On this Feature Friday episode of the ROI Online Podcast, Steve talks with Brett Trembly, Esq. about the importance of knowing when to delegate in order to scale your business and spend more time doing what you love.
Brett Trembly is a lawyer, entrepreneur, and future author, who runs GetStaffedUp.com and has his own law firm. The best way to figure out whether someone is a good fit for your company is to know your core values and make sure you hire people whose mission matches yours.
The best, most successful businesses are those with leaders who make their values known and live by them. When your culture is clear and integrated into everything your company does, you attract people who want to be a part of that mission and your company grows stronger. That means, when someone doesn’t fit into your culture, the most respectful thing you can do is to let them go so they can find the place they belong.
Brett also helps staff other organizations with affordable, well-trained employees who help you achieve your goals by taking the non-creative work off your plate.
Brett and Steve discuss:
- How focusing on your culture and getting it right is a huge competitive advantage
- The importance of living and enforcing your core values
- What it’s like to fire someone; how to do it well and why it’s not as scary as it may seem
- Why thinking “no one will do something as good as me” is dangerous and holding your business back (imagine trying to run a restaurant at the chef, waiter, hostess, and dishwasher all at once)
- Why starting a business is easy and how taking your business to the next level requires designing systems and hiring people to run them
You can learn more about Brett here:
https://getstaffedup.com/VIP (enter "Steve Brown ROI Online Podcast" for a $250 discount on services)
https://tremblylaw.com
Read the books mentioned in this podcast:
The Golden Toilet by Steve Brown
Vivid Vision by Cameron Herold
What Got You Here Won’t Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith
Enroll in the QuickStart Academy today to learn how to develop and implement a proven growth strategy that grows your ROI, your business, and your confidence. Learn more HERE.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Brett Trembly (00:04):
For me, I'm thinking, Okay, if I can set up
a system, you know, that getsthe info I need from that
business owner, what would youlike to talk about this month or
focus on, I can put that into aspreadsheet, and somebody can
pull out of that and do all thatwork for me on the back end that
I just have to approve. Okay,that's an assistant, that's a
(00:25):
worker bee, someone who youknow, needs to have some some
brain cells and is good, butthey're not doing the creative
thinking or division. I'mthinking of myself, Well, let's
say I found someone like throughgets that up for 1850 a month.
On my second sale, I'm alreadyprofitable. And I'm just gonna
go out and grow the company andsee what kind of bandwidth one
(00:48):
assistant can do. Maybe it'sfive, maybe it's 10. And now I
know my skews. I know how manyclients for assistant than I
need to have. And I can scale mycompany this way.
Steve Brown (01:00):
Hi, everybody.
Welcome to the ROI onlinepodcast where we believe you.
The courageous entrepreneurs ofour day, are the invisible
heroes of our economy. You notonly improve our world with your
ideas, your grit and yourpassion, but you make our world
better. I'm Steve Brown. Andthis is a place where we have
great conversations with winnersjust like you while we laugh and
(01:22):
learn together.
Brett Trembley, welcome to theROI online podcast. Hi, Steve.
Thanks for having me. You know,I was looking forward to this
conversation. Of course,everybody that's listening right
(01:44):
now. And they're wondering whythey need to be interested in
this conversation. And so I'mtelling you Brett's coming with
some really cool stuff.
Brett Trembly (01:54):
He's got a company called get staffed
up.com. He's has a law firm, asuccessful law firm in Miami.
He's got a book coming out sooncalled the danger zone. And
we're gonna have an excellentconversation. Brett, tell us a
little bit about your backstory.
Yeah. So Steve, when I when Ifound that year from Amarillo, I
(02:16):
that was exciting to me. And he,you know, now that I'm on the
East Coast, anytime I get tomeet somebody from back in the
southwest, that's nice. I grewup just outside of Albuquerque,
New Mexico. And when I when Imeet people out here in Miami,
the response that I used to getwas, oh, wow, I've never met
anyone from New Mexico before,you know, seemed it's like, it's
(02:39):
like one of those states thatyou skip over, you know, like,
in your mind, you know, orCalifornia is, you know, Texas
is meat, you know, of courseeveryone's heard of Colorado and
Arizona but but New Mexico, wejust, I guess we have that
inferiority complex for thatreason as well. So, but now, but
now when I meet people, youknow, they say, Oh, yeah,
(02:59):
breaking bad. I love that show.
And so for better or worse,Breaking Bad put us on the map.
So grew up in, in, in, you know,in New Mexico, I went to college
there, I went five years. So Imy fifth year at Eastern Mexico
university, I think I had threeor six hours a semester. It was
(03:22):
a victory lap as they say justto I was student body president
and I was I was just having agrand old time. And five years
wasn't enough so I decided Iwanted to still delay adulthood
and go to more school. And Isettled on law school. And once
I once I got into Miami, thatwas a no brainer for me. I
wanted to see somethingdifferent something new. And I
(03:47):
remember Steve driving on thecampus as I moved out here and
started law school without everever visiting Miami or been to
Miami it was it was one of thosethings like what am I not gonna
like you know, right so it waseither that or go back to
university in New Mexico for lawschool and so I drove across the
country with my old man in my myJeep Grand Cherokee you know,
(04:09):
loaded to the top I pulled up Idrove onto campus and it just
one of those moments that hit meI just said I'm not leaving. And
and I just I loved it you knowfrom from day one, the trees the
water, you know, there's morewater and one view of your eyes
when you're on the beach thanthere is in the entire state of
(04:31):
New Mexico Of course. And youknow, there's just a lot going
on here. It's International,it's very cultural. And you
know, I don't know there'sthere's good things and bad
things about every city Icertainly like visiting back
home. But for now, you know,this is this is where I make a
living so i've you know, gotmarried I have three kids now
and several businesses and andbecause of the Coronavirus, I'm
(04:54):
working from home more than everand that parlays nicely into
what we're doing. It getsstopped up So Mr. New Mexico
arrives in big time Miami, andyou're beginning law school?
What are you learning aboutyourself at this time? I'm
learning that I really enjoybeing on my own and, and alone,
(05:19):
if that makes sense, butthere's, I'm definitely not is
it's it's kind of become trendyto call yourself an introvert.
But, you know, introvert andextrovert has to do with where
you get your energy. And Idefinitely I love leading groups
I love being, you know, I wasalways captain of whatever I was
doing and, and I love the theteam and the mission and the
(05:41):
rallying, and I love buildingteams, you know, in business.
Now, there's just a lot ofsimilarities. But at the same
time, I really recharge andenjoy my alone time and my
thinking time, and I and I thinkbeing out here and not knowing
anybody, um, you know, we had Imoved out in 2005. And within a
month and a half, we hadhurricanes Katrina, Rita and
(06:05):
Wilma. Wow. And Katrina hit onlya few weeks. And look, I'm
starting to meet people. Thefirst week, I was I was living
in the fraternity house on oncampus, because it's a private
school. A lot of people don'tknow that about the University
of Miami.
They have live in sort of housedads in the fraternity houses,
and I was doing that onscholarship during law school.
(06:28):
And, you know, so I knew peoplebut it was so brand new, you
know, my first hurricane, Iended up in, in a suite on
campus with a friend. And then Iremember my, my first
Thanksgiving, you know, I didn'twant to ask anyone to go to go
to Thanksgiving with them. Andit was enough enough time to fly
(06:49):
home. So I saw a joke that Ihad, I had spaghettios, you
know, by myself, and and Ienjoyed it. You know, I didn't I
never looked at it. Like, youknow, poor me, I don't have I
don't have all my network here.
And, and I and I took that. So alot of people it's like, well,
you know, how did you come intoMiami without family friends,
you know, a lot. There's,there's a lot of private schools
(07:10):
here. So if you go to highschool, you have really good
business networks. And a lot ofthat a lot of the private
schools out here, colleges, andI had none of that. And people
ask, Well, how did you how didyou build your business? You
know, you're you're basicallyjust came into Miami, and here
you are. And I don't know, Ijust never looked at it as a, an
impediment. I never let it getin my way. I just kind of do my
(07:34):
thing. I've never really focusedon obstacles. And and, and I
guess from the outside, now thatI have kids, I see a lot of the
things that I did when I wasyounger. And I think oh, well, I
could see how my parents wouldreact to that now. But when
you're just going throughthings, Steve, you know, I'm
just not the type of guy who'svery good at stopping and
saying, oh, wow, that was a goodaccomplishment, or a big
(07:56):
accomplishment. Or wow, lookwhat I'm doing. I just just keep
going day to day. So it'sinteresting, because you go on,
you start a law firm, and youyou build out a law firm, but
here, you're independent, you'reyou're thinking that you're more
of an introvert. Are you sayingthat you are and yet you build a
an excellent team. Where doesthat come from? I yeah, so I
(08:19):
love I love leadership. I lovebeing in charge of a mission.
Yeah, I hate using the theanalogy of like, more time and
stuff because God, you know, Godforbid, we nothing that we do is
even close to what goes on inthe real, you know, combat and
(08:40):
military and but, you know, Iguess the analogy is there's
there's peacetime generals andwartime generals, and I've
always liked the the fight themission, let's build something
let's attack, you know, let'slet's focus on, we want it to
become different in Miami interms of how legal services were
(09:02):
delivered, and we were going toshow people that we could be
different. So those things getme excited, I love the missions.
And then if you have core valuesand you have a mission and you
focus on them and you and youmake them a part of your
business where you hire andtrain and retain or fire based
on your core values, you startto get people around you that
(09:22):
are excited to be on the sameboat and they they want to roll
with you There's nothing wrongthere's very few things more
frustrating than havingemployees constantly fighting
against the current and pushingback and you and I you know have
a little bit of this discussionabout hiring and people then you
know, Millennials this and kidsthat and it's it's always
(09:46):
everyone else's fault except theleader. Nobody I've met says I
suck at hiring. I suck atleading. I'm terrible. I need
help or I should have very fewpeople. I have heard A few
people say that. And as TonyRobbins said, there's no,
there's no such thing as a badteam, only a bad leader. Because
the leader is the one hiring andthe leader is the one rowing and
(10:10):
building. So you're making thedecisions as the leader, you
have to look at yourself ifthings aren't going right and
figure out why. And if you havebad employees, and why did you
keep them. And if you don't wantbad employees next time, put
more effort into the recruitingand hiring process and become
the type of business that'sgoing to attract the people that
that you want to work with andaround. And, and if someone
(10:32):
doesn't fit in your culture, youneed to let them go, because
it's respectful for them and foryou, so they can go find their
culture. And I looked on yourwebsite, Steve, you know,
nobody's wearing suits and ties,you've got a very, like, fun,
casual bunch. And that's goingto attract more of the people
that like that, that are goingto resonate with ROI online. And
(10:56):
so, you know, go ahead.
Steve Brown (11:04):
No, I'm wondering, if you always found yourself in
a position of class president orleader of as you were growing?
Is that innately in you? Orwhere did you learn it? Did you
have a mentor? Did you havesomeone that really exemplified
leadership to you? Where doesthat come from?
Brett Trembly (11:26):
That I have pondered before. And I think
it's a little bit of both, I'mnaturally you know, I've got the
red hair gene. So I'm naturallykind of fiery. You know, I wish
I was more even keeled but but Ican, I can have a temper and get
very excited at times. I wasvery competitive. I think some
of it comes from, you know,sibling rivalry. And having an
(11:50):
older brother who was who wasgood at sports that I had to
live up to. Part of it comesfrom i was i was shorter.
Growing up, I didn't hit mygrowth spurt until, like,
seventh or eighth grade. So youknow, and, and, but, but that, I
think that's, you know, sothere's nature and nurture
there. But the big thing for meis my father, every summer would
(12:13):
take a week out of his scheduleand be a camp counselor at
something called rotary YouthLeadership Awards. In New Mexico
and Southwest Texas. Everysummer, they took one kid one
boy out of every high school,voluntarily, of course, and put
them in a leadership camp. Soyou had some of the the best and
(12:35):
the brightest from around theregion. And it was a full week
where you were in cabins, eachcabin would give themselves a
name, and then they wouldcompete on sports, on speaking
on on, you know, just, it wassuch an incredible, incredible
week. And because my dad was inrotary, and he liked those
things he started bringing usfrom when we were kids, so when
(12:57):
I was like five or six, I wouldgo for the last weekend. And I
would be around these theseamazing, older guys. And as a
young boy, of course, I lookedup to them that was that was
like, I want to be like theseguys. And so I learned, you
know, we had to come up withkind of your, your chance, and
and how to compete as a team.
And man, I just ate that stuffup. I still I just love it. I
(13:18):
did that all and then I startedgoing for the entire week so
that they let me stay and I wasbasically one of the team, you
know, in seventh grade, eighthgrade, ninth grade. And then I
of course, when I was oldenough, I did it myself. And I
you know, I just think it's alot of factors. I don't know, I
do think leadership can belearned. I think anybody can
(13:40):
reinvent themselves. And it'spretty cool. When you see
somebody totally just decide,you know what, I'm going to be
this person who I know a girlthat was like in a dead end job
and she's like, you know what,I'm just gonna influence women.
I'm going to work from Coloradoand Miami, I'm going to split my
time. I'm going to I'm going tobe a coach virtually. And I'm
going to turn into a thoughtinfluencer just out of the blue
(14:01):
and then she did it. And and Ilove that kind of stuff. I think
people you know, life's short,do do do what you're called to
do. It doesn't matter what ageyou are either,
you know, culture for me.
Because it's something that hasto be deliberate. And I was
trying to figure out a good wayto define you know, an example
(14:23):
of what culture is is not beingbags and free coffees and, and
those things, but there'ssomething deeper. And I was
watching I think it's chef onNetflix, there's a series where
they they interview these, thesebig deal chefs, and they go back
to their backstory and why oneof the episodes it really
(14:50):
started to sink in to me tocreate great food. You have to
have great ingredients but theseguys went even deeper. And they
wanted great soil. So theybought their own farm. And they
started to take control of thequality of the ingredients by
(15:10):
controlling the quality of thesoil. And then it just kind of
hit me that a great culture islike great soil for an
organization, if you can makethat soil healthy, and new,
nutritious and clean, then thework and the people that are
attracted and grow there isimpacted significantly.
(15:36):
How do you feel about cold?
Yeah, no, I think that's, that'sa really good analogy. And, and
you can have the same soilingand grow beans or you can grow
corn, or you can grow I don'tknow, you know, squash whatever
you want, right. So you're, Ithink it's to take it a step
further, you've got to have thegreat soil or the culture and
then deliberately choose whatcrop you're going to grow with,
(16:00):
with the right with the rightstrategy in place. And that's,
that's comes back to thenrecruiting the type of people
that are going to join yourmission. So if your passion is
to, you know, I don't know, youknow, change the environment and
climate changes is your bigthing, you're probably not going
(16:24):
to go work at let's say, GeneralMotors, right, like their diesel
division, I'm just throwing somethings out there. Like, that's,
that's just not what's gonnaspeak to you and, and culture is
about being honest. We askedpeople at the law firm, and my
law firm Trembley law, you know,we ask people look, our part of
(16:47):
our hiring process, we give aquiz and you have to write what
our core values mean to you.
Because we just tell you whatthey are and how we define them.
And our mission. And our missionis to protect the economy, one
business at a time. And Steve,you and I believe this, each
together, even though we hadn'tmet until recently, that
(17:07):
business owners are the backboneof our economy, we're the ones
providing the jobs and and we'rethe ones keeping the economy
moving, we still employ morethan half of the of the, you
know, the American workforcesector and the American
workforce. And so, you know, ifyou if you don't believe in
(17:30):
business, and you know, this isnot political, this is just
economical. Like, if you thinkthat, you know, everyone should
be paying 80% in taxes andbusinesses are evil, you're Why
don't come work with us, youknow, I don't want to get into
philosophical debate with you.
But that's okay, that that's notthis is not the culture, what's
the wrong soil for you, andbeing very clear on what is the
(17:50):
right soil. And then once yousprout, so to speak, what we're
going to talk about and those,those are five core values,
then, you know, I think you'regonna start to grow the crop.
So the five core values, Ithink, are super important.
There's a great book, I reallyhighly recommend. It's called
(18:12):
vivid vision by Cameron Herald.
But it helps you write the storyof your organization three years
from now. And you think aboutyour challenge as a leader, as
you need to attract the rightpeople onto your team. And this,
this is very significant. It's ahuge competitive lever if you
get it right. But how can youtake what's in your head and
(18:35):
communicate it clearly. So thatyou can attract the people that
love it, and would thrive in it,or repel the people that would
be like, not be on board aboutit. And you have to declare it,
and you have to state what youbelieve. But there's, there's a,
in that book, there's a greatframework to start to identify
(18:57):
that and pull it out of yourhead and get it on paper so that
it's, you can actually draw theright picture so that people see
the same point on the horizonthat you're going to how did you
come up with your five corevalues? And what are they?
Okay, so yeah, let me let memake this point too. So there's
(19:21):
a there's a quote I like thatsays, your business plan is what
you are, but your culture is whoyou are. And a lot of people
fall Let's face it, a lot ofbusiness owners skip the
business plan in general. Butthe ones that do you know, that
they're just focused on? Well, Ineed this in marketing, and this
is what this department's gonnalook like. But what about your
(19:44):
vision? And what about theculture part of your firm? So
I'm glad you brought up thatbook. Because getting it down
and writing and thencommunicating it is very
important. Our five core valuesare on our website, and we
remember them with an acronym,which is risky beavers that
tickle koalas. It's kind of anit's kind of an inside joke, but
(20:05):
we have Our t shirts that thathave trembling on the front, and
then they have a risky beaverthat's tickling a koala. On the
back, it's kind of a symbol forus to just remind us of the core
values. So the are for riskyradiate positive energy. That
is, to me the most importantcore value I do not like being
around negative people, youdon't have to be you know, the
(20:28):
the class clown and be loud, andyou know, fake high fiving
everybody, but you got to be apositive person, you know,
negativity is, is contagious.
And so that's no good. And thenit's be responsible, be a team
player, take action. And thelast one is kick ass. And some
people say, Wow, you have acurse word on your website. It's
like, Well, you know, we're alittle bit edgy, too. That's,
(20:51):
that's the kind of clients and,and team members that we want.
We want people to know thatlook. So we do we do business
law, franchise law, trademarksand litigation. And so when,
when you're when you have alitigation team, our goal, our
goal at the firm is to keepbusiness owners out of court.
But inevitably, sometimes you'regoing to end up in disputes that
(21:14):
unreasonable people don't workout. And, and we're gonna take
no prisoners, and you got tohave, you know, be trusting in
your team, that they're gonna,they're gonna go to bat for you.
And, and, look, we don't want astuffy boring law firm either.
So I really like having thatthat core value out there, it's
hard to, to walk the line ofprofessional, but also sort of
(21:37):
new and different without goingtoo far with it. Because some
people, you know, they want tohave the open workspace and the
beanbags and, and, you know,ping pong tables and have the,
the kegerator, you know, in themiddle and have that be the
focus, and you can't have thatat a law firm, either, in my
opinion, if you're going to be aserious law firm, which we are,
(22:00):
by the way, we've got 10attorneys, 25 people, I, I also
I do have to give it a littlebit of credibility, because you
know, get snapped up is a veryquickly growing business, it's a
lot of fun. But some people getget the shiny object syndrome,
and they're not successful withwith with their business. And
now they start a bunch of otherones. And you know, I just want
(22:24):
to throw that out there thatthis is not just a distract me
side project, you know, this,this is real, and it comes from
a good place. So where, wheredid this culture mission really
show itself? Was it at thebeginning of your business? Or
did you learn your lesson?
Several years? Yeah. Yeah. Soyes, you asked me how,
(22:46):
definitely learned this isseveral years into it. So we
have, there's a system calledtraction. It's the
entrepreneurial organizationalsystem, it's really now
operating today. It's really Ilove it, it's sweeping the
nation, tried to do it myselffor a year that went horribly, I
implemented it at the firm. Andwhat we did, the first retreat
(23:07):
we had was we we sat down, andwe just threw out all of the
words that we thought describedus and who we want it to be. I
mean, this is like a two orthree hour process, right? Like
it's separate, go think for awhile and then explain why. And
then we started, we slowlystarted bringing those into, we
got rid of some of them. Andthen we voted. And then we
(23:30):
talked them through and youvoted on more. And we eventually
got down to the 10 and then tothe seven into the five. And
then we had them. And then wehad with the whole team, we had
an acronym contest, or amnemonic phrase contest. So
everybody got to come in withwith how they wanted to, you
know, name it. And that's how wecame up with the with the risky
(23:53):
beavers mnemonic phrase. That'sall for the law firm. So with
get stopped up, we took allthese lessons, and we
implemented them for day onethat's up has been running on
traction from day one, we've hadour core values since day one.
And we do the same thing becauseget staffed up recruits. We've
got, you know, hundreds ofpeople now working for us in
(24:15):
Latin America. And during theinterview process, it's the same
thing. We're asking about ourcore values and and what makes
you incredible. And it's I don'twant to beat a dead horse too
much. But But you could say mostof our core culture relies on on
the core values, and it's workedout for us very well. I think
that's a good horse to be for along time. That culture thing, I
(24:39):
think is something that everyemployee innately desires and
craves. And yetthey're often disappointed and
they wonder why they're andthey're not happy at work. And
they there's this wrestlingmatch. I call it a stupid tax.
If you don't have these inplace, it's invisible tax. that
destroys morale over a longperiod of time. Because you
(25:03):
think about the new people thatcome to work for you, they don't
show up saying, you know, I'mreally gonna suck at this job.
And I'm just gonna write this aslong as I can until I get found
out. And then I'll just look foranother one, they don't do that,
at least, I don't believe themajority of them do, I think
most of them show up thinkinglike, I'm going to make the most
(25:26):
of this opportunity, I want tobe a good employee, I want to
contribute. And so they come in,and they, they run into these
little rules that don't makesense, or are just stupid, and
it'll cross their mind, well,that's a stupid rule, then
they'll go, oh, but I want to bea good employee. So I'm going to
put that aside. But over time,those rules, or those processes
(25:48):
are those things that don't makesense. will, will diminish their
enthusiasm and commitment to theorganization over time, and they
couldn't sit down and go, Well,it all began with this first
stupid rule I ran into. And I'mblue truly believe that.
Focusing on your culture,getting these things, right, is
(26:12):
like a huge competitiveadvantage, to success just to
make a business last for years.
That's hard enough, but if youcan get this in place, you just
reduce a lot of friction andhurdles.
Yeah, and and, you know, yourteam will know when you're full
(26:34):
of it, because when you don'tenforce your, your core values,
then they think, Well, that wasjust a bunch of baloney this,
this hiring and onboardingprocess, because, you know,
this, this guy that I'm workingfor, or under, or this girl
doesn't, you know, she, youknow, laughs at our core values,
and she doesn't live up to themwhy she's still here. And I've
(26:57):
had employees tell me that theyappreciate how fast we fire
people. Because, and, and I, youknow, the other thing is, when
you fire someone, it's not likethey're a bad person. And you're
right, they're wrong, it doesn'thave to be an ego thing. It's
just, you know, you need to moveon from people that that don't
fit or that aren't getting thejob done. Because that there is
(27:18):
a there's a place out there foreverybody to find a home. So
what I'm hearing and a lot ofyour your vocabulary and
conversation here is that thisbecame something very important
to you. And I think that yourecognize many entrepreneurs
(27:39):
wrestle with getting this clearand finding good people for
their business and beginning todelegate, or beginning to do the
things. Talk about your examplethat were when you started your
law firm, how you were trying todo everything, and you finally
came to a realization. So myfirst two and a half years were
(28:03):
a big struggle. I I wasn't happyat the law firm that I worked at
directly out of law school, youknow, I appreciated the
opportunity, but I was just feltlike I was in a rut. And I had
always known that I would be incharge, I would always knew that
I would own my own businesssomeday. I mean, I had candy
machine routes and and I alwayscame up with ways to make money
(28:27):
as a kid that was that was theother part of my personality. I
was always looking for ways todo things and do them myself.
And so when I started my lawfirm, and I started networking,
I was like, This is gonna beeasy, and it's gonna be great,
because I'm so wonderful. Now, Ididn't say, I'm so wonderful.
(28:48):
That was part of my ego that Ididn't, hadn't explored and
didn't realize, and that thatcan serve you well for
confidence, but it can hurt you.
Because then you think you haveall the answers, you're not
going to seek help. And you cando everything yourself. And I
was so afraid of hiring someoneto help because I thought if I
had to fire them, that everybodywould say I'm a failure and the
(29:11):
whole world laugh at me, as ifpeople have the time to sit
around and think about me allday. But but that's the fear of
failure was what was was holdingme back. And I this is my
anniversaries. We're filmingthis, you know, almost on my
anniversary, which is 11 111when I started so I got nine
(29:33):
years coming up here in a fewdays. And so this is 2011 you
know, so for the first two and ahalf years, I was licking my own
stamps, answering my own phones,sending my own faxes because it
was 2011 and, you know, I wasbarely getting to any legal
work, which is the only way thatI could make income from my law
(29:53):
firm. So I finally had anepiphany. You know, I have A
coach at this point that finallyjust like, kick me so hard made
me do it. I hired someone for 30hours a week, a law student,
she's not a lawyer, you know,very happy for her. We when we
talk, we, you know, we alwaysmake this joke, she was my first
employee. And and I doubled therevenue the business that very
(30:18):
next month. And it's like, wow,wow, oh my gosh, that's
incredible. Well, if you do themath, and you're in your billing
one hour a day, and now you dotwo, that's times two. I mean,
right? It's, it's really notrocket science. But I will give
myself credit for the fact thatI took the lesson and I absorbed
it. And I believed in it, and alot of people have success. And
(30:41):
then they say, Oh, that was afluke. That won't happen again.
I'm not gonna hire any more,because I am so relieved. I
didn't go to business, I needit. And you see a lot in the
legal world, especially becauseget staffed up our virtual
staff, we focus on staffing forlaw firms. That's our marketing
focus. We have a lot of non lawfirm clients. But niches bring
(31:02):
riches and it's just so hard tomarket to to a bunch of
different markets. So I use thethe lawyer example. It's like
one guy, and as one paralegalwho's really just doing
everything, and that's that'shis office for 40 years. You
know, they never they never takethe they don't do a Goldman
Sachs 10,000 small businessesprogram, they don't read books,
(31:25):
they don't take risks. And Ithink most of them if they say,
but I'm happy like this, I'mcomfortable like this, they're
probably lying to themselves.
Because they're just like, I wasthere. And I'm not condemning
because this was me so afraid ofthe risk, and, and the fear of
failure. And, and, and theoverhead. And look, the overhead
is real. But yeah, I mean, I,you know, I think that I learned
(31:50):
the lesson, and I just startedhiring and I made a plan to
continue to hire. And the, the,there's a good book called what
got you here won't get youthere. You know, because before
I had the core values and theculture in place, and it was
just kind of me and running offmy personality, I hire people,
and then it worked. And we keptgrowing the firm. But those same
(32:13):
people are not with me now. Andit's okay, it's okay to hire and
then have to fire it. People getare so hard on themselves when
they hire someone and they trainand it doesn't work out why
wasted all that time, and Iwasted the money. And I don't
want to do that. Again. There's,there's there's a few other
options, but you're gonna haveto make the decision that it's
(32:33):
part of it, you know, turnoversis part of it.
Steve Brown (32:37):
I want to pause here just for a moment and talk
to you about a program that wehave just released called ROI,
quickstart Academy for authors.
Every day, I talk to businessowners just like you who
struggle with quickly gettingtheir fundamentals in place, we
want to create a greatfoundation, and we want to grow
our business. But the thingsthat are in our way, our lack of
(33:00):
knowledge about the specifics,we should put in place, what
kind of technology what kind ofmessaging and what kind of
campaigns and that problemexists for authors as well. And
we just chill so good withauthors because, well, I'm an
author, and I understandeverything that you struggle
with, you have a great idea, youhave a great book, but what do
(33:22):
you want to do, you want to getyour book in front of more
people, you want to make it easyfor them to find you learn how
they can schedule a time to talkwith you hire you for a
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promotes. So what is theQuickstart Academy for authors?
Imagine working with a smallgroup of like minded authors,
and the experts from the ROIquickstart team, it's a great
(33:47):
way to get your messaging clearto be confident with the
technology in your marketingautomation, and how to run a
strategic campaign to get youmore of what you want from the
investment of your book. Tolearn more about the Quickstart
Academy for authors, you canvisit ROI online.com or click in
the link in the show notesbelow. And now back to this
(34:11):
episode. Yeah, and the otherside of that coin is who if you
have the expectation that theperson you hire is going to be
with you for nine years, or 10years or however long? That's
not a realistic expectation aswell. They have lives. They have
transitions, they get married,they have kids, they Yeah, who
(34:34):
knows and it's okay for them toto go on and do other things
with their life instead of justbe in that chair every day and
you know, gung ho about yourcompany. That's just natural.
Yeah, life happens. Yeah.
Brett Trembly (34:52):
So you get snapped up came from this thing
that you really recognize thatIt's important to you, kind of
so I had the idea in 2017, ofstarting a company called the
hiring pros and helping peoplelearn how to hire. totally
(35:14):
unrelated, but about the sametime, my now business partner
had lunch with somebody that healmost skipped out on it, that's
kind of his funny story, learnlearned that this, this lawyer
had a staff person in thePhilippines, and then my
business partner disappeared fora few months kind of went into a
rabbit hole. And when heresurfaced, because I used to
(35:35):
talk to him almost every day,and I didn't even see him for
two months, when when we couldstill see people in person. So,
you know, he sort of resurfacedwith five new employees. And I
couldn't believe it. And Icertainly couldn't believe what
he was paying them, compared to,you know, the traditional
payroll that we have here in theStates, or administrative level
(35:58):
positions. And I said, I needsomebody can you find me a
marketing assistant? And he did.
And we just, he wanted to dokind of consulting, and he was
going to help people learn howto do this, and they would pay
him a flat fee. And I said,Well, you know, we, you could
also turn this into a realbusiness where you're the
employer, and, and we just kindof went from there and early
(36:19):
2018, January 28, I think wesaid, You know what, let's do
this together. I made the firsttwo sales for his company. And
he said, let's do this together.
And that's how it gets wrappedup was born. So what's the big
deal about get staffed upcompared to other outsourcing
(36:39):
options? I mean, there's a lotof those. And yeah, there's a
lot of those. So tell me firsthelped me understand the value
of getting knocked up comparedto others. There are two main
differences. In sort of insertedtwo genres, there are the United
(37:00):
States based outsourcingcompanies, where you can hire
you know, somebody for, youknow, right, rather expensive.
Lee will say, like, 35 $45 anhour to be a quasi executive
assistant. And then yourdecision is, you know, how much
(37:20):
do I want to pay them through acompany?
How many hours per week do Ineed? Right? So there's, I need
five hours per week. So then,you know, I'm going to give them
projects, that's going to takeup about five hours per week.
Totally different, not, not atall what we do. And then there's
the the overseas, which is whatwe do, but most of the
(37:40):
outsourcing companies are thesame thing. They're playing time
Tetris. So you're signing upwith a company? And they're
asking you, well, how much? Howmuch time do you think you need
per week of an assistant, you'relike, well, I only need 10
hours, and I only need 15 hours.
So they've got a building in thePhilippines, they pack it like
sardines, you got a bunch ofpeople in cubicles right next to
each other, and you're going tomaybe get somebody different,
(38:02):
you know, often there's going tobe a rotation, or, or you know,
you're really selling yourselfshort, by only getting somebody
that's going to be able to doprojects for you, they're
certainly not going to be a teammember, or an employee. So what
we do it get staffed up, Steveis we, we recruit 95% of our
people are out of Latin America,you're talking Mexico, Central
(38:26):
America and South America. Andwe are placing full time team
members with you. Of course,they're virtual, because they're
not in the office with you. Fulltime only, we only do 40 hours
per week, that person is now apart of your culture and your
team, they work for you and foryou only. They just happen to be
legally employed by us. So getstaffed up does the recruiting
(38:51):
and the placing, and I couldtalk more about the placing.
Because we don't just tell youwho you get, you ultimately get
to decide who you hire. You payus a flat fee every month as a
contractor, so there's noadditional taxes or fees. And we
handle the withholding thetaxes, the benefits, and the
compliance, which is differentin all those countries, which is
(39:13):
it gets pretty difficult. And wehave our client happiness team
that stays on as a liaison tomake sure that things are going
well. Life does happen. Youknow, these are still human
beings. So sometimes there'sthere's turnover and people quit
and they leave and we replacethem for you. We just go right
back to the well and go andrecruit someone else. So you're
(39:35):
getting a new team member whoonly works for you for 40 hours
a week for the whopping price of1850 a month. So before we go
deeper, I think one of thethings that you You helped me
have more clarity on all thesebusinesses like mine We're
(39:57):
having to figure out how torecruit good team members to
deliver on the demand that we'vecreated. And so we have to
discern the level of a teammember that we want to share in
the burden. So yeah, I think thething you helped me have clarity
(40:19):
on was like, there's a minimumexecutive
level than there's strategiclevel maybe. And maybe that's
the executive, we, you know,they're bringing more strategy,
and more business acumen, thenthe next level would be more
tactical, where they show up,and they're excellent at
(40:40):
stepping into a well definedsystem and following your
system.
talk more about that helps. Ithink that's a real important
thing for someone that might beconsidering outsourcing. If they
can start to have the properexpectations. I think they're
more set up for success to finda better fit faster. Yes, thank
(41:03):
you. Thank you for asking that.
We, for example, we had somebodythat that was a friend, like,
all this sounds so great, youknow, I can't wait to work with
you guys. Because I just want tohand over all my marketing and
never think about it. Like,okay, I guess we were not in
alignment here. Because, firstof all, that rarely exists in
the whole world. Second of all,it's certainly not what we do,
(41:23):
you know, some magician, it'sgoing to pull out your vision
and ideas out of your head. And,and, you know, just bring them
to life. The last week, I'msorry, but the last chapter of
my or the segment, last chapterof my book, talks about that
exact conversation right there.
And that they're looking for, wecall her Kelly, but her real
(41:47):
long name is miracle. And so shedoesn't exist, or he doesn't
exist. Yeah, I like that. I likethat name. So yeah, that just
doesn't exist. So what we do iswe're finding virtual
assistants. But again, we useVA, because people know that
term. But but these are full,they're basically your employee,
(42:09):
just not legally. And they'renot project based, either. But
but they are assistance, theyare not going to be you know,
your, your CFOs, your CEOs, yourCEOs, they're not going to come
in and take over all yourmarketing. If you have, let's
say you're starting a socialmedia company here in the US,
(42:34):
you're, you're going to getclient accounts, maybe you're
going to maybe you're going tosign people up for you know,
you're gonna go to Mr. businessowner for 1500 dollars a month,
you know, we'll, we'll do allyour social media, and we'll do
you know, three newsletters foryou a month, and we'll write
three blogs. You know, that's avery common scenario. Okay, so
that's not project basis, that'sa monthly ongoing work. For me,
(42:57):
I'm thinking, Okay, if I can setup a system, you know, that gets
the info I need from thatbusiness owner, what would you
like to talk about this month orfocus on, I can put that into a
spreadsheet, and somebody canpull out of that and do all that
work for me on the back end thatI just have to approve? Okay,
that's an assistant that's aworker be someone who you know,
(43:19):
needs to have some some braincells and is good, but they're
not doing the creative thinkingor the vision. I'm thinking to
myself, well, let's say I foundsomeone like through gets that
up for 1850 a month. On mysecond sale, I'm already
profitable. And I'm just goingto go out and grow the company
and see what kind of bandwidthone assistant can do. Maybe it's
(43:42):
five, maybe it's 10. And now Iknow my skews. I know how many
clients per assistant that Ineed to have. And I can scale my
company this way. So it's whenyou're working with no part time
here and 30 hours there, it isso difficult, if you're serious
about growing your business, todo it in a very, you know,
scientific mathematical way. Andwhen you design the system
(44:07):
yourself, you know, for lawyers,for example, you can have a
receptionist who's outsourcedyou can have your intake person,
you can have a legal assistant,a client happiness coordinator,
a personal assistant executiveassistant, a marketing assistant
and and you're still going toneed to give them the projects
(44:29):
and design the you know thesystems and have the weekly team
meetings but then you let themrun with all the all the things
you put in place. You know,systems run the business but
people are on the systems. So ifyou if you need 10 people on a
conveyor belt to get thechocolate, you know made and out
the door. We now know becausesome of our clients have more
(44:52):
than 10 team members through usthat the average that they save
in payroll a year Is 250,000well, right, right. And so now
that's money in the ownerspocket. And I don't mean that
greedy. I mean, like, you know,a lot of small business owners
have such small margins thatthey're owned by their own
(45:13):
business and they're miserable.
But it also has allowed ourclients to grow so fast that
they can hire here domestically,we're not arguing that you
replace jobs or you fire people,we're saying, add bandwidth, if
you have, like all of ourlawyers now at the firm, or at
the partner level, all haveexecutive assistants offshore
through get staffed up, becausenow it's going to add to their
(45:36):
capacity. So now you've createda job, you've helped the global
economy, you've had the lawyerbe way more efficient. And
you've also passed on to theclients.
Totally, I think that's anexcellent way to look at it is
that if your business iscontributing to your community,
adding value by the services,the things that you're
(45:57):
providing, helping people getout of the ditch in a legal
situation. And but you can onlyhelp one person a month. But all
of a sudden, now you can help234 or five, you can be making a
big impact in your community.
Instead of buying thisexcuse that you're not hiring
local people necessarily, you'restill contributing significantly
(46:21):
to the community in your you'regoing to be hiring local people,
to some extent, where you mayhave never hired. Yep. Exactly.
That's that that's a commonscenario that happens with us,
we sometimes run in, you know,in fact, some lawyer I, you
know, I don't think she has muchof a staff wanted to have me on
(46:44):
her podcast, and then when shestarted asking me more about the
companies, I don't agree withthat, you know, you're you're
outsourcing jobs. I said, Okay,look, respectfully, we're not a
fit, then. And that's okay. ButI think that's a short sighted
view of things. Because if if,if the whole world becomes
connected, and people can workfrom home and actually make a
(47:05):
living, maybe we don't have tobuild walls, right? Maybe
everyone doesn't need to run toour country, which provides
freedoms and security that othercountries don't, you know, maybe
maybe we can help economicallymake an impact that way. Plus,
you're like we said, you'regonna grow way faster, where you
can start hiring people thatdomestically that you otherwise
(47:30):
would have been afraid to hire,or now, you know, post post
COVID maybe someone in differentparts of the US, maybe it's
still remote.
Yeah, I'm, the way I look at itis, I am a core team that adds
the ROI minus on to all of ourwork there and, you know,
(47:52):
they're, they're inculcated intoour culture, they love our
clients, they, they want toprotect and empower
entrepreneurs, so, but theybring a unique value strategic
value on to the work. So if youthink of a NASCAR, you've got a
pit crew, you've got the driver,and they can order a carburetor
(48:18):
from a manufacturer. But whenthat carburetor comes in, they
don't just put it in there andthen go get them. They've tuned
that thing. They add all sortsof other value on to that and
that's exactly what's happeningin this situation.
Yeah, yeah. Look, here's here'sthe analogy that I use most
often. It's It's his one on oneof our trademark phrases that we
(48:43):
believe in to our core.
Sorry, we're gonna have to pauseI'm on a podcast reported All
right, you don't tell me whereto where to pick up?
Yeah, so we were talking aboutthe NASCAR analogy. Hey, by the
way this happens all the time.
One of the episodes I had one ofthe kids comes in they're
(49:07):
supposed to ask before they eatanything was sugar so that we
had to get permission if alollipop was okay, this is just
the way things are i've i've hadchickens crowing I've had cats
walk through it's cool.
Yeah, no, I know I normally havea sign up that says you know
that is recording but it doesn'talways work although that was so
(49:29):
Okay, so look where there's atrademark phrase that we have is
called delegate your way tofreedom. Because I always go
back to who I was in 2011 1213and 14 when I started my
business and I was so afraid toto hire. Some people think they
have to do it all themselvesbecause it serves their their
(49:51):
ego and again I just talkingabout the ego is something
that's like subconsciousseparate from us, not about
like, you know, I think I'm sogreat. And just But it does
serve some people's ego to say,you know, I can't, I can't give
the legal work to someonebecause they won't do it as well
as I will, you know, as ifnobody else can possibly be as
good as you. Well, that's justnot true. But other people are
(50:14):
just afraid of the cost, andthey're afraid of the time that
it would take to train people.
And look, those are tworealities that I think we're
helping people overcome. Butit's better to at least take the
risk, right? But what would yourather eat Steve, except for
maybe a few instances where youcould think of one guy who has a
restaurant and it's like, reallysmall, but amazing food? Okay?
(50:36):
Would you rather eat at arestaurant where the owner is
the host, or the hostess, right?
The the waitress, she's the linecook. She's the head chef. She's
the chief marketer, she's theowner, you know, and she's doing
everything yourself, I mean,something is going to suffer.
It's either going to be the foodor the service, or she's going
(50:59):
to be serving one one table pernight, which is, you know, what
we're talking about, you can ifyou're only helping one one
client per month, or would yourather eat at the restaurant
where the owner says, I am notthe best chef in the world, I'm
gonna go hire the best possiblechef. And then I'm going to hire
the nicest host and hostess, andthe best waitstaff and I'm going
(51:21):
to train them. And they're allgoing to say the same thing.
Because they're gonna, they'regoing to live by the same, you
know, values, the core valuesthat we have, and we're going to
treat our people better. Andthat's going to be a
differentiator, and we're gonnahave the best food. I mean, for
me, it's a pretty clear answer.
And to many business owners,don't even stop to think about
that, that's what they're doingin their business is everything
(51:41):
themselves, and how, how just,man, if I could convince people,
it's possible, just think aboutit, start reading books, start
putting things on paper, and atthe least, write down everything
you do for a week, highlightyour 20 least favorite things,
and then just get rid of them,just delegate them, you know,
start somewhere.
(52:01):
Yeah, I like that analogy,because you think I've been to
that restaurant where it was aspecial, unique experience. But
there were idiosyncrasies, youknow, that added to the thing,
and so you had to be okay, thatthe service was slow, or right,
or you had to be okay with, withsome aspect that was you
prepared your person you tookwith you. Now, don't, don't
(52:26):
expect this, but the food'sgonna be amazing, or what have
you is going to be great. Okay,that's good. But it takes a
certain amount of businessacumen, to go to the next level
and design the systems and hirethe people who are going to run
those systems. That's, that'sexactly what you're talking
(52:48):
about. That's why managers areso valuable. That's why
businesses can make a lot ofmoney because it's not easy. It
takes a significant amount ofplanning and thinking and
commitment and Aquaman systemsdesign and pricing takes a whole
nother level of expertise andrunning a business. So why would
(53:12):
you resent someone that figuredthat out, then created jobs,
that risked all this, there's noguarantee and, and just like the
situation we're finding, thennever, never imagined that your
local government would come inand say, you have to shut down
to save the world. That's notfair. But they stepped up
(53:36):
knowing that whatever challengethey were going to run into,
they were had enough to figureit out in some way. Yeah, that's
why I love these people. Man.
Exactly. That's exactly right.
What put putting putting theirtheir reputation, you know,
their future on the line bytaking risks. And that's, that's
(53:58):
the real differentiator there.
But it's not just the risk tostart the business. Steven, I'm
glad you made that point.
Because to start a law firm,now, it's so easy. If you have a
law degree, of course, you needa laptop, that's all you need.
And it's not starting a businessanymore so much that that
impresses me it's the the risksafter that to grow a business
(54:20):
starting a business is easy. Youjust say hey, I just started a
business. It's growing abusiness that is not in need.
And there's so many steps alongthe way. That you know, people
see though the overnight successthat takes 10 years because
there's so many moves that arethat somebody is making. It's
investing into their business togrow it and and it is kind of
(54:42):
easy to get complacent to becomfortable. Comfort is the
enemy of progress in my opinion.
And and you know, all duerespect to those people that are
that are out there, pushing theenvelope and taking the risks.
So if I'm listening to this, andYou know, I have this business,
and I've been kind of wrestlingwith this delegation challenge.
(55:05):
It's kind of cool to know thatthere's a company that gets
that, and will help me to makesure I have, you know, but asked
me about what systems I have inplace will help me get set up
for success when I bring someoneon board to delegate as an
assistant, that I think that'sgood. I think that's something
(55:27):
that needs a lot of clarity.
Because we've all done somethingand said, Well, that didn't
work. But we were oblivious towhat needed to be in place to
increase the chance of successwith that implemented. Hmm.
How can they get ahold of you?
Where should they learn more? Inthe fastest and easiest way is
(55:50):
online, it's, you know, ofcourse, www. Get snapped up
calm. But if you go to getstuffed up, comm forward slash
VIP, it takes you directly to aContact Us page. I think it asks
for first name, last name, emailphone number, and where you
(56:11):
heard about us. And I do want tohave an offer for your
listeners, Steve, is for anyonethat goes to getstaffedup.com f
rward slash VIP, in the Where dd you hear about us, if you t
pe in Steve Brown ROI online RI podcast, we will we will g
ve that person a $250 dscount, just because they they c
(56:35):
me through you, you know, just anice thing to do. For your l
steners. That's awesome. I rally appreciate that. My folks h
ve listened to this, they get alot of value. And that's r
ally cool that you're, you're ofering them. So what's the one q
estion that I didn't ask that yu would wished I would have t
(56:58):
at you could have answered? Wat you know what i would we d
dn't really get into the cost svings. Right? And I think that t
at, that that hammering home tat point, because I was the g
y that I was so afraid to hire sme like where am I going to c
me up with, with, I don't kow, $500 a week to hire s
(57:19):
mebody. And when you hire a mrketing assistant in house and w
ere you live in the country, oviously, the cost varies, Kay, b
t let's say $45,000 for a mrketing assistant, when you're i
the US remember, remember, yu got a lot of other things t
(57:40):
at are hidden. So it's about 135 times what you pay someone i
salary, what it actually cost yu and your business and I are t
lking over 50 you know, aproaching 55 and that's on the l
w end, you know, for somebody tat can handle some some m
rketing stuff in house for yu. When you go through a c
mpany like us, it's 18 for mrketing, it's it's just over 2
(58:04):
00 a month, but for your admin psitions. It's 1850 a month so y
u're talking more like 20,000 ad what I tell people Steve is b
siness owners normally have 10 new ideas before they're d
ne you know with their morning rutine or you know before t
ey're out of the shower, and tose business ideas end up b
(58:25):
ing metaphorically like pieces opaper stacked up on a desk t
at you never get to when yu're paying somebody because t
is happened to me you know petty significant salary and y
u can't identify the return i's it's not a good business m
ve and then it's constantly ginding at you and you want t
at person to work faster and gt more done you want to see t
(58:47):
e results. So when you have smeone that you can just give s
uff to man get get get an aministrative executive a
sistant, or jump for the mrketing assistant. The d
fference is kind of the eucation in the background. You k
ow and just to reiterate, we ae hiring talented people but t
is is raw talent. You know and Iknow you do some cool things w
(59:07):
th your academies and and crtainly you can hire someone l
ke this and put them through aacademy because we don't do a
y of the training we do the fnding. And you can you have s
mebody that you can delegate al these things to and try out. I
is such a weight lifted off yur shoulders, because I don't k
ow about you but when I when I hve these ideas I never get to t
(59:27):
em it starts to like wear on m. Anytime you need to find t
me and when you and you talk aout delegate your way to f
eedom, when you have the aility to just everything that c
mes your way or knives that yu just hate get this done l
oking at this respond to this prson. It is so empowering b
cause now you get to focus yur time and what you want to d
(59:47):
the highest and best use of yur time and what is going to h
ve the highest return and that ithat is the that is true f
eedom in my opinion. Getting tspend your time you You c
oose. All right, that's ecellent. Delegate your way to f
eedom. What's the other good qote? Oh, systems run the b
(01:00:08):
siness people run the systems.
Steve Brown (01:00:13):
Those are some excellent little gold, what we
call golden nuggets. Right? madea really excellent guest. And I
appreciate you for being on theROI online podcast.
Brett Trembly (01:00:26):
Steve, thank you for having me. I really enjoyed
our conversation, and I'm gladthat we were put in touch.
Steve Brown (01:00:33):
Alright, that's a wrap. Thanks for listening to
another fun episode of the ROIonline podcast. For more, be
sure to check out the show notesof this episode. And feel free
to connect with me on LinkedInwhere we can chat and I can help
direct you to the resourcesyou're searching for. To learn
more about how you can grow yourbusiness better. Be sure to pick
(01:00:55):
up your copy of my book, TheGolden toilet at surprise, that
golden toilet.com I'm SteveBrown, and we'll see you next
week on another fun episode ofthe ROI online podcast.
For me, I'm thinking, Okay, if I can set up
a system, you know, that getsthe info I need from that
business owner, what would youlike to talk about this month or
focus on, I can put that into aspreadsheet, and somebody can
pull out of that and do all thatwork for me on the back end that
I just have to approve. Okay,that's an assistant, that's a
(00:25):
worker bee, someone who youknow, needs to have some some
brain cells and is good, butthey're not doing the creative
thinking or division. I'mthinking of myself, Well, let's
say I found someone like throughgets that up for 1850 a month.
On my second sale, I'm alreadyprofitable. And I'm just gonna
go out and grow the company andsee what kind of bandwidth one
(00:48):
assistant can do. Maybe it'sfive, maybe it's 10. And now I
know my skews. I know how manyclients for assistant than I
need to have. And I can scale mycompany this way.
Steve Brown (01:00):
Hi, everybody.
Welcome to the ROI onlinepodcast where we believe you.
The courageous entrepreneurs ofour day, are the invisible
heroes of our economy. You notonly improve our world with your
ideas, your grit and yourpassion, but you make our world
better. I'm Steve Brown. Andthis is a place where we have
great conversations with winnersjust like you while we laugh and
(01:22):
learn together.
Brett Trembley, welcome to theROI online podcast. Hi, Steve.
Thanks for having me. You know,I was looking forward to this
conversation. Of course,everybody that's listening right
(01:44):
now. And they're wondering whythey need to be interested in
this conversation. And so I'mtelling you Brett's coming with
some really cool stuff.
Brett Trembly (01:54):
He's got a company called get staffed
up.com. He's has a law firm, asuccessful law firm in Miami.
He's got a book coming out sooncalled the danger zone. And
we're gonna have an excellentconversation. Brett, tell us a
little bit about your backstory.
Yeah. So Steve, when I when Ifound that year from Amarillo, I
(02:16):
that was exciting to me. And he,you know, now that I'm on the
East Coast, anytime I get tomeet somebody from back in the
southwest, that's nice. I grewup just outside of Albuquerque,
New Mexico. And when I when Imeet people out here in Miami,
the response that I used to getwas, oh, wow, I've never met
anyone from New Mexico before,you know, seemed it's like, it's
(02:39):
like one of those states thatyou skip over, you know, like,
in your mind, you know, orCalifornia is, you know, Texas
is meat, you know, of courseeveryone's heard of Colorado and
Arizona but but New Mexico, wejust, I guess we have that
inferiority complex for thatreason as well. So, but now, but
now when I meet people, youknow, they say, Oh, yeah,
(02:59):
breaking bad. I love that show.
And so for better or worse,Breaking Bad put us on the map.
So grew up in, in, in, you know,in New Mexico, I went to college
there, I went five years. So Imy fifth year at Eastern Mexico
university, I think I had threeor six hours a semester. It was
(03:22):
a victory lap as they say justto I was student body president
and I was I was just having agrand old time. And five years
wasn't enough so I decided Iwanted to still delay adulthood
and go to more school. And Isettled on law school. And once
I once I got into Miami, thatwas a no brainer for me. I
wanted to see somethingdifferent something new. And I
(03:47):
remember Steve driving on thecampus as I moved out here and
started law school without everever visiting Miami or been to
Miami it was it was one of thosethings like what am I not gonna
like you know, right so it waseither that or go back to
university in New Mexico for lawschool and so I drove across the
country with my old man in my myJeep Grand Cherokee you know,
(04:09):
loaded to the top I pulled up Idrove onto campus and it just
one of those moments that hit meI just said I'm not leaving. And
and I just I loved it you knowfrom from day one, the trees the
water, you know, there's morewater and one view of your eyes
when you're on the beach thanthere is in the entire state of
(04:31):
New Mexico Of course. And youknow, there's just a lot going
on here. It's International,it's very cultural. And you
know, I don't know there'sthere's good things and bad
things about every city Icertainly like visiting back
home. But for now, you know,this is this is where I make a
living so i've you know, gotmarried I have three kids now
and several businesses and andbecause of the Coronavirus, I'm
(04:54):
working from home more than everand that parlays nicely into
what we're doing. It getsstopped up So Mr. New Mexico
arrives in big time Miami, andyou're beginning law school?
What are you learning aboutyourself at this time? I'm
learning that I really enjoybeing on my own and, and alone,
(05:19):
if that makes sense, butthere's, I'm definitely not is
it's it's kind of become trendyto call yourself an introvert.
But, you know, introvert andextrovert has to do with where
you get your energy. And Idefinitely I love leading groups
I love being, you know, I wasalways captain of whatever I was
doing and, and I love the theteam and the mission and the
(05:41):
rallying, and I love buildingteams, you know, in business.
Now, there's just a lot ofsimilarities. But at the same
time, I really recharge andenjoy my alone time and my
thinking time, and I and I thinkbeing out here and not knowing
anybody, um, you know, we had Imoved out in 2005. And within a
month and a half, we hadhurricanes Katrina, Rita and
(06:05):
Wilma. Wow. And Katrina hit onlya few weeks. And look, I'm
starting to meet people. Thefirst week, I was I was living
in the fraternity house on oncampus, because it's a private
school. A lot of people don'tknow that about the University
of Miami.
They have live in sort of housedads in the fraternity houses,
and I was doing that onscholarship during law school.
(06:28):
And, you know, so I knew peoplebut it was so brand new, you
know, my first hurricane, Iended up in, in a suite on
campus with a friend. And then Iremember my, my first
Thanksgiving, you know, I didn'twant to ask anyone to go to go
to Thanksgiving with them. Andit was enough enough time to fly
(06:49):
home. So I saw a joke that Ihad, I had spaghettios, you
know, by myself, and and Ienjoyed it. You know, I didn't I
never looked at it. Like, youknow, poor me, I don't have I
don't have all my network here.
And, and I and I took that. So alot of people it's like, well,
you know, how did you come intoMiami without family friends,
you know, a lot. There's,there's a lot of private schools
(07:10):
here. So if you go to highschool, you have really good
business networks. And a lot ofthat a lot of the private
schools out here, colleges, andI had none of that. And people
ask, Well, how did you how didyou build your business? You
know, you're you're basicallyjust came into Miami, and here
you are. And I don't know, Ijust never looked at it as a, an
impediment. I never let it getin my way. I just kind of do my
(07:34):
thing. I've never really focusedon obstacles. And and, and I
guess from the outside, now thatI have kids, I see a lot of the
things that I did when I wasyounger. And I think oh, well, I
could see how my parents wouldreact to that now. But when
you're just going throughthings, Steve, you know, I'm
just not the type of guy who'svery good at stopping and
saying, oh, wow, that was a goodaccomplishment, or a big
(07:56):
accomplishment. Or wow, lookwhat I'm doing. I just just keep
going day to day. So it'sinteresting, because you go on,
you start a law firm, and youyou build out a law firm, but
here, you're independent, you'reyou're thinking that you're more
of an introvert. Are you sayingthat you are and yet you build a
an excellent team. Where doesthat come from? I yeah, so I
(08:19):
love I love leadership. I lovebeing in charge of a mission.
Yeah, I hate using the theanalogy of like, more time and
stuff because God, you know, Godforbid, we nothing that we do is
even close to what goes on inthe real, you know, combat and
(08:40):
military and but, you know, Iguess the analogy is there's
there's peacetime generals andwartime generals, and I've
always liked the the fight themission, let's build something
let's attack, you know, let'slet's focus on, we want it to
become different in Miami interms of how legal services were
(09:02):
delivered, and we were going toshow people that we could be
different. So those things getme excited, I love the missions.
And then if you have core valuesand you have a mission and you
focus on them and you and youmake them a part of your
business where you hire andtrain and retain or fire based
on your core values, you startto get people around you that
(09:22):
are excited to be on the sameboat and they they want to roll
with you There's nothing wrongthere's very few things more
frustrating than havingemployees constantly fighting
against the current and pushingback and you and I you know have
a little bit of this discussionabout hiring and people then you
know, Millennials this and kidsthat and it's it's always
(09:46):
everyone else's fault except theleader. Nobody I've met says I
suck at hiring. I suck atleading. I'm terrible. I need
help or I should have very fewpeople. I have heard A few
people say that. And as TonyRobbins said, there's no,
there's no such thing as a badteam, only a bad leader. Because
the leader is the one hiring andthe leader is the one rowing and
(10:10):
building. So you're making thedecisions as the leader, you
have to look at yourself ifthings aren't going right and
figure out why. And if you havebad employees, and why did you
keep them. And if you don't wantbad employees next time, put
more effort into the recruitingand hiring process and become
the type of business that'sgoing to attract the people that
that you want to work with andaround. And, and if someone
(10:32):
doesn't fit in your culture, youneed to let them go, because
it's respectful for them and foryou, so they can go find their
culture. And I looked on yourwebsite, Steve, you know,
nobody's wearing suits and ties,you've got a very, like, fun,
casual bunch. And that's goingto attract more of the people
that like that, that are goingto resonate with ROI online. And
(10:56):
so, you know, go ahead.
Steve Brown (11:04):
No, I'm wondering, if you always found yourself in
a position of class president orleader of as you were growing?
Is that innately in you? Orwhere did you learn it? Did you
have a mentor? Did you havesomeone that really exemplified
leadership to you? Where doesthat come from?
Brett Trembly (11:26):
That I have pondered before. And I think
it's a little bit of both, I'mnaturally you know, I've got the
red hair gene. So I'm naturallykind of fiery. You know, I wish
I was more even keeled but but Ican, I can have a temper and get
very excited at times. I wasvery competitive. I think some
of it comes from, you know,sibling rivalry. And having an
(11:50):
older brother who was who wasgood at sports that I had to
live up to. Part of it comesfrom i was i was shorter.
Growing up, I didn't hit mygrowth spurt until, like,
seventh or eighth grade. So youknow, and, and, but, but that, I
think that's, you know, sothere's nature and nurture
there. But the big thing for meis my father, every summer would
(12:13):
take a week out of his scheduleand be a camp counselor at
something called rotary YouthLeadership Awards. In New Mexico
and Southwest Texas. Everysummer, they took one kid one
boy out of every high school,voluntarily, of course, and put
them in a leadership camp. Soyou had some of the the best and
(12:35):
the brightest from around theregion. And it was a full week
where you were in cabins, eachcabin would give themselves a
name, and then they wouldcompete on sports, on speaking
on on, you know, just, it wassuch an incredible, incredible
week. And because my dad was inrotary, and he liked those
things he started bringing usfrom when we were kids, so when
(12:57):
I was like five or six, I wouldgo for the last weekend. And I
would be around these theseamazing, older guys. And as a
young boy, of course, I lookedup to them that was that was
like, I want to be like theseguys. And so I learned, you
know, we had to come up withkind of your, your chance, and
and how to compete as a team.
And man, I just ate that stuffup. I still I just love it. I
(13:18):
did that all and then I startedgoing for the entire week so
that they let me stay and I wasbasically one of the team, you
know, in seventh grade, eighthgrade, ninth grade. And then I
of course, when I was oldenough, I did it myself. And I
you know, I just think it's alot of factors. I don't know, I
do think leadership can belearned. I think anybody can
(13:40):
reinvent themselves. And it'spretty cool. When you see
somebody totally just decide,you know what, I'm going to be
this person who I know a girlthat was like in a dead end job
and she's like, you know what,I'm just gonna influence women.
I'm going to work from Coloradoand Miami, I'm going to split my
time. I'm going to I'm going tobe a coach virtually. And I'm
going to turn into a thoughtinfluencer just out of the blue
(14:01):
and then she did it. And and Ilove that kind of stuff. I think
people you know, life's short,do do do what you're called to
do. It doesn't matter what ageyou are either,
you know, culture for me.
Because it's something that hasto be deliberate. And I was
trying to figure out a good wayto define you know, an example
(14:23):
of what culture is is not beingbags and free coffees and, and
those things, but there'ssomething deeper. And I was
watching I think it's chef onNetflix, there's a series where
they they interview these, thesebig deal chefs, and they go back
to their backstory and why oneof the episodes it really
(14:50):
started to sink in to me tocreate great food. You have to
have great ingredients but theseguys went even deeper. And they
wanted great soil. So theybought their own farm. And they
started to take control of thequality of the ingredients by
(15:10):
controlling the quality of thesoil. And then it just kind of
hit me that a great culture islike great soil for an
organization, if you can makethat soil healthy, and new,
nutritious and clean, then thework and the people that are
attracted and grow there isimpacted significantly.
(15:36):
How do you feel about cold?
Yeah, no, I think that's, that'sa really good analogy. And, and
you can have the same soilingand grow beans or you can grow
corn, or you can grow I don'tknow, you know, squash whatever
you want, right. So you're, Ithink it's to take it a step
further, you've got to have thegreat soil or the culture and
then deliberately choose whatcrop you're going to grow with,
(16:00):
with the right with the rightstrategy in place. And that's,
that's comes back to thenrecruiting the type of people
that are going to join yourmission. So if your passion is
to, you know, I don't know, youknow, change the environment and
climate changes is your bigthing, you're probably not going
(16:24):
to go work at let's say, GeneralMotors, right, like their diesel
division, I'm just throwing somethings out there. Like, that's,
that's just not what's gonnaspeak to you and, and culture is
about being honest. We askedpeople at the law firm, and my
law firm Trembley law, you know,we ask people look, our part of
(16:47):
our hiring process, we give aquiz and you have to write what
our core values mean to you.
Because we just tell you whatthey are and how we define them.
And our mission. And our missionis to protect the economy, one
business at a time. And Steve,you and I believe this, each
together, even though we hadn'tmet until recently, that
(17:07):
business owners are the backboneof our economy, we're the ones
providing the jobs and and we'rethe ones keeping the economy
moving, we still employ morethan half of the of the, you
know, the American workforcesector and the American
workforce. And so, you know, ifyou if you don't believe in
(17:30):
business, and you know, this isnot political, this is just
economical. Like, if you thinkthat, you know, everyone should
be paying 80% in taxes andbusinesses are evil, you're Why
don't come work with us, youknow, I don't want to get into
philosophical debate with you.
But that's okay, that that's notthis is not the culture, what's
the wrong soil for you, andbeing very clear on what is the
(17:50):
right soil. And then once yousprout, so to speak, what we're
going to talk about and those,those are five core values,
then, you know, I think you'regonna start to grow the crop.
So the five core values, Ithink, are super important.
There's a great book, I reallyhighly recommend. It's called
(18:12):
vivid vision by Cameron Herald.
But it helps you write the storyof your organization three years
from now. And you think aboutyour challenge as a leader, as
you need to attract the rightpeople onto your team. And this,
this is very significant. It's ahuge competitive lever if you
get it right. But how can youtake what's in your head and
(18:35):
communicate it clearly. So thatyou can attract the people that
love it, and would thrive in it,or repel the people that would
be like, not be on board aboutit. And you have to declare it,
and you have to state what youbelieve. But there's, there's a,
in that book, there's a greatframework to start to identify
(18:57):
that and pull it out of yourhead and get it on paper so that
it's, you can actually draw theright picture so that people see
the same point on the horizonthat you're going to how did you
come up with your five corevalues? And what are they?
Okay, so yeah, let me let memake this point too. So there's
(19:21):
a there's a quote I like thatsays, your business plan is what
you are, but your culture is whoyou are. And a lot of people
fall Let's face it, a lot ofbusiness owners skip the
business plan in general. Butthe ones that do you know, that
they're just focused on? Well, Ineed this in marketing, and this
is what this department's gonnalook like. But what about your
(19:44):
vision? And what about theculture part of your firm? So
I'm glad you brought up thatbook. Because getting it down
and writing and thencommunicating it is very
important. Our five core valuesare on our website, and we
remember them with an acronym,which is risky beavers that
tickle koalas. It's kind of anit's kind of an inside joke, but
(20:05):
we have Our t shirts that thathave trembling on the front, and
then they have a risky beaverthat's tickling a koala. On the
back, it's kind of a symbol forus to just remind us of the core
values. So the are for riskyradiate positive energy. That
is, to me the most importantcore value I do not like being
around negative people, youdon't have to be you know, the
(20:28):
the class clown and be loud, andyou know, fake high fiving
everybody, but you got to be apositive person, you know,
negativity is, is contagious.
And so that's no good. And thenit's be responsible, be a team
player, take action. And thelast one is kick ass. And some
people say, Wow, you have acurse word on your website. It's
like, Well, you know, we're alittle bit edgy, too. That's,
(20:51):
that's the kind of clients and,and team members that we want.
We want people to know thatlook. So we do we do business
law, franchise law, trademarksand litigation. And so when,
when you're when you have alitigation team, our goal, our
goal at the firm is to keepbusiness owners out of court.
But inevitably, sometimes you'regoing to end up in disputes that
(21:14):
unreasonable people don't workout. And, and we're gonna take
no prisoners, and you got tohave, you know, be trusting in
your team, that they're gonna,they're gonna go to bat for you.
And, and, look, we don't want astuffy boring law firm either.
So I really like having thatthat core value out there, it's
hard to, to walk the line ofprofessional, but also sort of
(21:37):
new and different without goingtoo far with it. Because some
people, you know, they want tohave the open workspace and the
beanbags and, and, you know,ping pong tables and have the,
the kegerator, you know, in themiddle and have that be the
focus, and you can't have thatat a law firm, either, in my
opinion, if you're going to be aserious law firm, which we are,
(22:00):
by the way, we've got 10attorneys, 25 people, I, I also
I do have to give it a littlebit of credibility, because you
know, get snapped up is a veryquickly growing business, it's a
lot of fun. But some people getget the shiny object syndrome,
and they're not successful withwith with their business. And
now they start a bunch of otherones. And you know, I just want
(22:24):
to throw that out there thatthis is not just a distract me
side project, you know, this,this is real, and it comes from
a good place. So where, wheredid this culture mission really
show itself? Was it at thebeginning of your business? Or
did you learn your lesson?
Several years? Yeah. Yeah. Soyes, you asked me how,
(22:46):
definitely learned this isseveral years into it. So we
have, there's a system calledtraction. It's the
entrepreneurial organizationalsystem, it's really now
operating today. It's really Ilove it, it's sweeping the
nation, tried to do it myselffor a year that went horribly, I
implemented it at the firm. Andwhat we did, the first retreat
(23:07):
we had was we we sat down, andwe just threw out all of the
words that we thought describedus and who we want it to be. I
mean, this is like a two orthree hour process, right? Like
it's separate, go think for awhile and then explain why. And
then we started, we slowlystarted bringing those into, we
got rid of some of them. Andthen we voted. And then we
(23:30):
talked them through and youvoted on more. And we eventually
got down to the 10 and then tothe seven into the five. And
then we had them. And then wehad with the whole team, we had
an acronym contest, or amnemonic phrase contest. So
everybody got to come in withwith how they wanted to, you
know, name it. And that's how wecame up with the with the risky
(23:53):
beavers mnemonic phrase. That'sall for the law firm. So with
get stopped up, we took allthese lessons, and we
implemented them for day onethat's up has been running on
traction from day one, we've hadour core values since day one.
And we do the same thing becauseget staffed up recruits. We've
got, you know, hundreds ofpeople now working for us in
(24:15):
Latin America. And during theinterview process, it's the same
thing. We're asking about ourcore values and and what makes
you incredible. And it's I don'twant to beat a dead horse too
much. But But you could say mostof our core culture relies on on
the core values, and it's workedout for us very well. I think
that's a good horse to be for along time. That culture thing, I
(24:39):
think is something that everyemployee innately desires and
craves. And yetthey're often disappointed and
they wonder why they're andthey're not happy at work. And
they there's this wrestlingmatch. I call it a stupid tax.
If you don't have these inplace, it's invisible tax. that
destroys morale over a longperiod of time. Because you
(25:03):
think about the new people thatcome to work for you, they don't
show up saying, you know, I'mreally gonna suck at this job.
And I'm just gonna write this aslong as I can until I get found
out. And then I'll just look foranother one, they don't do that,
at least, I don't believe themajority of them do, I think
most of them show up thinkinglike, I'm going to make the most
(25:26):
of this opportunity, I want tobe a good employee, I want to
contribute. And so they come in,and they, they run into these
little rules that don't makesense, or are just stupid, and
it'll cross their mind, well,that's a stupid rule, then
they'll go, oh, but I want to bea good employee. So I'm going to
put that aside. But over time,those rules, or those processes
(25:48):
are those things that don't makesense. will, will diminish their
enthusiasm and commitment to theorganization over time, and they
couldn't sit down and go, Well,it all began with this first
stupid rule I ran into. And I'mblue truly believe that.
Focusing on your culture,getting these things, right, is
(26:12):
like a huge competitiveadvantage, to success just to
make a business last for years.
That's hard enough, but if youcan get this in place, you just
reduce a lot of friction andhurdles.
Yeah, and and, you know, yourteam will know when you're full
(26:34):
of it, because when you don'tenforce your, your core values,
then they think, Well, that wasjust a bunch of baloney this,
this hiring and onboardingprocess, because, you know,
this, this guy that I'm workingfor, or under, or this girl
doesn't, you know, she, youknow, laughs at our core values,
and she doesn't live up to themwhy she's still here. And I've
(26:57):
had employees tell me that theyappreciate how fast we fire
people. Because, and, and I, youknow, the other thing is, when
you fire someone, it's not likethey're a bad person. And you're
right, they're wrong, it doesn'thave to be an ego thing. It's
just, you know, you need to moveon from people that that don't
fit or that aren't getting thejob done. Because that there is
(27:18):
a there's a place out there foreverybody to find a home. So
what I'm hearing and a lot ofyour your vocabulary and
conversation here is that thisbecame something very important
to you. And I think that yourecognize many entrepreneurs
(27:39):
wrestle with getting this clearand finding good people for
their business and beginning todelegate, or beginning to do the
things. Talk about your examplethat were when you started your
law firm, how you were trying todo everything, and you finally
came to a realization. So myfirst two and a half years were
(28:03):
a big struggle. I I wasn't happyat the law firm that I worked at
directly out of law school, youknow, I appreciated the
opportunity, but I was just feltlike I was in a rut. And I had
always known that I would be incharge, I would always knew that
I would own my own businesssomeday. I mean, I had candy
machine routes and and I alwayscame up with ways to make money
(28:27):
as a kid that was that was theother part of my personality. I
was always looking for ways todo things and do them myself.
And so when I started my lawfirm, and I started networking,
I was like, This is gonna beeasy, and it's gonna be great,
because I'm so wonderful. Now, Ididn't say, I'm so wonderful.
(28:48):
That was part of my ego that Ididn't, hadn't explored and
didn't realize, and that thatcan serve you well for
confidence, but it can hurt you.
Because then you think you haveall the answers, you're not
going to seek help. And you cando everything yourself. And I
was so afraid of hiring someoneto help because I thought if I
had to fire them, that everybodywould say I'm a failure and the
(29:11):
whole world laugh at me, as ifpeople have the time to sit
around and think about me allday. But but that's the fear of
failure was what was was holdingme back. And I this is my
anniversaries. We're filmingthis, you know, almost on my
anniversary, which is 11 111when I started so I got nine
(29:33):
years coming up here in a fewdays. And so this is 2011 you
know, so for the first two and ahalf years, I was licking my own
stamps, answering my own phones,sending my own faxes because it
was 2011 and, you know, I wasbarely getting to any legal
work, which is the only way thatI could make income from my law
(29:53):
firm. So I finally had anepiphany. You know, I have A
coach at this point that finallyjust like, kick me so hard made
me do it. I hired someone for 30hours a week, a law student,
she's not a lawyer, you know,very happy for her. We when we
talk, we, you know, we alwaysmake this joke, she was my first
employee. And and I doubled therevenue the business that very
(30:18):
next month. And it's like, wow,wow, oh my gosh, that's
incredible. Well, if you do themath, and you're in your billing
one hour a day, and now you dotwo, that's times two. I mean,
right? It's, it's really notrocket science. But I will give
myself credit for the fact thatI took the lesson and I absorbed
it. And I believed in it, and alot of people have success. And
(30:41):
then they say, Oh, that was afluke. That won't happen again.
I'm not gonna hire any more,because I am so relieved. I
didn't go to business, I needit. And you see a lot in the
legal world, especially becauseget staffed up our virtual
staff, we focus on staffing forlaw firms. That's our marketing
focus. We have a lot of non lawfirm clients. But niches bring
(31:02):
riches and it's just so hard tomarket to to a bunch of
different markets. So I use thethe lawyer example. It's like
one guy, and as one paralegalwho's really just doing
everything, and that's that'shis office for 40 years. You
know, they never they never takethe they don't do a Goldman
Sachs 10,000 small businessesprogram, they don't read books,
(31:25):
they don't take risks. And Ithink most of them if they say,
but I'm happy like this, I'mcomfortable like this, they're
probably lying to themselves.
Because they're just like, I wasthere. And I'm not condemning
because this was me so afraid ofthe risk, and, and the fear of
failure. And, and, and theoverhead. And look, the overhead
is real. But yeah, I mean, I,you know, I think that I learned
(31:50):
the lesson, and I just startedhiring and I made a plan to
continue to hire. And the, the,there's a good book called what
got you here won't get youthere. You know, because before
I had the core values and theculture in place, and it was
just kind of me and running offmy personality, I hire people,
and then it worked. And we keptgrowing the firm. But those same
(32:13):
people are not with me now. Andit's okay, it's okay to hire and
then have to fire it. People getare so hard on themselves when
they hire someone and they trainand it doesn't work out why
wasted all that time, and Iwasted the money. And I don't
want to do that. Again. There's,there's there's a few other
options, but you're gonna haveto make the decision that it's
(32:33):
part of it, you know, turnoversis part of it.
Steve Brown (32:37):
I want to pause here just for a moment and talk
to you about a program that wehave just released called ROI,
quickstart Academy for authors.
Every day, I talk to businessowners just like you who
struggle with quickly gettingtheir fundamentals in place, we
want to create a greatfoundation, and we want to grow
our business. But the thingsthat are in our way, our lack of
(33:00):
knowledge about the specifics,we should put in place, what
kind of technology what kind ofmessaging and what kind of
campaigns and that problemexists for authors as well. And
we just chill so good withauthors because, well, I'm an
author, and I understandeverything that you struggle
with, you have a great idea, youhave a great book, but what do
(33:22):
you want to do, you want to getyour book in front of more
people, you want to make it easyfor them to find you learn how
they can schedule a time to talkwith you hire you for a
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promotes. So what is theQuickstart Academy for authors?
Imagine working with a smallgroup of like minded authors,
and the experts from the ROIquickstart team, it's a great
(33:47):
way to get your messaging clearto be confident with the
technology in your marketingautomation, and how to run a
strategic campaign to get youmore of what you want from the
investment of your book. Tolearn more about the Quickstart
Academy for authors, you canvisit ROI online.com or click in
the link in the show notesbelow. And now back to this
(34:11):
episode. Yeah, and the otherside of that coin is who if you
have the expectation that theperson you hire is going to be
with you for nine years, or 10years or however long? That's
not a realistic expectation aswell. They have lives. They have
transitions, they get married,they have kids, they Yeah, who
(34:34):
knows and it's okay for them toto go on and do other things
with their life instead of justbe in that chair every day and
you know, gung ho about yourcompany. That's just natural.
Yeah, life happens. Yeah.
Brett Trembly (34:52):
So you get snapped up came from this thing
that you really recognize thatIt's important to you, kind of
so I had the idea in 2017, ofstarting a company called the
hiring pros and helping peoplelearn how to hire. totally
(35:14):
unrelated, but about the sametime, my now business partner
had lunch with somebody that healmost skipped out on it, that's
kind of his funny story, learnlearned that this, this lawyer
had a staff person in thePhilippines, and then my
business partner disappeared fora few months kind of went into a
rabbit hole. And when heresurfaced, because I used to
(35:35):
talk to him almost every day,and I didn't even see him for
two months, when when we couldstill see people in person. So,
you know, he sort of resurfacedwith five new employees. And I
couldn't believe it. And Icertainly couldn't believe what
he was paying them, compared to,you know, the traditional
payroll that we have here in theStates, or administrative level
(35:58):
positions. And I said, I needsomebody can you find me a
marketing assistant? And he did.
And we just, he wanted to dokind of consulting, and he was
going to help people learn howto do this, and they would pay
him a flat fee. And I said,Well, you know, we, you could
also turn this into a realbusiness where you're the
employer, and, and we just kindof went from there and early
(36:19):
2018, January 28, I think wesaid, You know what, let's do
this together. I made the firsttwo sales for his company. And
he said, let's do this together.
And that's how it gets wrappedup was born. So what's the big
deal about get staffed upcompared to other outsourcing
(36:39):
options? I mean, there's a lotof those. And yeah, there's a
lot of those. So tell me firsthelped me understand the value
of getting knocked up comparedto others. There are two main
differences. In sort of insertedtwo genres, there are the United
(37:00):
States based outsourcingcompanies, where you can hire
you know, somebody for, youknow, right, rather expensive.
Lee will say, like, 35 $45 anhour to be a quasi executive
assistant. And then yourdecision is, you know, how much
(37:20):
do I want to pay them through acompany?
How many hours per week do Ineed? Right? So there's, I need
five hours per week. So then,you know, I'm going to give them
projects, that's going to takeup about five hours per week.
Totally different, not, not atall what we do. And then there's
the the overseas, which is whatwe do, but most of the
(37:40):
outsourcing companies are thesame thing. They're playing time
Tetris. So you're signing upwith a company? And they're
asking you, well, how much? Howmuch time do you think you need
per week of an assistant, you'relike, well, I only need 10
hours, and I only need 15 hours.
So they've got a building in thePhilippines, they pack it like
sardines, you got a bunch ofpeople in cubicles right next to
each other, and you're going tomaybe get somebody different,
(38:02):
you know, often there's going tobe a rotation, or, or you know,
you're really selling yourselfshort, by only getting somebody
that's going to be able to doprojects for you, they're
certainly not going to be a teammember, or an employee. So what
we do it get staffed up, Steveis we, we recruit 95% of our
people are out of Latin America,you're talking Mexico, Central
(38:26):
America and South America. Andwe are placing full time team
members with you. Of course,they're virtual, because they're
not in the office with you. Fulltime only, we only do 40 hours
per week, that person is now apart of your culture and your
team, they work for you and foryou only. They just happen to be
legally employed by us. So getstaffed up does the recruiting
(38:51):
and the placing, and I couldtalk more about the placing.
Because we don't just tell youwho you get, you ultimately get
to decide who you hire. You payus a flat fee every month as a
contractor, so there's noadditional taxes or fees. And we
handle the withholding thetaxes, the benefits, and the
compliance, which is differentin all those countries, which is
(39:13):
it gets pretty difficult. And wehave our client happiness team
that stays on as a liaison tomake sure that things are going
well. Life does happen. Youknow, these are still human
beings. So sometimes there'sthere's turnover and people quit
and they leave and we replacethem for you. We just go right
back to the well and go andrecruit someone else. So you're
(39:35):
getting a new team member whoonly works for you for 40 hours
a week for the whopping price of1850 a month. So before we go
deeper, I think one of thethings that you You helped me
have more clarity on all thesebusinesses like mine We're
(39:57):
having to figure out how torecruit good team members to
deliver on the demand that we'vecreated. And so we have to
discern the level of a teammember that we want to share in
the burden. So yeah, I think thething you helped me have clarity
(40:19):
on was like, there's a minimumexecutive
level than there's strategiclevel maybe. And maybe that's
the executive, we, you know,they're bringing more strategy,
and more business acumen, thenthe next level would be more
tactical, where they show up,and they're excellent at
(40:40):
stepping into a well definedsystem and following your
system.
talk more about that helps. Ithink that's a real important
thing for someone that might beconsidering outsourcing. If they
can start to have the properexpectations. I think they're
more set up for success to finda better fit faster. Yes, thank
(41:03):
you. Thank you for asking that.
We, for example, we had somebodythat that was a friend, like,
all this sounds so great, youknow, I can't wait to work with
you guys. Because I just want tohand over all my marketing and
never think about it. Like,okay, I guess we were not in
alignment here. Because, firstof all, that rarely exists in
the whole world. Second of all,it's certainly not what we do,
(41:23):
you know, some magician, it'sgoing to pull out your vision
and ideas out of your head. And,and, you know, just bring them
to life. The last week, I'msorry, but the last chapter of
my or the segment, last chapterof my book, talks about that
exact conversation right there.
And that they're looking for, wecall her Kelly, but her real
(41:47):
long name is miracle. And so shedoesn't exist, or he doesn't
exist. Yeah, I like that. I likethat name. So yeah, that just
doesn't exist. So what we do iswe're finding virtual
assistants. But again, we useVA, because people know that
term. But but these are full,they're basically your employee,
(42:09):
just not legally. And they'renot project based, either. But
but they are assistance, theyare not going to be you know,
your, your CFOs, your CEOs, yourCEOs, they're not going to come
in and take over all yourmarketing. If you have, let's
say you're starting a socialmedia company here in the US,
(42:34):
you're, you're going to getclient accounts, maybe you're
going to maybe you're going tosign people up for you know,
you're gonna go to Mr. businessowner for 1500 dollars a month,
you know, we'll, we'll do allyour social media, and we'll do
you know, three newsletters foryou a month, and we'll write
three blogs. You know, that's avery common scenario. Okay, so
that's not project basis, that'sa monthly ongoing work. For me,
(42:57):
I'm thinking, Okay, if I can setup a system, you know, that gets
the info I need from thatbusiness owner, what would you
like to talk about this month orfocus on, I can put that into a
spreadsheet, and somebody canpull out of that and do all that
work for me on the back end thatI just have to approve? Okay,
that's an assistant that's aworker be someone who you know,
(43:19):
needs to have some some braincells and is good, but they're
not doing the creative thinkingor the vision. I'm thinking to
myself, well, let's say I foundsomeone like through gets that
up for 1850 a month. On mysecond sale, I'm already
profitable. And I'm just goingto go out and grow the company
and see what kind of bandwidthone assistant can do. Maybe it's
(43:42):
five, maybe it's 10. And now Iknow my skews. I know how many
clients per assistant that Ineed to have. And I can scale my
company this way. So it's whenyou're working with no part time
here and 30 hours there, it isso difficult, if you're serious
about growing your business, todo it in a very, you know,
scientific mathematical way. Andwhen you design the system
(44:07):
yourself, you know, for lawyers,for example, you can have a
receptionist who's outsourcedyou can have your intake person,
you can have a legal assistant,a client happiness coordinator,
a personal assistant executiveassistant, a marketing assistant
and and you're still going toneed to give them the projects
(44:29):
and design the you know thesystems and have the weekly team
meetings but then you let themrun with all the all the things
you put in place. You know,systems run the business but
people are on the systems. So ifyou if you need 10 people on a
conveyor belt to get thechocolate, you know made and out
the door. We now know becausesome of our clients have more
(44:52):
than 10 team members through usthat the average that they save
in payroll a year Is 250,000well, right, right. And so now
that's money in the ownerspocket. And I don't mean that
greedy. I mean, like, you know,a lot of small business owners
have such small margins thatthey're owned by their own
(45:13):
business and they're miserable.
But it also has allowed ourclients to grow so fast that
they can hire here domestically,we're not arguing that you
replace jobs or you fire people,we're saying, add bandwidth, if
you have, like all of ourlawyers now at the firm, or at
the partner level, all haveexecutive assistants offshore
through get staffed up, becausenow it's going to add to their
(45:36):
capacity. So now you've createda job, you've helped the global
economy, you've had the lawyerbe way more efficient. And
you've also passed on to theclients.
Totally, I think that's anexcellent way to look at it is
that if your business iscontributing to your community,
adding value by the services,the things that you're
(45:57):
providing, helping people getout of the ditch in a legal
situation. And but you can onlyhelp one person a month. But all
of a sudden, now you can help234 or five, you can be making a
big impact in your community.
Instead of buying thisexcuse that you're not hiring
local people necessarily, you'restill contributing significantly
(46:21):
to the community in your you'regoing to be hiring local people,
to some extent, where you mayhave never hired. Yep. Exactly.
That's that that's a commonscenario that happens with us,
we sometimes run in, you know,in fact, some lawyer I, you
know, I don't think she has muchof a staff wanted to have me on
(46:44):
her podcast, and then when shestarted asking me more about the
companies, I don't agree withthat, you know, you're you're
outsourcing jobs. I said, Okay,look, respectfully, we're not a
fit, then. And that's okay. ButI think that's a short sighted
view of things. Because if if,if the whole world becomes
connected, and people can workfrom home and actually make a
(47:05):
living, maybe we don't have tobuild walls, right? Maybe
everyone doesn't need to run toour country, which provides
freedoms and security that othercountries don't, you know, maybe
maybe we can help economicallymake an impact that way. Plus,
you're like we said, you'regonna grow way faster, where you
can start hiring people thatdomestically that you otherwise
(47:30):
would have been afraid to hire,or now, you know, post post
COVID maybe someone in differentparts of the US, maybe it's
still remote.
Yeah, I'm, the way I look at itis, I am a core team that adds
the ROI minus on to all of ourwork there and, you know,
(47:52):
they're, they're inculcated intoour culture, they love our
clients, they, they want toprotect and empower
entrepreneurs, so, but theybring a unique value strategic
value on to the work. So if youthink of a NASCAR, you've got a
pit crew, you've got the driver,and they can order a carburetor
(48:18):
from a manufacturer. But whenthat carburetor comes in, they
don't just put it in there andthen go get them. They've tuned
that thing. They add all sortsof other value on to that and
that's exactly what's happeningin this situation.
Yeah, yeah. Look, here's here'sthe analogy that I use most
often. It's It's his one on oneof our trademark phrases that we
(48:43):
believe in to our core.
Sorry, we're gonna have to pauseI'm on a podcast reported All
right, you don't tell me whereto where to pick up?
Yeah, so we were talking aboutthe NASCAR analogy. Hey, by the
way this happens all the time.
One of the episodes I had one ofthe kids comes in they're
(49:07):
supposed to ask before they eatanything was sugar so that we
had to get permission if alollipop was okay, this is just
the way things are i've i've hadchickens crowing I've had cats
walk through it's cool.
Yeah, no, I know I normally havea sign up that says you know
that is recording but it doesn'talways work although that was so
(49:29):
Okay, so look where there's atrademark phrase that we have is
called delegate your way tofreedom. Because I always go
back to who I was in 2011 1213and 14 when I started my
business and I was so afraid toto hire. Some people think they
have to do it all themselvesbecause it serves their their
(49:51):
ego and again I just talkingabout the ego is something
that's like subconsciousseparate from us, not about
like, you know, I think I'm sogreat. And just But it does
serve some people's ego to say,you know, I can't, I can't give
the legal work to someonebecause they won't do it as well
as I will, you know, as ifnobody else can possibly be as
good as you. Well, that's justnot true. But other people are
(50:14):
just afraid of the cost, andthey're afraid of the time that
it would take to train people.
And look, those are tworealities that I think we're
helping people overcome. Butit's better to at least take the
risk, right? But what would yourather eat Steve, except for
maybe a few instances where youcould think of one guy who has a
restaurant and it's like, reallysmall, but amazing food? Okay?
(50:36):
Would you rather eat at arestaurant where the owner is
the host, or the hostess, right?
The the waitress, she's the linecook. She's the head chef. She's
the chief marketer, she's theowner, you know, and she's doing
everything yourself, I mean,something is going to suffer.
It's either going to be the foodor the service, or she's going
(50:59):
to be serving one one table pernight, which is, you know, what
we're talking about, you can ifyou're only helping one one
client per month, or would yourather eat at the restaurant
where the owner says, I am notthe best chef in the world, I'm
gonna go hire the best possiblechef. And then I'm going to hire
the nicest host and hostess, andthe best waitstaff and I'm going
(51:21):
to train them. And they're allgoing to say the same thing.
Because they're gonna, they'regoing to live by the same, you
know, values, the core valuesthat we have, and we're going to
treat our people better. Andthat's going to be a
differentiator, and we're gonnahave the best food. I mean, for
me, it's a pretty clear answer.
And to many business owners,don't even stop to think about
that, that's what they're doingin their business is everything
(51:41):
themselves, and how, how just,man, if I could convince people,
it's possible, just think aboutit, start reading books, start
putting things on paper, and atthe least, write down everything
you do for a week, highlightyour 20 least favorite things,
and then just get rid of them,just delegate them, you know,
start somewhere.
(52:01):
Yeah, I like that analogy,because you think I've been to
that restaurant where it was aspecial, unique experience. But
there were idiosyncrasies, youknow, that added to the thing,
and so you had to be okay, thatthe service was slow, or right,
or you had to be okay with, withsome aspect that was you
prepared your person you tookwith you. Now, don't, don't
(52:26):
expect this, but the food'sgonna be amazing, or what have
you is going to be great. Okay,that's good. But it takes a
certain amount of businessacumen, to go to the next level
and design the systems and hirethe people who are going to run
those systems. That's, that'sexactly what you're talking
(52:48):
about. That's why managers areso valuable. That's why
businesses can make a lot ofmoney because it's not easy. It
takes a significant amount ofplanning and thinking and
commitment and Aquaman systemsdesign and pricing takes a whole
nother level of expertise andrunning a business. So why would
(53:12):
you resent someone that figuredthat out, then created jobs,
that risked all this, there's noguarantee and, and just like the
situation we're finding, thennever, never imagined that your
local government would come inand say, you have to shut down
to save the world. That's notfair. But they stepped up
(53:36):
knowing that whatever challengethey were going to run into,
they were had enough to figureit out in some way. Yeah, that's
why I love these people. Man.
Exactly. That's exactly right.
What put putting putting theirtheir reputation, you know,
their future on the line bytaking risks. And that's, that's
(53:58):
the real differentiator there.
But it's not just the risk tostart the business. Steven, I'm
glad you made that point.
Because to start a law firm,now, it's so easy. If you have a
law degree, of course, you needa laptop, that's all you need.
And it's not starting a businessanymore so much that that
impresses me it's the the risksafter that to grow a business
(54:20):
starting a business is easy. Youjust say hey, I just started a
business. It's growing abusiness that is not in need.
And there's so many steps alongthe way. That you know, people
see though the overnight successthat takes 10 years because
there's so many moves that arethat somebody is making. It's
investing into their business togrow it and and it is kind of
(54:42):
easy to get complacent to becomfortable. Comfort is the
enemy of progress in my opinion.
And and you know, all duerespect to those people that are
that are out there, pushing theenvelope and taking the risks.
So if I'm listening to this, andYou know, I have this business,
and I've been kind of wrestlingwith this delegation challenge.
(55:05):
It's kind of cool to know thatthere's a company that gets
that, and will help me to makesure I have, you know, but asked
me about what systems I have inplace will help me get set up
for success when I bring someoneon board to delegate as an
assistant, that I think that'sgood. I think that's something
(55:27):
that needs a lot of clarity.
Because we've all done somethingand said, Well, that didn't
work. But we were oblivious towhat needed to be in place to
increase the chance of successwith that implemented. Hmm.
How can they get ahold of you?
Where should they learn more? Inthe fastest and easiest way is
(55:50):
online, it's, you know, ofcourse, www. Get snapped up
calm. But if you go to getstuffed up, comm forward slash
VIP, it takes you directly to aContact Us page. I think it asks
for first name, last name, emailphone number, and where you
(56:11):
heard about us. And I do want tohave an offer for your
listeners, Steve, is for anyonethat goes to getstaffedup.com f
rward slash VIP, in the Where dd you hear about us, if you t
pe in Steve Brown ROI online RI podcast, we will we will g
ve that person a $250 dscount, just because they they c
(56:35):
me through you, you know, just anice thing to do. For your l
steners. That's awesome. I rally appreciate that. My folks h
ve listened to this, they get alot of value. And that's r
ally cool that you're, you're ofering them. So what's the one q
estion that I didn't ask that yu would wished I would have t
(56:58):
at you could have answered? Wat you know what i would we d
dn't really get into the cost svings. Right? And I think that t
at, that that hammering home tat point, because I was the g
y that I was so afraid to hire sme like where am I going to c
me up with, with, I don't kow, $500 a week to hire s
(57:19):
mebody. And when you hire a mrketing assistant in house and w
ere you live in the country, oviously, the cost varies, Kay, b
t let's say $45,000 for a mrketing assistant, when you're i
the US remember, remember, yu got a lot of other things t
(57:40):
at are hidden. So it's about 135 times what you pay someone i
salary, what it actually cost yu and your business and I are t
lking over 50 you know, aproaching 55 and that's on the l
w end, you know, for somebody tat can handle some some m
rketing stuff in house for yu. When you go through a c
mpany like us, it's 18 for mrketing, it's it's just over 2
(58:04):
00 a month, but for your admin psitions. It's 1850 a month so y
u're talking more like 20,000 ad what I tell people Steve is b
siness owners normally have 10 new ideas before they're d
ne you know with their morning rutine or you know before t
ey're out of the shower, and tose business ideas end up b
(58:25):
ing metaphorically like pieces opaper stacked up on a desk t
at you never get to when yu're paying somebody because t
is happened to me you know petty significant salary and y
u can't identify the return i's it's not a good business m
ve and then it's constantly ginding at you and you want t
at person to work faster and gt more done you want to see t
(58:47):
e results. So when you have smeone that you can just give s
uff to man get get get an aministrative executive a
sistant, or jump for the mrketing assistant. The d
fference is kind of the eucation in the background. You k
ow and just to reiterate, we ae hiring talented people but t
is is raw talent. You know and Iknow you do some cool things w
(59:07):
th your academies and and crtainly you can hire someone l
ke this and put them through aacademy because we don't do a
y of the training we do the fnding. And you can you have s
mebody that you can delegate al these things to and try out. I
is such a weight lifted off yur shoulders, because I don't k
ow about you but when I when I hve these ideas I never get to t
(59:27):
em it starts to like wear on m. Anytime you need to find t
me and when you and you talk aout delegate your way to f
eedom, when you have the aility to just everything that c
mes your way or knives that yu just hate get this done l
oking at this respond to this prson. It is so empowering b
cause now you get to focus yur time and what you want to d
(59:47):
the highest and best use of yur time and what is going to h
ve the highest return and that ithat is the that is true f
eedom in my opinion. Getting tspend your time you You c
oose. All right, that's ecellent. Delegate your way to f
eedom. What's the other good qote? Oh, systems run the b
(01:00:08):
siness people run the systems.
Steve Brown (01:00:13):
Those are some excellent little gold, what we
call golden nuggets. Right? madea really excellent guest. And I
appreciate you for being on theROI online podcast.
Brett Trembly (01:00:26):
Steve, thank you for having me. I really enjoyed
our conversation, and I'm gladthat we were put in touch.
Steve Brown (01:00:33):
Alright, that's a wrap. Thanks for listening to
another fun episode of the ROIonline podcast. For more, be
sure to check out the show notesof this episode. And feel free
to connect with me on LinkedInwhere we can chat and I can help
direct you to the resourcesyou're searching for. To learn
more about how you can grow yourbusiness better. Be sure to pick
(01:00:55):
up your copy of my book, TheGolden toilet at surprise, that
golden toilet.com I'm SteveBrown, and we'll see you next
week on another fun episode ofthe ROI online podcast.
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