January 21, 2026 • 36 mins
Cut The Tie Podcast with Michelle Griffin
What happens when founders try to save money by handling HR themselves and end up risking everything they built?
In this episode of Cut The Tie, Thomas Helfrich sits down with Michelle Griffin, founder of Griffin Resources, to unpack one of the most dangerous blind spots in small and midsize businesses. HR mistakes rarely show up as problems at first. They show up later as lawsuits, failed exits, lost talent, and leadership chaos.
Michelle shares how she built a seven figure fractional HR and back office services company by solving the exact problems founders ignore until it is too late. From payroll and compliance to recruiting and SOPs, this conversation is about cutting the tie to doing everything yourself and building a business that can scale, travel, and eventually sell without blowing up.
About Michelle Griffin:
Michelle Griffin is the founder of Griffin Resources, a fractional HR, payroll, and business operations firm serving small to midsize companies across the United States. With a background in industrial organizational psychology and executive HR leadership, Michelle helps founders protect enterprise value, reduce risk, and build scalable people operations. She has built multiple businesses with her husband, all without outside investment, while working remotely and traveling internationally.
In this episode, Thomas and Michelle discuss:
- “You can’t investigate yourself”
Why founders handling their own HR issues creates legal exposure and credibility problems. - The hidden cost of DIY HR
How small mistakes around payroll, classification, and documentation quietly compound. - The 10 to 15 employee breaking point
Why trust based hiring stops working once you grow past friends and referrals. - HR as an investment, not a cost
How strong people operations protect valuation and make exits cleaner. - Fractional leadership done right
Why most companies do not need full time HR but do need real expertise. - Building a business that runs without you
Cutting the tie to being the bottleneck so the company can scale. - Why exits fail during diligence
How missing handbooks, I-9s, and SOPs can derail acquisitions.
Key Takeaways:
- HR touches everything and the law touches HR
Ignorance does not protect founders from consequences. - Doing it yourself is not the same as doing it right
Especially when emotions and power dynamics are involved. - The earlier you build structure, the cheaper it is
Fixing HR after problems surface costs far more. - Scalable companies are transferable companies
Clean processes increase value and reduce risk. - You do not need more control, you need better systems
Let experts handle what founders should not.
Connect with Michelle Griffin:
🌐 Website: https://griffin-resources.com/
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelle-griffin-phd/
Connect with Thomas Helfrich:
🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/thelfrich
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thelfrich/
🌐 Website: https://www.cutthetie.com
📧 Email: t@instantlyrelevant.com
🚀 Instantly Relevant: https://instantlyrelevant.com
Serious about LinkedIn Lead Generation? Stop Guessing what to do on LinkedIn and ignite revenue from relevance with Instantly Relevant Lead System
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
Welcome to the Cut the Tie Podcast.
Hello, I'm your host, ThomasAlfer.
On a mission.
Help people cut the tie towhatever's holding them back
from success.
Now you've got to define yourown success.
That's your job.
Maybe if you listen to this,you'll learn how to cut a tie or
two.
Something metaphorical.
Hopefully no one's actuallyphysically got you tied up.
If not, it might be a book.
(00:20):
Um Michelle Griffin is our guesttoday.
How are you?
SPEAKER_00 (00:24):
Good.
Thank you so much.
And thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_01 (00:26):
I appreciate it.
You uh we were talking aboutyou're on a cruise, so just take
a moment to say where you are,where you're from, why you're on
a cruise, and what it is you do.
SPEAKER_00 (00:34):
Um, okay, that's a lot of questions.
All right, so I am currently ona cruise in Canada.
I am originally from Alaska.
I live in Florida, and I am on acruise technically because we
travel internationally, um,usually two to three weeks a
month every month.
Um, so we we do work remote.
(00:55):
Um, some people dream of acorner office.
I dream of life with a view.
Um, so I do work internationallyum quite often.
And um, because of severalthings we do in our business,
and businesses allows us to dothat and kind of travel on
points and things like that fromone of the businesses that I
have with my husband.
We actually have fivebusinesses.
Um and uh but this tripspecifically is our 18-year
(01:18):
anniversary.
So we're gonna be using that asan excuse, but that is not why
we're on the cruise.
We just happen to be on thecruise, and it is the trip that
covers our anniversary.
SPEAKER_01 (01:27):
Very good.
Well, congratulations.
I thank you for taking a momentto uh do a podcast in the middle
of your uh of your of your crew,your your 18 years.
Um you have five businesses,which which uh which are the
ones you want to focus on today?
SPEAKER_00 (01:38):
So the one, yeah, the one that I um tend to run
and operate and know the best isthe one that I started, um,
which is Griffin Resources.
That kind of kicked off the restof the businesses.
My husband has been in IT.
Um, and then once COVID andstuff like that hit, um the
company he was in um was notable to really continue because
they were actually based out ofEngland.
(01:59):
So between Brexit and COVID andtariffs, that business wasn't
doing well.
So he um we took some of theresources that I had built up
from my company and we startedhis.
And we actually had bothbusinesses under Griffin
Resources until 2023.
And then we split everythingoff, created a parent company
that we have kind of homegrowneverything.
We've never taken investments oranything like that.
(02:21):
So it's kind of just been uskind of growing the businesses
together.
The other businesses um areeither just kind of there to
support us.
So rather than, you know,there's not really a need for
like a particular marketingdepartment in either company.
So we started a company and wehave international staff that do
our virtual assistant, ourmarketing, our digital
(02:41):
marketing, all that stuff.
Um, and then we um hadbusinesses with friends that
they wanted to do some funthings with.
So there was no business need toown a plane.
So I created a new business sowe could buy a plane with our
friend, and that's a randomother plane or rather company
that we don't do much with,other than you know, it's good.
The plane isn't a chartercompany and it just makes money
(03:02):
when it goes out in the charterfleet.
SPEAKER_01 (03:04):
That's crazy.
Your business travel, it'sgreat.
Uh back up to your your maincore business then.
What is it you guys do?
What's the problem you solve?
SPEAKER_00 (03:11):
So HR, um, payroll, talent acquisition, um, and like
back end bookkeeping,accounting, and some uh support
for some of the businesssupports that we created for
ourselves, we then extend to ourclients, so digital marketing,
sales ops, and things like that.
Um, and basically I took what Iknew, which was managing a
(03:32):
department of HR and what I hadseen as resources for very large
companies.
And I took that and, you know,basically scale it down for
small to mid-sized businesses tomake it affordable for them.
And and then kind of grew itfrom the end of 2019, um,
obviously through COVID.
And then um, I got it to sevenfigures um by year three, and
(03:55):
we've been seven figures eversince.
And um, so now I have about 40team members, about 85 clients
nationwide.
Some come some of them areworldwide.
We do have some internationalparent companies.
SPEAKER_01 (04:06):
That's fantastic.
So the idea means like in likeone of the marketing prop thing
we do is like, hey, you get afractional CMO for a mini
marketing team for less thanprice intern.
You give them like what wouldcost six in six resources, you
can package it in fractionallyto get it done for a price point
that most people will sign offon, is the idea.
SPEAKER_00 (04:24):
Right.
So yeah, they basicallyeverything is um it's billed
kind of like a law firm.
So think of it as like aparalegal and an attorney.
So it's based on the skill levelof the individual they're being
paired with and the market valuefor that person.
So payroll is less expensivethan a VP of HR, um, and you
know, bookkeeping is lessexpensive than a fractional CFO,
things like that.
(04:45):
Um, but then we just you knowclock our time round everything
in six-minute increments andthen send them a bill at the end
of the month for the work thatwe were approved to do.
Um, so there's no packages,there's no retainers, small
businesses and business ownersreally built the idea.
I talked to a lot of businessowners and then ended up being
able to um kind of take whatthey had for feedback and then
(05:06):
grow it from there.
SPEAKER_01 (05:08):
I mean my wife being an HR of one for a global
company of a few hundred people,literally just an HR of one.
Oh it isn't a lot.
Um I think maybe we'll get intothis just a little bit later,
but actually I can probably askthis question now, it's just
kind of set up your business.
Uh what I find in just fromhearing from sometimes her and
other just from being in thespace with other entrepreneurs
(05:28):
is that HR is often not lookedat as a strategic role as more
of a unnecessary cost operationspiece.
Uh for your customers, where dothey land on that topic?
SPEAKER_00 (05:40):
Um they have to be able to see it as an investment.
They have to know that whenthey're investing in HR, they're
they're solving some problemwithin their business, whether
it be a issue with employmentrelation issues, because they've
already had some complaints orlegal issues and they know that
they have to invest in it.
So that's kind of where it's anecessary cost, but they don't
see it as um an eve a necessaryevil.
(06:02):
So it's not like a requirement,they really understand how it
impacts their business.
Others, um, we if they see itthat way, we can't convince them
to purchase it.
They have to understand thatwhen they are improving their HR
and they're improving theiremployment um, I would say, life
cycle and work within thebusiness.
And, you know, they get more fortheir money for the benefits and
(06:25):
that kind of stuff, or whateverit is they want to focus on,
then they're getting more out oftheir people.
They get more business for that,and it kind of helps their
business grow.
And so when they understand andsee it that way, um, those are
really the best clients that wehave the most success with.
Um, we do just someproject-based work.
We may just do, it's rare, butwe may just write a handbook.
(06:46):
Um and then we just give themthe handbook and walk away.
Um, we may just do an audit foran HR overview, give them the
audit results and and walk away.
Sometimes they'll, you know,basically say, stay and solve
the problems you found from theHR audit and things like that.
A lot of times that's from abusiness that's being sold or
you know, purchasing someoneelse, an acquisition's
(07:08):
happening, something really,really complicated where they
they still see it that way.
And but it's a requirement fromsome segment of the business.
But typically the clients see itas an investment.
And we have a quite a fewclients and business owners that
really do care about theirpeople, and that makes a
difference.
SPEAKER_01 (07:23):
Well, I mean, it's to buy it for sure.
Or do you require almost a localHR lead, or do you guys serve
that role as well?
SPEAKER_00 (07:30):
Everything is um pretty much remote.
So all of our clients, we we doeverything remotely.
SPEAKER_01 (07:34):
And do they need like a uh their own HR resource?
SPEAKER_00 (07:39):
Oh, no, no, no, no, no.
So a lot of times they're too,they're too small to even have
their own HR resource.
So they just decide that theyneed to invest in HR because
they want to compete for toptalent.
They, you know, have their ownreasons for wanting to, you
know, pass it off that weprocess their payroll.
Um, but we access, you know,because we access everything
remotely, they don't have tohave someone on their own.
If they're big enough, like, youknow, usually over 75 people,
(08:02):
they really should have theirown person.
Um, most of our clients that arethat big, we are still either
most of their HR or a piece ofit.
So they may, we've had somewhere they have an HR generalist
and they use our VP of HR.
So we're a part of leadership,weirdly enough.
Um, and and then they just havethe the lower level person um
(08:24):
they that would typically answerto someone else in the company,
like a COO, but they don't knowhow to manage HR.
They don't know how to help themor give them HR resources.
So we come in as like theleadership middleman between
their generalist and leadership.
Um, so we've actually done thatseveral times, um, which I was
not expected to do that.
SPEAKER_01 (08:41):
Yeah, there's like a doer role.
And then there's a leadershipcomponent that doesn't really
take many full time if they'renot also doing the doer role.
And I I'm a little closer.
I'm just curious because I thinka lot of smaller business
owners, me included, uh, wherewe use tons of outsourced, I
don't really have pay, I don'thave payroll unless I just want
to pay myself because it's alloverseas and there's no need for
(09:02):
it.
And uh but then there'scompanies that are kind of like,
well, no, we need payroll, butwe have 400 different countries
we're working in.
Like you're it's like, well,what person can't handle?
It's just an interesting spotbecause I I think what you just
described is interesting becauseit's fit, it's built for
purpose.
SPEAKER_00 (09:16):
Yeah, and we do have the yeah, and we have the doers
as well.
Like we have HR generalists,benefit administrators, all that
kind of stuff too.
So, like in this situation withyour wife, for example, if she's
the person of one for like, youknow, hundreds of people, um,
there's gonna be times wherethat's literally impossible to
manage and meet expectations.
And when that happens, we getbrought in as like a support
(09:38):
person um that she can delegatework to um for either a short
period of time or long period oftime.
SPEAKER_01 (09:44):
And there's also times that connection for you.
Um I think that'd be aninteresting just because I I run
into people that are the leaderstrying to figure it out and
they're doing it themselves.
Like, sure.
SPEAKER_00 (09:56):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (09:57):
That's definitely.
SPEAKER_00 (09:58):
And that's the thing.
A lot of times they don'tunderstand that everything HR
touches has an employment lawaround it.
And I literally mean everything.
There isn't anything we can'ttouch that there isn't a law
around.
And so so if someone is doingthat themselves and you know
they don't have the you knowlegal resources or you know, HR
certifications to at leastrecognize when they need to be
(10:19):
doing something differently.
Um, I was actually speaking withan attorney recently who had a
situation with um a colleagueand friend of his, so he wasn't
their attorney, which isprobably good, um, who had a uh
harassment case against himself.
They were all at a bar drinking,you know, one thing led to
another, definitely got into asituation they shouldn't have
(10:39):
been in.
SPEAKER_01 (10:40):
Um involve a bow play concert or not?
SPEAKER_00 (10:43):
Uh could have, but it's like not that, but close
enough.
And basically the person at thebar made a complaint against the
owner.
And the owner told his attorneyfriend, it's okay, we've done
the investigation, um, and wefound that there's no, there's
no harassment.
He's like, Well, who did theinvestigation?
He's like, I did.
It's like you can't, and he'slike, but everything is fine
(11:03):
now.
He's like, Nope.
He's like, you don't see anyproblem with this where you have
the conducted your owninvestigation against yourself.
Um, no, you can't do that.
SPEAKER_01 (11:12):
Yeah, there's no uh arm's length.
Um like right, it's like uh, youknow, it it's HR's one of those
pieces that is a is uh not anecessary until it's too late.
SPEAKER_02 (11:23):
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (11:25):
I I think it's beautiful you've done that.
Uh a little bit your journey.
Uh tell about how you got here.
SPEAKER_00 (11:30):
Um so this it's actually kind of a weird
situation.
I um never really had a lot ofcareer goals.
I had a lot of education goals.
And so when I was my parentswere business owners and they
wanted me to go into theirbusiness.
My dad was a jeweler and I didsome like summer things like
that with my dad and kind of Ilearned I didn't want to be a
(11:51):
jeweler um because it's it'sliterally dirty and I had to
like keep my fingernails reallyshort.
I'm a very girly girl.
And I was like, um, didn't wantto have to like follow in my
foot, my dad's footsteps forthat.
Um but when I went to college, Imajored in psychology because I
always wanted to studypsychology.
Um to appease my parents, Iminored in marketing um and
(12:11):
thought I would never own my ownbusiness because I just didn't
uh see the the need and wantingto like run the whole thing and
all of the business aspects thatgo with it.
Um and when I was in likeknowing that I wanted to study
psychology, I always knew I hadto get higher education in order
to do anything with a psychologydegree.
(12:32):
You can't just do something withan undergrad, at least not in
psychology.
Um, so right out of uh school, Iwas an auto theft and arson
investigator.
And I did that for six years anddecided to go back to school to
get my master's.
And um, right around thattimeline, it was like 2010.
So right after the 2008 crash,we're still kind of like in the
(12:54):
middle of the crash.
There's still not like a lot ofgood jobs out there and stuff
like that.
Um, so it did take me about ayear to find a job.
Um, and so for my master's, Iwas focusing on something called
industrial organizationalpsychology, which is a research
degree of human capital.
And HR is the actual practicalapplication of IOSYC.
(13:15):
So I kind of connected the twocareers that way, even though I
didn't know what HR was at thetime.
And then I got my first job inHR.
And so I kind of, you know, kindof worked my way up into HR.
My first company, I was thesecond HR person in a company of
300 people.
Um, within a year of that, I hadfinished my um my master's
(13:38):
degree and started getting my HRcertification.
So after two years of being inthat company, I was promoted to
head of HR.
And at that time, the companyhad like 550 people.
So I replaced myself through theteam.
Um, by the time I left, therewas 850 people across 10 states
and four countries.
And I ran HR for all of it.
Um, that company sold to aprivate equity firm.
(14:00):
I left when a lot of theleadership was leaving.
I went to a residentialconstruction company and
switched from tech toconstruction and had the to
switch industries doing that.
And then um I had I went fromlike all of that to 100 people
in one state.
And I was like, I can do that inmy sleep.
(14:21):
Um, so I realized I had kind ofthe energy and brain power to
start getting my doctorate.
So then I started getting my PhDin IO psychology.
And um, after a couple of years,um I wanted to focus on my
research and less on mycorporate job.
So I um switched to do a umconsulting thing.
(14:42):
I thought I would just do um bean independent consultant, make
a little bit of money to help,you know, help pay the bills.
It's just me and my husband.
And um, and then I would, youknow, continue to focus on
school.
That lasted less than threemonths before I had eight
clients and hired two full-timepeople.
And so I just decided to Youfound the need.
SPEAKER_01 (15:05):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (15:06):
So I was like, you know, as I mentioned, the was
the um business owners told mereally what they wanted.
They saw the value in HR.
They said, we don't want to doit anymore.
We'll just give you an internalemail address, you do the HR.
And that really started hittingit off.
And we got so much activity fromit that the business kind of, I
don't want to say built itself.
It did take a lot of marketing,it did take a lot of networking.
(15:27):
How did you hit on that?
SPEAKER_01 (15:29):
Was it was it was a social media post?
Was it just word of mouth?
SPEAKER_00 (15:32):
How did you how did you it was it was a lot of a lot
of both.
Um, so I was going to a lot ofHR conferences.
I was already on the board of HRfor Sherm for local chapters,
and so I was kind of alreadyknown in the HR world.
And I just told everybody, I'mgoing independent.
This is what I I don't knowexactly what I'm doing.
I just know how to do HR and andI'm going independent.
(15:54):
So someone I I had talked tosaid, Well, I have an idea.
Um, he's like, I do, he was a HRdirector for a um essentially a
cable company, like aninstallation cable.
And the owners of that company,one of his other owner buddy
friends, had a medical company.
(16:14):
And as he was launching thatcompany, he's like, Hey, why
don't you borrow my HR team tostart your medical company?
So this poor guy who's doingcable installation HR is asked
to do medical HR, which are twovery different worlds.
And he's like, Why don't we justsay they could use you instead
of us and we'll transition itover?
And so everyone bought in on theidea, and that's what happened.
(16:37):
Um, weirdly enough, though, whenI met the owner of the medical
company, we met at a coffee shopand I just said, This is my
background in HR.
These are some things I'veaccomplished, and this is how I
think I can apply them to yourbusiness.
And as we're sitting there forcoffee, a lady walks in the room
to kind of go through the coffeeum shop into a restaurant, and
we both stand up, we both giveher a hug, and then she moves
(16:59):
on.
And he was like, How do you knowher?
And I was like, That is whoreplaced me at the large tech
company when I left.
She was the head of HR thatreplaced me.
I spent six months training herbefore I left.
And he said, Well, that's nice.
That's my sister-in-law.
And so he basically said hechecked in with her, made sure I
had a great, you know, glowingrecommendation.
(17:20):
And I was hired, and that was myfirst client.
And people always said gettingyour first client is the
hardest.
Um, it really just took shoutingfrom the mountaintops and then
connections over connections.
And um, I think the fact that itwas that connection was a
complete twist of fate, but itworked out really well.
And then once I had a client,then it was um, you know, people
(17:41):
kind of just referring, and thenI my first few clients were
referrals that people I knew.
SPEAKER_01 (17:47):
Well, exactly.
I think I think what you didsomething though that's uh I
think people realize is you youwere out there.
Uh so you can't think just towork somewhere.
You do have to be proactive toget in the community to be
known.
If you have and at the time youjust did it probably because it
was professional reasons,whatever else.
But the truth is if you have anyambition to grow in your prayer,
you you gotta be known becausepeople for the bigger jobs,
right?
(18:07):
As you know, people find you,you're not gonna find it.
They're gonna say, I want her, Iwant him.
Um I have a question for you.
Like, you know, uh you know, oneof the one of the things that I
that I've seen that HR is a r isnot a strategic resource is
because it doesn't add thatmonetary value because people
may look at uh humans and theirin their companies uh uh
(18:27):
differently, meaning like we canalways replace them, this
whatever, right?
It's like I can't do anythingabout that.
But what does speak sometimes intheir languages is on the exit?
Do you have any data or anythingthat you would say, hey, by the
way, having better processes,this stuff, some kind of
function in place, allows yourexit to go from a different
multiple?
Is that a is that a fairstatement, true statement, or do
(18:48):
you think it's yeah?
SPEAKER_00 (18:49):
So a lot of times in being in the MA space, um, I've
seen I don't assume you're meanexit of business.
I don't know if you mean exit ofpeople.
Um, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (18:59):
So when someone buys it, it's a buying.
So if you have something.
SPEAKER_00 (19:03):
Yeah, if you have contractors versus employees,
um, your your rate issignificantly lower, and or
you're not purchasable.
Um, so one of our businesspartners is um, you know, is is
in MA and she's our um one ofour advisors.
She's actually an acquisitionthat I did last year.
I I bought her company and thenshe moved on to the MA space.
(19:25):
And so I learned quite a bit um,just knowing what she has and
the referrals that she can giveus, um, is that if they their HR
has to be stronger, and the thefact that if they have
contractors or if they havesignificant risk from
mismanaging their people, nothaving proper documentation, um,
you know, things like that.
(19:46):
We also had a company that wasuh five restaurants that was
purchased by another restaurantbrand.
And we had to help them withcleaning up all of their filing
systems.
Obviously, it's a mess acrossrestaurants.
They're Were like completely outof compliance, like every single
line nine.
Um, someone even had their umsupporting document as a library
(20:08):
card.
So things like that, where it'slike you have, and then so
obviously because it was atransition.
Yeah, we had to help clean, wehad to stay and clean everything
up, get them, you know, to apoint where they could just run
the business and take over HRand leave.
So we had that project for aboutsix or eight months, I think,
during that transition.
So yeah, HR, either the risk ofit or the mismanagement of it,
(20:30):
or just not having the right umclassification of people can can
really damage the evaluation tothe company.
SPEAKER_01 (20:37):
Yeah, I think that's uh uh not having handbooks in
place under, I mean like allthat kind of stuff.
It's like I I like it's more youcan make a company hand over
where a shared service from aPE, like a private equity, can
take over HR with the lead.
And like there's there's a pathto like reduce cost because the
you're you're in you're inshape, right?
You're in order, or keep coststhe same as you grow.
(20:58):
That is a multiplier because youyou don't have to hire now
additional revenue and it's it'sit's organized better.
SPEAKER_00 (21:03):
Uh we also do a lot with like writing SOPs.
So if you have documentedprocesses and someone else is
taking over, it's so much easierto say, here's here's the
process.
Exactly.
SPEAKER_01 (21:15):
Yeah, absolutely.
Um just just kind of uhincredibly you know encouraging
conversation.
I think um I'll ask you thisquestion in it'll come across as
a shameless plug if someone'slistening, but I'm curious, uh,
just for you, like who's like uhwhat what is the like you know,
what's going on in the bird,what's the business owner?
What like what's the scenariothat you just like?
(21:35):
This is a no-brainer, you shoulddo it, rock it right now, call
me.
SPEAKER_00 (21:39):
Um a lot of times it's smaller businesses that are
like I would say that 10 to 15range is an interesting point
because employees or how do youmean that people?
Yeah, 10 to 15 people.
Um, because they can knowusually that is what for
whatever reason, that's theweird magic number that you
can't hire people you knowanymore.
(22:00):
You have to hire strangers.
And you're kind of starting tohave to go through a natural,
like an actual recruitingprocess, um, which we do have.
We do have corporate recruiters.
We don't do, we're not anagency, we don't place people.
We also charge hourly for theprocess of recruiting people
with you and working withmanagement and helping them make
the right hire decision versusjust bringing candidates.
(22:21):
So with, but at that point,you're starting to compete for
talent for bigger companies thatyour people are starting to ask
for what's your time off policy?
What do you have for benefits?
And if you can't answer thosequestions because it's been, you
know, you and your friends andyour family and you know, maybe
some outside referrals kind ofjust, you know, they they don't
have a handbook like youmentioned, they just don't know
(22:42):
the policies, they don't haveyou know things in place, a
payroll system in place.
They're still paying people bycheck through their accounting
system, which I've seen thatquite a bit.
Um, and they just can't managepeople and they can't grow and
they're at a they're stuckbecause they just can't attract
the right talent and and growthe business in a specific way.
So those are kind of thesituations that are really
(23:05):
noticeable.
Um, the other ones is definitelywhen the CEO is just wearing too
many hats.
Um, you know, they they reallyhave to start getting stuff off
their plate.
They're not the right person tobe managing it, but also it's
just not the right place tospend their time, whether it be
a CFO, COO, someone in theC-suite is still doing it.
Um, I had a company that hadlike 50 people.
(23:25):
The CFO was still onboardingemployees and literally taking
all of their backgroundinformation, putting it in the
system, setting up theirpayroll.
And I took it away from him,made processes, and then trained
someone else to take it.
Um, so they got them to trustand take that off of the CFO's
plate.
And when I first started, um, heliterally had a stack of like
(23:45):
three new hires, like paper,paper stuff that was on his desk
to enter into the system.
And I was like, you know, youcan electronically have them
complete stuff.
Like you can put that in thesystem, right?
You don't have to touch any ofthat.
SPEAKER_02 (23:56):
And and they were into shit, right?
SPEAKER_00 (23:59):
Yeah, they were they were a tech company.
I was like, you should makeyour, you know, especially being
a tech company, you should wantyour people to feel like it's a
tech savvy company.
SPEAKER_01 (24:06):
It's amazing, by the way, how bad you can get turned
off by a brand when you're like,we're what?
We're using what do we get paperpaychecks?
SPEAKER_00 (24:12):
What the f what yeah, you can't do a direct
deposit?
Like what?
SPEAKER_01 (24:16):
What uh what years is uh let me ask uh uh if you um
how would I say this right?
I don't get called an HR'soffice.
No, I'm kidding.
Um if you had uh look at yourown world today in the business,
any of the businesses reallywhat's really that metaphorico
(24:36):
tie that you're kind ofstruggling to cut right now?
What's what are you dealingwith?
What's what's the hardest part?
SPEAKER_00 (24:42):
Um for them.
SPEAKER_01 (24:46):
Um for you, for you and your business.
SPEAKER_00 (24:48):
Oh, for me?
Oh, for my business.
Um I would say like oh my god,and especially I think of like
the metaphor of cutting the tieon something.
Um I'm okay, so I'm at a pointwhere I my my business is large
enough that I am and I want tomake sure that my business has a
(25:10):
good evaluation, which means Ihave to the business has to be
able to run without me.
SPEAKER_01 (25:14):
I mean, you're on the road internationally every
two, three, but I think you'reon your own.
SPEAKER_00 (25:18):
So I still and I and I still work, you know, full
time and things like that, evenon the road.
And I which gets very exhaustingif I'm in a different time zone.
Um, I've found working inEurope, working five or six
hours ahead is much easier thangoing backwards in time and
going to the west.
SPEAKER_01 (25:34):
California's the worst or Kawaii.
SPEAKER_00 (25:36):
And being four uh four hours behind Eastern time
is very, very difficult.
Um, and having to get up at fivein the morning because then I
still want to stay out untillike midnight or something and
go see the city and that kind ofstuff.
So Europe I have found to bemuch easier, and then South
America is much easier becauseit's still pretty much the same
time zone, give or take an hour.
So that's not that bad.
Um, so for me, a lot of it isbuilding the business so that it
(26:00):
has the resources and theprocesses to replicate and grow
where I'm not a bottleneck andgetting myself out of a lot of
the processes.
So that is literally what I havebeen working on for the last two
years is kind of taken, and forme, I was the one that did all
of the sales.
Literally no one else in thecompany had closed new business
(26:20):
other than myself.
And I feel like a lot ofbusiness owners get into that
situation because no one cansell the business better than
you can because it's yourdesire, it's your goals, and you
really can speak to what theentire business is capable of.
Um and this last year is I havebeen able to trust a lot of
other people on my leadershipteam to also step in and help
with sales.
We don't have a sales departmentnecessarily, but we do have a
(26:43):
sales admin now.
And so we are able to continueto scale and bring in new
resources and afford um new um,you know, kind of I would say
like new tech and processes andthings like that that help make
their lives easier and and theycan scale.
And we now have like aleadership structure and
departmental structure as thecompany has grown, making making
(27:05):
it a lot easier.
So that's probably my own thing.
SPEAKER_01 (27:08):
That's a tough one, right?
And uh I I know I personally amin that spot where I'm I'm sales
and delivery because we'rebecause the consulting and AI
marketing, and it's like for me,I think sales piece is easier to
replace than my knowledge ofconsulting of AI and marketing
and and how to use humans in themix, right?
Um and it's like okay, thatone's gonna be a tough one to
(27:28):
crack.
Because it's a it's a you know,and it's like, do I just I look
at it go okay, I think I can getthe sales piece done, but do I
just at some point just dosomething different?
I'm like, I don't think I'mgonna crack that one.
That explains.
SPEAKER_00 (27:40):
Yeah, yeah.
And it's it's definitely been uma lot of uh, I would say
different strategies, and somethings have been just different
sparks of ideas that we ranwith.
Um, like for marketing, we hadwe had tried to hire a marketing
professional.
We weren't really getting theresults we were looking for.
And so my husband was like, goon Fiverr.
(28:01):
I was like, what's Fiverr?
Like, and so I literally justgave them the exact same
instructions I gave themarketing specialist and they
came out with a better result.
And then I was like, Well, howdoes Fiverr even, you know,
charge so little to get the workdone?
Like, why does$50 mean so muchto them?
And turns out, you know, inforeign countries like the
Philippines, that money goesreally far.
Um, and that's how we ended up,you know, hire, you know,
(28:23):
basically partnering with astaff um in the Philippines, and
then we, you know, kind of grewa company over there.
SPEAKER_01 (28:31):
It's exactly how uh, you know, I was working for
somebody, and and our marketingand salespeople can produce a
lead for me as a practiceleader.
I was like, I'm trying to builda business, and I'm like on the
hook for revenue, and you guyscan't produce any conversation.
And I was like, We're abillion-dollar company, you
can't give me a meeting, and soI just solved it with that.
I started on uh fiver up workout of the Philippines, and
that's the same team, you know.
(28:52):
They we did such a good job formyself.
I started selling itcommercially, and same team.
Uh and it's still working.
And the the uh the play on laborarbitrage is something you still
have to manage because as AIgets better, there's things that
happen.
But uh the truth is you'reright.
If you're not looking outside inthe right environments to build
your business and scale for foractivities that you're helping
someone else uh have a createreally good pay salary relative
(29:16):
to market, and you're stillaccomplishing what you need to,
and and you know, and talk abouta weird time zone, it's 12
hours.
Like so I like I love my teamsand full of teams because of
there, but I love that you didthat.
Uh the because that's exactlylike you know, where uh you're
adding value by being able tosell something at a price point
that's still better, so you havemargin, and there you're you're
you can sit directly in themiddle, middle man, so to so to
(29:38):
speak, spot to do it.
SPEAKER_00 (29:39):
Um that way we were able to do that without
increasing rates for our clientsbecause small to mid-sized
businesses can only afford somuch.
And when the economy is, youknow, hurting in certain
situations, um, it's it's not asituation where we can raise our
rates just so that we can afforddifferent things.
So we definitely had to kind ofbe scrappy quite a bit without
(30:00):
it being us doing all the work.
And so we found that to bereally a valuable way to do it.
SPEAKER_01 (30:05):
Wonderful.
That's great.
Thank you so much.
Hey, listen, uh, it'd be uh bebe clear on who you want to
contact you.
And and I tell people this isuse a marketer, you'll get the
statement.
Give me one link for them tohit.
SPEAKER_00 (30:16):
Um, so definitely I would say anyone in the C-suite
of you know small to mid-sizedbusinesses and the industry does
not matter.
We have everything fromblue-collar to white-collar um
nonprofits and even governmententities.
And so it really just comes downto everyone needs HR and not
wanting to do it yourself andnot wanting to get the company
in trouble.
Um, best way to reach us isgriffin-resources.com.
SPEAKER_01 (30:40):
Do you focus just to be clear on US mostly US
companies, or do you follow?
SPEAKER_00 (30:44):
Uh we focus on US because that's the employment
law that we are familiar with.
And if we multi-state, but theinternational um companies is
the ones that we have a subsidy,if they have a subsidiary here
in the United States.
So we have companies that arebased in you know, Canada,
Spain, Scotland, um, Australia,and Germany at the moment.
SPEAKER_01 (31:06):
And then you guys help with the US component of
that.
Correct.
That's a really smart becausethat way we don't have to hire a
full-time resource that can'thandle like they're they can
handle it, but they don't, it'snot a full load, right?
So that's true.
SPEAKER_00 (31:17):
Yeah, it's not even a part-time job.
We're talking five hours a week.
SPEAKER_01 (31:20):
Right.
It's like a it's a component.
It's why you have a a business.
unknown (31:23):
Yeah.
Perfect.
SPEAKER_01 (31:25):
Um, thank you by the way.
Um, if there was a question Ishould have asked you today and
I didn't, what would thatquestion have been?
SPEAKER_00 (31:31):
Um, let me, I would say the hardest thing to that I
had to learn as becoming abusiness owner um was I didn't
realize like I would physicallyhave to run everything that it
takes to run a business.
From obviously like marketingand sales, which I knew nothing
about, and I had to learn thatpart.
(31:52):
Finance was the hardest part Ihad to learn.
My husband and I decided earlyon that no one can touch our
bank accounts except for us.
Um we do have obviously uh wehave a CPA, we obviously have
accountants and bookkeepers thatmanage all of the general ledger
and all that stuff, but no onecan physically touch the money.
So I still do my owntechnically, my own accounts
(32:13):
payable.
I just don't have that manybills.
Um and uh we wanted to reallycontrol ourselves from money
laundering and white collarcrime.
We've seen it so much in so manybusinesses.
I I thought it was like a rarething.
It's not.
It's happened to a lot of ourclients because they just don't
have separation of duties orthey don't keep control or they
(32:33):
just don't care to understandthat part of their business.
Um, so that was one thing thatwas the hardest thing for me to
learn was obviously reading the,you know, PL reports,
understanding general letters,understanding like physically
how to run the back end books,but um, I still keep control
over my invoicing and all of thecash flow.
So I've it is also somethingthat ties me to the business
(32:55):
quite a bit as far as makingsure the business is going in
the right direction.
I can make business decisions,the numbers tell a story.
I understand what that story isnow.
Um, so as a business owner, thatwas probably the I wasn't
expecting to learn that.
SPEAKER_01 (33:07):
Yeah, it's funny.
I just as an owner is every nowand then I'll go through with
our counting on deeptransactions, and I'll be like,
what is this?
What is and I'm like, we'repaying for it.
We used to use it.
Do we still use that?
And I'm like, check a team,like, we haven't used that in
nine months.
I'm like, why has anyone nottold me?
unknown (33:20):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (33:21):
So it's like then those things happen and you get
the controls, and you're like,all right.
I'm I'm doing this now though.
I'll tell you, I'll leave thisto you.
You can you can I take ouraccounts and I put it through a
an AI LLM piece that basicallysays what's what's unique,
what's different, what should Iwhat what give me, give me what
your perspective is on whatwe're looking here and question
it as if you were like anauditor.
(33:42):
And it's really good at pointingout like saving nine bucks, a
hundred bucks a year, twohundred thousand.
You know, I saved three thousandlast month just on refunds
because I was like, we haven'tused this stuff in a year.
Why you know we're like wecanceled it, and then they give
you your money back.
You're like, my god, like youcancel it, but you don't do
stuff like that.
SPEAKER_00 (33:57):
Yeah, we did the same thing with our Adobe
license because we had so many.
We had like, and I was like, isanyone even using this type of
license?
There's different you can justdo Adobe Reader if that's all
you need, but we were, you know,we we cut our bill from like
5,000 down to 3,000 by justtalking to everyone in the team,
finding out what they actuallyneeded, and then right because I
messed up because last year wewere hit with our renewal and
(34:18):
it's just like, here's yourcredit card bill.
And I'm like, what the heck wasthat?
And it was just automaticallycharging 10 licenses.
I'm like, are we even using 10licenses?
Like, why do we have that as abook?
Like it's a whole book ofbusiness thing.
So we dubbed we dove in, figuredit out, and then they wouldn't
change anything until our theywere like, Well, your next
renewal, you can change it.
So I was like, flag the countthe calendar and we're gonna dig
(34:39):
and you know, deep dive into it.
And we, you know, it was like,you know, saving us a couple
thousand dollars, but at leastit stops it from doing that year
over year mindlessly.
SPEAKER_01 (34:46):
You know, in in a seven-figure business, right
now, it's you still look at it,like uh if I can save two
thousand, I can pay my people alittle bit more and give them
like I look at it that way, it'slike that helps me put away
reserves.
I will tell you one thing likelike that I I'll leave this
advice to people is there likeCalony is an example.
We had two full Calendlyaccounts going, and I and I
because we had cut the tie, wehave instantly relevant, and I
and I just basically got them onthe chat and I was like, hey, is
(35:08):
there a way we can combine this?
And it's saving like 1800 bucksa year by going down to like no,
we'll just import this one overand you just log in and announce
one brand and you only need thismany.
Like and I'm like all right,cool.
Did that.
But then another company how youdescribed where they wouldn't
kind of oh, you can't do it tillnext year.
I said, Well, what's better?
Give me a refund now or gettinga really negative review for
(35:29):
that.
And they usually go, okay, we'llgive you a credit back now and
refund what you have.
Because like, I'm like, Do youwant me to say, hey, listen,
don't ever sign up for the wholeyear because if you're five days
long and you decide because youdidn't see your credit card
bill, you can't, so don't everdo it.
It's not that worth it.
Yeah.
I can give you the math why thatdoesn't make sense.
And they're like, Yeah, we don'twant that review.
I've done that one lots of timesto people.
I'm like, listen, you don't onlyput a negative review with a
(35:50):
million subscribers, do you?
Yeah.
You don't want that.
You don't want that.
I'm trying to blackmail you intoit, but give me the damn refund.
Anyway, yeah.
Um do what you gotta do.
Thank you again.
You rock, by the way.
Thank you.
I love what you built.
Go enjoy your cruise.
18 year anniversary.
SPEAKER_00 (36:06):
Thank you.
Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_01 (36:09):
I appreciate it.
And listen, anyone who's stilllistening, you rock.
And if you've been here before,you know what I'm about to say.
Get out there, go cut that tieto whatever's holding you back,
but define your success on yourterms first.
Thanks for listening.
Welcome to the Cut the Tie Podcast.
Hello, I'm your host, ThomasAlfer.
On a mission.
Help people cut the tie towhatever's holding them back
from success.
Now you've got to define yourown success.
That's your job.
Maybe if you listen to this,you'll learn how to cut a tie or
two.
Something metaphorical.
Hopefully no one's actuallyphysically got you tied up.
If not, it might be a book.
(00:20):
Um Michelle Griffin is our guesttoday.
How are you?
SPEAKER_00 (00:24):
Good.
Thank you so much.
And thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_01 (00:26):
I appreciate it.
You uh we were talking aboutyou're on a cruise, so just take
a moment to say where you are,where you're from, why you're on
a cruise, and what it is you do.
SPEAKER_00 (00:34):
Um, okay, that's a lot of questions.
All right, so I am currently ona cruise in Canada.
I am originally from Alaska.
I live in Florida, and I am on acruise technically because we
travel internationally, um,usually two to three weeks a
month every month.
Um, so we we do work remote.
(00:55):
Um, some people dream of acorner office.
I dream of life with a view.
Um, so I do work internationallyum quite often.
And um, because of severalthings we do in our business,
and businesses allows us to dothat and kind of travel on
points and things like that fromone of the businesses that I
have with my husband.
We actually have fivebusinesses.
Um and uh but this tripspecifically is our 18-year
(01:18):
anniversary.
So we're gonna be using that asan excuse, but that is not why
we're on the cruise.
We just happen to be on thecruise, and it is the trip that
covers our anniversary.
SPEAKER_01 (01:27):
Very good.
Well, congratulations.
I thank you for taking a momentto uh do a podcast in the middle
of your uh of your of your crew,your your 18 years.
Um you have five businesses,which which uh which are the
ones you want to focus on today?
SPEAKER_00 (01:38):
So the one, yeah, the one that I um tend to run
and operate and know the best isthe one that I started, um,
which is Griffin Resources.
That kind of kicked off the restof the businesses.
My husband has been in IT.
Um, and then once COVID andstuff like that hit, um the
company he was in um was notable to really continue because
they were actually based out ofEngland.
(01:59):
So between Brexit and COVID andtariffs, that business wasn't
doing well.
So he um we took some of theresources that I had built up
from my company and we startedhis.
And we actually had bothbusinesses under Griffin
Resources until 2023.
And then we split everythingoff, created a parent company
that we have kind of homegrowneverything.
We've never taken investments oranything like that.
(02:21):
So it's kind of just been uskind of growing the businesses
together.
The other businesses um areeither just kind of there to
support us.
So rather than, you know,there's not really a need for
like a particular marketingdepartment in either company.
So we started a company and wehave international staff that do
our virtual assistant, ourmarketing, our digital
(02:41):
marketing, all that stuff.
Um, and then we um hadbusinesses with friends that
they wanted to do some funthings with.
So there was no business need toown a plane.
So I created a new business sowe could buy a plane with our
friend, and that's a randomother plane or rather company
that we don't do much with,other than you know, it's good.
The plane isn't a chartercompany and it just makes money
(03:02):
when it goes out in the charterfleet.
SPEAKER_01 (03:04):
That's crazy.
Your business travel, it'sgreat.
Uh back up to your your maincore business then.
What is it you guys do?
What's the problem you solve?
SPEAKER_00 (03:11):
So HR, um, payroll, talent acquisition, um, and like
back end bookkeeping,accounting, and some uh support
for some of the businesssupports that we created for
ourselves, we then extend to ourclients, so digital marketing,
sales ops, and things like that.
Um, and basically I took what Iknew, which was managing a
(03:32):
department of HR and what I hadseen as resources for very large
companies.
And I took that and, you know,basically scale it down for
small to mid-sized businesses tomake it affordable for them.
And and then kind of grew itfrom the end of 2019, um,
obviously through COVID.
And then um, I got it to sevenfigures um by year three, and
(03:55):
we've been seven figures eversince.
And um, so now I have about 40team members, about 85 clients
nationwide.
Some come some of them areworldwide.
We do have some internationalparent companies.
SPEAKER_01 (04:06):
That's fantastic.
So the idea means like in likeone of the marketing prop thing
we do is like, hey, you get afractional CMO for a mini
marketing team for less thanprice intern.
You give them like what wouldcost six in six resources, you
can package it in fractionallyto get it done for a price point
that most people will sign offon, is the idea.
SPEAKER_00 (04:24):
Right.
So yeah, they basicallyeverything is um it's billed
kind of like a law firm.
So think of it as like aparalegal and an attorney.
So it's based on the skill levelof the individual they're being
paired with and the market valuefor that person.
So payroll is less expensivethan a VP of HR, um, and you
know, bookkeeping is lessexpensive than a fractional CFO,
things like that.
(04:45):
Um, but then we just you knowclock our time round everything
in six-minute increments andthen send them a bill at the end
of the month for the work thatwe were approved to do.
Um, so there's no packages,there's no retainers, small
businesses and business ownersreally built the idea.
I talked to a lot of businessowners and then ended up being
able to um kind of take whatthey had for feedback and then
(05:06):
grow it from there.
SPEAKER_01 (05:08):
I mean my wife being an HR of one for a global
company of a few hundred people,literally just an HR of one.
Oh it isn't a lot.
Um I think maybe we'll get intothis just a little bit later,
but actually I can probably askthis question now, it's just
kind of set up your business.
Uh what I find in just fromhearing from sometimes her and
other just from being in thespace with other entrepreneurs
(05:28):
is that HR is often not lookedat as a strategic role as more
of a unnecessary cost operationspiece.
Uh for your customers, where dothey land on that topic?
SPEAKER_00 (05:40):
Um they have to be able to see it as an investment.
They have to know that whenthey're investing in HR, they're
they're solving some problemwithin their business, whether
it be a issue with employmentrelation issues, because they've
already had some complaints orlegal issues and they know that
they have to invest in it.
So that's kind of where it's anecessary cost, but they don't
see it as um an eve a necessaryevil.
(06:02):
So it's not like a requirement,they really understand how it
impacts their business.
Others, um, we if they see itthat way, we can't convince them
to purchase it.
They have to understand thatwhen they are improving their HR
and they're improving theiremployment um, I would say, life
cycle and work within thebusiness.
And, you know, they get more fortheir money for the benefits and
(06:25):
that kind of stuff, or whateverit is they want to focus on,
then they're getting more out oftheir people.
They get more business for that,and it kind of helps their
business grow.
And so when they understand andsee it that way, um, those are
really the best clients that wehave the most success with.
Um, we do just someproject-based work.
We may just do, it's rare, butwe may just write a handbook.
(06:46):
Um and then we just give themthe handbook and walk away.
Um, we may just do an audit foran HR overview, give them the
audit results and and walk away.
Sometimes they'll, you know,basically say, stay and solve
the problems you found from theHR audit and things like that.
A lot of times that's from abusiness that's being sold or
you know, purchasing someoneelse, an acquisition's
(07:08):
happening, something really,really complicated where they
they still see it that way.
And but it's a requirement fromsome segment of the business.
But typically the clients see itas an investment.
And we have a quite a fewclients and business owners that
really do care about theirpeople, and that makes a
difference.
SPEAKER_01 (07:23):
Well, I mean, it's to buy it for sure.
Or do you require almost a localHR lead, or do you guys serve
that role as well?
SPEAKER_00 (07:30):
Everything is um pretty much remote.
So all of our clients, we we doeverything remotely.
SPEAKER_01 (07:34):
And do they need like a uh their own HR resource?
SPEAKER_00 (07:39):
Oh, no, no, no, no, no.
So a lot of times they're too,they're too small to even have
their own HR resource.
So they just decide that theyneed to invest in HR because
they want to compete for toptalent.
They, you know, have their ownreasons for wanting to, you
know, pass it off that weprocess their payroll.
Um, but we access, you know,because we access everything
remotely, they don't have tohave someone on their own.
If they're big enough, like, youknow, usually over 75 people,
(08:02):
they really should have theirown person.
Um, most of our clients that arethat big, we are still either
most of their HR or a piece ofit.
So they may, we've had somewhere they have an HR generalist
and they use our VP of HR.
So we're a part of leadership,weirdly enough.
Um, and and then they just havethe the lower level person um
(08:24):
they that would typically answerto someone else in the company,
like a COO, but they don't knowhow to manage HR.
They don't know how to help themor give them HR resources.
So we come in as like theleadership middleman between
their generalist and leadership.
Um, so we've actually done thatseveral times, um, which I was
not expected to do that.
SPEAKER_01 (08:41):
Yeah, there's like a doer role.
And then there's a leadershipcomponent that doesn't really
take many full time if they'renot also doing the doer role.
And I I'm a little closer.
I'm just curious because I thinka lot of smaller business
owners, me included, uh, wherewe use tons of outsourced, I
don't really have pay, I don'thave payroll unless I just want
to pay myself because it's alloverseas and there's no need for
(09:02):
it.
And uh but then there'scompanies that are kind of like,
well, no, we need payroll, butwe have 400 different countries
we're working in.
Like you're it's like, well,what person can't handle?
It's just an interesting spotbecause I I think what you just
described is interesting becauseit's fit, it's built for
purpose.
SPEAKER_00 (09:16):
Yeah, and we do have the yeah, and we have the doers
as well.
Like we have HR generalists,benefit administrators, all that
kind of stuff too.
So, like in this situation withyour wife, for example, if she's
the person of one for like, youknow, hundreds of people, um,
there's gonna be times wherethat's literally impossible to
manage and meet expectations.
And when that happens, we getbrought in as like a support
(09:38):
person um that she can delegatework to um for either a short
period of time or long period oftime.
SPEAKER_01 (09:44):
And there's also times that connection for you.
Um I think that'd be aninteresting just because I I run
into people that are the leaderstrying to figure it out and
they're doing it themselves.
Like, sure.
SPEAKER_00 (09:56):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (09:57):
That's definitely.
SPEAKER_00 (09:58):
And that's the thing.
A lot of times they don'tunderstand that everything HR
touches has an employment lawaround it.
And I literally mean everything.
There isn't anything we can'ttouch that there isn't a law
around.
And so so if someone is doingthat themselves and you know
they don't have the you knowlegal resources or you know, HR
certifications to at leastrecognize when they need to be
(10:19):
doing something differently.
Um, I was actually speaking withan attorney recently who had a
situation with um a colleagueand friend of his, so he wasn't
their attorney, which isprobably good, um, who had a uh
harassment case against himself.
They were all at a bar drinking,you know, one thing led to
another, definitely got into asituation they shouldn't have
(10:39):
been in.
SPEAKER_01 (10:40):
Um involve a bow play concert or not?
SPEAKER_00 (10:43):
Uh could have, but it's like not that, but close
enough.
And basically the person at thebar made a complaint against the
owner.
And the owner told his attorneyfriend, it's okay, we've done
the investigation, um, and wefound that there's no, there's
no harassment.
He's like, Well, who did theinvestigation?
He's like, I did.
It's like you can't, and he'slike, but everything is fine
(11:03):
now.
He's like, Nope.
He's like, you don't see anyproblem with this where you have
the conducted your owninvestigation against yourself.
Um, no, you can't do that.
SPEAKER_01 (11:12):
Yeah, there's no uh arm's length.
Um like right, it's like uh, youknow, it it's HR's one of those
pieces that is a is uh not anecessary until it's too late.
SPEAKER_02 (11:23):
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (11:25):
I I think it's beautiful you've done that.
Uh a little bit your journey.
Uh tell about how you got here.
SPEAKER_00 (11:30):
Um so this it's actually kind of a weird
situation.
I um never really had a lot ofcareer goals.
I had a lot of education goals.
And so when I was my parentswere business owners and they
wanted me to go into theirbusiness.
My dad was a jeweler and I didsome like summer things like
that with my dad and kind of Ilearned I didn't want to be a
(11:51):
jeweler um because it's it'sliterally dirty and I had to
like keep my fingernails reallyshort.
I'm a very girly girl.
And I was like, um, didn't wantto have to like follow in my
foot, my dad's footsteps forthat.
Um but when I went to college, Imajored in psychology because I
always wanted to studypsychology.
Um to appease my parents, Iminored in marketing um and
(12:11):
thought I would never own my ownbusiness because I just didn't
uh see the the need and wantingto like run the whole thing and
all of the business aspects thatgo with it.
Um and when I was in likeknowing that I wanted to study
psychology, I always knew I hadto get higher education in order
to do anything with a psychologydegree.
(12:32):
You can't just do something withan undergrad, at least not in
psychology.
Um, so right out of uh school, Iwas an auto theft and arson
investigator.
And I did that for six years anddecided to go back to school to
get my master's.
And um, right around thattimeline, it was like 2010.
So right after the 2008 crash,we're still kind of like in the
(12:54):
middle of the crash.
There's still not like a lot ofgood jobs out there and stuff
like that.
Um, so it did take me about ayear to find a job.
Um, and so for my master's, Iwas focusing on something called
industrial organizationalpsychology, which is a research
degree of human capital.
And HR is the actual practicalapplication of IOSYC.
(13:15):
So I kind of connected the twocareers that way, even though I
didn't know what HR was at thetime.
And then I got my first job inHR.
And so I kind of, you know, kindof worked my way up into HR.
My first company, I was thesecond HR person in a company of
300 people.
Um, within a year of that, I hadfinished my um my master's
(13:38):
degree and started getting my HRcertification.
So after two years of being inthat company, I was promoted to
head of HR.
And at that time, the companyhad like 550 people.
So I replaced myself through theteam.
Um, by the time I left, therewas 850 people across 10 states
and four countries.
And I ran HR for all of it.
Um, that company sold to aprivate equity firm.
(14:00):
I left when a lot of theleadership was leaving.
I went to a residentialconstruction company and
switched from tech toconstruction and had the to
switch industries doing that.
And then um I had I went fromlike all of that to 100 people
in one state.
And I was like, I can do that inmy sleep.
(14:21):
Um, so I realized I had kind ofthe energy and brain power to
start getting my doctorate.
So then I started getting my PhDin IO psychology.
And um, after a couple of years,um I wanted to focus on my
research and less on mycorporate job.
So I um switched to do a umconsulting thing.
(14:42):
I thought I would just do um bean independent consultant, make
a little bit of money to help,you know, help pay the bills.
It's just me and my husband.
And um, and then I would, youknow, continue to focus on
school.
That lasted less than threemonths before I had eight
clients and hired two full-timepeople.
And so I just decided to Youfound the need.
SPEAKER_01 (15:05):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (15:06):
So I was like, you know, as I mentioned, the was
the um business owners told mereally what they wanted.
They saw the value in HR.
They said, we don't want to doit anymore.
We'll just give you an internalemail address, you do the HR.
And that really started hittingit off.
And we got so much activity fromit that the business kind of, I
don't want to say built itself.
It did take a lot of marketing,it did take a lot of networking.
(15:27):
How did you hit on that?
SPEAKER_01 (15:29):
Was it was it was a social media post?
Was it just word of mouth?
SPEAKER_00 (15:32):
How did you how did you it was it was a lot of a lot
of both.
Um, so I was going to a lot ofHR conferences.
I was already on the board of HRfor Sherm for local chapters,
and so I was kind of alreadyknown in the HR world.
And I just told everybody, I'mgoing independent.
This is what I I don't knowexactly what I'm doing.
I just know how to do HR and andI'm going independent.
(15:54):
So someone I I had talked tosaid, Well, I have an idea.
Um, he's like, I do, he was a HRdirector for a um essentially a
cable company, like aninstallation cable.
And the owners of that company,one of his other owner buddy
friends, had a medical company.
(16:14):
And as he was launching thatcompany, he's like, Hey, why
don't you borrow my HR team tostart your medical company?
So this poor guy who's doingcable installation HR is asked
to do medical HR, which are twovery different worlds.
And he's like, Why don't we justsay they could use you instead
of us and we'll transition itover?
And so everyone bought in on theidea, and that's what happened.
(16:37):
Um, weirdly enough, though, whenI met the owner of the medical
company, we met at a coffee shopand I just said, This is my
background in HR.
These are some things I'veaccomplished, and this is how I
think I can apply them to yourbusiness.
And as we're sitting there forcoffee, a lady walks in the room
to kind of go through the coffeeum shop into a restaurant, and
we both stand up, we both giveher a hug, and then she moves
(16:59):
on.
And he was like, How do you knowher?
And I was like, That is whoreplaced me at the large tech
company when I left.
She was the head of HR thatreplaced me.
I spent six months training herbefore I left.
And he said, Well, that's nice.
That's my sister-in-law.
And so he basically said hechecked in with her, made sure I
had a great, you know, glowingrecommendation.
(17:20):
And I was hired, and that was myfirst client.
And people always said gettingyour first client is the
hardest.
Um, it really just took shoutingfrom the mountaintops and then
connections over connections.
And um, I think the fact that itwas that connection was a
complete twist of fate, but itworked out really well.
And then once I had a client,then it was um, you know, people
(17:41):
kind of just referring, and thenI my first few clients were
referrals that people I knew.
SPEAKER_01 (17:47):
Well, exactly.
I think I think what you didsomething though that's uh I
think people realize is you youwere out there.
Uh so you can't think just towork somewhere.
You do have to be proactive toget in the community to be
known.
If you have and at the time youjust did it probably because it
was professional reasons,whatever else.
But the truth is if you have anyambition to grow in your prayer,
you you gotta be known becausepeople for the bigger jobs,
right?
(18:07):
As you know, people find you,you're not gonna find it.
They're gonna say, I want her, Iwant him.
Um I have a question for you.
Like, you know, uh you know, oneof the one of the things that I
that I've seen that HR is a r isnot a strategic resource is
because it doesn't add thatmonetary value because people
may look at uh humans and theirin their companies uh uh
(18:27):
differently, meaning like we canalways replace them, this
whatever, right?
It's like I can't do anythingabout that.
But what does speak sometimes intheir languages is on the exit?
Do you have any data or anythingthat you would say, hey, by the
way, having better processes,this stuff, some kind of
function in place, allows yourexit to go from a different
multiple?
Is that a is that a fairstatement, true statement, or do
(18:48):
you think it's yeah?
SPEAKER_00 (18:49):
So a lot of times in being in the MA space, um, I've
seen I don't assume you're meanexit of business.
I don't know if you mean exit ofpeople.
Um, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (18:59):
So when someone buys it, it's a buying.
So if you have something.
SPEAKER_00 (19:03):
Yeah, if you have contractors versus employees,
um, your your rate issignificantly lower, and or
you're not purchasable.
Um, so one of our businesspartners is um, you know, is is
in MA and she's our um one ofour advisors.
She's actually an acquisitionthat I did last year.
I I bought her company and thenshe moved on to the MA space.
(19:25):
And so I learned quite a bit um,just knowing what she has and
the referrals that she can giveus, um, is that if they their HR
has to be stronger, and the thefact that if they have
contractors or if they havesignificant risk from
mismanaging their people, nothaving proper documentation, um,
you know, things like that.
(19:46):
We also had a company that wasuh five restaurants that was
purchased by another restaurantbrand.
And we had to help them withcleaning up all of their filing
systems.
Obviously, it's a mess acrossrestaurants.
They're Were like completely outof compliance, like every single
line nine.
Um, someone even had their umsupporting document as a library
(20:08):
card.
So things like that, where it'slike you have, and then so
obviously because it was atransition.
Yeah, we had to help clean, wehad to stay and clean everything
up, get them, you know, to apoint where they could just run
the business and take over HRand leave.
So we had that project for aboutsix or eight months, I think,
during that transition.
So yeah, HR, either the risk ofit or the mismanagement of it,
(20:30):
or just not having the right umclassification of people can can
really damage the evaluation tothe company.
SPEAKER_01 (20:37):
Yeah, I think that's uh uh not having handbooks in
place under, I mean like allthat kind of stuff.
It's like I I like it's more youcan make a company hand over
where a shared service from aPE, like a private equity, can
take over HR with the lead.
And like there's there's a pathto like reduce cost because the
you're you're in you're inshape, right?
You're in order, or keep coststhe same as you grow.
(20:58):
That is a multiplier because youyou don't have to hire now
additional revenue and it's it'sit's organized better.
SPEAKER_00 (21:03):
Uh we also do a lot with like writing SOPs.
So if you have documentedprocesses and someone else is
taking over, it's so much easierto say, here's here's the
process.
Exactly.
SPEAKER_01 (21:15):
Yeah, absolutely.
Um just just kind of uhincredibly you know encouraging
conversation.
I think um I'll ask you thisquestion in it'll come across as
a shameless plug if someone'slistening, but I'm curious, uh,
just for you, like who's like uhwhat what is the like you know,
what's going on in the bird,what's the business owner?
What like what's the scenariothat you just like?
(21:35):
This is a no-brainer, you shoulddo it, rock it right now, call
me.
SPEAKER_00 (21:39):
Um a lot of times it's smaller businesses that are
like I would say that 10 to 15range is an interesting point
because employees or how do youmean that people?
Yeah, 10 to 15 people.
Um, because they can knowusually that is what for
whatever reason, that's theweird magic number that you
can't hire people you knowanymore.
(22:00):
You have to hire strangers.
And you're kind of starting tohave to go through a natural,
like an actual recruitingprocess, um, which we do have.
We do have corporate recruiters.
We don't do, we're not anagency, we don't place people.
We also charge hourly for theprocess of recruiting people
with you and working withmanagement and helping them make
the right hire decision versusjust bringing candidates.
(22:21):
So with, but at that point,you're starting to compete for
talent for bigger companies thatyour people are starting to ask
for what's your time off policy?
What do you have for benefits?
And if you can't answer thosequestions because it's been, you
know, you and your friends andyour family and you know, maybe
some outside referrals kind ofjust, you know, they they don't
have a handbook like youmentioned, they just don't know
(22:42):
the policies, they don't haveyou know things in place, a
payroll system in place.
They're still paying people bycheck through their accounting
system, which I've seen thatquite a bit.
Um, and they just can't managepeople and they can't grow and
they're at a they're stuckbecause they just can't attract
the right talent and and growthe business in a specific way.
So those are kind of thesituations that are really
(23:05):
noticeable.
Um, the other ones is definitelywhen the CEO is just wearing too
many hats.
Um, you know, they they reallyhave to start getting stuff off
their plate.
They're not the right person tobe managing it, but also it's
just not the right place tospend their time, whether it be
a CFO, COO, someone in theC-suite is still doing it.
Um, I had a company that hadlike 50 people.
(23:25):
The CFO was still onboardingemployees and literally taking
all of their backgroundinformation, putting it in the
system, setting up theirpayroll.
And I took it away from him,made processes, and then trained
someone else to take it.
Um, so they got them to trustand take that off of the CFO's
plate.
And when I first started, um, heliterally had a stack of like
(23:45):
three new hires, like paper,paper stuff that was on his desk
to enter into the system.
And I was like, you know, youcan electronically have them
complete stuff.
Like you can put that in thesystem, right?
You don't have to touch any ofthat.
SPEAKER_02 (23:56):
And and they were into shit, right?
SPEAKER_00 (23:59):
Yeah, they were they were a tech company.
I was like, you should makeyour, you know, especially being
a tech company, you should wantyour people to feel like it's a
tech savvy company.
SPEAKER_01 (24:06):
It's amazing, by the way, how bad you can get turned
off by a brand when you're like,we're what?
We're using what do we get paperpaychecks?
SPEAKER_00 (24:12):
What the f what yeah, you can't do a direct
deposit?
Like what?
SPEAKER_01 (24:16):
What uh what years is uh let me ask uh uh if you um
how would I say this right?
I don't get called an HR'soffice.
No, I'm kidding.
Um if you had uh look at yourown world today in the business,
any of the businesses reallywhat's really that metaphorico
(24:36):
tie that you're kind ofstruggling to cut right now?
What's what are you dealingwith?
What's what's the hardest part?
SPEAKER_00 (24:42):
Um for them.
SPEAKER_01 (24:46):
Um for you, for you and your business.
SPEAKER_00 (24:48):
Oh, for me?
Oh, for my business.
Um I would say like oh my god,and especially I think of like
the metaphor of cutting the tieon something.
Um I'm okay, so I'm at a pointwhere I my my business is large
enough that I am and I want tomake sure that my business has a
(25:10):
good evaluation, which means Ihave to the business has to be
able to run without me.
SPEAKER_01 (25:14):
I mean, you're on the road internationally every
two, three, but I think you'reon your own.
SPEAKER_00 (25:18):
So I still and I and I still work, you know, full
time and things like that, evenon the road.
And I which gets very exhaustingif I'm in a different time zone.
Um, I've found working inEurope, working five or six
hours ahead is much easier thangoing backwards in time and
going to the west.
SPEAKER_01 (25:34):
California's the worst or Kawaii.
SPEAKER_00 (25:36):
And being four uh four hours behind Eastern time
is very, very difficult.
Um, and having to get up at fivein the morning because then I
still want to stay out untillike midnight or something and
go see the city and that kind ofstuff.
So Europe I have found to bemuch easier, and then South
America is much easier becauseit's still pretty much the same
time zone, give or take an hour.
So that's not that bad.
Um, so for me, a lot of it isbuilding the business so that it
(26:00):
has the resources and theprocesses to replicate and grow
where I'm not a bottleneck andgetting myself out of a lot of
the processes.
So that is literally what I havebeen working on for the last two
years is kind of taken, and forme, I was the one that did all
of the sales.
Literally no one else in thecompany had closed new business
(26:20):
other than myself.
And I feel like a lot ofbusiness owners get into that
situation because no one cansell the business better than
you can because it's yourdesire, it's your goals, and you
really can speak to what theentire business is capable of.
Um and this last year is I havebeen able to trust a lot of
other people on my leadershipteam to also step in and help
with sales.
We don't have a sales departmentnecessarily, but we do have a
(26:43):
sales admin now.
And so we are able to continueto scale and bring in new
resources and afford um new um,you know, kind of I would say
like new tech and processes andthings like that that help make
their lives easier and and theycan scale.
And we now have like aleadership structure and
departmental structure as thecompany has grown, making making
(27:05):
it a lot easier.
So that's probably my own thing.
SPEAKER_01 (27:08):
That's a tough one, right?
And uh I I know I personally amin that spot where I'm I'm sales
and delivery because we'rebecause the consulting and AI
marketing, and it's like for me,I think sales piece is easier to
replace than my knowledge ofconsulting of AI and marketing
and and how to use humans in themix, right?
Um and it's like okay, thatone's gonna be a tough one to
(27:28):
crack.
Because it's a it's a you know,and it's like, do I just I look
at it go okay, I think I can getthe sales piece done, but do I
just at some point just dosomething different?
I'm like, I don't think I'mgonna crack that one.
That explains.
SPEAKER_00 (27:40):
Yeah, yeah.
And it's it's definitely been uma lot of uh, I would say
different strategies, and somethings have been just different
sparks of ideas that we ranwith.
Um, like for marketing, we hadwe had tried to hire a marketing
professional.
We weren't really getting theresults we were looking for.
And so my husband was like, goon Fiverr.
(28:01):
I was like, what's Fiverr?
Like, and so I literally justgave them the exact same
instructions I gave themarketing specialist and they
came out with a better result.
And then I was like, Well, howdoes Fiverr even, you know,
charge so little to get the workdone?
Like, why does$50 mean so muchto them?
And turns out, you know, inforeign countries like the
Philippines, that money goesreally far.
Um, and that's how we ended up,you know, hire, you know,
(28:23):
basically partnering with astaff um in the Philippines, and
then we, you know, kind of grewa company over there.
SPEAKER_01 (28:31):
It's exactly how uh, you know, I was working for
somebody, and and our marketingand salespeople can produce a
lead for me as a practiceleader.
I was like, I'm trying to builda business, and I'm like on the
hook for revenue, and you guyscan't produce any conversation.
And I was like, We're abillion-dollar company, you
can't give me a meeting, and soI just solved it with that.
I started on uh fiver up workout of the Philippines, and
that's the same team, you know.
(28:52):
They we did such a good job formyself.
I started selling itcommercially, and same team.
Uh and it's still working.
And the the uh the play on laborarbitrage is something you still
have to manage because as AIgets better, there's things that
happen.
But uh the truth is you'reright.
If you're not looking outside inthe right environments to build
your business and scale for foractivities that you're helping
someone else uh have a createreally good pay salary relative
(29:16):
to market, and you're stillaccomplishing what you need to,
and and you know, and talk abouta weird time zone, it's 12
hours.
Like so I like I love my teamsand full of teams because of
there, but I love that you didthat.
Uh the because that's exactlylike you know, where uh you're
adding value by being able tosell something at a price point
that's still better, so you havemargin, and there you're you're
you can sit directly in themiddle, middle man, so to so to
(29:38):
speak, spot to do it.
SPEAKER_00 (29:39):
Um that way we were able to do that without
increasing rates for our clientsbecause small to mid-sized
businesses can only afford somuch.
And when the economy is, youknow, hurting in certain
situations, um, it's it's not asituation where we can raise our
rates just so that we can afforddifferent things.
So we definitely had to kind ofbe scrappy quite a bit without
(30:00):
it being us doing all the work.
And so we found that to bereally a valuable way to do it.
SPEAKER_01 (30:05):
Wonderful.
That's great.
Thank you so much.
Hey, listen, uh, it'd be uh bebe clear on who you want to
contact you.
And and I tell people this isuse a marketer, you'll get the
statement.
Give me one link for them tohit.
SPEAKER_00 (30:16):
Um, so definitely I would say anyone in the C-suite
of you know small to mid-sizedbusinesses and the industry does
not matter.
We have everything fromblue-collar to white-collar um
nonprofits and even governmententities.
And so it really just comes downto everyone needs HR and not
wanting to do it yourself andnot wanting to get the company
in trouble.
Um, best way to reach us isgriffin-resources.com.
SPEAKER_01 (30:40):
Do you focus just to be clear on US mostly US
companies, or do you follow?
SPEAKER_00 (30:44):
Uh we focus on US because that's the employment
law that we are familiar with.
And if we multi-state, but theinternational um companies is
the ones that we have a subsidy,if they have a subsidiary here
in the United States.
So we have companies that arebased in you know, Canada,
Spain, Scotland, um, Australia,and Germany at the moment.
SPEAKER_01 (31:06):
And then you guys help with the US component of
that.
Correct.
That's a really smart becausethat way we don't have to hire a
full-time resource that can'thandle like they're they can
handle it, but they don't, it'snot a full load, right?
So that's true.
SPEAKER_00 (31:17):
Yeah, it's not even a part-time job.
We're talking five hours a week.
SPEAKER_01 (31:20):
Right.
It's like a it's a component.
It's why you have a a business.
unknown (31:23):
Yeah.
Perfect.
SPEAKER_01 (31:25):
Um, thank you by the way.
Um, if there was a question Ishould have asked you today and
I didn't, what would thatquestion have been?
SPEAKER_00 (31:31):
Um, let me, I would say the hardest thing to that I
had to learn as becoming abusiness owner um was I didn't
realize like I would physicallyhave to run everything that it
takes to run a business.
From obviously like marketingand sales, which I knew nothing
about, and I had to learn thatpart.
(31:52):
Finance was the hardest part Ihad to learn.
My husband and I decided earlyon that no one can touch our
bank accounts except for us.
Um we do have obviously uh wehave a CPA, we obviously have
accountants and bookkeepers thatmanage all of the general ledger
and all that stuff, but no onecan physically touch the money.
So I still do my owntechnically, my own accounts
(32:13):
payable.
I just don't have that manybills.
Um and uh we wanted to reallycontrol ourselves from money
laundering and white collarcrime.
We've seen it so much in so manybusinesses.
I I thought it was like a rarething.
It's not.
It's happened to a lot of ourclients because they just don't
have separation of duties orthey don't keep control or they
(32:33):
just don't care to understandthat part of their business.
Um, so that was one thing thatwas the hardest thing for me to
learn was obviously reading the,you know, PL reports,
understanding general letters,understanding like physically
how to run the back end books,but um, I still keep control
over my invoicing and all of thecash flow.
So I've it is also somethingthat ties me to the business
(32:55):
quite a bit as far as makingsure the business is going in
the right direction.
I can make business decisions,the numbers tell a story.
I understand what that story isnow.
Um, so as a business owner, thatwas probably the I wasn't
expecting to learn that.
SPEAKER_01 (33:07):
Yeah, it's funny.
I just as an owner is every nowand then I'll go through with
our counting on deeptransactions, and I'll be like,
what is this?
What is and I'm like, we'repaying for it.
We used to use it.
Do we still use that?
And I'm like, check a team,like, we haven't used that in
nine months.
I'm like, why has anyone nottold me?
unknown (33:20):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (33:21):
So it's like then those things happen and you get
the controls, and you're like,all right.
I'm I'm doing this now though.
I'll tell you, I'll leave thisto you.
You can you can I take ouraccounts and I put it through a
an AI LLM piece that basicallysays what's what's unique,
what's different, what should Iwhat what give me, give me what
your perspective is on whatwe're looking here and question
it as if you were like anauditor.
(33:42):
And it's really good at pointingout like saving nine bucks, a
hundred bucks a year, twohundred thousand.
You know, I saved three thousandlast month just on refunds
because I was like, we haven'tused this stuff in a year.
Why you know we're like wecanceled it, and then they give
you your money back.
You're like, my god, like youcancel it, but you don't do
stuff like that.
SPEAKER_00 (33:57):
Yeah, we did the same thing with our Adobe
license because we had so many.
We had like, and I was like, isanyone even using this type of
license?
There's different you can justdo Adobe Reader if that's all
you need, but we were, you know,we we cut our bill from like
5,000 down to 3,000 by justtalking to everyone in the team,
finding out what they actuallyneeded, and then right because I
messed up because last year wewere hit with our renewal and
(34:18):
it's just like, here's yourcredit card bill.
And I'm like, what the heck wasthat?
And it was just automaticallycharging 10 licenses.
I'm like, are we even using 10licenses?
Like, why do we have that as abook?
Like it's a whole book ofbusiness thing.
So we dubbed we dove in, figuredit out, and then they wouldn't
change anything until our theywere like, Well, your next
renewal, you can change it.
So I was like, flag the countthe calendar and we're gonna dig
(34:39):
and you know, deep dive into it.
And we, you know, it was like,you know, saving us a couple
thousand dollars, but at leastit stops it from doing that year
over year mindlessly.
SPEAKER_01 (34:46):
You know, in in a seven-figure business, right
now, it's you still look at it,like uh if I can save two
thousand, I can pay my people alittle bit more and give them
like I look at it that way, it'slike that helps me put away
reserves.
I will tell you one thing likelike that I I'll leave this
advice to people is there likeCalony is an example.
We had two full Calendlyaccounts going, and I and I
because we had cut the tie, wehave instantly relevant, and I
and I just basically got them onthe chat and I was like, hey, is
(35:08):
there a way we can combine this?
And it's saving like 1800 bucksa year by going down to like no,
we'll just import this one overand you just log in and announce
one brand and you only need thismany.
Like and I'm like all right,cool.
Did that.
But then another company how youdescribed where they wouldn't
kind of oh, you can't do it tillnext year.
I said, Well, what's better?
Give me a refund now or gettinga really negative review for
(35:29):
that.
And they usually go, okay, we'llgive you a credit back now and
refund what you have.
Because like, I'm like, Do youwant me to say, hey, listen,
don't ever sign up for the wholeyear because if you're five days
long and you decide because youdidn't see your credit card
bill, you can't, so don't everdo it.
It's not that worth it.
Yeah.
I can give you the math why thatdoesn't make sense.
And they're like, Yeah, we don'twant that review.
I've done that one lots of timesto people.
I'm like, listen, you don't onlyput a negative review with a
(35:50):
million subscribers, do you?
Yeah.
You don't want that.
You don't want that.
I'm trying to blackmail you intoit, but give me the damn refund.
Anyway, yeah.
Um do what you gotta do.
Thank you again.
You rock, by the way.
Thank you.
I love what you built.
Go enjoy your cruise.
18 year anniversary.
SPEAKER_00 (36:06):
Thank you.
Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_01 (36:09):
I appreciate it.
And listen, anyone who's stilllistening, you rock.
And if you've been here before,you know what I'm about to say.
Get out there, go cut that tieto whatever's holding you back,
but define your success on yourterms first.
Thanks for listening.
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