January 23, 2025 • 41 mins
What if you could confidently navigate the complexities of healthcare consulting?
Join us on the Confidence Curve podcast as we welcome Stefan Van Der Heyden, a visionary entrepreneur from Arizona, who transforms the landscape of healthcare consulting and virtual assistant solutions. Discover how Stefan's journey from medical administration to founding Health Operation Solutions & VirtueStaff reveals untapped potential in medical consulting and recruitment. This episode promises insights into the art of aligning healthcare professionals with the right organizational cultures, addressing burnout, and the strategic trends shaping the future of the industry.
We explore the intricacies of making impactful matches between clients and virtual assistants, drawing on Stefan's experiences in overcoming recruitment challenges. With a focus on building success metrics for Virtue Staff, we discuss the importance of strategic planning, the role of quality assurance in reducing turnover, and the satisfaction gained from improving operational relationships. Stefan's candid insights into intentional spending, system adaptability, and client feedback illuminate the entrepreneurial journey, highlighting the grit and confidence required to scale a business effectively.
Finally, we touch on the evolution from a business idea to a thriving company, emphasizing the critical phases of onboarding and strategic development. Stefan shares personal anecdotes about taking calculated risks and recognizing the value of one’s product, offering aspiring entrepreneurs valuable advice on fostering growth and confidence. This episode is rich with actionable strategies for personal and professional development, encouraging listeners to embrace the challenges of entrepreneurship with open eyes and resolute determination.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the Confidence Curve with Ashley and
Rick Bowers, where personal andprofessional journeys define
the art of scaling withconfidence.
Whether you're a businessleader navigating change or
someone seeking personal growth,this podcast offers insights
and actionable advice to helpyou thrive.
Now let's dive into today'sconversation with our incredible
(00:26):
guest.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Welcome to the Confidence Curve podcast with
Apex GTS Advisors.
My name is Ashley Bowers and myhusband, business partner Rick
Bowers, here to host today.
We want to welcome our guestStefan.
He's a serial entrepreneur witha couple of different
businesses and we're superexcited to have him here with us
today.
And if you'd like to kick itoff, tell us a little bit about
you and both businesses.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Sure, sure.
So thanks for having me.
Good to be here.
So yeah, you know, I guessbackground about myself.
I'm from Arizona.
We're here in the Valley, right.
I grew up here Honestly neverreally saw myself being a
business owner and things likethat.
Honestly never really saw myselfbeing a business owner and
things like that.
You know, went to high schoolRed Mountain, asu, nau lived in
(01:16):
the Valley, ended up getting ajob in medical, you know,
non-clinical, more of like adminassistant and then just kind of
like worked my way up fromthere, worked for different
clinics, different roles.
Ended up merging with a biggercompany here in the Valley and
kind of ran their specialtydivisions Right.
Ended up merging with a biggercompany here in the Valley and
kind of ran their specialtydivisions right.
So from there what happened isa lot of my day-to-day stuff was
, like I said, operationalthings right, making sure we
were functioning well, beingSwitzerland between corporate
and the physicians and theclinic and things like that.
(01:37):
And what ended up happening iswe wanted to expand, right.
So it was kind of my portion togo out, find new practices,
bring on more doctors, thingslike this.
In a lot of those conversations, a lot of private practices in
the space, knew where I workedand also kind of felt my
experience and said, hey, couldyou actually just we don't want
to sell, we kind of want justadvice, right?
(01:59):
So about seven years ago starteddoing independent consulting
for medical clinics anythingfrom primary care, specialty,
chiro, pt, you name it and thenjust kind of grew over time what
the big demand came to be wasrecruiting, right.
So, hey, do you know a nurse,do you know a surgeon, this or
that?
And I did, and I think at thetime I would just connect them
(02:20):
through the retainer I had.
And it was just, you know, goodto be good to my clients, right
?
A colleague of mine said hey,do you know how much you know
XYZ company paid to bring ontheir new neurosurgeon, he told
me.
And he was like, oh my gosh,I'm like I'm stepping over a lot
of money.
So naturally progressed todoing a lot of recruiting rather
than just project basedconsulting.
And now to this day we haveHealthOp, we have a few
(02:43):
different pillars.
Like I said, stillproject-based consulting
Recruitment's a huge aspect ofwhat we do now, mostly Arizona.
We have a few national partnersand things like this and we
have some cool stuff in thefuture works and really our
mission at the company is togive resources.
You know that we wish we hadMost.
All people here have worked inhealth care, worked in clinics
non-clinical and clinical Kindof felt like a lot of people
(03:07):
weren't up to just help oneanother in the space.
Everybody thinks they havesecrets, but everybody's doing
the same thing.
They just don't talk about it.
So that's always our missionthere.
What happened to my secondventure and journey was
basically a lot of our healthcare clinics were offshoring a
lot of work and weren'tsatisfied.
I knew a couple of people thathad their own virtual assistant
(03:28):
kind of companies did well andsaid, hey, you know, talk me out
of this, I'm thinking aboutdoing it.
And I was like listen, we'realready in recruiting.
Like how hard could it be tofind people from around the
world?
Turns out it's a totallydifferent animal, but we figured
it out and so a lot of ourclinics utilized us.
And then they said, hey, I gota realtor, I got a CPA, I got an
attorney, I think they coulduse somebody.
And the messaging got kind ofmixed right, like why is
(03:51):
HealthOp giving an attorney, avirtual assistant?
So started a new pillar calledVirtue Staff and yeah, that has
a unique mission as well.
You know that we can get intoas well.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
But I guess that's as abbreviated as I could do, if
that makes sense, great.
Okay, so you basically areproviding resources, consulting
services, differentopportunities and things to the
medical professionals, andsometimes it was things that
didn't exist at the time, so youhad to create some of this.
And so what gaps or challengesdid you identify in the medical
community that led to thecreation of really HealthOp?
Speaker 3 (04:26):
So it was.
It was a mix of a couple ofdifferent things, right?
It's like, you know, there'slike this stigma that goes
around in the consulting thing,Like, and you know a lot of
people say hey, like a lot of umpractices that start up don't
know business, they knowmedicine and like, to be fair,
like I don't know how to doheart surgery.
You know what I mean, and Ican't even say I started my
business perfect right off thebat, Right?
(04:48):
So I think what happened a lotwas there was just gaps.
You know, starting a company,you know, depending on how you
start, terms of funding,timelines, things like this just
need to get going, you know,and, with that being said, not
everybody does everything right.
Most people don't and so wetried to fill in gaps of what
they needed, without, I guess,hiring someone that just wanted
(05:08):
to learn it on the fly or thingslike that.
And, conversely, with recruiting, you know like I've had to work
with recruiters in my corporatelife and it was a nightmare.
I mean, like people changingresumes, selling them on a job
where it's not actually thatpoor candidates, extremely
expensive.
It was just like a nightmare,you know.
And so, really, like I said, Ilooked at stuff and I said how
do I wish I had it.
(05:30):
What resources do I wish I hadEven new grad physicians coming
out like we try to help themwith, like even some contract
review, right, Knowing what youcan and can't, redline Things
like this, that's just again itfelt like no one was helping and
we just said, hey, what are thethings we can help with that
we're qualified to help with andthat's how we built it out, so
that kind of makes sense.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Absolutely.
Looking at, you know today'seconomic environment and all the
different changes and thingsthat are happening.
You know, a lot of timesbusiness owners and leaders like
okay, if unemployment rates aregoing up, then you know, all of
a sudden we should have morecandidates.
Or if we're going to havestruggles in the economy, people
are going to become availableand, as we know, when we're
looking for candidates andtrying to find the right people,
(06:11):
you know, yes, there are peopleavailable, but it's not always
that perfect candidate thatbecomes available.
It's not necessarily anemployer's market or an
employee's market.
What advice are you givingright now, both to your
candidates as well as to thecompanies that you're serving?
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Yeah, it's such a great question, right, and like
I think that sometimes we jokethat if companies invested into
maybe some of these other youknow cultures or company
branding or things like this,that they might need to use us
even a little bit less, you know.
But you know the job market.
Everybody says there's ashortage and there is.
It's not as much as people say.
And, like you, know the jobmarket everybody says there's a
(06:45):
shortage and there is, it's notas much as people say.
And, like you said, it's moreso finding the right person.
I will say that the reasonpeople end up using recruiting
and a lot of our clientsactually have talent acquisition
built in, so it's not justpeople without a recruiter in
house the thing with us is thatyear round, we're looking for
(07:05):
people that want a betteropportunity, right?
So, like I used to tell people,the people you want aren't
applying.
Like, let's be honest, you knowwhat I mean.
And that's where, likeheadhunting, recruiting, things
like this comes in.
Conversely, maybe there's someroles you get flooded with
candidates and you know, forinstance, in the medical
community, like medicalassistants, like MAs, even with
(07:26):
us, through application booking,the appointment reminders
leading up to the interview,everything like that 80% will
no-show.
And so now you're paying anoffice manager, administrator,
hr a lot of money to wait aroundfor no-shows and hopefully
they're good about using theirdowntime, but who knows, right?
So different roles havedifferent problems, but what I
always tell people is that youdon't need us unless you need us
.
So if you've got a good thinggoing, you're getting the talent
(07:48):
you want, the volume you want,you don't really need us.
But if it comes to a pointwhere you say, hey, like and you
know this better than anything,I need high-level talent to put
my company at the next level,that's where we come in.
Conversely, people say I'm justnot getting anybody at all.
That's where we come in,because you've got to realize
that year-round we're justhaving conversations, people
(08:10):
applying, people referring overpeople we meet with networking.
So when we meet so many peopleand build those relationships
and someone needs someone.
You know, listen, we do spend alot of money on ads and things
like that every month to getcandidates.
But I mean, you got to do both.
And for a company.
It's really expensive to dothat.
You know it's very expensiveand so not all of them do it
(08:34):
right, or it doesn't even makesense for them to do it a
certain size, you know.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
But I feel like the strategies change.
You know, what you should putin it.
You know, in one month, sixmonths later, even on LinkedIn
and some of the different youknow portals, the way in which
candidates are.
You know being attracted to thedifferent ads can change over
time as well, and what they'relooking for and and things like
that.
What are you finding kind of atthe top, maybe like three
(08:57):
things that candidates arereally considering the most
important when they're making adecision about where to go?
I mean, obviously, financialcompensation.
There's a certain need thateverybody has and it needs to
meet that need, and you knowinflation and things like that,
that need is increasing.
But beyond that basecompensation, you know what are
people really looking for today?
Speaker 3 (09:17):
It's a great question , and the way that we try to
find that out is anyone that's arecruiter or consultant with my
team that's talking tocandidates gets training on how
to do these interviews, becauseour interviews are
non-traditional.
We start right off the batsaying, hey, my whole goal today
is to learn more about you andwhat you're looking for.
I'll talk about the position inan open format.
(09:37):
I'm not going to sell you onthe position.
I'm going to be as transparentas I can, because it doesn't do
you any good to get somewhereyou don't want to be.
It doesn't give the employerany benefit of getting someone
there that doesn't want to bethere, right, and, like you said
, sure, everybody wants to makemore money, right, but, um, and
it'll, it'll vary by the role,once again, um.
So let's talk physicians, forinstance, right?
(09:59):
Um, depending on the specialtyand the type of physician, um,
it's going to depend a lot morethan compensation.
One thing you'll find a lotright now is patient load, um,
so, and a lot of people in thehealthcare field are probably
like rolling their eyes orlaughing or things like that.
So, um, because, listen, we, wedo have employers, and this is
(10:19):
kind of getting into the otherside of healthcare, which is a
whole other conversation.
But, um, we clinics that see, Ithink, what a lot of people
consider higher volume,especially if they're a new grad
.
Right, it's going to be hardfor me to see 20, 30 patients a
day, and it depends on the modelof the clinic, of what that
looks like.
Granted, some clinics giveresources like scribes and
things like this, others don't.
(10:39):
You talk about the acuity.
So how sick are these patients?
You know, say, in primary care.
Well, you know, what kind ofdemographic am I seeing?
Is this a rural healthcareclinic?
Are these a lot ofnon-compliant patients?
And so a lot of times they'llsay, hey, what's the patient
volume and what support do I get?
You know, that's one of thethings A lot of people do want
(11:01):
now an administrative role,which signifies to me some
burnout in healthcare, right.
So we have a lot of people dowant now an administrative role,
which signifies to me someburnout in health care, right?
So we have a lot of physicianssaying, hey, is there an admin
component?
More and more people want amedical director role, yeah,
which is interesting for sure.
And again, physician-employeeburnout's a whole other topic,
but it's real in healthcare, youknow, and so I think that on
the physician side, that'sdefinitely it.
(11:23):
You're seeing a lot of 410schedules.
You're actually seeing somepeople.
I actually met with a CEO of alocal hospice company.
Everyone at their company works32 hours a week but gets paid
40 hours a week.
So it's interesting stuff likethat that you have to compete
with, you know, and so it's.
It really varies by person.
That's what we try tounderstand, because we get both
(11:45):
sides of it Like I've worked thenon clinical side.
We have people on our team thatare clinical and, just like
anything, we try to meet in themiddle and understand what works
best for both people.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
So it kind of varies in the middle and understand
what works best for both people.
So it kind of varies.
With all of that that you justsaid, how do you kind of get a
feel for what the culture of theorganization or the physician's
office?
How do you get a feel for thatwhen you're interviewing the
potential prospects to go inthere and figure out what that
match is?
How does the culture piece cometo play?
Speaker 3 (12:14):
Yeah, that's such a good question.
So over time a lot of ourbusiness we get is actually
referral right, it's word ofmouth, it's hey, I know someone
that could use your help.
And if we're talkingrecruitment side especially, you
know a lot of these clinicslike healthcare is a big, small
world.
Everybody knows everybody.
There's no doubt reputationgets around, but we actually
(12:34):
take our time to visit a lot ofthese clinics.
If we're able to, we'll spend aday inside the clinic to see
what it's like.
To be honest, we've also turneddown clients for just certain
reasons that we don't think it'sa good fit.
We don't like to feed people tothe wolves, if you will.
And so for us, we try toprotect ourself as a company by
(12:55):
and we have the luxury to to bea little bit more picky with our
clients, right, we kind ofanalyze turnover rates within
the people we send over.
We openly ask them what's yourturnover look like right now?
Why do people want to work here?
So one way we kind of protectour candidates is being a little
bit more selective with ourclient, with our client, and you
(13:18):
know we tell a lot of ourcandidates to hey, we can only
vouch so much for the culturebecause we're not embedded in
the clinic right At the end ofthe day, like, whoever it is.
Like you need to go visit thatclinic, right, so say you're an
NP, pa, md, do whoever.
Don't take our word for it.
Like, go meet, don't just takea tour of the facility, say
where am I going to be working?
Who am I going to be workingwith?
Can I go to that atmosphere?
Right, don't bring me to thecorporate office where
(13:39):
everything's good to go.
If I'm going to be in Timbuktuand there's no support, like can
I go see it first, you know?
So we really always advise thatand we're really clear on that.
Like, hey, like definitely govisit.
This is what we can tell you,but you need to make the
decision yourself.
Um cause, once again, we do notsell people on positions, yeah,
so shifting gears a little bitback to health op.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
How, how have you built or enhanced the culture
within your own organization?
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Listen, we're, we're a small company, so like we're
very selective with who we hire.
We are so selective, you know,and um, and it feels like it's a
hot market right now, but weget consultants and recruiters
coming to us, like very often,to be honest, and it's cool
because it kind of like feedsthe beast, like when we're
interviewing all day long, myrecruiters know, hey, this is,
(14:30):
this is someone you want to talkto, and I'll make time out of
my own schedule to meet withthem, right, and so I think we
just listen.
You know, with time, everythingchanges and goals change and
things like this.
My plan has never been forHealthOp to be a publicly traded
billion dollar company.
Right, we're already furtherthan I ever saw myself being.
(14:52):
In general, I'm very thankfulevery day for you know what
we've built as a team, who myteam is, and so, with that being
said, we do have the luxurywith scaling as needed, as I
will say, you know, and we dowant to grow, we do want to get
bigger, but I'm very thankfulthat, through our network and
through what we do, we arepretty naturally able to just
(15:13):
bring on people that resonatewith our culture, and we're
pretty specific and analyticalwith what this role entails,
what the future of that role is.
I think there's certain roleswhere people want a nine to five
, and I'm okay with that.
I think a lot of like businessowners, startups especially want
everyone to grind.
I want them to grind 24 sevenall the time being this with me.
(15:34):
There's roles that need them.
There's roles that don't allthe time be in this with me.
There's roles that need them.
There's roles that don't, andyou'll actually do yourself a
favor if you find the roles thatdon't and find someone that
values that work-life balanceand so all of these things we
try to take into consideration,right, so it's careful, we're
very careful with who we bringon for it, and that's the
easiest way to do it.
Hardest thing to change is aculture, and that's why you know
there are certain bounds.
(15:54):
We don't step over with clientsin terms of trying to change a
culture.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
So obviously you have , you know, health ops and
virtue staff.
Are there other verticals inthe future for you, Because you
know, obviously being able to bethis successful in the health
care arena it's a very difficultarena, a very technical arena.
Are there other verticals inthe future and, if so, can you
share what people might belooking for from you in the
(16:20):
future?
Speaker 3 (16:21):
Yeah, there's some I can share and some that we're
working on.
So I do think that thetrendiest thing, not just in
healthcare, is AI, and a lot ofhealthcare clinics are looking
into AI, how to do it HIPAAcompliance, right wrongs, good
solutions and not.
We're starting to build out alittle bit of a space for it in
(16:44):
not necessarily just recruitment.
We use AI in our recruitingefforts, but I think a lot of
healthcare clinics can improvein a lot of ways by using AI
appropriately, and so we kind ofhave that focus for the future.
I think there's going to be anew position called chief AI
officer.
Everyone has a CTO and thingslike this.
I think chief AI officer isgoing to be a thing.
So, if we can kind of be aheadof the curve a little bit, I'd
(17:05):
love to do that.
And yes, there are a coupleother pillars that we'd like to
get into that we're working onfor next year that, if they come
to light, we'll kind of talkabout.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
But that's one example.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
that's a hot topic, but I think it's really cool and
I'm not the perfect person forthat.
We're actually trying to findmore people that know more about
AI and healthcare.
We've talked to a lot of deviceand product companies out there
, but I'd love to move into thatspace.
Speaker 4 (17:35):
It's an interesting space.
It's something that I usealmost every day in business and
I know you use it quite a bitas well.
But I find myself having aconversation with ChatGPT, and
today I was working on a projectand I was like, oh, I don't
think he liked my response tothat, because I felt like the
response that I got back fromChatGPT was a little bit
(17:55):
negative.
This is interesting how it'skind of growing and and I feel
like they learn your, yourtrends and the different things
that you do.
So it's it's something that youhave to embrace it, because
you're going to get less leftbehind if you don't.
So it's just it's a powerfultool.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
It's a little bit scary, but you just got to go
for it sometimes yeah, chrisjohnson, the ceo of lane tara
lever, and now he has a companycalled tomorrow today, which is
an ai consulting company, and,um, he was teaching a peer
advisory group that I'm a partof and he was like good morning,
thank you.
And all of a sudden I'm like doyou need to be that polite?
Like what are you doing?
(18:32):
Is this a part of your strategy?
he goes at some point I feellike it's going to come back and
it's going to be a benefit.
So yes, it is a part of mystrategy and so it was kind of
funny of just having that wholeconversation as you look on the
virtue staffing side and kind ofwhat have been some of the big
wins that maybe you starting outin that space thought would be
a bigger obstacle for you thanmaybe what they were or kind of
(18:56):
that value, because you hearabout virtual assistants and
that kind of service so much andpeople sometimes are afraid
because of you know the trainingor the turnover or how do we
know that we fit?
So what is it that's uniqueabout the service offering that
you have and how you work withyour clients in that space?
Speaker 3 (19:12):
Yeah, yeah, so great question.
So I think a few things.
There is like one, somethingthat we didn't expect coming
from the recruitment space wasjust the sheer volume, right, I
mean it's, it's incredible.
I mean like we actually pumpedthe brakes so we could do more.
But we have, and recruitingwith, you know, some inbound,
(19:37):
granted, but a lot ofheadhunting, recruiting to where
it's like we are just bombardedby the amount of applications,
and so, you know, something Rickand I were actually talking
about was like, hey, like someof this testing, like you know,
I go back to the days where youhad to like walk in and there
was like a kiosk to apply at thestore, right, you know, and you
(20:00):
had to take a test andassessment.
but you did it because youwanted the job.
You know obviously the jobmarket's not like that now.
But man, we've had to build inso many assessments and then
refine those assessments andthen even after that say, okay,
like out of the people that pass, how do we refine that?
So, like, even using a brandnew ATS, the ATS we used could
not handle some of theautomations and testing features
(20:21):
we needed.
So now you can only imagineanyone that's built out an ATS.
It's not as bad as maybeSalesforce or things like that,
but I mean it's a build out youknow, and so we had to then find
a whole new ATS system.
we had to go through the testingprogress process what
integrates?
And, like I said, thank God Ihave good business partners,
because there's no way I couldhave done it.
(20:43):
It's just too much you know.
So, anyway, going back,basically we had an influx of
people and it's always beenimportant to us to deliver a
valuable service.
And it's funny, becauserecruiting and virtual
assistants I think both get abad reputation for a good reason
.
To be honest, you know what Imean, but that's kind of always
been my passion thing is likeit's like maybe something people
(21:06):
say but don't mean.
But you know, we saw somethingthat could be done better and we
actually did it, you know.
And so before we started VirtueStaff, we had used virtual
assistants.
I know what these companies arelike.
I mean, we did a bunch oftrials with different ones and,
um, you know, what really did itfor me was the impact, you know
.
So we have a virtual assistantthat works with us to this day.
(21:27):
His name's Nathan.
He's incredible, I mean, he'samazing, you know, um, and it
was really seeing the impact onNathan's life that actually made
us full dive into it.
Um, because, uh, the virtualassistant industry, um is very
saturated.
Um, a lot of people just do it,get somebody in that checks the
boxes, pay them about half ofwhat we do and then just expect
(21:51):
the churn Difference with us forone, we're very selective.
A lot of places say 1% getapproved.
I'd like to see what theirnumbers are.
I bet it's not 10,000 a weekand 1% of that.
But out of those as well, youknow they get a life-changing
opportunity.
I mean, we're paying themdouble what other agencies are,
and so you can only imagine thatwhat we saw in HealthOp was the
(22:14):
best match with someone thathas the opportunity for
something better and they'reexcited and wherever they're
going has an opportunity forthem and it resonates, and
wherever they're going has anopportunity for them and it
resonates.
It's this win-win thing, andnow, with Virtue Staff, we want
to make as many win-wins aspossible.
You know the job market's sotough in every realm that for
(22:35):
basic tasks and things like this, it's hard to get somebody,
even for $20 an hour, that youcan rely on.
It's not going to leave you.
You know much less someone thatthanks you every day for the
job they have.
So it was really cool to be ableto say okay, how do we find the
best, how do we keep the best?
And then how do we identifythem for the right client?
Believe it or not, one of theprocesses that takes the longest
(22:55):
for us is after we've done.
A discovery with the client isfinding someone that matches all
their boxes.
So all this ingesting andtesting, we have a lot of it
somewhat automated some AI, somenot some manual, but for the
most part that gets done prettyflawlessly.
It's then going to our databaseof people that are approved and
saying, all right, who's thebest for you?
(23:16):
That actually takes someserious time just because of the
volume, but once we do it, it'sso cool.
I mean the impact like gives mechills.
Thinking it's so cool.
I mean we have VAs that say,hey, listen, like went for a run
the other day, got a hole in myshoe.
First time in my life I leftthis side between shoes and
groceries.
We have companies say, hey, mywife and I were going to
counseling because we're workingon this company together is
(23:38):
driving us apart.
We got this VA like ourrelationships and better than
ever, right.
Not to mention they're savinglike 20,000 a year per person,
right, and the person's superthankful.
So it's such a cool thing.
It's very different, but in allthe reasons, in summary, we're
very selective, right, we're allabout the perfect match.
We pay them more and we believein the impact.
(23:59):
We actually take our ownproceeds and do relief programs
in the countries we source from.
You know, and that's why it'sVirtue Staff right is we have
virtues and things like that andthat's been a really cool
passion project.
You know, it's cool to seethese businesses save money,
have better work, have thesuccess stories, get to hop on
calls with their assistants andthey're just so excited, like
(24:21):
it's so cool.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
It's so cool.
That's amazing.
You probably touched on alittle bit of what your answer
would be for this next question.
But just curious, when you andthe leadership team you know,
when you're looking at, you knowboth companies, how are you
guys measuring success?
How are you looking back, youknow, at your current year and
understanding, you know what,what you got right, what you
want to get better the next yearand kind of what that next
(24:43):
stretch goal is for theorganization and keeping that in
balance with you know lives andwork-life integration and all
those sorts of things.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
Yeah, it's a great question and I think that over
time we've gotten better atplanning and like this is
totally your world.
I should be asking you what weshould be doing to be honest and
you know, with the size of ourcompany, we are smaller, you
know.
We, you know, granted, could dobetter at some of this stuff.
But you know basic things andmy two business partners are
also really good at this andhelping identify what we should
(25:14):
plan for and things like this.
But I know one thing this yearwe're going to say is, even on a
basic thing, like it soundssilly, but what do we do right,
what do we do wrong?
You know, turnover on bothsides is always a big thing.
The virtual assistant industry,of course, is notoriously high
turnover.
We have very low turnovercompared to our competitors,
(25:35):
which is awesome, and we alwaystry to increase on that.
So, for instance, recently,earlier in this year, when we
were looking at turnover, wesaid, hey, we could do even
better.
Let's build a quality assuranceprogram.
So we built that because thatwas super important to us.
Right On the health op side,more so, what we look at?
Certain things like time to fill.
You know how long have we hadthis requisition open?
(25:56):
Are we getting?
You know we have guaranteeperiods.
Are we making sure a certainpercent are guaranteed periods?
Are both our candidates andclients happy?
Things like this, of coursefinances.
You know we're a bootstrap,both companies are bootstrapped,
so we grew slow over time.
And with slow growth comesbeing very intentional with
(26:17):
every spend and every move youmake.
And maybe, fortunately andunfortunately, it comes a lot
with doing the job yourself andthen giving it to others, and
that takes time and refinement.
But looking back, I wouldn'thave done it any other way, nor
do I know how you know.
So you know, without taking onan investment, really having to
budget, saying, hey, we have,you know, all this money, we
(26:37):
need to make sure we pay backand are on target and things
like this, thankfully we'recashflow positive, like very
quickly, on both businesses andwe're able to say, hey, who's
our next hire, where's our nextinvestment?
If it's not hires, do we put itin marketing, do we put it in
quality assurance and how doesthat kind of flow through the
company right?
So those are some basic things,but I would be also open to
(27:00):
like what your feedback would beon some of that stuff.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Like, but I would be also open to like what your
feedback would be on some ofthat stuff, like what are you
kind of seeing?
You know what?
One of my favorite things to doand this is super simplistic,
but is a stop, start, continue.
And so similar to like what dowe do?
Right, you know, what do weneed to do differently?
And I love stop, start,continues on organizations as
well as departments and morebehavioral right.
Like what are the behaviors wewant to stop, what are the
behaviors we need to start, whatare the behaviors we want to
continue?
And you know, historically,regardless of size of
organization, we would do staffsurveys and then, from that
(27:28):
feedback, that would give usinformation as to the stop,
starts and the continues of theorganization, and then we would
feed that back to our teams andtalk about like, hey, this is
the stuff we're going to committo, we want you to hold us
accountable, and then when ateam member may have a little
bit of a performance challengeand we just need to redirect
they're really strong and wewant to make sure that we're
(27:49):
managing them up we would alsouse the stop, start, continue.
And so it didn't feel aspunitive right, it's not a
corrective action or a write-upor a performance plan, but it's
the same thing we use on thecompany.
It's the same thing we useabout how to talk about how we
want to improve and change theway in which we're doing
something.
Um, so it's always one of my,my favorite go-to pieces, and
(28:10):
then I think it evolves overtime with the size of the
company.
I don't think there's any, youknow, one perfect answer.
Um, I, I am a fan of theentrepreneurs operating system,
eos, and running through kind ofthat meeting, management and
some of those processes.
And then, of course, we usestages of growth inside Apex,
which is an entrepreneurialmodel, and looking at what are
(28:33):
those very specific things basedon the number of employees that
you need to really get right ateach stage of the organization.
And I think just continuing topull in different best practices
and what works for your companythis year might look different
for what works for next year.
And and that's okay and keep itreally nimble.
I always say strategic planningshould be really, really messy
(28:55):
and there should be thingseverywhere and up on the wall
and lots of ideas flying around,because then it allows your
execution to be more of astraight line, right.
But if you're too rigid in yourplanning process, then chances
are you're going to be all overthe place when you're trying to
execute it, because you haven'tthought enough of what could go
wrong, what could go different,what the options are.
So I like to make a mess andhave lots of Post-it notes
(29:17):
everywhere.
We had them all over our livingroom on Tuesday actually doing
our planning for our businesswith our team, and we have 16
feet of window, um, on our backpatio, and so it was covered in
post-its and flip charts, Um,and so, yeah, I think it's more
about taking the time to thinkstrategically, um than it is the
(29:37):
process you follow.
You know, um, it's always niceto have a guided process, but,
uh, just taking the time to doit and to think about it and to
reflect is really, reallyimportant in my view.
Speaker 4 (29:47):
And I think another thing that we do is really
listen to the client and whatdoes the client want?
And it's not just the headperson, it's the entire team.
So when you bring that wholegroup of leadership in, or
whatever level you want to go toin, you get so much more buy-in
in the process.
Whatever level you want to goto in, you get so much more
buy-in in the process.
I was talking to a prospect andthey're like yeah, we used a
(30:07):
consultant and I felt like wewere going to do whatever the
consultant's plan was and itended up being stuff that we
knew wasn't right, but that'swhat the consultant was forcing
us to.
And so it's really having thatability to say what does the
team see, what does theorganization see, and then going
forward with that.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
That's interesting too because like I'm curious how
you guys balance that, so likesometimes we'll do a practice
startup, so like we just wentthrough a discovery literally
last week and we kind of havelike a checklist thing, like you
know, like pick your ownjourney, you know, like like
baseline, like do you have thisfigured out, yes, no.
If no, do you need help?
like a very basic discovery typeof a thing, and typically you
guys know what's is typicallywhat they want help with, and
what they need help with don'talways match, and we try to meet
in the middle.
(30:47):
So how do you guys deal withthat where you're like, oh my
gosh, I just wish you would dothat.
Do you walk away from theclient?
Do you kind of give in?
What does that look like foryou guys?
Speaker 2 (31:08):
I think the model we use is called stages of growth.
In the two is a two-dayintensive that we have
organizations go through, and sowith that there are actual
diagnostics on the organizationthat the leadership team
responds to, and so you'resitting in the room then for a
couple of days with theleadership team and you're going
through their responses andtheir business fundamentals and,
um, that's like builderprotector, non-negotiable rules,
27 challenges, and it's allbased off research of 650
companies that were smallbusinesses at the time and why
did some succeed and why didsome fail?
And so, kind of, what were thethings that they were focusing
(31:31):
on during the different stages,stages being purely defined by
the number of employees thatthey have in the company.
And so what that does is itkind of bubbles up all of those
fundamentals that it's like ifyou focus on this, then you're
actually going to solve thatproblem.
That's really bothering you,right?
But it's coming from the entireteam and it's grounded in data,
and so it's really hard to lookat it and say, well, we don't
(31:53):
actually need to fix that.
And now, don't get me wrong,there's always, you know,
there's the best practice andhow.
You know where we are today andhow close can we get to that
best practice tomorrow?
You might not go from zero to ahundred or from 50 to a hundred
.
You might, you know, just go up10% and do it just a little bit
better that next year.
But that's what's reallyinteresting when I was leading a
large organization acquisitions, technology changes, leadership
(32:16):
changes all in the same yearand had about a 35% growth year
that year, and we went throughthis process and we had 120
items up on our wall of thingswe needed to fix, and I
literally walked out like Idon't even know where to start
right.
I mean, it's one thing to knowthat your operation is imploding
because you've grown so much.
It's another thing to see 120sticky notes all over your
(32:40):
boardroom wall right, and wereally needed to take our foot
off the gas and slow our growthdown and it just really wasn't
an option.
And we received 90 days to kindof work through it, and so the
leadership team stack ranked itand we just started like lining
them up and knocking them downof you know, most important and
biggest impact and ended upbeing that those 90 days were
(33:05):
the first quarter of 2020.
And had we not gone throughthat process.
I don't know that we would havesurvived the growth that we
actually had during COVID.
Right, it really prepared us.
So, you know, everythinghappens for a reason.
But that's really the beauty ofthe model is because it has
those diagnostics and you canreally sit down and take a look
(33:26):
to your point about clients.
Yeah, if someone's coming to usand they're like, well, no,
this is my problem, I just needyou to fix this.
And a lot of times from a CEO,it's a person or a department
right, they're like they're notleading right or it's this issue
.
Um, that's just not where westart and so we're probably not
the right fit, just like yousaid.
You know, it's nice to be ableto be selective and making sure
that we can make the impact thatare true to our core values as
(33:48):
well, because we really justneed to let the organization
speak and see what's there sothat we can make the right
changes.
And likewise, we're not goingto come in with something that's
pre, you know, determined of.
You need to do all of thesethings Like we probably have
some ideas based on what's onthe board and what you need to
fix, but we need to hear ifthat's actually what's impacting
your organization or not.
Speaker 4 (34:10):
Being able to actually accomplish stuff like
that really has to do with theculture that we talked about
earlier.
And how well does theleadership team communicate?
How much trust is there amongstthe leadership team?
Are they transparent?
Are they open to saying what'son their mind versus trying to
be tentative and and not say itin a way that could get them in
(34:34):
trouble or something like that?
And so when you have that opencommunication, the constructive
conflict in the conversations,that's where you really can say
this is a great idea.
I'm glad we kind of bouncedback and forth on this to get to
that point, and so it's.
It's really a culture bit thatreally helps people.
And so, with everything thatyou're doing and the processes
(34:54):
and those kinds of things, theother question that I was going
to ask before we kind of startto wrap up was do you do an
onboarding process with eitherhealth op or virtual staff to
kind of help them get onboardedand off to a good start with the
organization?
Speaker 3 (35:12):
Yeah.
So on health op side, if youmean like a candidate starting
with their employer, wetypically don't, right, there's
a lot that goes into that andwe're typically not involved in
that onboarding.
When a client onboards with us,there is a little bit more
onboarding there between theclient and us, with the virtue
staff as well.
There's kind of phases, right.
(35:32):
So usually someone comes to us,depending on what stage they're
at.
There's sometimes a first andthen a second call.
So the second call is more oflike hey, have you thought
through these things?
Usually one thing we ask islike hey, is this like a role
that exists?
Okay, if it does exist, good,you've had someone you know that
it's possible.
If it doesn't exist, have youdone these things Like, is this
(35:57):
like kind of a pie in the skything You'd like to do it Like?
And this kind of lets us knowthe level of the position.
Right From there we try to setbest expectations and then we
say, okay, we got it.
I think that this does makesense.
Let's move forward.
We pick the candidates, they dointerviews, they pick whichever
one they feel best is.
We do a brief onboarding withthem and then we check in.
We say, hey guys, is it goinggood?
Do you need help?
(36:17):
We actually work with businesscoaches that will actually help
them on how to delegate, how towork with the, and a lot of them
actually get that for no costby working with us.
It's usually one call, but it'sa great place to start, and we
have other things that are likedownloadables or guide yourself
and principles and things likethis.
So, yeah, we really try to helpthem set themselves up for
(36:38):
success once they're started,but even before they started,
we've talked, we've talkedpeople out of of getting one.
It's like hey, like I don'tthink this is a good fit.
You know, what I mean.
It's just you know it's notgood for anybody.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
Yeah so yeah.
So obviously, the podcast isall about the confidence curve
and helping entrepreneurs scaletheir businesses.
So, talking to yourself severalyears back, um, you know,
seeing that gap, seeing whereyou could make an impact, and
having a passion and a desire totake the leap.
To someone that's consideringmaking that leap, what advice
(37:12):
would you give them?
Speaker 3 (37:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
There's got to be an on the spot question.
Speaker 3 (37:18):
I know I know, I know , you know a lot of my answers
are going to have to be sobiased because I only know what
I've experienced.
You know what I mean.
I was able to transition bykeeping a W2 role and trying it.
I think this is like thetraining wheels of what
consultants and things like thisare still doing.
I still think that's a greatplace to start.
I think what happened next iswhen that was.
(37:40):
All I was doing was I heardsomeone say there's a difference
between having an LLC andbuilding a company, and you kind
of get what I'm saying, yeah,right.
And so from there I said, ok,what do I do?
Because I'm making money, youknow.
And then another two or threeyears ago I was kind of in this
(38:01):
place where I was doing a goodjob, you know, but it still
wasn't a company company.
I didn't have a ton ofemployees, we had some help and
things like this, and I hadlunch with somebody and he said
listen, man, you just got todecide I was like well, listen,
I'm about to, I'm about to havemy first kid.
My wife was pregnant at thetime.
I can't give up.
I can't give up my security.
Speaker 4 (38:22):
What if it?
Speaker 3 (38:22):
doesn't work and he goes.
That's why you do it.
You have no choice but tosucceed, and I think that he
knew or saw something in meenough to believe that.
And so listen, it'll never beperfect right away.
Right, Definitely, takecalculated risks.
It'll never be perfect.
(38:43):
I think, know yourself.
I think make sure you have atleast a little grit.
I don't think if you don't know, if you look at yourself and
you're honest and you say Idon't really have any grit, I
don't think starting a companyis for you to be perfectly
honest you know, and then justkind of go from there.
You know, I see a lot of peopleget analysis, paralysis.
There's nothing like just doingit.
You know what I mean.
And, of course, make sure youhave a product that's legitimate
(39:06):
.
I'm not saying just jump in andsell people whatever.
Yeah, but um, like you said,having the confidence right,
that's number one.
And, um, identifying someonedoes need what you have.
It's a great place to start.
I can't imagine these companiesthat just go into something
they've never done and just wingit.
I have no idea how that works,but if you've got something
(39:26):
valuable, step number one isjust sell it three times and
deliver on it, and step numbertwo is just know you can do it
and figure out how to do it more.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
I think Don't look back right.
No Well, thank you so much forbeing here with us today.
We really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (39:47):
If our listeners want to get a hold of you, what's
the best way?
Yeah, you know, healthOperations Solutions look us up.
If you're a medical companylooking to hire or you just kind
of need some help withoperational starting up things
like that even exits we'd loveto help you.
Virtual assistants, anyone thathas some duplicatable,
repeatable tasks or a specificrole.
You're having a tough timefinding someone.
I mean, we got the best so youcan reach out to us.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
So healthopsolutionscom,
virtustaffcom, and you can alsolook me up on LinkedIn Stephan
Vander Hayden, all right, thankyou so much We'll be sure to tag
you in all the posts as well,so people can get a hold of you
easily.
But we really appreciate youbeing here and best of luck.
Speaker 3 (40:24):
Yeah and thank you both for having me.
It's been great.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
Thank you.
Thanks for tuning in to theConfidence Curve.
We hope today's episode leftyou inspired and ready to
embrace your journey confidently.
Remember whether you're leadinga team, growing your business
or pursuing personal growth,each step forward builds your
curve.
If you enjoyed today'sconversation, don't forget to
(40:50):
subscribe, share and leave us areview For more insights and
resources.
Visit us at apexgtscom.
Until next time, keep climbingthe curve.
Welcome to the Confidence Curve with Ashley and
Rick Bowers, where personal andprofessional journeys define
the art of scaling withconfidence.
Whether you're a businessleader navigating change or
someone seeking personal growth,this podcast offers insights
and actionable advice to helpyou thrive.
Now let's dive into today'sconversation with our incredible
(00:26):
guest.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Welcome to the Confidence Curve podcast with
Apex GTS Advisors.
My name is Ashley Bowers and myhusband, business partner Rick
Bowers, here to host today.
We want to welcome our guestStefan.
He's a serial entrepreneur witha couple of different
businesses and we're superexcited to have him here with us
today.
And if you'd like to kick itoff, tell us a little bit about
you and both businesses.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Sure, sure.
So thanks for having me.
Good to be here.
So yeah, you know, I guessbackground about myself.
I'm from Arizona.
We're here in the Valley, right.
I grew up here Honestly neverreally saw myself being a
business owner and things likethat.
Honestly never really saw myselfbeing a business owner and
things like that.
You know, went to high schoolRed Mountain, asu, nau lived in
(01:16):
the Valley, ended up getting ajob in medical, you know,
non-clinical, more of like adminassistant and then just kind of
like worked my way up fromthere, worked for different
clinics, different roles.
Ended up merging with a biggercompany here in the Valley and
kind of ran their specialtydivisions Right.
Ended up merging with a biggercompany here in the Valley and
kind of ran their specialtydivisions right.
So from there what happened isa lot of my day-to-day stuff was
, like I said, operationalthings right, making sure we
were functioning well, beingSwitzerland between corporate
and the physicians and theclinic and things like that.
(01:37):
And what ended up happening iswe wanted to expand, right.
So it was kind of my portion togo out, find new practices,
bring on more doctors, thingslike this.
In a lot of those conversations, a lot of private practices in
the space, knew where I workedand also kind of felt my
experience and said, hey, couldyou actually just we don't want
to sell, we kind of want justadvice, right?
(01:59):
So about seven years ago starteddoing independent consulting
for medical clinics anythingfrom primary care, specialty,
chiro, pt, you name it and thenjust kind of grew over time what
the big demand came to be wasrecruiting, right.
So, hey, do you know a nurse,do you know a surgeon, this or
that?
And I did, and I think at thetime I would just connect them
(02:20):
through the retainer I had.
And it was just, you know, goodto be good to my clients, right
?
A colleague of mine said hey,do you know how much you know
XYZ company paid to bring ontheir new neurosurgeon, he told
me.
And he was like, oh my gosh,I'm like I'm stepping over a lot
of money.
So naturally progressed todoing a lot of recruiting rather
than just project basedconsulting.
And now to this day we haveHealthOp, we have a few
(02:43):
different pillars.
Like I said, stillproject-based consulting
Recruitment's a huge aspect ofwhat we do now, mostly Arizona.
We have a few national partnersand things like this and we
have some cool stuff in thefuture works and really our
mission at the company is togive resources.
You know that we wish we hadMost.
All people here have worked inhealth care, worked in clinics
non-clinical and clinical Kindof felt like a lot of people
(03:07):
weren't up to just help oneanother in the space.
Everybody thinks they havesecrets, but everybody's doing
the same thing.
They just don't talk about it.
So that's always our missionthere.
What happened to my secondventure and journey was
basically a lot of our healthcare clinics were offshoring a
lot of work and weren'tsatisfied.
I knew a couple of people thathad their own virtual assistant
(03:28):
kind of companies did well andsaid, hey, you know, talk me out
of this, I'm thinking aboutdoing it.
And I was like listen, we'realready in recruiting.
Like how hard could it be tofind people from around the
world?
Turns out it's a totallydifferent animal, but we figured
it out and so a lot of ourclinics utilized us.
And then they said, hey, I gota realtor, I got a CPA, I got an
attorney, I think they coulduse somebody.
And the messaging got kind ofmixed right, like why is
(03:51):
HealthOp giving an attorney, avirtual assistant?
So started a new pillar calledVirtue Staff and yeah, that has
a unique mission as well.
You know that we can get intoas well.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
But I guess that's as abbreviated as I could do, if
that makes sense, great.
Okay, so you basically areproviding resources, consulting
services, differentopportunities and things to the
medical professionals, andsometimes it was things that
didn't exist at the time, so youhad to create some of this.
And so what gaps or challengesdid you identify in the medical
community that led to thecreation of really HealthOp?
Speaker 3 (04:26):
So it was.
It was a mix of a couple ofdifferent things, right?
It's like, you know, there'slike this stigma that goes
around in the consulting thing,Like, and you know a lot of
people say hey, like a lot of umpractices that start up don't
know business, they knowmedicine and like, to be fair,
like I don't know how to doheart surgery.
You know what I mean, and Ican't even say I started my
business perfect right off thebat, Right?
(04:48):
So I think what happened a lotwas there was just gaps.
You know, starting a company,you know, depending on how you
start, terms of funding,timelines, things like this just
need to get going, you know,and, with that being said, not
everybody does everything right.
Most people don't and so wetried to fill in gaps of what
they needed, without, I guess,hiring someone that just wanted
(05:08):
to learn it on the fly or thingslike that.
And, conversely, with recruiting, you know like I've had to work
with recruiters in my corporatelife and it was a nightmare.
I mean, like people changingresumes, selling them on a job
where it's not actually thatpoor candidates, extremely
expensive.
It was just like a nightmare,you know.
And so, really, like I said, Ilooked at stuff and I said how
do I wish I had it.
(05:30):
What resources do I wish I hadEven new grad physicians coming
out like we try to help themwith, like even some contract
review, right, Knowing what youcan and can't, redline Things
like this, that's just again itfelt like no one was helping and
we just said, hey, what are thethings we can help with that
we're qualified to help with andthat's how we built it out, so
that kind of makes sense.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Absolutely.
Looking at, you know today'seconomic environment and all the
different changes and thingsthat are happening.
You know, a lot of timesbusiness owners and leaders like
okay, if unemployment rates aregoing up, then you know, all of
a sudden we should have morecandidates.
Or if we're going to havestruggles in the economy, people
are going to become availableand, as we know, when we're
looking for candidates andtrying to find the right people,
(06:11):
you know, yes, there are peopleavailable, but it's not always
that perfect candidate thatbecomes available.
It's not necessarily anemployer's market or an
employee's market.
What advice are you givingright now, both to your
candidates as well as to thecompanies that you're serving?
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Yeah, it's such a great question, right, and like
I think that sometimes we jokethat if companies invested into
maybe some of these other youknow cultures or company
branding or things like this,that they might need to use us
even a little bit less, you know.
But you know the job market.
Everybody says there's ashortage and there is.
It's not as much as people say.
And, like you, know the jobmarket everybody says there's a
(06:45):
shortage and there is, it's notas much as people say.
And, like you said, it's moreso finding the right person.
I will say that the reasonpeople end up using recruiting
and a lot of our clientsactually have talent acquisition
built in, so it's not justpeople without a recruiter in
house the thing with us is thatyear round, we're looking for
(07:05):
people that want a betteropportunity, right?
So, like I used to tell people,the people you want aren't
applying.
Like, let's be honest, you knowwhat I mean.
And that's where, likeheadhunting, recruiting, things
like this comes in.
Conversely, maybe there's someroles you get flooded with
candidates and you know, forinstance, in the medical
community, like medicalassistants, like MAs, even with
(07:26):
us, through application booking,the appointment reminders
leading up to the interview,everything like that 80% will
no-show.
And so now you're paying anoffice manager, administrator,
hr a lot of money to wait aroundfor no-shows and hopefully
they're good about using theirdowntime, but who knows, right?
So different roles havedifferent problems, but what I
always tell people is that youdon't need us unless you need us
.
So if you've got a good thinggoing, you're getting the talent
(07:48):
you want, the volume you want,you don't really need us.
But if it comes to a pointwhere you say, hey, like and you
know this better than anything,I need high-level talent to put
my company at the next level,that's where we come in.
Conversely, people say I'm justnot getting anybody at all.
That's where we come in,because you've got to realize
that year-round we're justhaving conversations, people
(08:10):
applying, people referring overpeople we meet with networking.
So when we meet so many peopleand build those relationships
and someone needs someone.
You know, listen, we do spend alot of money on ads and things
like that every month to getcandidates.
But I mean, you got to do both.
And for a company.
It's really expensive to dothat.
You know it's very expensiveand so not all of them do it
(08:34):
right, or it doesn't even makesense for them to do it a
certain size, you know.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
But I feel like the strategies change.
You know, what you should putin it.
You know, in one month, sixmonths later, even on LinkedIn
and some of the different youknow portals, the way in which
candidates are.
You know being attracted to thedifferent ads can change over
time as well, and what they'relooking for and and things like
that.
What are you finding kind of atthe top, maybe like three
(08:57):
things that candidates arereally considering the most
important when they're making adecision about where to go?
I mean, obviously, financialcompensation.
There's a certain need thateverybody has and it needs to
meet that need, and you knowinflation and things like that,
that need is increasing.
But beyond that basecompensation, you know what are
people really looking for today?
Speaker 3 (09:17):
It's a great question , and the way that we try to
find that out is anyone that's arecruiter or consultant with my
team that's talking tocandidates gets training on how
to do these interviews, becauseour interviews are
non-traditional.
We start right off the batsaying, hey, my whole goal today
is to learn more about you andwhat you're looking for.
I'll talk about the position inan open format.
(09:37):
I'm not going to sell you onthe position.
I'm going to be as transparentas I can, because it doesn't do
you any good to get somewhereyou don't want to be.
It doesn't give the employerany benefit of getting someone
there that doesn't want to bethere, right, and, like you said
, sure, everybody wants to makemore money, right, but, um, and
it'll, it'll vary by the role,once again, um.
So let's talk physicians, forinstance, right?
(09:59):
Um, depending on the specialtyand the type of physician, um,
it's going to depend a lot morethan compensation.
One thing you'll find a lotright now is patient load, um,
so, and a lot of people in thehealthcare field are probably
like rolling their eyes orlaughing or things like that.
So, um, because, listen, we, wedo have employers, and this is
(10:19):
kind of getting into the otherside of healthcare, which is a
whole other conversation.
But, um, we clinics that see, Ithink, what a lot of people
consider higher volume,especially if they're a new grad
.
Right, it's going to be hardfor me to see 20, 30 patients a
day, and it depends on the modelof the clinic, of what that
looks like.
Granted, some clinics giveresources like scribes and
things like this, others don't.
(10:39):
You talk about the acuity.
So how sick are these patients?
You know, say, in primary care.
Well, you know, what kind ofdemographic am I seeing?
Is this a rural healthcareclinic?
Are these a lot ofnon-compliant patients?
And so a lot of times they'llsay, hey, what's the patient
volume and what support do I get?
You know, that's one of thethings A lot of people do want
(11:01):
now an administrative role,which signifies to me some
burnout in healthcare, right.
So we have a lot of people dowant now an administrative role,
which signifies to me someburnout in health care, right?
So we have a lot of physicianssaying, hey, is there an admin
component?
More and more people want amedical director role, yeah,
which is interesting for sure.
And again, physician-employeeburnout's a whole other topic,
but it's real in healthcare, youknow, and so I think that on
the physician side, that'sdefinitely it.
(11:23):
You're seeing a lot of 410schedules.
You're actually seeing somepeople.
I actually met with a CEO of alocal hospice company.
Everyone at their company works32 hours a week but gets paid
40 hours a week.
So it's interesting stuff likethat that you have to compete
with, you know, and so it's.
It really varies by person.
That's what we try tounderstand, because we get both
(11:45):
sides of it Like I've worked thenon clinical side.
We have people on our team thatare clinical and, just like
anything, we try to meet in themiddle and understand what works
best for both people.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
So it kind of varies in the middle and understand
what works best for both people.
So it kind of varies.
With all of that that you justsaid, how do you kind of get a
feel for what the culture of theorganization or the physician's
office?
How do you get a feel for thatwhen you're interviewing the
potential prospects to go inthere and figure out what that
match is?
How does the culture piece cometo play?
Speaker 3 (12:14):
Yeah, that's such a good question.
So over time a lot of ourbusiness we get is actually
referral right, it's word ofmouth, it's hey, I know someone
that could use your help.
And if we're talkingrecruitment side especially, you
know a lot of these clinicslike healthcare is a big, small
world.
Everybody knows everybody.
There's no doubt reputationgets around, but we actually
(12:34):
take our time to visit a lot ofthese clinics.
If we're able to, we'll spend aday inside the clinic to see
what it's like.
To be honest, we've also turneddown clients for just certain
reasons that we don't think it'sa good fit.
We don't like to feed people tothe wolves, if you will.
And so for us, we try toprotect ourself as a company by
(12:55):
and we have the luxury to to bea little bit more picky with our
clients, right, we kind ofanalyze turnover rates within
the people we send over.
We openly ask them what's yourturnover look like right now?
Why do people want to work here?
So one way we kind of protectour candidates is being a little
bit more selective with ourclient, with our client, and you
(13:18):
know we tell a lot of ourcandidates to hey, we can only
vouch so much for the culturebecause we're not embedded in
the clinic right At the end ofthe day, like, whoever it is.
Like you need to go visit thatclinic, right, so say you're an
NP, pa, md, do whoever.
Don't take our word for it.
Like, go meet, don't just takea tour of the facility, say
where am I going to be working?
Who am I going to be workingwith?
Can I go to that atmosphere?
Right, don't bring me to thecorporate office where
(13:39):
everything's good to go.
If I'm going to be in Timbuktuand there's no support, like can
I go see it first, you know?
So we really always advise thatand we're really clear on that.
Like, hey, like definitely govisit.
This is what we can tell you,but you need to make the
decision yourself.
Um cause, once again, we do notsell people on positions, yeah,
so shifting gears a little bitback to health op.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
How, how have you built or enhanced the culture
within your own organization?
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Listen, we're, we're a small company, so like we're
very selective with who we hire.
We are so selective, you know,and um, and it feels like it's a
hot market right now, but weget consultants and recruiters
coming to us, like very often,to be honest, and it's cool
because it kind of like feedsthe beast, like when we're
interviewing all day long, myrecruiters know, hey, this is,
(14:30):
this is someone you want to talkto, and I'll make time out of
my own schedule to meet withthem, right, and so I think we
just listen.
You know, with time, everythingchanges and goals change and
things like this.
My plan has never been forHealthOp to be a publicly traded
billion dollar company.
Right, we're already furtherthan I ever saw myself being.
(14:52):
In general, I'm very thankfulevery day for you know what
we've built as a team, who myteam is, and so, with that being
said, we do have the luxurywith scaling as needed, as I
will say, you know, and we dowant to grow, we do want to get
bigger, but I'm very thankfulthat, through our network and
through what we do, we arepretty naturally able to just
(15:13):
bring on people that resonatewith our culture, and we're
pretty specific and analyticalwith what this role entails,
what the future of that role is.
I think there's certain roleswhere people want a nine to five
, and I'm okay with that.
I think a lot of like businessowners, startups especially want
everyone to grind.
I want them to grind 24 sevenall the time being this with me.
(15:34):
There's roles that need them.
There's roles that don't allthe time be in this with me.
There's roles that need them.
There's roles that don't, andyou'll actually do yourself a
favor if you find the roles thatdon't and find someone that
values that work-life balanceand so all of these things we
try to take into consideration,right, so it's careful, we're
very careful with who we bringon for it, and that's the
easiest way to do it.
Hardest thing to change is aculture, and that's why you know
there are certain bounds.
(15:54):
We don't step over with clientsin terms of trying to change a
culture.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
So obviously you have , you know, health ops and
virtue staff.
Are there other verticals inthe future for you, Because you
know, obviously being able to bethis successful in the health
care arena it's a very difficultarena, a very technical arena.
Are there other verticals inthe future and, if so, can you
share what people might belooking for from you in the
(16:20):
future?
Speaker 3 (16:21):
Yeah, there's some I can share and some that we're
working on.
So I do think that thetrendiest thing, not just in
healthcare, is AI, and a lot ofhealthcare clinics are looking
into AI, how to do it HIPAAcompliance, right wrongs, good
solutions and not.
We're starting to build out alittle bit of a space for it in
(16:44):
not necessarily just recruitment.
We use AI in our recruitingefforts, but I think a lot of
healthcare clinics can improvein a lot of ways by using AI
appropriately, and so we kind ofhave that focus for the future.
I think there's going to be anew position called chief AI
officer.
Everyone has a CTO and thingslike this.
I think chief AI officer isgoing to be a thing.
So, if we can kind of be aheadof the curve a little bit, I'd
(17:05):
love to do that.
And yes, there are a coupleother pillars that we'd like to
get into that we're working onfor next year that, if they come
to light, we'll kind of talkabout.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
But that's one example.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
that's a hot topic, but I think it's really cool and
I'm not the perfect person forthat.
We're actually trying to findmore people that know more about
AI and healthcare.
We've talked to a lot of deviceand product companies out there
, but I'd love to move into thatspace.
Speaker 4 (17:35):
It's an interesting space.
It's something that I usealmost every day in business and
I know you use it quite a bitas well.
But I find myself having aconversation with ChatGPT, and
today I was working on a projectand I was like, oh, I don't
think he liked my response tothat, because I felt like the
response that I got back fromChatGPT was a little bit
(17:55):
negative.
This is interesting how it'skind of growing and and I feel
like they learn your, yourtrends and the different things
that you do.
So it's it's something that youhave to embrace it, because
you're going to get less leftbehind if you don't.
So it's just it's a powerfultool.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
It's a little bit scary, but you just got to go
for it sometimes yeah, chrisjohnson, the ceo of lane tara
lever, and now he has a companycalled tomorrow today, which is
an ai consulting company, and,um, he was teaching a peer
advisory group that I'm a partof and he was like good morning,
thank you.
And all of a sudden I'm like doyou need to be that polite?
Like what are you doing?
(18:32):
Is this a part of your strategy?
he goes at some point I feellike it's going to come back and
it's going to be a benefit.
So yes, it is a part of mystrategy and so it was kind of
funny of just having that wholeconversation as you look on the
virtue staffing side and kind ofwhat have been some of the big
wins that maybe you starting outin that space thought would be
a bigger obstacle for you thanmaybe what they were or kind of
(18:56):
that value, because you hearabout virtual assistants and
that kind of service so much andpeople sometimes are afraid
because of you know the trainingor the turnover or how do we
know that we fit?
So what is it that's uniqueabout the service offering that
you have and how you work withyour clients in that space?
Speaker 3 (19:12):
Yeah, yeah, so great question.
So I think a few things.
There is like one, somethingthat we didn't expect coming
from the recruitment space wasjust the sheer volume, right, I
mean it's, it's incredible.
I mean like we actually pumpedthe brakes so we could do more.
But we have, and recruitingwith, you know, some inbound,
(19:37):
granted, but a lot ofheadhunting, recruiting to where
it's like we are just bombardedby the amount of applications,
and so, you know, something Rickand I were actually talking
about was like, hey, like someof this testing, like you know,
I go back to the days where youhad to like walk in and there
was like a kiosk to apply at thestore, right, you know, and you
(20:00):
had to take a test andassessment.
but you did it because youwanted the job.
You know obviously the jobmarket's not like that now.
But man, we've had to build inso many assessments and then
refine those assessments andthen even after that say, okay,
like out of the people that pass, how do we refine that?
So, like, even using a brandnew ATS, the ATS we used could
not handle some of theautomations and testing features
(20:21):
we needed.
So now you can only imagineanyone that's built out an ATS.
It's not as bad as maybeSalesforce or things like that,
but I mean it's a build out youknow, and so we had to then find
a whole new ATS system.
we had to go through the testingprogress process what
integrates?
And, like I said, thank God Ihave good business partners,
because there's no way I couldhave done it.
(20:43):
It's just too much you know.
So, anyway, going back,basically we had an influx of
people and it's always beenimportant to us to deliver a
valuable service.
And it's funny, becauserecruiting and virtual
assistants I think both get abad reputation for a good reason
.
To be honest, you know what Imean, but that's kind of always
been my passion thing is likeit's like maybe something people
(21:06):
say but don't mean.
But you know, we saw somethingthat could be done better and we
actually did it, you know.
And so before we started VirtueStaff, we had used virtual
assistants.
I know what these companies arelike.
I mean, we did a bunch oftrials with different ones and,
um, you know, what really did itfor me was the impact, you know
.
So we have a virtual assistantthat works with us to this day.
(21:27):
His name's Nathan.
He's incredible, I mean, he'samazing, you know, um, and it
was really seeing the impact onNathan's life that actually made
us full dive into it.
Um, because, uh, the virtualassistant industry, um is very
saturated.
Um, a lot of people just do it,get somebody in that checks the
boxes, pay them about half ofwhat we do and then just expect
(21:51):
the churn Difference with us forone, we're very selective.
A lot of places say 1% getapproved.
I'd like to see what theirnumbers are.
I bet it's not 10,000 a weekand 1% of that.
But out of those as well, youknow they get a life-changing
opportunity.
I mean, we're paying themdouble what other agencies are,
and so you can only imagine thatwhat we saw in HealthOp was the
(22:14):
best match with someone thathas the opportunity for
something better and they'reexcited and wherever they're
going has an opportunity forthem and it resonates, and
wherever they're going has anopportunity for them and it
resonates.
It's this win-win thing, andnow, with Virtue Staff, we want
to make as many win-wins aspossible.
You know the job market's sotough in every realm that for
(22:35):
basic tasks and things like this, it's hard to get somebody,
even for $20 an hour, that youcan rely on.
It's not going to leave you.
You know much less someone thatthanks you every day for the
job they have.
So it was really cool to be ableto say okay, how do we find the
best, how do we keep the best?
And then how do we identifythem for the right client?
Believe it or not, one of theprocesses that takes the longest
(22:55):
for us is after we've done.
A discovery with the client isfinding someone that matches all
their boxes.
So all this ingesting andtesting, we have a lot of it
somewhat automated some AI, somenot some manual, but for the
most part that gets done prettyflawlessly.
It's then going to our databaseof people that are approved and
saying, all right, who's thebest for you?
(23:16):
That actually takes someserious time just because of the
volume, but once we do it, it'sso cool.
I mean the impact like gives mechills.
Thinking it's so cool.
I mean we have VAs that say,hey, listen, like went for a run
the other day, got a hole in myshoe.
First time in my life I leftthis side between shoes and
groceries.
We have companies say, hey, mywife and I were going to
counseling because we're workingon this company together is
(23:38):
driving us apart.
We got this VA like ourrelationships and better than
ever, right.
Not to mention they're savinglike 20,000 a year per person,
right, and the person's superthankful.
So it's such a cool thing.
It's very different, but in allthe reasons, in summary, we're
very selective, right, we're allabout the perfect match.
We pay them more and we believein the impact.
(23:59):
We actually take our ownproceeds and do relief programs
in the countries we source from.
You know, and that's why it'sVirtue Staff right is we have
virtues and things like that andthat's been a really cool
passion project.
You know, it's cool to seethese businesses save money,
have better work, have thesuccess stories, get to hop on
calls with their assistants andthey're just so excited, like
(24:21):
it's so cool.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
It's so cool.
That's amazing.
You probably touched on alittle bit of what your answer
would be for this next question.
But just curious, when you andthe leadership team you know,
when you're looking at, you knowboth companies, how are you
guys measuring success?
How are you looking back, youknow, at your current year and
understanding, you know what,what you got right, what you
want to get better the next yearand kind of what that next
(24:43):
stretch goal is for theorganization and keeping that in
balance with you know lives andwork-life integration and all
those sorts of things.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
Yeah, it's a great question and I think that over
time we've gotten better atplanning and like this is
totally your world.
I should be asking you what weshould be doing to be honest and
you know, with the size of ourcompany, we are smaller, you
know.
We, you know, granted, could dobetter at some of this stuff.
But you know basic things andmy two business partners are
also really good at this andhelping identify what we should
(25:14):
plan for and things like this.
But I know one thing this yearwe're going to say is, even on a
basic thing, like it soundssilly, but what do we do right,
what do we do wrong?
You know, turnover on bothsides is always a big thing.
The virtual assistant industry,of course, is notoriously high
turnover.
We have very low turnovercompared to our competitors,
(25:35):
which is awesome, and we alwaystry to increase on that.
So, for instance, recently,earlier in this year, when we
were looking at turnover, wesaid, hey, we could do even
better.
Let's build a quality assuranceprogram.
So we built that because thatwas super important to us.
Right On the health op side,more so, what we look at?
Certain things like time to fill.
You know how long have we hadthis requisition open?
(25:56):
Are we getting?
You know we have guaranteeperiods.
Are we making sure a certainpercent are guaranteed periods?
Are both our candidates andclients happy?
Things like this, of coursefinances.
You know we're a bootstrap,both companies are bootstrapped,
so we grew slow over time.
And with slow growth comesbeing very intentional with
(26:17):
every spend and every move youmake.
And maybe, fortunately andunfortunately, it comes a lot
with doing the job yourself andthen giving it to others, and
that takes time and refinement.
But looking back, I wouldn'thave done it any other way, nor
do I know how you know.
So you know, without taking onan investment, really having to
budget, saying, hey, we have,you know, all this money, we
(26:37):
need to make sure we pay backand are on target and things
like this, thankfully we'recashflow positive, like very
quickly, on both businesses andwe're able to say, hey, who's
our next hire, where's our nextinvestment?
If it's not hires, do we put itin marketing, do we put it in
quality assurance and how doesthat kind of flow through the
company right?
So those are some basic things,but I would be also open to
(27:00):
like what your feedback would beon some of that stuff.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Like, but I would be also open to like what your
feedback would be on some ofthat stuff, like what are you
kind of seeing?
You know what?
One of my favorite things to doand this is super simplistic,
but is a stop, start, continue.
And so similar to like what dowe do?
Right, you know, what do weneed to do differently?
And I love stop, start,continues on organizations as
well as departments and morebehavioral right.
Like what are the behaviors wewant to stop, what are the
behaviors we need to start, whatare the behaviors we want to
continue?
And you know, historically,regardless of size of
organization, we would do staffsurveys and then, from that
(27:28):
feedback, that would give usinformation as to the stop,
starts and the continues of theorganization, and then we would
feed that back to our teams andtalk about like, hey, this is
the stuff we're going to committo, we want you to hold us
accountable, and then when ateam member may have a little
bit of a performance challengeand we just need to redirect
they're really strong and wewant to make sure that we're
(27:49):
managing them up we would alsouse the stop, start, continue.
And so it didn't feel aspunitive right, it's not a
corrective action or a write-upor a performance plan, but it's
the same thing we use on thecompany.
It's the same thing we useabout how to talk about how we
want to improve and change theway in which we're doing
something.
Um, so it's always one of my,my favorite go-to pieces, and
(28:10):
then I think it evolves overtime with the size of the
company.
I don't think there's any, youknow, one perfect answer.
Um, I, I am a fan of theentrepreneurs operating system,
eos, and running through kind ofthat meeting, management and
some of those processes.
And then, of course, we usestages of growth inside Apex,
which is an entrepreneurialmodel, and looking at what are
(28:33):
those very specific things basedon the number of employees that
you need to really get right ateach stage of the organization.
And I think just continuing topull in different best practices
and what works for your companythis year might look different
for what works for next year.
And and that's okay and keep itreally nimble.
I always say strategic planningshould be really, really messy
(28:55):
and there should be thingseverywhere and up on the wall
and lots of ideas flying around,because then it allows your
execution to be more of astraight line, right.
But if you're too rigid in yourplanning process, then chances
are you're going to be all overthe place when you're trying to
execute it, because you haven'tthought enough of what could go
wrong, what could go different,what the options are.
So I like to make a mess andhave lots of Post-it notes
(29:17):
everywhere.
We had them all over our livingroom on Tuesday actually doing
our planning for our businesswith our team, and we have 16
feet of window, um, on our backpatio, and so it was covered in
post-its and flip charts, Um,and so, yeah, I think it's more
about taking the time to thinkstrategically, um than it is the
(29:37):
process you follow.
You know, um, it's always niceto have a guided process, but,
uh, just taking the time to doit and to think about it and to
reflect is really, reallyimportant in my view.
Speaker 4 (29:47):
And I think another thing that we do is really
listen to the client and whatdoes the client want?
And it's not just the headperson, it's the entire team.
So when you bring that wholegroup of leadership in, or
whatever level you want to go toin, you get so much more buy-in
in the process.
Whatever level you want to goto in, you get so much more
buy-in in the process.
I was talking to a prospect andthey're like yeah, we used a
(30:07):
consultant and I felt like wewere going to do whatever the
consultant's plan was and itended up being stuff that we
knew wasn't right, but that'swhat the consultant was forcing
us to.
And so it's really having thatability to say what does the
team see, what does theorganization see, and then going
forward with that.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
That's interesting too because like I'm curious how
you guys balance that, so likesometimes we'll do a practice
startup, so like we just wentthrough a discovery literally
last week and we kind of havelike a checklist thing, like you
know, like pick your ownjourney, you know, like like
baseline, like do you have thisfigured out, yes, no.
If no, do you need help?
like a very basic discovery typeof a thing, and typically you
guys know what's is typicallywhat they want help with, and
what they need help with don'talways match, and we try to meet
in the middle.
(30:47):
So how do you guys deal withthat where you're like, oh my
gosh, I just wish you would dothat.
Do you walk away from theclient?
Do you kind of give in?
What does that look like foryou guys?
Speaker 2 (31:08):
I think the model we use is called stages of growth.
In the two is a two-dayintensive that we have
organizations go through, and sowith that there are actual
diagnostics on the organizationthat the leadership team
responds to, and so you'resitting in the room then for a
couple of days with theleadership team and you're going
through their responses andtheir business fundamentals and,
um, that's like builderprotector, non-negotiable rules,
27 challenges, and it's allbased off research of 650
companies that were smallbusinesses at the time and why
did some succeed and why didsome fail?
And so, kind of, what were thethings that they were focusing
(31:31):
on during the different stages,stages being purely defined by
the number of employees thatthey have in the company.
And so what that does is itkind of bubbles up all of those
fundamentals that it's like ifyou focus on this, then you're
actually going to solve thatproblem.
That's really bothering you,right?
But it's coming from the entireteam and it's grounded in data,
and so it's really hard to lookat it and say, well, we don't
(31:53):
actually need to fix that.
And now, don't get me wrong,there's always, you know,
there's the best practice andhow.
You know where we are today andhow close can we get to that
best practice tomorrow?
You might not go from zero to ahundred or from 50 to a hundred
.
You might, you know, just go up10% and do it just a little bit
better that next year.
But that's what's reallyinteresting when I was leading a
large organization acquisitions, technology changes, leadership
(32:16):
changes all in the same yearand had about a 35% growth year
that year, and we went throughthis process and we had 120
items up on our wall of thingswe needed to fix, and I
literally walked out like Idon't even know where to start
right.
I mean, it's one thing to knowthat your operation is imploding
because you've grown so much.
It's another thing to see 120sticky notes all over your
(32:40):
boardroom wall right, and wereally needed to take our foot
off the gas and slow our growthdown and it just really wasn't
an option.
And we received 90 days to kindof work through it, and so the
leadership team stack ranked itand we just started like lining
them up and knocking them downof you know, most important and
biggest impact and ended upbeing that those 90 days were
(33:05):
the first quarter of 2020.
And had we not gone throughthat process.
I don't know that we would havesurvived the growth that we
actually had during COVID.
Right, it really prepared us.
So, you know, everythinghappens for a reason.
But that's really the beauty ofthe model is because it has
those diagnostics and you canreally sit down and take a look
(33:26):
to your point about clients.
Yeah, if someone's coming to usand they're like, well, no,
this is my problem, I just needyou to fix this.
And a lot of times from a CEO,it's a person or a department
right, they're like they're notleading right or it's this issue
.
Um, that's just not where westart and so we're probably not
the right fit, just like yousaid.
You know, it's nice to be ableto be selective and making sure
that we can make the impact thatare true to our core values as
(33:48):
well, because we really justneed to let the organization
speak and see what's there sothat we can make the right
changes.
And likewise, we're not goingto come in with something that's
pre, you know, determined of.
You need to do all of thesethings Like we probably have
some ideas based on what's onthe board and what you need to
fix, but we need to hear ifthat's actually what's impacting
your organization or not.
Speaker 4 (34:10):
Being able to actually accomplish stuff like
that really has to do with theculture that we talked about
earlier.
And how well does theleadership team communicate?
How much trust is there amongstthe leadership team?
Are they transparent?
Are they open to saying what'son their mind versus trying to
be tentative and and not say itin a way that could get them in
(34:34):
trouble or something like that?
And so when you have that opencommunication, the constructive
conflict in the conversations,that's where you really can say
this is a great idea.
I'm glad we kind of bouncedback and forth on this to get to
that point, and so it's.
It's really a culture bit thatreally helps people.
And so, with everything thatyou're doing and the processes
(34:54):
and those kinds of things, theother question that I was going
to ask before we kind of startto wrap up was do you do an
onboarding process with eitherhealth op or virtual staff to
kind of help them get onboardedand off to a good start with the
organization?
Speaker 3 (35:12):
Yeah.
So on health op side, if youmean like a candidate starting
with their employer, wetypically don't, right, there's
a lot that goes into that andwe're typically not involved in
that onboarding.
When a client onboards with us,there is a little bit more
onboarding there between theclient and us, with the virtue
staff as well.
There's kind of phases, right.
(35:32):
So usually someone comes to us,depending on what stage they're
at.
There's sometimes a first andthen a second call.
So the second call is more oflike hey, have you thought
through these things?
Usually one thing we ask islike hey, is this like a role
that exists?
Okay, if it does exist, good,you've had someone you know that
it's possible.
If it doesn't exist, have youdone these things Like, is this
(35:57):
like kind of a pie in the skything You'd like to do it Like?
And this kind of lets us knowthe level of the position.
Right From there we try to setbest expectations and then we
say, okay, we got it.
I think that this does makesense.
Let's move forward.
We pick the candidates, they dointerviews, they pick whichever
one they feel best is.
We do a brief onboarding withthem and then we check in.
We say, hey guys, is it goinggood?
Do you need help?
(36:17):
We actually work with businesscoaches that will actually help
them on how to delegate, how towork with the, and a lot of them
actually get that for no costby working with us.
It's usually one call, but it'sa great place to start, and we
have other things that are likedownloadables or guide yourself
and principles and things likethis.
So, yeah, we really try to helpthem set themselves up for
(36:38):
success once they're started,but even before they started,
we've talked, we've talkedpeople out of of getting one.
It's like hey, like I don'tthink this is a good fit.
You know, what I mean.
It's just you know it's notgood for anybody.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
Yeah so yeah.
So obviously, the podcast isall about the confidence curve
and helping entrepreneurs scaletheir businesses.
So, talking to yourself severalyears back, um, you know,
seeing that gap, seeing whereyou could make an impact, and
having a passion and a desire totake the leap.
To someone that's consideringmaking that leap, what advice
(37:12):
would you give them?
Speaker 3 (37:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
There's got to be an on the spot question.
Speaker 3 (37:18):
I know I know, I know , you know a lot of my answers
are going to have to be sobiased because I only know what
I've experienced.
You know what I mean.
I was able to transition bykeeping a W2 role and trying it.
I think this is like thetraining wheels of what
consultants and things like thisare still doing.
I still think that's a greatplace to start.
I think what happened next iswhen that was.
(37:40):
All I was doing was I heardsomeone say there's a difference
between having an LLC andbuilding a company, and you kind
of get what I'm saying, yeah,right.
And so from there I said, ok,what do I do?
Because I'm making money, youknow.
And then another two or threeyears ago I was kind of in this
(38:01):
place where I was doing a goodjob, you know, but it still
wasn't a company company.
I didn't have a ton ofemployees, we had some help and
things like this, and I hadlunch with somebody and he said
listen, man, you just got todecide I was like well, listen,
I'm about to, I'm about to havemy first kid.
My wife was pregnant at thetime.
I can't give up.
I can't give up my security.
Speaker 4 (38:22):
What if it?
Speaker 3 (38:22):
doesn't work and he goes.
That's why you do it.
You have no choice but tosucceed, and I think that he
knew or saw something in meenough to believe that.
And so listen, it'll never beperfect right away.
Right, Definitely, takecalculated risks.
It'll never be perfect.
(38:43):
I think, know yourself.
I think make sure you have atleast a little grit.
I don't think if you don't know, if you look at yourself and
you're honest and you say Idon't really have any grit, I
don't think starting a companyis for you to be perfectly
honest you know, and then justkind of go from there.
You know, I see a lot of peopleget analysis, paralysis.
There's nothing like just doingit.
You know what I mean.
And, of course, make sure youhave a product that's legitimate
(39:06):
.
I'm not saying just jump in andsell people whatever.
Yeah, but um, like you said,having the confidence right,
that's number one.
And, um, identifying someonedoes need what you have.
It's a great place to start.
I can't imagine these companiesthat just go into something
they've never done and just wingit.
I have no idea how that works,but if you've got something
(39:26):
valuable, step number one isjust sell it three times and
deliver on it, and step numbertwo is just know you can do it
and figure out how to do it more.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
I think Don't look back right.
No Well, thank you so much forbeing here with us today.
We really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (39:47):
If our listeners want to get a hold of you, what's
the best way?
Yeah, you know, healthOperations Solutions look us up.
If you're a medical companylooking to hire or you just kind
of need some help withoperational starting up things
like that even exits we'd loveto help you.
Virtual assistants, anyone thathas some duplicatable,
repeatable tasks or a specificrole.
You're having a tough timefinding someone.
I mean, we got the best so youcan reach out to us.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
So healthopsolutionscom,
virtustaffcom, and you can alsolook me up on LinkedIn Stephan
Vander Hayden, all right, thankyou so much We'll be sure to tag
you in all the posts as well,so people can get a hold of you
easily.
But we really appreciate youbeing here and best of luck.
Speaker 3 (40:24):
Yeah and thank you both for having me.
It's been great.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
Thank you.
Thanks for tuning in to theConfidence Curve.
We hope today's episode leftyou inspired and ready to
embrace your journey confidently.
Remember whether you're leadinga team, growing your business
or pursuing personal growth,each step forward builds your
curve.
If you enjoyed today'sconversation, don't forget to
(40:50):
subscribe, share and leave us areview For more insights and
resources.
Visit us at apexgtscom.
Until next time, keep climbingthe curve.
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