the future, I don't know. So just get it now while it's free. But check that out, use it, let me know what you think and if we can help in any other way. If you want, step by step, more handheld, more of a, you know, a white glove service. Then reach out to us@top10podcast.com and would love to chat. Thanks and talk soon.