August 21, 2025 • 42 mins
Losing one hire can cost you 4+ months of productivity and most founders never see it coming.
In this episode, Rhamy Alejeal, CEO of People Processes, breaks down the blind spots killing your team's efficiency and what elite companies do differently:
• Why your onboarding is leaking revenue
• The math behind a single bad offboarding
• How to design people processes that scale without drama
• Why "employee experience" isn’t fluffy, it’s financial
If you’ve got 5+ employees and want to hit your next level without burning out or bleeding cash, this one’s for you.
📞 Connect with Rhamy: peopleprocesses.com/partner
🛠 Free resources & tools at the end of the episode
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to CFO Chronicles the secrets behind
success, the podcast where we gobehind the scenes with business
builders, finance leaders andoperators who are scaling, smart
and leading with intention.
I'm your host, james Donovan,and today's guest is someone I
had the chance to meet just afew weeks ago at GrowCon in Utah
.
Rami Al-Ajil was one of thestandout speakers and sponsors
(00:23):
at the event, and after a fewconversations it was clear this
guy brings the goods.
We hit it off right away.
He's insightful, approachableand laser focused on helping
businesses solve one of theirbiggest blind spots people.
Rami is the CEO of PeopleProcesses, a company that helps
small to midsize businessesstreamline their HR, payroll
(00:43):
onboarding and compliance, notjust to stay out of trouble, but
to create true organizationalleverage.
He's also the author of PeopleProcesses how your People Can Be
your Organization's CompetitiveAdvantage, and he's on a
mission to help owners get outof the weeds and build systems
that scale.
But before we dive in, a bigshout out to our sponsors.
(01:04):
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Terms and conditions apply.
Now let's jump into thisepisode with the one and only
(01:27):
Rami Al-Aziz Rami thank you somuch for coming.
Yeah, Really looking forward todiving in.
You were just telling me beforewe started recording you've
been busy.
You've been busy since Girlcon.
You've been all over God'screation.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Yeah, man, I've had a lot of fun.
If you're in the accountingspace, that first quarter press
in the HR world.
January 1 is our insane spotbecause that's when a lot of
companies that's their fiscalyear, that's when they're
changing over their benefits allthat world.
Companies, that's their fiscalyear, that's when they're
changing over their benefits,all that world.
(02:06):
So we have you know, on anygiven month you think there's 12
months you should have about 8%of your contracts renewing On
January 1, we have about 40%.
So it's always a crunch timefor us.
And before our financeprofessionals dive into tax
returns, everybody needs theirW-2s.
You got all your 1099 work.
We have our 1095s on the ACAreporting.
(02:29):
So January, february is crazy.
March and April are marketingMay that world.
I just had a bunch ofconferences and then, yeah, had
a good couple trips just to fillup the time.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Awesome.
You mentioned you went toMexico, philippinesines and
japan.
Which one was your favorite ofall three, I mean?
Speaker 2 (02:48):
well, I should say mexico, because that's where I
took my wife and kids right,like that's the the time
philippines was for work.
We have some uh we'veoutsourced uh employees in the
philippines as well that areawesome, and so it's all.
It's great to get out andactually meet them and have fun,
go karaokeing and all that.
And uh, tokyo was uh just apersonal trip and it was a blast
(03:11):
, so I enjoyed every minute ofit.
Uh, I was tired when I got home, though I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
That's fair, awesome.
Well, rami, let's kick it offfrom the beginning.
What inspired you to startpeople processes and what
problems were you solving inthose early days?
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Well, you know, like every other 13 year old boy, I
dressed up in a turtleneck witha clipboard and I wanted to be
an HR guy, right?
No, like everybody, you know,you find your.
You find your spot.
I was always veryentrepreneurial and when I
started the company, I'm a nerd.
I'm a labor economics nerd inparticular, or economics nerd,
(03:46):
and I studied a lot and did mydissertations on, specifically a
couple of concepts in economicsthat are around why people work
where they work and how tooptimize that spend.
So when I started the company,I was working in the employee
benefits space, specificallyaround how do people allocate
(04:08):
those dollars more and moreeffectively.
So kind of a different side ofHR, not the sweet and loving,
you know.
Let's make everybodycomfortable and build your
culture.
Hr side it was.
You know, do you give people a25 cent an hour raise or do you
add pet insurance?
Right, and we did the math onthat for large organizations.
We wound up going down marketand eventually a lot of the data
(04:31):
we needed was in payroll, right, and doing my work.
The hardest part of it wasgetting the dang data.
I could do the analysis, writethe report, give them a good
recommendation, but we couldn'tget the data, so we wound up
acquiring a small payrollcompany Give them a good
recommendation, but we couldn'tget the data, so we wound up
acquiring a small payrollcompany and it was like, hey,
this way we can, if we're thepay, I could do the labor
analysis.
I could do the payroll for freeif I could just get the dang
(04:53):
data Right.
I didn't do it for free, but itwas a very profitable
acquisition.
And eventually, now we're doinglabor analysis and we're doing
payroll and people are askinglots of HR questions.
Right, it's like I'm using yourculture as a baseline.
I don't know why your managersare buttheads.
That's not my job, right, I'mjust here to tell you how to
(05:13):
spend your money.
And that pulled me into HR.
We acquired a small HR company,integrated that and we were able
to move down, market them, so250 employees and under.
We are that HR department forthem.
We look at how to attract andretain the best talent, lower
(05:34):
their turnover, lower their timeto hire, lower the time we call
it time to productivity or rampup, be compliant, not go to
jail, not have your businessblow up because of some
employment liability, and do theday-to-day work on it.
And what we found was as we gotsmaller and smaller, like as we
got to smaller and smallerclients, we had to do more of
(05:56):
the pieces.
It wasn't just advice we had togive, we had to do it.
So under 250, we serve as the HRdepartment for our clients and
over 250, we kind of all lookhard at it.
We still have very largeorganizations that we're purely
there in that analysis andadvisory capacity medium size,
five, 600, 700,000 that we'redoing just kind of benefits
(06:16):
analysis in that world for.
But the majority of ourbusiness is that sub 250 where
you hire us we're starting itOrganizational design, job
description, job advertisement,hiring process, pre-onboarding,
onboarding, performancemanagement, benefits,
compensation and termination,right the whole shebang.
(06:37):
And we just we not just figureit out.
We actually execute on it.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
That's so cool.
How is your approach differentfrom a typical HR tech or
payroll company?
Speaker 2 (06:51):
There's a lot of different ways of doing HR.
Most HR, when you look at itacross the competitive space, is
something like ADP.
They're a software-basedorganization.
Then they add on.
Maybe they can add somecompliance tools, they can add
compliance advice, they couldadd some culture tools and some
(07:12):
culture advice.
But if you go look at theirsoftware, which is obviously a
way of executing things, that'sthe broadest space.
When you get into the ones thatactually do advisory work, most
of them are in advice andsoftware and there's no
execution in between.
And then the ones that actuallydo the whole stack.
(07:36):
In theory, they are veryreactive, is what we find right.
So it's like you can call our1-800 number and talk to a SHRM
advisor and they'll give youadvice on how to do it, and you
can also schedule for oursystems engineer to help you,
show you what buttons to click,and it's like no one.
There's not many people in themarket that I see anyway that
are saying look, we're going tocome in, analyze your business,
find the gaps, figure out thesolutions, build it into a
(08:00):
process software driven,communicate it, do the webinars,
talk to your employees, trainyour people and then follow up
and make sure it's actuallybeing done by your managers and
figure out when not, along withactually doing the kind of HR
consulting piece of being therewhen you terminate somebody,
onboarding the employee,welcoming them to the
organization, that sort of piece.
So it's a pretty different thanwhat we see.
(08:23):
That to us the software is avery minimal piece of what we do
, but if you're doing ityourself, it's everything right.
You got to have the right tools.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
That's awesome.
A little bit of a controversialone here for you.
I know a lot of people thinkautomation and HR don't mix, but
you you argue the opposite.
So how does systemizing yourpeople's operations improve the
employee experience?
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Oh man, well, that's like saying you know, I don't
want to make my widget, I don'twant to have a process, I just
want a master craftsman tomeditate over my birdhouse that
he's going to build for me.
Right, it's like there's aplace for that.
But business is about processand optimization over and over
(09:11):
and over.
If you aren't following aprocess, there's nothing to
iterate and improve upon.
Interview people by process,because you're going to suck at
it when you start.
Or maybe you're a savant andreally good and you can just
your gut tells you who to hireand you nail it 10 out at it
when you start.
Or maybe you're a savant andreally good and you can just
your gut tells you who to hireand you nail it 10 out of 10
times.
Great.
Well, unless you're going tospend the rest of your life
(09:31):
doing interviews 40 hours a week, you got to teach someone else
how to do that.
You got to pull someone else in, and so process in people is
just as important as process inmarketing and sales and
implementation and logistics anddelivery.
You got to start with a processthat you can iterate and
improve on, and I also arguethat people processes are kind
(09:53):
of the ultimate process.
Most companies, small business,your CFO, listener.
He spends his first six monthsto three years in business
trying to figure out market fit,what he's offering, what he's
charging, what the market willsupport, what he's willing to do
like that intersection of whathe's good at, what inspires him
(10:15):
and what people will pay for.
Right, because there are a lotof things that I think are super
cool but I'm terrible at andthere are a lot of things I'm
really good at that are thatinspire me and no one will pay
me for.
But finding that spot it'stough.
And then there's that what Ithink of as kind of
entrepreneurship revisited, veryfamous book building that into
operational processes.
(10:35):
The first great filter is mostbusinesses never figure out a
product and service that aregoing to fit in the market.
That's 80% of businesses gone.
Then getting that from there toscaled operationally Now you
know what to do.
It's profitable, you like doingit.
How do you get other people todo it consistently?
(10:55):
And that's operationalprocesses.
And that gets you to anothergreat filter.
That's why you see lots of noemployee businesses or two or
three people.
You see lots of 20, 30 employeebusinesses, maybe even 50 some
industries.
But there's a great filter thereto move you from small and up,
(11:16):
and that comes from the nextgreat filter, which is when
you're operationally focused.
You're thinking every day aboutthe process to deliver your
product and all you're having todeal with is the new processes,
the novel, the things that youdon't have something written
down about.
But as you scale that rapidly,the novel, the decision making
(11:38):
rapidly exceeds one person'sability to figure out, and so
you have to come up with a newprocess to create the people who
will create the actual deliveryprocess.
So that move from I deliver toI create processes that deliver
to I create people who createprocesses who deliver is kind of
(12:00):
the trajectory of mostexecutive function.
And it's you know, not everybodygets there.
It's probably only 5% of peoplewho start a business that need
the.
First they got to figure out aproduct fit and then they got to
figure out how to like writethe recipe down.
But once they got that and thebusiness is growing, you rapidly
have to figure out how todevelop people and that's the
(12:21):
place we come in.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
There's so many great visuals there from what you're
just speaking about.
That's so good.
What's one process everybusiness should automate, but
most still don't.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Automate is a strong word, right.
Like I don't need it to beclick a button and nothing.
Like there's no humaninteraction and it all just
works Like.
First of all, a lot ofadministrative tasks should be
that way your 401k submission,your workers' compensation
pieces like there's a lot thatsmall businesses often are still
doing on paper and they'regoing to lead to error and it's
(12:57):
going to suck a bunch of time.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Stop doing that.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
What I will say is people have a tendency not to
processize things that theyshould, whether it's automated
or technologically driven withhuman intervention.
I think just a great example iswhat we call ad hoc life events
.
If your turnover is 30% whichis not bad depending on your
(13:23):
industry and you have not giventhought to what process should I
put in place for when myemployees get married, divorce,
have a kid, move kids, changeschools or have a death in the
family, right the six lifeevents that your employees are
going through.
If you can put marginal thoughtinto the process, a system of
(13:49):
what you will do when thathappens that makes the employee
feel that you care about them,allows your business to function
under those more stressfultimes.
With that employee less focused, you're going to wind up
cutting your turnover ratesignificantly, like from 30 to
20.
(14:09):
And that's huge, and you willfind then that you're able to
handle significantly morerevenue with the same number of
employees.
Just by looking at this one veryminimal people process, because
an ad hoc life event happens toall of us every two or three
years.
If you've got 20 employees,that's probably seven or 10 of
(14:31):
those a year that could haveblasted out a key employee, but
if you can put a little effortinto it, you could cut that rate
of leaving in half, and so it'sjust little stuff that would
make a big difference.
Now, of course, figuring outhow you design jobs, requisition
pay people, provide benefits,onboard them, train them like
(14:57):
yeah, do that too.
But I want to give you anexample of a very simple one
that most business ownershaven't even considered.
That is one reason why yourcompetitors are able to get more
done with the same number ofpeople you have, and I think
that's a key thought we shoulddive into, james, with your
audience, the CFO what is thecost of these bad people
processes, or not even badaverage?
Speaker 3 (15:15):
right.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
And I'm going to we'll do a call to action at the
end.
I'll put this in a calculatoror something that they can use
for their own clients.
But a key concept that yourCFOs need to be internalizing is
your productivity per employee.
You look at their payroll taxes, benefits, leave, retirement,
(15:42):
pension, whatever.
Add all that up, you got a cost$80,000 a year for this
employee.
Now I guarantee you the revenuethat they are responsible for,
the production that they getdone, is worth more than that.
You wouldn't have themotherwise, right.
So say you got a 10-personcompany.
That company does 1.8 million ayear.
(16:05):
180,000 in revenue per employee.
That's about average in the US.
Some companies it's 2 million.
That would be Apple.
Some companies it's you know,120,000, that'd be like a
daycare.
Okay, that means each employeeon average is responsible for
$180,000 of production.
Of course, some of your peopleare worth a lot more some less
(16:25):
but we're using averages.
If it takes you from the day youfire somebody to the day you
hire somebody a month and a half, 45 days.
Sherm says average is 42 to 60days, but 45, a month and a half
, 45, a month and a half, that'sa month and a half of lost
(16:46):
productivity that you're havingto fill in with other people of
the same level, which means youhave to keep additional
headcount at all times, ormanagers who are stepping down.
You're paying them more butthey're doing a low-level task,
overtime or and it's not beingdone by the person dedicated to
it, so it's being done at alower quality, rushed, less
likely to keep clients right.
Just that time to hire metric45 days.
(17:07):
Then you hire them.
How long does it take to gofrom I hired you, you do nothing
day one to you're of averageproductivity of an employee in
that role.
Mcdonald's says a fry cooktakes four months.
They hire a fry cook, it takesthem four months to produce
fries at the average speed ofMcDonald's.
(17:29):
Maybe your role is lesscomplicated than that.
Maybe it's more complicated.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
That's a wild stat.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Yeah, Four months.
You need a fry cook to stickaround for four months to pump
out the fries at the rate thatMcDonald's expects.
How long for an accountspayable clerk or a CFO?
It's a long time.
In my business it's 14 months,by the way.
We know that number.
What I use in this is an averageof, let's say, six months, A
(17:56):
little more complicated than agood fry cook.
That's six months.
You could say they're at halfproductivity.
Right, they're at 100% at six,zero at one Maybe there's a
different curve, but half.
You've now got three months ofproductivity ramp up and a month
and a half of time to hire.
Four and a half months of theyear of that guy's productivity
(18:18):
is gone.
If that happens to you fourtimes a year in a 10-person
group, you either have tomaintain a headcount of 12, or
you're leaving 20% of yourproductivity on the table, and
these are very conservativeestimates.
So if you're doing 2 million ayear on those 10 employees, if
(18:38):
you could just lower that youcould probably do 2.4 million a
year on the same people.
That's your profit, that's youras a CFO.
Looking at a business,understanding these effective
costs are a major differentiator.
You know we just don't theturnover cost, vacancy, drag
time to productivity.
Just those three, and there's abunch of other ones.
(18:59):
They're an untappedstorytelling asset for you as a
CFO going into these businesses,because you're looking at these
companies and they're saying,look, I spend this much on labor
and this much and you just takelabor as a given, but you don't
even have to make the peoplework better.
You don't have to operationallymake it better which you can do
too but you just have to makeit so that fewer of them quit.
(19:22):
When they do quit, you can hirepeople quicker, and when they
get hired, they're moreproductive, faster, Like.
Those are three very easythings to work on, especially
when you're in these businessesthat have put no thought into
their people processes.
So, it's a very valuable way tobe able to say now you can
handle two and a half milliondollars of business instead of
two million on the same spend.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
There's a lot to unpack there.
I need a calculator.
Well, my initial thought is andthis is why I love having
experts like you come on isbecause it sounds so simple for
you and, as you're saying, allthat, so many different examples
and like scenarios that havehappened, scenarios that I'm
sure will happen.
(20:08):
You're talking about all ofthese significant life events.
I don't have a process for that.
I've never even thought aboutit.
I didn't know that wassomething to think about.
So I really appreciate yousharing all of that and I'll
definitely go back and at leastput a bit of thought into it,
like you've said.
But I can imagine mostbusinesses.
You'd be the best one to ask,but I'm guessing most businesses
(20:29):
don't have that in place somedo, some don't.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Uh, I think you'll find that apple does.
I think you'll find that thatcompanies that are getting the
most out of their people are,and some of them do it because
the business, every businessowner is different, right, james
?
Like I mean I, you can ask mystaff.
I'm a nice guy but I have atendency to think in dollars and
(20:55):
cents, right, and until someonelays out for me what it's
costing me not to do that thing,I'm not really thinking about
sending birthday cakes to theirkids' graduations.
It's work, go to work.
I have that mentality and itwas.
Yeah, it's really.
I'm not a, I'm not your normalHR guy, but the reason these
(21:18):
things matter comes out to realdollars and cents.
Think about if you acquireclients right, you're a business
to business organization CFOout there and how hard you work,
your marketing, your outreach,your discovery process, sales,
qualification, the proposal, thesale.
You'd get the contract signed.
And then you wait two weeks andyou send them a black and white
(21:42):
copy in the mail of a 300-pagemanual and say, cool, that's
what we're going to do, bro,like you would never do that.
It's such a ridiculous thoughtto think about.
That's how you would treat yourclient.
But if you've got fiveemployees right, you're
expanding your labor capacity by20% on one hire.
(22:03):
And what effort are you puttinginto that experience to engage
them and motivate them?
And some of it comes down tothe same crap.
For clients it's like well,maybe we should send them some
flowers.
They really like it.
The experience becomesremarkable as in they will
remark upon it and tell theirfriends how do you lower your
(22:26):
time to hire?
Well, you make a better jobadvertisement.
Yeah, you make you pay better.
Sure, could, could be.
But you know what really helpshaving 30 people in your company
who love working there and youhave a waiting list.
Like 20 of them have friendswho want to come work for you.
If you can do that, your timeto hire is two days.
(22:47):
They will quit their job withno notice to come walk in your
door.
Right, that is a huge, hugefinancial piece and it affects
the behavior of the wholecompany, right?
Knowing that other people wantto work here, people ready in
the wings, I'm not getting alongwith my manager.
What's likely If you're at aplace no one really wants to
(23:08):
work?
A lot of moaning and whiningand they got a problem with
their manager.
They are likely to go look foranother job.
They're in the same company,but they know that a lot of
people love working here.
There are people waiting in thewings to work here.
There are Reddit threadsdedicated to how do I get a job
(23:29):
there?
Right, and they got a problemwith their manager.
First of all, they're probablygoing to give their manager a
little bit more slack and saymaybe there's something I should
talk to him about there.
But if not, the manager reallyisn't they go and go.
There's something wrong.
Everybody around me loves ithere.
I hate my manager.
They're going to go to theexecutive or to HR, go around
(23:52):
and figure out is theresomething here?
Just that hesitation gives youan opportunity to potentially
save that employee.
By the way, the reason theyhate their manager maybe because
they're a terrible employee andthey should be fired.
Like could happen.
Maintaining those standards isimportant.
It's not just about making adaycare, but I'm just saying all
of these metrics have financialeffects, but they also have
(24:13):
behavioral effects.
Right, how quickly can Ireplace this person?
How quickly can someone whostarts here get up to staff?
Like?
That's a big load off yourexisting employees.
A difference in manager,contribution to a new hire in
terms of training time and, ofcourse, lowering turnover means
that everybody gets to maintainrelationships longer, and that's
also it kind of is aself-propagating cycle.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
This is so good.
It resonates a lot as a team offive where when one person does
leave, we bring on on someoneelse, like it's such a big swing
.
We don't have a team of 100 200people where it's such a
marginal percentage of the labor.
So right, I'm really in deepthought of, I'm just hanging on
to every word you're saying hereand I have a lot to think about
(24:59):
after this recording's done.
This is really cool.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
I think another cool process that you could take a
look at is your offboardingright.
A lot of people reallyunderappreciate their
offboarding.
Offboarding is such animportant part of your people
processes.
Of course there's complianceand legal risk.
Sure, of course there'scompliance and legal risk Sure,
there's also.
But this is also, to me, themost important people process
for understanding the other ones.
(25:28):
If you lost 20% of yourbusiness, james, tomorrow, do
you think you'd sit down withyour team and go?
Where did we go wrong?
Speaker 3 (25:39):
And when they go that 20% client.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
They were just assholes.
We don't even like them.
I don't even know why youbrought them on.
You would say, well, let's divein a bit deeper, because I
thought we did go to work withthem.
Maybe there's something in oursales qualification process we
need to start cutting out.
And it's the same with anemployee when you lose an
employee, either you fire themor they quit.
That is your opportunity to goback to the processes and figure
(26:04):
out did we scope the job wrongJob design?
Did we advertise and get theright kind of candidates?
Did we screen and interviewappropriately?
And if the answer is, by theway, this guy was a bad fit.
He was a druggy asshole whowouldn't do his work.
Guy was a bad fit, he was adruggy asshole who wouldn't do
his work.
It's like, okay, well, that'sour fault too.
(26:25):
We're glad he's gone, butthat's our fault.
We never should have hired him.
Let's figure that out.
Or they're a great candidate.
And then it's like where did weover-promise, where did we
under-deliver in that careerjourney, in those lifecycle
events?
And you want to use each one ofthose off boardings as an
opportunity to go back and thinkif I could just improve one
(26:47):
thing every time someone firesor is quit, you're going to
consistently lower thatpercentage, and the net effect
on your productivity is soinsanely high.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
What I'm hearing is just having extreme ownership.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
It's always your fault, anything in the business
business.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Yeah, everything's your fault and what could you
have done as the owner, as theteam, to improve it?
And I think that's such a sucha healthy way to look at it and
maybe not everyone looks at itthe same way, but I've had to
learn that lesson the hard way.
You know clients leave, teammembers leave, and you know it's
their fault and it's never mine.
Well, eventually, who's thecommon denominator?
(27:23):
It was me.
And then it's looking reallyhard in the mirror.
Okay, what could I have donedifferent?
And I really like what you'resaying there, because I and I
still have room to grow.
But I really try to applyextreme ownership to everything
and think how much of this ismine to to own?
And where could I have donebetter to either set that person
(27:43):
up for success or to set theclient up for success or
whatever it is, but it's.
I rarely look at the case nowsaying, yeah, that was the
client's fault, no, it's, I'mowning.
Majority of the percent,percentage of that.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
And the likelihood is yeah, and a lot of times the
client.
So I mean we have this happen.
Clients bring us in way toolate.
Yeah Right, I'm under aDepartment of Labor audit.
I have a class action lawsuitfrom 20 employees who are suing
me for discrimination and unpaidovertime, and I'd love for you
to come in and do my HR takethat client on that.
(28:24):
I'm entering into arelationship that's likely to
end in failure.
The people that I'm working withdon't care about this stuff,
obviously, right.
So do you want to screen forthose things?
And is it something that youdon't want to work with?
Or do you want to be the fixerwho goes into those spaces?
Right, if you're the CFO, youwant to go into turnaround cases
(28:44):
, build your model to go thatway and qualify for it.
You know it means thatcompanies that are in clean
financials may not be yourtarget audience and you should
charge a lot more so that peoplewith clean financials wouldn't
come to you, only the people onfire.
Don't screw up your pricing andcharge for clean and get a
(29:05):
burning mess.
So just up to you.
But it all goes back to I wouldadd that to the extreme
ownership the process-drivenside.
So it's my fault.
I've identified a problem andI'm going to make a change on a
process.
Not I should have spoken tothat guy differently in that
meeting Probably should have butis that something that you can
(29:28):
reproduce and actually make anedit to?
And every once in a while, onceyou get the, once you do this
for a few years, you'll startlooking at things going.
I don't even know what I wouldchange.
I I feel like I'm havingtrouble and that's where kind of
outside help often comes in,because it's like I'm out of
ideas on how to fix this issue.
Yeah, um, that's so good formost business owners.
They can get 80% of the waythere just by putting some
(29:49):
thought in.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
That's so good.
All right, A couple, a coupleof rapid fire questions for you,
Rami, and then we'll.
We'll wrap things up here inthe next handful of minutes.
Um book or mentor that's madethe biggest impact on your
business mindset businessmindset Oof, um, uh.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
lots of books.
I read a ton.
I enjoyed the it's it's it'strope, but the first 87 pages of
entrepreneurship 2.0, um is anamazing guide into vision
setting and figuring out whatyou want your company to do.
Uh, the ultimate sales machineby Justin Rolf Marsh is actually
my favorite sales book by farfor designing an organization
(30:31):
that sells, and I think that's areally I think every business
owner should read that, becauseI spent years in sales and that
book changed everything about mybusiness, how I Raised Myself
from Failure to Success inSelling.
By Frank Betker written in 1955,to get the traditional view of
(30:53):
that stuff, and it's really goodtoo.
Those are probably my top threebooks that I can just think of
off the top of my head.
Personal Development I love thecompound effect by Darren Hardy
.
You haven't read that yet.
You should.
It's a great process-drivenidea to personal development
(31:15):
that I'm a big fan of.
And yeah, I think that there'syour reading list.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
Awesome.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Appreciate you sharing that what's one system
or process you use in yourpersonal life that you can't
live without.
I am a nut, for I'm going toI'm going to call it a system or
process but I use tonal, whichis a weightlifting system that's
in my gym.
It's like really sleek andmodern and all that, but it's
(31:38):
the.
The metrics are so cool.
Like I look at total volumelifted, uh, and it automatically
tracks that stuff.
I can click a button and see mybest, my, my pieces on those.
So I've been super into thatfor the last two or three years,
uh, slowly progressing myvolume.
And then, as a personal processyou can see right there, I
actually keep three journals atall times.
(32:00):
Um, I'm a I'm a nut for uh,fountain pens and and kind of uh
high end writing supplies and Ialways keep my various journals
and pieces in there.
I journal every morning andalways do a recap at night.
And the three differentjournals I keep the top one is
like a year-long kind of singlejournal planner.
The big one at the bottom is mypersonal development and those
(32:24):
pieces, and the one in themiddle is my business pieces.
So every morning I actuallywake up, work out and then I
spend just 15, 20 minutes, but Igo through each one of those
and it keeps me on track.
And then at the end of thenight I use the personal one
just to have a little checklistof 10 items and how many I got.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Nice, that's awesome when you're not speaking,
leading or building.
What do you do to recharge?
Speaker 2 (32:46):
I am an avid reader of trash, so I love to read and
I do try to read good booksevery now and again, but I read
trash.
I'm a big fan of RoyalRoadcom.
It's like fantasy isekai.
That day I died and was rebornas a slime.
(33:06):
Just trash Fanfiction.
I still read a good HarryPotter fanfic and, um, that's,
that's very much my thing.
I have in my den downstairs, Ihave my reading chair, I have my
tablet and my Kindle and anentire library of books, and so
most days I get off work, havedinner with the family and I'm
(33:27):
sitting there just reading trash.
That's my, that's my getaway.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
I love it Fully disconnecting.
Yeah, if someone listeningtoday is overwhelmed by HR or
unsure where to begin, what'sthe first move you'd recommend?
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Well, besides calling me, because we can totally help
with that, or is this my callto action spot?
Speaker 1 (33:48):
Whatever, hey what would you recommend?
I'm going to give you twopieces.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
One is you're not ready to talk to me.
I want you to think about thelife cycle of your employee,
from when they see your job adto when they interview.
Pre-onboarding, which is likebackground checks and skills
test, onboarding Onboarding islike their first 90.
It's the time, it's the ramp upperiod, right From started to
full productivity, and that'snot day one.
(34:13):
Look at that experience,performance reviews, maybe, and
offboarding, and maybe those adhoc life events.
Make that list.
Go back, listen again and justthink about what you actually do
.
Systemology David over there isamazing.
He always says write down whatyou do now.
(34:33):
Don't be aspirational.
Right, make your system whatyou actually do now.
Write it down.
Jack talks to them for an hourabout all the things we do.
Okay, that's your process.
Write it down and just take alook at what you're trying to
accomplish with each one ofthose right.
With an advertisement, you'retrying to get the right person
to apply.
Look at your ad Does it do thatRight?
(34:55):
With interviewing, you'retrying to filter from those
people to the best fit for youand once you find that person,
you want them to actually acceptthe job.
So it is both a filter and asale.
Do you actually do that?
And when you look at all thisyou're going to go oh my God, no
(35:17):
, I do it all poorly and that'sokay.
Most businesses do 99% of thestuff they do poorly.
Just write it down, look at thegoal and make one improvement,
just one improvement on each oneof these spots and you will
find you don't need 15 years ofexperience doing this stuff for
thousands of companies you canget.
If you can get the stupid stuffout, you will hugely increase
(35:39):
your ability to attract andretain talent.
And I believe in you.
You're running a businessYou're doing great.
Just put a little bit of effortinto that.
The way I do it.
Again, journal-wise, I alwaysbook an hour every week to look
at my people processes.
It's my HR department meeting.
But now that we have people onit, but back in the day it was
like how am I going to make mylabor go further and do well on
(35:59):
it?
So just book an hour, it's yourown meeting.
Keep a single journal onlineLLM, whatever you want to do
piece of paper and write downthose things and look at how you
can improve it and see if youcan make one small improvement a
week and in a year you're goingto have a heck of an employment
practice.
Okay, having said that, I offerfree consultations Any US-based
(36:21):
employee that has more than 10employees.
You can reach me atpeopleprocessescom.
There's a button to request aconsult.
Book it.
It will be with me.
I allow three a week.
They're 30 minutes each.
So if you go on there andthere's nothing for a month, I'm
sorry.
You can email me if it's urgentand I'll be happy to fit you in
.
I just try not to let it getover built out, but I'm happy to
(36:43):
help.
We also have tons of great toolsat our YouTube page People
Processes.
It's youtubecom slash, peopleprocesses.
It's also on our website andthey had a lot of downloads like
a lot of downloadable materialon there.
If you don't know what to dowith onboarding, there's an
onboarding checklist.
If you're not sure if your jobad's right, there's a job ad
example and questionnaire.
(37:03):
If you don't know if you'repaying people appropriately,
there's a performancecompensation analysis tool, like
.
All of that's available forfree and if you meet with me for
30 minutes, it's mainly goingto be me figuring out what the
problem is and saying here's thesix free tools.
I have to go deal with that,and if you need more help than
that, then I'd love to talkabout handling your HR for you.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
Amazing, so good.
Last question for you whenpeople hear people processes,
what do you want that name tomean to them?
Speaker 2 (37:34):
That's a good question.
We have our core values.
So when I think about the name,I think about the brand, and
the brand is actually theexperience people have
interacting with it, right?
So we focus very much on ourprofessionalism, our
responsiveness and ourpoliteness.
(37:54):
I know it's weird to thinkabout politeness as a thing, but
we're in really weird waters alot of times and people are
yelling at us for no reason.
So we actually look at thosethree core values all the time
professionalism, responsible, uh, responsiveness and politeness.
And so I think and I think ifyou ask my clients in fact I
know if you ask my clients howwell we reflect that those three
(38:15):
are very highly reflected.
Um, I also think that whenpeople think about people
processes, they think about thepersonal, deep interactions
they've had with my team.
If they're a client, um, we'rethere in some of the worst parts
of running a business.
No one gets into HR cause it'ssexy, right, it's not like oh,
(38:36):
that's the best, I lovecompliance.
Oh, yes, this is why I wantedto run a company for employees
to complain, a grievance process, thank you, that's not what it
is.
So we kind of are in the we'rein the shit with the client a
lot and I think a lot of times,the reason we retain so long is
(38:56):
because there aren't manyvendors in your company, there
aren't many employees who haveseen where the bodies get buried
, really seen, like we had tomake this choice.
It is what it is and it hurts,you know, and we're on your side
for that part.
So I think that's a big part ofit.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
That's incredible.
Rami, thank you so much forcoming on and sharing so much
wisdom and insight.
It was an absolute pleasuremeeting you at Grokon.
I hope that we can see eachother again real soon at another
event or cross paths if we'rein the same city.
I can't thank you enough forcoming on and sharing everything
you have this afternoon.
It is my pleasure.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
I do want to do one quick call to action, if people
are still listening.
Absolutely, peopleprocessescomslash partner is our financial
professionals partner program.
It's purely for fractional CFOs, fractional COOs, bookkeepers.
We have on there really cooltools for you.
We have some cool opportunitieslike revenue sharing and
(39:53):
marketing pieces that can reallyhelp you grow your business,
and we also can teach you how toutilize these hr data to data
to tell stories so that you canattract new clients and look at
your old clients with kind of afresh set of eyes and a new set
of tools.
That's peopleprocessescom slashpartner and we'd love to see
you there.
Speaker 1 (40:12):
Awesome.
We'll put that in the shownotes so people can get in touch
.
Check out that link Again.
I can't thank you enough forcoming on and sharing your time
and just for an amazingconversation.
Thank you so much, rami.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
My pleasure, thank you.
Speaker 1 (40:24):
Thanks for tuning into this episode of CFO
Chronicles the secrets behindsuccess.
I hope you found value intoday's conversation.
As we wrap up, I'd love for youto do two things.
First, make sure to subscribeto this podcast so you don't
miss any future episodes.
If you enjoyed today'sdiscussion, please rate and
review the show.
It helps others discover theinsights we share here.
Second, if you're ready to takeyour business to the next level
(40:47):
and attract the high endclients you deserve, head over
to accounting leads nowcom orclick the link in the show notes
to book your strategy.
Call.
It's time to position yourselfas the advisor your clients need
.
And don't forget you canconnect with me on LinkedIn to
stay up to date on what'shappening in the world of
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We've got exciting topicscoming up, so stay tuned for the
next episode of CFO Chronicles.
(41:08):
Until then, keep pushingforward.
Your growth is just onestrategic move away.
Speaker 3 (41:14):
Thanks for listening to CFO Chronicles the secrets
behind success.
We hope today's episodeprovided valuable strategies to
help you attract morehigh-paying clients.
Be sure to subscribe, followand share with fellow
professionals.
Connect with us on LinkedIn andleave a review or comment to
join the conversation.
Your feedback helps us bringyou the best insights in finance
(41:38):
and marketing.
Until next time, keep strivingfor success and unlocking your
business's potential.
Welcome back to CFO Chronicles the secrets behind
success, the podcast where we gobehind the scenes with business
builders, finance leaders andoperators who are scaling, smart
and leading with intention.
I'm your host, james Donovan,and today's guest is someone I
had the chance to meet just afew weeks ago at GrowCon in Utah
.
Rami Al-Ajil was one of thestandout speakers and sponsors
(00:23):
at the event, and after a fewconversations it was clear this
guy brings the goods.
We hit it off right away.
He's insightful, approachableand laser focused on helping
businesses solve one of theirbiggest blind spots people.
Rami is the CEO of PeopleProcesses, a company that helps
small to midsize businessesstreamline their HR, payroll
(00:43):
onboarding and compliance, notjust to stay out of trouble, but
to create true organizationalleverage.
He's also the author of PeopleProcesses how your People Can Be
your Organization's CompetitiveAdvantage, and he's on a
mission to help owners get outof the weeds and build systems
that scale.
But before we dive in, a bigshout out to our sponsors.
(01:04):
Billcom If you're stillmanaging expenses manually or
chasing down approvals, it'stime to upgrade.
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Check out your exclusive offerat billcom slash promo 500.
Terms and conditions apply.
Now let's jump into thisepisode with the one and only
(01:27):
Rami Al-Aziz Rami thank you somuch for coming.
Yeah, Really looking forward todiving in.
You were just telling me beforewe started recording you've
been busy.
You've been busy since Girlcon.
You've been all over God'screation.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Yeah, man, I've had a lot of fun.
If you're in the accountingspace, that first quarter press
in the HR world.
January 1 is our insane spotbecause that's when a lot of
companies that's their fiscalyear, that's when they're
changing over their benefits allthat world.
Companies, that's their fiscalyear, that's when they're
changing over their benefits,all that world.
(02:06):
So we have you know, on anygiven month you think there's 12
months you should have about 8%of your contracts renewing On
January 1, we have about 40%.
So it's always a crunch timefor us.
And before our financeprofessionals dive into tax
returns, everybody needs theirW-2s.
You got all your 1099 work.
We have our 1095s on the ACAreporting.
(02:29):
So January, february is crazy.
March and April are marketingMay that world.
I just had a bunch ofconferences and then, yeah, had
a good couple trips just to fillup the time.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Awesome.
You mentioned you went toMexico, philippinesines and
japan.
Which one was your favorite ofall three, I mean?
Speaker 2 (02:48):
well, I should say mexico, because that's where I
took my wife and kids right,like that's the the time
philippines was for work.
We have some uh we'veoutsourced uh employees in the
philippines as well that areawesome, and so it's all.
It's great to get out andactually meet them and have fun,
go karaokeing and all that.
And uh, tokyo was uh just apersonal trip and it was a blast
(03:11):
, so I enjoyed every minute ofit.
Uh, I was tired when I got home, though I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
That's fair, awesome.
Well, rami, let's kick it offfrom the beginning.
What inspired you to startpeople processes and what
problems were you solving inthose early days?
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Well, you know, like every other 13 year old boy, I
dressed up in a turtleneck witha clipboard and I wanted to be
an HR guy, right?
No, like everybody, you know,you find your.
You find your spot.
I was always veryentrepreneurial and when I
started the company, I'm a nerd.
I'm a labor economics nerd inparticular, or economics nerd,
(03:46):
and I studied a lot and did mydissertations on, specifically a
couple of concepts in economicsthat are around why people work
where they work and how tooptimize that spend.
So when I started the company,I was working in the employee
benefits space, specificallyaround how do people allocate
(04:08):
those dollars more and moreeffectively.
So kind of a different side ofHR, not the sweet and loving,
you know.
Let's make everybodycomfortable and build your
culture.
Hr side it was.
You know, do you give people a25 cent an hour raise or do you
add pet insurance?
Right, and we did the math onthat for large organizations.
We wound up going down marketand eventually a lot of the data
(04:31):
we needed was in payroll, right, and doing my work.
The hardest part of it wasgetting the dang data.
I could do the analysis, writethe report, give them a good
recommendation, but we couldn'tget the data, so we wound up
acquiring a small payrollcompany Give them a good
recommendation, but we couldn'tget the data, so we wound up
acquiring a small payrollcompany and it was like, hey,
this way we can, if we're thepay, I could do the labor
analysis.
I could do the payroll for freeif I could just get the dang
(04:53):
data Right.
I didn't do it for free, but itwas a very profitable
acquisition.
And eventually, now we're doinglabor analysis and we're doing
payroll and people are askinglots of HR questions.
Right, it's like I'm using yourculture as a baseline.
I don't know why your managersare buttheads.
That's not my job, right, I'mjust here to tell you how to
(05:13):
spend your money.
And that pulled me into HR.
We acquired a small HR company,integrated that and we were able
to move down, market them, so250 employees and under.
We are that HR department forthem.
We look at how to attract andretain the best talent, lower
(05:34):
their turnover, lower their timeto hire, lower the time we call
it time to productivity or rampup, be compliant, not go to
jail, not have your businessblow up because of some
employment liability, and do theday-to-day work on it.
And what we found was as we gotsmaller and smaller, like as we
got to smaller and smallerclients, we had to do more of
(05:56):
the pieces.
It wasn't just advice we had togive, we had to do it.
So under 250, we serve as the HRdepartment for our clients and
over 250, we kind of all lookhard at it.
We still have very largeorganizations that we're purely
there in that analysis andadvisory capacity medium size,
five, 600, 700,000 that we'redoing just kind of benefits
(06:16):
analysis in that world for.
But the majority of ourbusiness is that sub 250 where
you hire us we're starting itOrganizational design, job
description, job advertisement,hiring process, pre-onboarding,
onboarding, performancemanagement, benefits,
compensation and termination,right the whole shebang.
(06:37):
And we just we not just figureit out.
We actually execute on it.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
That's so cool.
How is your approach differentfrom a typical HR tech or
payroll company?
Speaker 2 (06:51):
There's a lot of different ways of doing HR.
Most HR, when you look at itacross the competitive space, is
something like ADP.
They're a software-basedorganization.
Then they add on.
Maybe they can add somecompliance tools, they can add
compliance advice, they couldadd some culture tools and some
(07:12):
culture advice.
But if you go look at theirsoftware, which is obviously a
way of executing things, that'sthe broadest space.
When you get into the ones thatactually do advisory work, most
of them are in advice andsoftware and there's no
execution in between.
And then the ones that actuallydo the whole stack.
(07:36):
In theory, they are veryreactive, is what we find right.
So it's like you can call our1-800 number and talk to a SHRM
advisor and they'll give youadvice on how to do it, and you
can also schedule for oursystems engineer to help you,
show you what buttons to click,and it's like no one.
There's not many people in themarket that I see anyway that
are saying look, we're going tocome in, analyze your business,
find the gaps, figure out thesolutions, build it into a
(08:00):
process software driven,communicate it, do the webinars,
talk to your employees, trainyour people and then follow up
and make sure it's actuallybeing done by your managers and
figure out when not, along withactually doing the kind of HR
consulting piece of being therewhen you terminate somebody,
onboarding the employee,welcoming them to the
organization, that sort of piece.
So it's a pretty different thanwhat we see.
(08:23):
That to us the software is avery minimal piece of what we do
, but if you're doing ityourself, it's everything right.
You got to have the right tools.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
That's awesome.
A little bit of a controversialone here for you.
I know a lot of people thinkautomation and HR don't mix, but
you you argue the opposite.
So how does systemizing yourpeople's operations improve the
employee experience?
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Oh man, well, that's like saying you know, I don't
want to make my widget, I don'twant to have a process, I just
want a master craftsman tomeditate over my birdhouse that
he's going to build for me.
Right, it's like there's aplace for that.
But business is about processand optimization over and over
(09:11):
and over.
If you aren't following aprocess, there's nothing to
iterate and improve upon.
Interview people by process,because you're going to suck at
it when you start.
Or maybe you're a savant andreally good and you can just
your gut tells you who to hireand you nail it 10 out at it
when you start.
Or maybe you're a savant andreally good and you can just
your gut tells you who to hireand you nail it 10 out of 10
times.
Great.
Well, unless you're going tospend the rest of your life
(09:31):
doing interviews 40 hours a week, you got to teach someone else
how to do that.
You got to pull someone else in, and so process in people is
just as important as process inmarketing and sales and
implementation and logistics anddelivery.
You got to start with a processthat you can iterate and
improve on, and I also arguethat people processes are kind
(09:53):
of the ultimate process.
Most companies, small business,your CFO, listener.
He spends his first six monthsto three years in business
trying to figure out market fit,what he's offering, what he's
charging, what the market willsupport, what he's willing to do
like that intersection of whathe's good at, what inspires him
(10:15):
and what people will pay for.
Right, because there are a lotof things that I think are super
cool but I'm terrible at andthere are a lot of things I'm
really good at that are thatinspire me and no one will pay
me for.
But finding that spot it'stough.
And then there's that what Ithink of as kind of
entrepreneurship revisited, veryfamous book building that into
operational processes.
(10:35):
The first great filter is mostbusinesses never figure out a
product and service that aregoing to fit in the market.
That's 80% of businesses gone.
Then getting that from there toscaled operationally Now you
know what to do.
It's profitable, you like doingit.
How do you get other people todo it consistently?
(10:55):
And that's operationalprocesses.
And that gets you to anothergreat filter.
That's why you see lots of noemployee businesses or two or
three people.
You see lots of 20, 30 employeebusinesses, maybe even 50 some
industries.
But there's a great filter thereto move you from small and up,
(11:16):
and that comes from the nextgreat filter, which is when
you're operationally focused.
You're thinking every day aboutthe process to deliver your
product and all you're having todeal with is the new processes,
the novel, the things that youdon't have something written
down about.
But as you scale that rapidly,the novel, the decision making
(11:38):
rapidly exceeds one person'sability to figure out, and so
you have to come up with a newprocess to create the people who
will create the actual deliveryprocess.
So that move from I deliver toI create processes that deliver
to I create people who createprocesses who deliver is kind of
(12:00):
the trajectory of mostexecutive function.
And it's you know, not everybodygets there.
It's probably only 5% of peoplewho start a business that need
the.
First they got to figure out aproduct fit and then they got to
figure out how to like writethe recipe down.
But once they got that and thebusiness is growing, you rapidly
have to figure out how todevelop people and that's the
(12:21):
place we come in.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
There's so many great visuals there from what you're
just speaking about.
That's so good.
What's one process everybusiness should automate, but
most still don't.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Automate is a strong word, right.
Like I don't need it to beclick a button and nothing.
Like there's no humaninteraction and it all just
works Like.
First of all, a lot ofadministrative tasks should be
that way your 401k submission,your workers' compensation
pieces like there's a lot thatsmall businesses often are still
doing on paper and they'regoing to lead to error and it's
(12:57):
going to suck a bunch of time.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Stop doing that.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
What I will say is people have a tendency not to
processize things that theyshould, whether it's automated
or technologically driven withhuman intervention.
I think just a great example iswhat we call ad hoc life events
.
If your turnover is 30% whichis not bad depending on your
(13:23):
industry and you have not giventhought to what process should I
put in place for when myemployees get married, divorce,
have a kid, move kids, changeschools or have a death in the
family, right the six lifeevents that your employees are
going through.
If you can put marginal thoughtinto the process, a system of
(13:49):
what you will do when thathappens that makes the employee
feel that you care about them,allows your business to function
under those more stressfultimes.
With that employee less focused, you're going to wind up
cutting your turnover ratesignificantly, like from 30 to
20.
(14:09):
And that's huge, and you willfind then that you're able to
handle significantly morerevenue with the same number of
employees.
Just by looking at this one veryminimal people process, because
an ad hoc life event happens toall of us every two or three
years.
If you've got 20 employees,that's probably seven or 10 of
(14:31):
those a year that could haveblasted out a key employee, but
if you can put a little effortinto it, you could cut that rate
of leaving in half, and so it'sjust little stuff that would
make a big difference.
Now, of course, figuring outhow you design jobs, requisition
pay people, provide benefits,onboard them, train them like
(14:57):
yeah, do that too.
But I want to give you anexample of a very simple one
that most business ownershaven't even considered.
That is one reason why yourcompetitors are able to get more
done with the same number ofpeople you have, and I think
that's a key thought we shoulddive into, james, with your
audience, the CFO what is thecost of these bad people
processes, or not even badaverage?
Speaker 3 (15:15):
right.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
And I'm going to we'll do a call to action at the
end.
I'll put this in a calculatoror something that they can use
for their own clients.
But a key concept that yourCFOs need to be internalizing is
your productivity per employee.
You look at their payroll taxes, benefits, leave, retirement,
(15:42):
pension, whatever.
Add all that up, you got a cost$80,000 a year for this
employee.
Now I guarantee you the revenuethat they are responsible for,
the production that they getdone, is worth more than that.
You wouldn't have themotherwise, right.
So say you got a 10-personcompany.
That company does 1.8 million ayear.
(16:05):
180,000 in revenue per employee.
That's about average in the US.
Some companies it's 2 million.
That would be Apple.
Some companies it's you know,120,000, that'd be like a
daycare.
Okay, that means each employeeon average is responsible for
$180,000 of production.
Of course, some of your peopleare worth a lot more some less
(16:25):
but we're using averages.
If it takes you from the day youfire somebody to the day you
hire somebody a month and a half, 45 days.
Sherm says average is 42 to 60days, but 45, a month and a half
, 45, a month and a half, that'sa month and a half of lost
(16:46):
productivity that you're havingto fill in with other people of
the same level, which means youhave to keep additional
headcount at all times, ormanagers who are stepping down.
You're paying them more butthey're doing a low-level task,
overtime or and it's not beingdone by the person dedicated to
it, so it's being done at alower quality, rushed, less
likely to keep clients right.
Just that time to hire metric45 days.
(17:07):
Then you hire them.
How long does it take to gofrom I hired you, you do nothing
day one to you're of averageproductivity of an employee in
that role.
Mcdonald's says a fry cooktakes four months.
They hire a fry cook, it takesthem four months to produce
fries at the average speed ofMcDonald's.
(17:29):
Maybe your role is lesscomplicated than that.
Maybe it's more complicated.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
That's a wild stat.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Yeah, Four months.
You need a fry cook to stickaround for four months to pump
out the fries at the rate thatMcDonald's expects.
How long for an accountspayable clerk or a CFO?
It's a long time.
In my business it's 14 months,by the way.
We know that number.
What I use in this is an averageof, let's say, six months, A
(17:56):
little more complicated than agood fry cook.
That's six months.
You could say they're at halfproductivity.
Right, they're at 100% at six,zero at one Maybe there's a
different curve, but half.
You've now got three months ofproductivity ramp up and a month
and a half of time to hire.
Four and a half months of theyear of that guy's productivity
(18:18):
is gone.
If that happens to you fourtimes a year in a 10-person
group, you either have tomaintain a headcount of 12, or
you're leaving 20% of yourproductivity on the table, and
these are very conservativeestimates.
So if you're doing 2 million ayear on those 10 employees, if
(18:38):
you could just lower that youcould probably do 2.4 million a
year on the same people.
That's your profit, that's youras a CFO.
Looking at a business,understanding these effective
costs are a major differentiator.
You know we just don't theturnover cost, vacancy, drag
time to productivity.
Just those three, and there's abunch of other ones.
(18:59):
They're an untappedstorytelling asset for you as a
CFO going into these businesses,because you're looking at these
companies and they're saying,look, I spend this much on labor
and this much and you just takelabor as a given, but you don't
even have to make the peoplework better.
You don't have to operationallymake it better which you can do
too but you just have to makeit so that fewer of them quit.
(19:22):
When they do quit, you can hirepeople quicker, and when they
get hired, they're moreproductive, faster, Like.
Those are three very easythings to work on, especially
when you're in these businessesthat have put no thought into
their people processes.
So, it's a very valuable way tobe able to say now you can
handle two and a half milliondollars of business instead of
two million on the same spend.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
There's a lot to unpack there.
I need a calculator.
Well, my initial thought is andthis is why I love having
experts like you come on isbecause it sounds so simple for
you and, as you're saying, allthat, so many different examples
and like scenarios that havehappened, scenarios that I'm
sure will happen.
(20:08):
You're talking about all ofthese significant life events.
I don't have a process for that.
I've never even thought aboutit.
I didn't know that wassomething to think about.
So I really appreciate yousharing all of that and I'll
definitely go back and at leastput a bit of thought into it,
like you've said.
But I can imagine mostbusinesses.
You'd be the best one to ask,but I'm guessing most businesses
(20:29):
don't have that in place somedo, some don't.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Uh, I think you'll find that apple does.
I think you'll find that thatcompanies that are getting the
most out of their people are,and some of them do it because
the business, every businessowner is different, right, james
?
Like I mean I, you can ask mystaff.
I'm a nice guy but I have atendency to think in dollars and
(20:55):
cents, right, and until someonelays out for me what it's
costing me not to do that thing,I'm not really thinking about
sending birthday cakes to theirkids' graduations.
It's work, go to work.
I have that mentality and itwas.
Yeah, it's really.
I'm not a, I'm not your normalHR guy, but the reason these
(21:18):
things matter comes out to realdollars and cents.
Think about if you acquireclients right, you're a business
to business organization CFOout there and how hard you work,
your marketing, your outreach,your discovery process, sales,
qualification, the proposal, thesale.
You'd get the contract signed.
And then you wait two weeks andyou send them a black and white
(21:42):
copy in the mail of a 300-pagemanual and say, cool, that's
what we're going to do, bro,like you would never do that.
It's such a ridiculous thoughtto think about.
That's how you would treat yourclient.
But if you've got fiveemployees right, you're
expanding your labor capacity by20% on one hire.
(22:03):
And what effort are you puttinginto that experience to engage
them and motivate them?
And some of it comes down tothe same crap.
For clients it's like well,maybe we should send them some
flowers.
They really like it.
The experience becomesremarkable as in they will
remark upon it and tell theirfriends how do you lower your
(22:26):
time to hire?
Well, you make a better jobadvertisement.
Yeah, you make you pay better.
Sure, could, could be.
But you know what really helpshaving 30 people in your company
who love working there and youhave a waiting list.
Like 20 of them have friendswho want to come work for you.
If you can do that, your timeto hire is two days.
(22:47):
They will quit their job withno notice to come walk in your
door.
Right, that is a huge, hugefinancial piece and it affects
the behavior of the wholecompany, right?
Knowing that other people wantto work here, people ready in
the wings, I'm not getting alongwith my manager.
What's likely If you're at aplace no one really wants to
(23:08):
work?
A lot of moaning and whiningand they got a problem with
their manager.
They are likely to go look foranother job.
They're in the same company,but they know that a lot of
people love working here.
There are people waiting in thewings to work here.
There are Reddit threadsdedicated to how do I get a job
(23:29):
there?
Right, and they got a problemwith their manager.
First of all, they're probablygoing to give their manager a
little bit more slack and saymaybe there's something I should
talk to him about there.
But if not, the manager reallyisn't they go and go.
There's something wrong.
Everybody around me loves ithere.
I hate my manager.
They're going to go to theexecutive or to HR, go around
(23:52):
and figure out is theresomething here?
Just that hesitation gives youan opportunity to potentially
save that employee.
By the way, the reason theyhate their manager maybe because
they're a terrible employee andthey should be fired.
Like could happen.
Maintaining those standards isimportant.
It's not just about making adaycare, but I'm just saying all
of these metrics have financialeffects, but they also have
(24:13):
behavioral effects.
Right, how quickly can Ireplace this person?
How quickly can someone whostarts here get up to staff?
Like?
That's a big load off yourexisting employees.
A difference in manager,contribution to a new hire in
terms of training time and, ofcourse, lowering turnover means
that everybody gets to maintainrelationships longer, and that's
also it kind of is aself-propagating cycle.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
This is so good.
It resonates a lot as a team offive where when one person does
leave, we bring on on someoneelse, like it's such a big swing
.
We don't have a team of 100 200people where it's such a
marginal percentage of the labor.
So right, I'm really in deepthought of, I'm just hanging on
to every word you're saying hereand I have a lot to think about
(24:59):
after this recording's done.
This is really cool.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
I think another cool process that you could take a
look at is your offboardingright.
A lot of people reallyunderappreciate their
offboarding.
Offboarding is such animportant part of your people
processes.
Of course there's complianceand legal risk.
Sure, of course there'scompliance and legal risk Sure,
there's also.
But this is also, to me, themost important people process
for understanding the other ones.
(25:28):
If you lost 20% of yourbusiness, james, tomorrow, do
you think you'd sit down withyour team and go?
Where did we go wrong?
Speaker 3 (25:39):
And when they go that 20% client.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
They were just assholes.
We don't even like them.
I don't even know why youbrought them on.
You would say, well, let's divein a bit deeper, because I
thought we did go to work withthem.
Maybe there's something in oursales qualification process we
need to start cutting out.
And it's the same with anemployee when you lose an
employee, either you fire themor they quit.
That is your opportunity to goback to the processes and figure
(26:04):
out did we scope the job wrongJob design?
Did we advertise and get theright kind of candidates?
Did we screen and interviewappropriately?
And if the answer is, by theway, this guy was a bad fit.
He was a druggy asshole whowouldn't do his work.
Guy was a bad fit, he was adruggy asshole who wouldn't do
his work.
It's like, okay, well, that'sour fault too.
(26:25):
We're glad he's gone, butthat's our fault.
We never should have hired him.
Let's figure that out.
Or they're a great candidate.
And then it's like where did weover-promise, where did we
under-deliver in that careerjourney, in those lifecycle
events?
And you want to use each one ofthose off boardings as an
opportunity to go back and thinkif I could just improve one
(26:47):
thing every time someone firesor is quit, you're going to
consistently lower thatpercentage, and the net effect
on your productivity is soinsanely high.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
What I'm hearing is just having extreme ownership.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
It's always your fault, anything in the business
business.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Yeah, everything's your fault and what could you
have done as the owner, as theteam, to improve it?
And I think that's such a sucha healthy way to look at it and
maybe not everyone looks at itthe same way, but I've had to
learn that lesson the hard way.
You know clients leave, teammembers leave, and you know it's
their fault and it's never mine.
Well, eventually, who's thecommon denominator?
(27:23):
It was me.
And then it's looking reallyhard in the mirror.
Okay, what could I have donedifferent?
And I really like what you'resaying there, because I and I
still have room to grow.
But I really try to applyextreme ownership to everything
and think how much of this ismine to to own?
And where could I have donebetter to either set that person
(27:43):
up for success or to set theclient up for success or
whatever it is, but it's.
I rarely look at the case nowsaying, yeah, that was the
client's fault, no, it's, I'mowning.
Majority of the percent,percentage of that.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
And the likelihood is yeah, and a lot of times the
client.
So I mean we have this happen.
Clients bring us in way toolate.
Yeah Right, I'm under aDepartment of Labor audit.
I have a class action lawsuitfrom 20 employees who are suing
me for discrimination and unpaidovertime, and I'd love for you
to come in and do my HR takethat client on that.
(28:24):
I'm entering into arelationship that's likely to
end in failure.
The people that I'm working withdon't care about this stuff,
obviously, right.
So do you want to screen forthose things?
And is it something that youdon't want to work with?
Or do you want to be the fixerwho goes into those spaces?
Right, if you're the CFO, youwant to go into turnaround cases
(28:44):
, build your model to go thatway and qualify for it.
You know it means thatcompanies that are in clean
financials may not be yourtarget audience and you should
charge a lot more so that peoplewith clean financials wouldn't
come to you, only the people onfire.
Don't screw up your pricing andcharge for clean and get a
(29:05):
burning mess.
So just up to you.
But it all goes back to I wouldadd that to the extreme
ownership the process-drivenside.
So it's my fault.
I've identified a problem andI'm going to make a change on a
process.
Not I should have spoken tothat guy differently in that
meeting Probably should have butis that something that you can
(29:28):
reproduce and actually make anedit to?
And every once in a while, onceyou get the, once you do this
for a few years, you'll startlooking at things going.
I don't even know what I wouldchange.
I I feel like I'm havingtrouble and that's where kind of
outside help often comes in,because it's like I'm out of
ideas on how to fix this issue.
Yeah, um, that's so good formost business owners.
They can get 80% of the waythere just by putting some
(29:49):
thought in.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
That's so good.
All right, A couple, a coupleof rapid fire questions for you,
Rami, and then we'll.
We'll wrap things up here inthe next handful of minutes.
Um book or mentor that's madethe biggest impact on your
business mindset businessmindset Oof, um, uh.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
lots of books.
I read a ton.
I enjoyed the it's it's it'strope, but the first 87 pages of
entrepreneurship 2.0, um is anamazing guide into vision
setting and figuring out whatyou want your company to do.
Uh, the ultimate sales machineby Justin Rolf Marsh is actually
my favorite sales book by farfor designing an organization
(30:31):
that sells, and I think that's areally I think every business
owner should read that, becauseI spent years in sales and that
book changed everything about mybusiness, how I Raised Myself
from Failure to Success inSelling.
By Frank Betker written in 1955,to get the traditional view of
(30:53):
that stuff, and it's really goodtoo.
Those are probably my top threebooks that I can just think of
off the top of my head.
Personal Development I love thecompound effect by Darren Hardy
.
You haven't read that yet.
You should.
It's a great process-drivenidea to personal development
(31:15):
that I'm a big fan of.
And yeah, I think that there'syour reading list.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
Awesome.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Appreciate you sharing that what's one system
or process you use in yourpersonal life that you can't
live without.
I am a nut, for I'm going toI'm going to call it a system or
process but I use tonal, whichis a weightlifting system that's
in my gym.
It's like really sleek andmodern and all that, but it's
(31:38):
the.
The metrics are so cool.
Like I look at total volumelifted, uh, and it automatically
tracks that stuff.
I can click a button and see mybest, my, my pieces on those.
So I've been super into thatfor the last two or three years,
uh, slowly progressing myvolume.
And then, as a personal processyou can see right there, I
actually keep three journals atall times.
(32:00):
Um, I'm a I'm a nut for uh,fountain pens and and kind of uh
high end writing supplies and Ialways keep my various journals
and pieces in there.
I journal every morning andalways do a recap at night.
And the three differentjournals I keep the top one is
like a year-long kind of singlejournal planner.
The big one at the bottom is mypersonal development and those
(32:24):
pieces, and the one in themiddle is my business pieces.
So every morning I actuallywake up, work out and then I
spend just 15, 20 minutes, but Igo through each one of those
and it keeps me on track.
And then at the end of thenight I use the personal one
just to have a little checklistof 10 items and how many I got.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Nice, that's awesome when you're not speaking,
leading or building.
What do you do to recharge?
Speaker 2 (32:46):
I am an avid reader of trash, so I love to read and
I do try to read good booksevery now and again, but I read
trash.
I'm a big fan of RoyalRoadcom.
It's like fantasy isekai.
That day I died and was rebornas a slime.
(33:06):
Just trash Fanfiction.
I still read a good HarryPotter fanfic and, um, that's,
that's very much my thing.
I have in my den downstairs, Ihave my reading chair, I have my
tablet and my Kindle and anentire library of books, and so
most days I get off work, havedinner with the family and I'm
(33:27):
sitting there just reading trash.
That's my, that's my getaway.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
I love it Fully disconnecting.
Yeah, if someone listeningtoday is overwhelmed by HR or
unsure where to begin, what'sthe first move you'd recommend?
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Well, besides calling me, because we can totally help
with that, or is this my callto action spot?
Speaker 1 (33:48):
Whatever, hey what would you recommend?
I'm going to give you twopieces.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
One is you're not ready to talk to me.
I want you to think about thelife cycle of your employee,
from when they see your job adto when they interview.
Pre-onboarding, which is likebackground checks and skills
test, onboarding Onboarding islike their first 90.
It's the time, it's the ramp upperiod, right From started to
full productivity, and that'snot day one.
(34:13):
Look at that experience,performance reviews, maybe, and
offboarding, and maybe those adhoc life events.
Make that list.
Go back, listen again and justthink about what you actually do
.
Systemology David over there isamazing.
He always says write down whatyou do now.
(34:33):
Don't be aspirational.
Right, make your system whatyou actually do now.
Write it down.
Jack talks to them for an hourabout all the things we do.
Okay, that's your process.
Write it down and just take alook at what you're trying to
accomplish with each one ofthose right.
With an advertisement, you'retrying to get the right person
to apply.
Look at your ad Does it do thatRight?
(34:55):
With interviewing, you'retrying to filter from those
people to the best fit for youand once you find that person,
you want them to actually acceptthe job.
So it is both a filter and asale.
Do you actually do that?
And when you look at all thisyou're going to go oh my God, no
(35:17):
, I do it all poorly and that'sokay.
Most businesses do 99% of thestuff they do poorly.
Just write it down, look at thegoal and make one improvement,
just one improvement on each oneof these spots and you will
find you don't need 15 years ofexperience doing this stuff for
thousands of companies you canget.
If you can get the stupid stuffout, you will hugely increase
(35:39):
your ability to attract andretain talent.
And I believe in you.
You're running a businessYou're doing great.
Just put a little bit of effortinto that.
The way I do it.
Again, journal-wise, I alwaysbook an hour every week to look
at my people processes.
It's my HR department meeting.
But now that we have people onit, but back in the day it was
like how am I going to make mylabor go further and do well on
(35:59):
it?
So just book an hour, it's yourown meeting.
Keep a single journal onlineLLM, whatever you want to do
piece of paper and write downthose things and look at how you
can improve it and see if youcan make one small improvement a
week and in a year you're goingto have a heck of an employment
practice.
Okay, having said that, I offerfree consultations Any US-based
(36:21):
employee that has more than 10employees.
You can reach me atpeopleprocessescom.
There's a button to request aconsult.
Book it.
It will be with me.
I allow three a week.
They're 30 minutes each.
So if you go on there andthere's nothing for a month, I'm
sorry.
You can email me if it's urgentand I'll be happy to fit you in
.
I just try not to let it getover built out, but I'm happy to
(36:43):
help.
We also have tons of great toolsat our YouTube page People
Processes.
It's youtubecom slash, peopleprocesses.
It's also on our website andthey had a lot of downloads like
a lot of downloadable materialon there.
If you don't know what to dowith onboarding, there's an
onboarding checklist.
If you're not sure if your jobad's right, there's a job ad
example and questionnaire.
(37:03):
If you don't know if you'repaying people appropriately,
there's a performancecompensation analysis tool, like
.
All of that's available forfree and if you meet with me for
30 minutes, it's mainly goingto be me figuring out what the
problem is and saying here's thesix free tools.
I have to go deal with that,and if you need more help than
that, then I'd love to talkabout handling your HR for you.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
Amazing, so good.
Last question for you whenpeople hear people processes,
what do you want that name tomean to them?
Speaker 2 (37:34):
That's a good question.
We have our core values.
So when I think about the name,I think about the brand, and
the brand is actually theexperience people have
interacting with it, right?
So we focus very much on ourprofessionalism, our
responsiveness and ourpoliteness.
(37:54):
I know it's weird to thinkabout politeness as a thing, but
we're in really weird waters alot of times and people are
yelling at us for no reason.
So we actually look at thosethree core values all the time
professionalism, responsible, uh, responsiveness and politeness.
And so I think and I think ifyou ask my clients in fact I
know if you ask my clients howwell we reflect that those three
(38:15):
are very highly reflected.
Um, I also think that whenpeople think about people
processes, they think about thepersonal, deep interactions
they've had with my team.
If they're a client, um, we'rethere in some of the worst parts
of running a business.
No one gets into HR cause it'ssexy, right, it's not like oh,
(38:36):
that's the best, I lovecompliance.
Oh, yes, this is why I wantedto run a company for employees
to complain, a grievance process, thank you, that's not what it
is.
So we kind of are in the we'rein the shit with the client a
lot and I think a lot of times,the reason we retain so long is
(38:56):
because there aren't manyvendors in your company, there
aren't many employees who haveseen where the bodies get buried
, really seen, like we had tomake this choice.
It is what it is and it hurts,you know, and we're on your side
for that part.
So I think that's a big part ofit.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
That's incredible.
Rami, thank you so much forcoming on and sharing so much
wisdom and insight.
It was an absolute pleasuremeeting you at Grokon.
I hope that we can see eachother again real soon at another
event or cross paths if we'rein the same city.
I can't thank you enough forcoming on and sharing everything
you have this afternoon.
It is my pleasure.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
I do want to do one quick call to action, if people
are still listening.
Absolutely, peopleprocessescomslash partner is our financial
professionals partner program.
It's purely for fractional CFOs, fractional COOs, bookkeepers.
We have on there really cooltools for you.
We have some cool opportunitieslike revenue sharing and
(39:53):
marketing pieces that can reallyhelp you grow your business,
and we also can teach you how toutilize these hr data to data
to tell stories so that you canattract new clients and look at
your old clients with kind of afresh set of eyes and a new set
of tools.
That's peopleprocessescom slashpartner and we'd love to see
you there.
Speaker 1 (40:12):
Awesome.
We'll put that in the shownotes so people can get in touch
.
Check out that link Again.
I can't thank you enough forcoming on and sharing your time
and just for an amazingconversation.
Thank you so much, rami.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
My pleasure, thank you.
Speaker 1 (40:24):
Thanks for tuning into this episode of CFO
Chronicles the secrets behindsuccess.
I hope you found value intoday's conversation.
As we wrap up, I'd love for youto do two things.
First, make sure to subscribeto this podcast so you don't
miss any future episodes.
If you enjoyed today'sdiscussion, please rate and
review the show.
It helps others discover theinsights we share here.
Second, if you're ready to takeyour business to the next level
(40:47):
and attract the high endclients you deserve, head over
to accounting leads nowcom orclick the link in the show notes
to book your strategy.
Call.
It's time to position yourselfas the advisor your clients need
.
And don't forget you canconnect with me on LinkedIn to
stay up to date on what'shappening in the world of
accounting and financial growth.
We've got exciting topicscoming up, so stay tuned for the
next episode of CFO Chronicles.
(41:08):
Until then, keep pushingforward.
Your growth is just onestrategic move away.
Speaker 3 (41:14):
Thanks for listening to CFO Chronicles the secrets
behind success.
We hope today's episodeprovided valuable strategies to
help you attract morehigh-paying clients.
Be sure to subscribe, followand share with fellow
professionals.
Connect with us on LinkedIn andleave a review or comment to
join the conversation.
Your feedback helps us bringyou the best insights in finance
(41:38):
and marketing.
Until next time, keep strivingfor success and unlocking your
business's potential.
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