April 8, 2025 • 54 mins
Gabrielle Mills and her mother Chrissy took an unconventional path to entrepreneurship. After six years of searching for the perfect business model, they decided to invest in themselves instead of a franchise—starting what would become Sourced, a comprehensive back-office services company, from Chrissy's basement.
What makes their story remarkable isn't just the mother-daughter dynamic (though family ties run deep with siblings, in-laws, and extended family having worked in the business), but how they identified and filled crucial gaps for growing businesses. Sourced provides fractional accounting, marketing, HR, administrative support, and talent acquisition services—five distinct businesses under one roof, all focused on helping companies function more efficiently without the overhead of full-time staff.
Their success stems from a laser focus on solving pain points. For accounting clients, it's often financial chaos—whether preparing for an exit, supporting a CFO who can't function with inadequate reports, or rescuing businesses when bookkeepers depart. Their talent acquisition process employs a three-person team that thoroughly vets candidates before clients ever meet them, saving valuable time and ensuring strong matches. Marketing services range from foundational branding (including logos designed in PowerPoint!) to comprehensive campaigns that build credibility and attract clients.
After nine years of growth primarily through word-of-mouth, Sourced now faces fresh challenges. Their client base has evolved from small businesses to companies with $2-30 million in revenue—organizations that require different approaches to marketing and sales. Gabrielle's candid admission resonates with entrepreneurs everywhere: "We all have the same problem, and it's in sales. Nobody knows how to do it, nobody feels successful at it." It's this refreshing honesty, combined with their proven ability to solve complex business problems, that makes their journey so instructive for anyone building a service-based business.
Want to learn more about outsourcing your back-office functions or how a fractional approach might help your business scale? Visit GetSourced.com and discover how professional support can free you to focus on growth.
From the Zoo to Wild is a book for entrepreneurs passionate about home services, looking to move away from corporate jobs. Chris Lalomia, a former executive, shares his path, discoveries, and tools to succeed as a small business owner in home improvement retail. The book provides the mindset, habits, leadership style, and customer-oriented processes necessary to succeed as a small business owner in home services.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
So how do you guys go about that and tell us a little
bit more about how you marketfor new clients.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
So we're actually learning.
I'll answer the question of howwe have done it to this point
for the last nine years.
But we're at a place now wherewhat's worked previously is not
working, moving forward, becausewe've leveled up the business
and our clients are much biggerthan they have been in the past.
So in a lot of ways, I am justlike every other entrepreneur of
I still have to figure it outfrom scratch all over again.
(00:25):
Up until this point, it's allbeen word of mouth and referral.
We do a lot of networking.
We do a lot of chamber meetings, a lot of going out into the
world, our clients basically,our company has survived because
our clients have referred us somuch, because they're so happy
with what it is that we do.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Welcome to the Small Business Safari where I help
guide you to avoid those traps,pitfalls and dangers that lurk
when navigating the wild worldof small business ownership.
I'll share those gold nuggetsof information and invite guests
to help accelerate your ascentto that mountaintop of success.
No-transcript, alan, the choresthat we have to go through just
(01:22):
to put out this great,incredible podcast.
The chores that we have to gothrough just to put out this
great, incredible podcast yetagain.
Another week has gone by andyet again I've been contacted
again by somebody who said hey,man, listen to your podcast.
Got a question for you though.
Oh, I like questions, right,yeah, question if you were to
start over, what would you do?
Do different?
Not this, I said.
(01:43):
Oh, brother, that's a long one.
I said, but hang on, this isnot something I can email.
So I picked up the phone.
We talked for 10 minutes.
I'm like look the handymanbusiness.
It is great on paper, it looksgreat and it's something you can
do and you will be in housesall the time.
I said it's just incrediblyhard to scale because we can do
(02:07):
so many things.
So if I had to tell you what todo is find your niche, stay in
your niche and I equated it tohim.
I just got done telling the Narymembers the same thing about
remodeling and our guestshappened to be there at the same
time, but I said the same thingto him.
That I said to them is you know, in the world of handyman you
can be a lot of things to a lotof people, but you can be also a
little bit of things to a lotof people.
(02:29):
And so what I mean by that is,I know handyman who do nothing
but appliances and replace glassand fix big glass doors All
three of things we don't do hereat the Trusted Toolbox, yet we
call ourselves a handymancompany.
So we found our niche and whatwe did.
Well, and in remodeling it'sthe same thing.
We're not all remodelers here atthe Trusted Toolbox.
I've got a remodeling division,but I don't have a designer on
(02:51):
staff.
I don't have an architect onstaff.
I'm not a design-build firm,but there are design-build but
yet we're all called remodelers.
Crazy, right.
So I think what I told him wasfind your niche, find where you
can make the most money anddon't always chase the shiny
object.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
That's great advice.
You know, as soon as you saidthat, the thought that went to
my mind was I should have givensomebody the kill switch.
And you know how, over theyears, I've talked about having
your own like de facto board ofdirectors, even if you're a
small startup and it's peoplethat you trust.
But really, what I was lookingfor were, yes, men.
I wanted the advice, but I alsowanted people to go.
(03:28):
That's a great idea, alan, dothat.
And I didn't give anybody thekill switch because I was
supremely confident.
I was not used to failing.
I knew I could get people to dowhatever I wanted.
I could sell whatever I wanted.
I had all kinds of managementexperience and sales experience
and I just wanted them to tellme yeah, that sounds good, yeah,
go for it.
I needed to give somebody thekill switch.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
There's enough.
That's another great piece ofadvice.
The gold nugget there is youneed to find the no man.
You need to find the one who'sgoing to tell you that's the
stupidest thing I've ever heard.
Yeah, you need somebody to pushback Right, because all you're
going to hear is okay, so theykind of like it.
Yeah, I'm going to still do it.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
Well, they're wrong, I'm going to do it anyway.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
But you got that right.
And so our guests over heredoing the right thing, just
watching us go back and forth,kicking it back and forth, going
okay, can I jump in?
Can I jump in?
Guys, we're going to let herjump in.
We got Gabrielle Mills here.
(04:31):
Leave, because I, between thetwo of you, I'm not going to get
another word in.
So, nice, nice to see you,that's right.
No, I'm sitting here nodding.
I'm agreeing with you guys.
Alan's gonna.
Alan's gonna have a seat,because um, mills is not her
real name, that's her pseudostage name.
She's Italian, so this is fun.
Oh, so she's a performer.
Yeah, oh, she, you're almostdone.
You're probably not gonna getto talk anymore.
No, I got to meet, uh,gabrielle, oh geez, um, it's
(04:51):
been, it's been a minute, um,but I remember her saying, hey,
do you mind if we can just goget a coffee?
And and as soon as I met her Iwas like, wow, this gal has a
lot going on.
She's chatty, but she reallyknows her business and she you
could tell she had empathy, shecared and she was really good at
business and she talked about.
What was funny at the time wasthat she kept talking about her
(05:12):
business partner and herbusiness partner's name is
Chrissy.
I'm like great, I went on andnow I've known I guess I don't
know, man, it's been a long timeyeah, over 10 years yeah over.
Yeah, it's been a lot longerthan that, and I remember still
meeting at that coffee shop downat Peachtree Corners and it
took me let's call it 10 years Iwould say seven years before I
(05:33):
figured out Chrissy was a littlebit more than just a business
partner.
She's my mama, she's your mama,the whole time, the whole time.
I had no clue.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
And you've seen them in the same room together.
Is there any family resemblance?
Speaker 2 (05:47):
So it depends on who you ask.
Some people say, oh my gosh,you guys are twins.
One of you is blonde and one ofyou is brunette.
I don't know how people don'tsee it.
And then there are people thatwill know us for years and
they're like wait what?
Speaker 1 (06:01):
You're just now dropping this on us.
I had no clue, so so she wentinto business with mama I love
this, so she has a really uniquebusiness model.
I, I, I.
I think people have seen thisother places, but I haven't, and
so why don't you explain thebusiness that you guys started?
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Yeah, so we are a back office services company and
um it's interesting that youguys were talking about niches,
because we didn't Um, and I havea lot of experience about what
that's like we basically startedfive businesses at the same
time.
In the beginning, we have, onthe fractional side of the
business, we have an accountingfirm, we have a marketing agency
(06:37):
, outsourced human resources andfractional administrative
support.
So we support businesses thatdon't need full-time help but
they still need back officesupport.
And then the fifth thing thatwe do is we have a talent
acquisition department servingclients that do need a full-time
person, and we hire for allsorts of jobs.
We're entirely industryagnostic, so we've helped lots
(07:00):
of different businesses do lotsof different things.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
So it's kind of like you know which of these things
belong together and you've gotall these services and then
marketing, which is reallyinteresting.
I don't see, I don't see, yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
It's, but it's still back office Now.
Sales is not In the beginning.
A lot of times people weretrying to have us do sales and
we're like nope.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
But it's a different brain to me.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
It is a little bit.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Yeah, accounting and marketing.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Accounting and marketing totally different
Right side, left side of thebrain?
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Sure, but so you guys , you were in business doing
something.
How did you come up with I'mgoing to do these five things
right off the bat.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
We were not doing this.
We were doing none of this.
So my mom, chrissy, and I knewwe wanted to be in business
together, but we didn't knowwhat we wanted to do.
All we knew is that we wantedto be B2B.
We wanted to have a team ofpeople because we liked the idea
of creating jobs and being thereason that bread was on the
table and creating income forpeople.
We wanted to be as recessionresistant as possible, we wanted
(08:02):
recurring revenue and we wanteda fun business model.
So we brought that to afranchise broker and said find
us everything that meets thiscriteria.
And after six years of probablyannoying the hell out of them,
we didn't find anything that weliked.
So we got through that six-yearperiod I'm still working at my
corporate job and we looked ateach other and we're like okay,
(08:25):
we have a choice.
We could either say mothers anddaughters never have the
opportunity to do that.
That was really fun, that'll bea cool part of our history.
Or we can take this money thatwe were going to give to a
franchise to buy the model,build something, invest it in
ourselves and if we lose it, wewould have lost it anyway and I
would just go get another job ifit doesn't work.
(08:45):
So we threw caution to the windand we said, yeah, let's do
that.
And we didn't know what thatwas.
We still were no closer to abusiness model, even an industry
.
We had no idea.
So we went to as many businessowners that we could talk to and
the internet and we said whereare you underserved?
(09:07):
What do you need?
If you were to do it all overagain, what would you do?
And we have a whiteboard in ouroffice now.
That's like a really, reallybig whiteboard.
It was in my bedroom at thetime because I quit my job
during this story, moved intoChrissy's basement and that's
where this whiteboard lived.
We threw all those answers upon the whiteboard and we said
what's the through line?
And at the time we didn't know.
It was back office support.
We didn't really come up withthat term or be introduced to
(09:30):
that term until about two yearsin, but that's essentially what
it was.
We started with marketing,accounting and office assistance
.
Then we brought on talentacquisition because a client
wanted help hiring, brought iton and then HR came about three
years ago.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
So, in the franchise exploration, what did you learn
from there that you could applyto how you started your biz?
Speaker 2 (09:55):
One.
I learned that it was reallycheap and I didn't want to pay
the yearly fees what they callthose royalty fees.
I wanted to keep all the moneywe made.
I really learned how to likeread financials well and like to
know if an opportunity wasgoing to be good or not.
I learned about the territoriesand what the benefits and risks
(10:17):
are when you have differentterritories and you're sharing
territories.
And I also learned, if you putyour back into your business,
how you could be successfulversus if you're just coasting,
Because you get to see like whata coasting business looks like
and what somebody that reallydoes the grind looks like and
the difference in those numbers.
But I also learned more of thatjust by the School of Hard
(10:41):
Knocks once we started.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
So you guys started to get going.
Did you have a seed client?
Who was your first client?
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Mr Mark Gailey.
Shout out to Mark Gailey.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Look at that.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
Did he know he was your first client?
Speaker 2 (10:54):
He did.
He did so when we decided thatwe were going to and, for those
listening, mark Gailey is along-time family friend.
He did a couple of remodels onmy parents' homes and, gosh, he
knew me when I was in braces andso he was one of the people
that we asked about what do youneed help in your business,
along multiple other people.
(11:16):
And so when we came up with theconcept of Source, of this
fractional back office support,we floated the idea by him and
he said, oh my gosh, I need thatso bad.
And he actually wrote us acheck and we gave the check back
to him and said I am stillworking a job 13 hour days at
corporate.
I actually just accepted mydream job at corporate.
I have to quit first.
(11:36):
I can't do this and still beworking at corporate.
So I, when I turned in myresignation, I killed the lease
on my apartment, I moved intoChrissy's basement and we took
six months to build sourced uh,what it was at the time.
And then we went back to Markand we basically said hang on
for those six months.
And then January 7th was Ithink it was the 7th, maybe the
(11:59):
4th, it was a Monday and wecalled him and we're like okay,
we're ready, and he cut us acheck.
We took a picture of him in ouroffice space and he took a
chance on us.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
So there you go it always it just takes your first
client to get you going.
That's amazing.
Well, that way, with everyother prospect you can go.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Well, most of my clients do this or oh, we were
so grateful for him.
Our second client I don't knowwhat it was about the first two
years of business.
I don't know what it was aboutthe first two years of business.
I don't even think I disclosedhow long we were in business,
because you don't want to whenyou're super new like that.
Everybody and their mother wasasking me how many clients we
had, and I remember coming backIsn't that interesting.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
They can sense it.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
They can and I was like stop asking me.
The second client he asked andlike Chrissy and I were always
like really we didn't want toanswer the questions.
We're like how many do we haveGosh?
We don't know.
There we go.
She says we're not in sales.
I'll have to get back to you onthat.
Meanwhile we have like two yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
We had, let's see, including, so carry the one.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Yeah two.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Yeah, no, you never want to say it.
Nobody ever comes in there andgoes.
You know, this is my firstrodeo, this is my first remodel.
This is the first time I'veever actually cut a fascia board
.
But you had to be the first onesomewhere and they always did.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
I was so frustrated.
I remember months and months ofpeople and I'm like what gives?
Why are people asking me this?
Speaker 1 (13:16):
you're like ask me now, you know after, because you
guys have been in business forhow long now?
Speaker 3 (13:19):
nine years, yeah, so yeah that's it, that's but they
don't ask anymore, and the samething happened to me when I went
into real estate.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Oh, they still ask oh , do they really?
Speaker 3 (13:26):
Yeah, it was weird, they don't ask as much.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
In fact, I just did a sales call before we came in to
do this podcast and I wastelling the guy I'm like you
know, I've been in over 16,000houses, we have 15,000 different
customers.
(13:48):
The way he never asked.
I just had to tell him I'm like, finally I can say something
that's really good, but nobodyever asked.
Now, and when they do, you'relike, oh, let me go.
And when they don't, oh, yeah,let me tell you.
Anyway, that's amazing.
All right, so you guys startedin the basement.
When did you get your firstoffice?
Speaker 2 (13:58):
We actually got our first office.
Well, we had shared officespace for a long time, so we had
the first office before weopened we had shared office
space for a long time, so we hadthe first office before we
opened.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Was that the point?
Speaker 2 (14:09):
where you went, we, we, we've made it, we're moving
it.
No, we, no, we didn't.
We didn't even get our firstclient yet.
We had a shared office spaceand we put a decal up on the
wall so we could take a picturethat had our logo that, by the
way, I made on PowerPoint, andthat's still the logo we use
today, because Canva was not athing.
There was no like it was.
Either you knew InDesign, whichI didn't, or use PowerPoint, oh
(14:32):
my gosh.
And so we put the logo up onthe wall along with our mission
statement and our shared littleoffice space.
We were there until three yearsago and then, at three years
ago, we got our first officewith the build out, with our
look, with our PowerPoint logonow on, like you know, channel
lettering or whatever.
So it looks really good.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
You've got to be kidding me.
Your logo was built by you inPowerPoint.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Yes, sir.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Oh, I think she's got a sixth thing she can start
doing now and that's branddesign for people, because I
never knew that.
Because the sourced name anddesign it does it looks really
good and their office space nowlooks extremely professional.
I mean, you go to the TrustedToolbox.
You know you're walking into ahandyman company no, I'm joking,
but you know it's.
(15:13):
It's a good office space, butthere's definitely it just sings
with.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
You're working with a professional organization, oh,
thank you.
I actually, when I walked intoyour office the first time, I
was like gosh.
I wish we could have an officespace where we've got it's like
built out for us and like youwere like a big inspiration of
like one day we're gonna havethat.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
And then, when we did , I was like my gosh, we're so
legit, we're legit now.
I love it.
Now did you, did you guys comeup with like a, an operating
agreement?
You know, it's family members,it's mother daughter.
What roles we're gonna do?
How are we gonna settledisagreements?
Speaker 2 (15:42):
or do you?
just go, mom yes and no, sowe're both to do.
How are we going to settledisagreements or do you just go,
mom?
Yes and no, so we're both typeA women that are like we're both
very business oriented.
So we knew we needed to haveconversations of who was going
to do what.
That's evolved over time.
We don't have anything set outon paper.
What we do have on paper iswhat happens if something
(16:03):
happens to both of us.
How do those shares getdistributed?
Who gets involved?
What do we do of selling it?
I think we redid our operatingagreement last year and it was
like how about this?
How about this?
How about this?
Okay, good, so we're both verytrusting of each other and we're
always in lockstep of I'm goingto take this, you take this,
(16:24):
you're better at that, I'll dothis part, and so we don't
really have to, but we did wantto make sure that, in case
anything happened, that was inwriting somewhere We've had
another guest on a while ago,Carl Nickpon.
Oh, I love him.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Yeah, and Carl was just doing a speaking engagement
, talking as a panel member.
He was a family business.
He got into his family businessof doing formal wear and tuxedo
rentals and then bridal gowns,and it was family and he was
talking about how difficult itis to work within a family
dynamic and to do it that way.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Well, we had one much more recently, where I mean it
got emotional Because, remember,I mean it was a sibling
situation, that's right, yeah,and that was oh boy.
I don't even know if I want tobring it up, just because we
kind of diverted theconversation, because it got
really emotional.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
It did.
Yeah, you could tell that wasthat was that would hit her
heart.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Can I blow your mind for a second with how deep the
family ties go in Source?
So mother-daughter lead theorganization.
My sister has worked for us forsix years.
I hired my brother-in-law and Ialso hired my aunt, who came in
, then left and then came backin and then left again, and my
(17:41):
other aunt and my uncle areclients.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
Holy cow, I can see the interviews.
How are you related to me?
Okay, you're hired.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Yeah, what I want to know is what's Thanksgiving
dinner like, though we talkedabout that.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
We don't talk about business.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Good, oh, there you go, perfect.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
All right, well, we try not to.
About business Good, oh, thereyou go, perfect.
All right, well, we try not to.
We used to annoy people all thetime when the when the company
was being built, cause we didn'thave anything else to talk
about.
But now we're like nah, we dothis all day long.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Let's start with something else.
Was there ever a time where youwas like I don't think this is
going to work out, let's shut itdown.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
We have, we've call it out and we're like.
You can leave at any time, likeit, we're not.
Family always comes firstperiod.
Work your ass off.
But if that's not what you want, no harm, no foul, all right,
so you got.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
you and Chrissy are in the business and getting
going.
Who's the one who's bringing inthe clients, who's the one
serving the clients, and how doyou guys go about bringing in
new people?
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Yeah, it used to be that I was only in sales and she
was overseeing operations.
I wanted to be in operationsbecause I thought it was fun and
then I realized that I don'tlike it.
So I happily gave it to her tomanage, and as I grew more in
the company, our roles havegotten closer together.
(19:00):
Now her and I have identicaljobs.
Our operations is completelyfully functioning without us,
where we're all in sales, but wealso dip our toes back into
operations when it's needed.
So we call ourselves one reallygood person.
We're just two people doing thesame job.
So we're both bringing in sales,we're both looking at
(19:20):
operations, we're both lookingat financials.
So there's nothing that theother one doesn't do.
Now she's got more of a gift onthe financial side than I do,
and I obviously have more of agift in marketing.
So when it comes to likenumbers, I'm like go to Chrissy.
When it comes to anythingbranding, she's like go to
Gabrielle.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
So is your model.
I mean, do you actually handleall the services in-house or do
you just have trusted vendorpartners that you outsource?
No, we handle it all in-house,but they're all separate teams
all separate teams so, like ouraccounting teams, they're all
staff.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Accountants at least 10 years of experience, have to
have a degree in accounting andwe have a very specific way of
doing accounting.
We've seen it done a thousanddifferent ways.
We've seen all the ways thatdon't work, and so we are very
meticulous about what it is thatwe do those accountants.
They don't touch marketing,they don't touch hiring, they
don't touch HR.
And same with marketers andadmins and our talent
(20:11):
acquisition team.
They're all very separate fromone another.
The only team that blends isour account management staff.
That is over the clientrelationship, and it's their
responsibility to make sure thatquality is happening when there
are multiple services.
But even if it's just oneservice, there's making sure
that deadlines are met andthings like that.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
Okay, so a client can a la carte from the five
different services and then youessentially have a quarterback
that's assigned to them and theymanage that's right.
Okay got it.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Yeah, so they can be one service.
They can be multiple, they can.
Talent acquisition is on a jobbasis, so that can kind of come
in and out, um, so there'sflexibility with whatever the
company needs or how the companygrows over time.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
So I'm still interested in how you guys find
new clients and how do you doyou prospect?
Are you internet campaigns?
Because you're B2B?
And you said I want to be B2Band I want to be recession
resistant.
I love that and I picked noneof that, of course.
So I picked the exact opposite.
I picked the worst one.
Go ahead.
So how do you guys go aboutthat?
And tell us a little bit moreabout how you market for new
(21:15):
clients.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
So we're actually learning.
I'll answer the question of howwe have done it to this point
for the last nine years.
But we're at a place now wherewhat's worked previously is not
working, moving forward, becausewe've leveled up the business
and our clients are much biggerthan they have been in the past.
So in a lot of ways, I am justlike every other entrepreneur of
I still have to figure it outfrom scratch all over again.
(21:36):
Up until this point it's allbeen word of mouth and referral.
We do a lot of networking.
We do a lot of chamber meetings, a lot of going out into the
world, our clients basically ourcompany has survived because
our clients have referred us somuch, because they're so happy
with what it is that we do, andwe've been thrilled that that's
(21:57):
been the case and it still is.
But one I had two kids in thelast couple of years.
I can't network the way that Iused to, so that in one way,
isn't going to be the way thatwe grow the company.
But also, like I said, ourclients are bigger.
They don't network either.
They want to go to the officeand they want to go be with
their family.
So we're now trying to figureout how to get to them because
(22:17):
they're not out in the worldeither.
So we're trying to figure outwhat's the next way.
We at one point had a salesteam.
That didn't really work out forus, but we might try that again
.
We're in a phase now wherewe're doing a lot of internet
marketing, some ads.
We're still too early to see ifit really works for us.
I've been told that servicecompanies do better with a sales
(22:40):
team and like that actuallygoes and hunts out clients
versus internet marketing.
But we'll see In a lot of wayswe're just kind of starting over
on that one.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
So your average client size now, what does that
look like?
Speaker 2 (22:52):
They usually start around 2 million and on the
fractional side they usually goup to about 30 million.
On the talent acquisition sideit goes all the way north of
there.
So, it doesn't really matter.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Yeah, totally different market.
You're right, you're talking 10plus million.
This is not a networking.
Let's just do that.
It's I got to find another wayto get in front of somebody and
prove a value proposition.
Somehow, some way, are youfinding now that you have to do
RFPs?
Before it would just beproposals.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Not yet, but we have been certified for government
contracts and corporatecontracts now, so we are
entering into the RFP world.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
Do most of the clients start with just one of
your services and then juststart adding mine?
Speaker 2 (23:32):
Typically, yeah, they either come in on talent
acquisition or accounting andthen they kind of I mean, we'll
tell them all the stuff at thesales process, but they're
focused on their immediate need,and that immediate need is my
books need to be fixed and theysuck, or I need to hire a person
, and so when they get throughthat initial pain, then they're
like oh, you have other things.
(23:53):
Okay, well, let's try some ofthis other stuff.
And then they usually do liketwo or three services.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
And are most of the accounting clients people who
are trying to do it on their ownand realize that they're in
over their head?
Or are you picking up peoplewho are not happy with their
current service?
Speaker 2 (24:06):
It used to be that they were doing it on their own.
In the last couple of yearsit's picking it up from people
that didn't know, and a lot ofways we grew out of that too.
There's bookkeepers and thenthere are accountants.
We had to learn the differenceand we also thought when we
first started because we didn'thave a background in this that
we hire accountants that had allthe accolades.
(24:27):
We even hired CPAs at one time.
There's a lot of different waysto do accounting.
We had to figure out what webelieved was the absolute right
way and then hold all of theseaccountants to the exact
standards of what it is that wedo.
Now we've learned over time howto how to suss out good
accountants and what they do andtheir practices and things like
that.
But now we're cleaning up a lotof um people that likely didn't
(24:51):
know how to do it correctly.
And then we come in and we'relike, sorry, your books are
really bad.
We need to, we need to fix it,and then we get them back on,
back on track books are reallybad.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
We need to, we need to fix it and then we get them
back on, back on track, so it'sall right.
So in the accounting thing it'susually the pain point is
totally effed up, need to getfixed up.
So you guys, are coming in anddoing the, the save, if you will
, as opposed to the hey, look atall these other things.
Okay, we'll make this, so you'dhave to sell to the pain point
on the accounting side to getyour foot in the door.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
Yeah, typically there is an event that is making them
need to look at their books.
Oftentimes they've hired afractional or a full-time CFO
and they can't do their job withthe reports that they have and
then they don't know how bad itis until we evaluate it.
Sometimes their bookkeeper isleaving, retiring.
Sometimes their bookkeeper isrelated Call it a wife or
(25:36):
something.
They're like I just don't wantto do this anymore and they were
never wife or something.
They're like I just don't wantto do this anymore and they were
never trained or whatnot.
Sometimes they are approachingan exit and they know in three
years or five years, I know I'mgoing to need to exit and I need
to get my books prepared forthat.
So there's usually some kind ofimpetus of I need someone to go
(25:57):
under the hood and at leasttell me what I'm looking at.
Very rarely are they like Idon't want to do it anymore, but
it does happen.
It does happen.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
It is funny how many fractional CFOs have been coming
across here in the last two orthree months.
I don't know if it's me justrunning across them and me
looking for it.
You know the red car theoryAgain when you're looking for a
(26:27):
red car.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
I'm not looking for one, uh, but it just seems like
it have been.
Or do you think the industryhas grown bigger at both?
Yeah, wow, so that may be agreat source for you.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
I get it, thank you, just thought it was one of your
better ones, but oh, I'll acceptit.
Man, I was waiting to.
I waited a whole 30 minutes topull that one off, all right.
So, um, as you guys are doingthis and you're out there, so
you would you say yourday-to-day has evolved now to
more hunting and businessdevelopment and then checking in
on operations.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
By the grace of God, yes.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
So two, we'll call it .
But in the last three to fiveyears it was a 50-50 split and
my God, that was hard.
Find new business, which takesa lot of time, and then you had
fires inside the business thatyou had to fix and then also
make it look like there weren'tfires and figure out how to fix
it and have it never be aproblem again, while
simultaneously being in happyworld so you can bring new
(27:08):
clients in.
Every entrepreneur knows whatthat's like.
That's hard.
It is hard.
My operations team now isstellar.
We have to check in and makesure we learn the trust but
verify lesson a few times.
We no longer have to learn it,so we just check in to make sure
everything's happening as itshould.
(27:29):
But we can pretty much throwthem over and they're well taken
care of.
So I am blissfully just insales world, which is awesome.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Yeah, I remember when I was at the bank, blissfully
just in sales world, which isawesome.
Yeah, I remember when I, uh,when I was at the bank, uh, my
job was commercial loanoperations and also had letters
of credit, and the guy who wasselling all the letters of
credit responsible for all thesalespeople, uh, internationally
letters of credit came out tome and I'll never forget what he
told me.
He says, chris, you have a hardjob.
He said I just have to ask forgood service, you have to
(27:57):
provide it.
So I feel really bad for you.
And he said that.
And then he just unloaded on meand how bad the operations was
that I was inheriting.
So a lot of fun.
But Leon Maba said that to meit's always better to, it's
always easier to ask for goodservice than provide it.
So you're right, the operationsteam, when they make you look
good, helps you in sales, andwhen something goes wrong, you
(28:18):
keep thinking about the onething that went wrong while
you're trying to tell somebodydon't worry, we're going to be
great for you.
Oh, my God, that one thing'sgone wrong.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Well then, we had to learn, like all the while.
We had to figure out, re-lookat our processes.
We had our processes from whenwe started, but we learned a lot
in those years where we neverran into this situation, never
ran into this situation, neversaw this, and so we had to
overhaul all of our SOPs whilesimultaneously fixing all of the
(28:47):
fires that we had andsolidifying what our standards
are moving forward.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
Repairing the ship at sea.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Now we have seen everything.
Now we know our process.
They're immovable.
So now we see something thatwe've never seen before and
we're like we just fall back tothe level of what it is that we
know is going to work, and it'sa lot less painful than it was.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
So when I look at you two here in the room with me,
your businesses are verydifferent in one way.
I mean, they're both servicebusinesses, but you have to be
with the customer.
Chris, you could do yoursentirely remote right, we could,
but you don't, we don't, andthe value of that is, I imagine,
pretty powerful.
(29:27):
So what I mean?
How much FaceTime do youactually give to your clients?
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Me personally or our team, team, team.
So we serve clients all acrossthe country, so a lot of what we
do is remote.
There's two ways that we reallyget in front of clients.
I'm actually seeing one thisafternoon In the accounting
world.
We just check in and sometimesdo a financial review.
We do financial reviews everymonth with our clients.
Sometimes we're like can youcome to us?
(29:54):
We'd love to see you, or we cancome to you and just have a
touch point.
We give Christmas gifts, handdeliver Christmas gifts every
year.
If we can't reach them, then weobviously mail it For talent
acquisition clients.
If they've never worked with usbefore, we're like come on in,
see our office, see thelegitimacy of us.
It's kind of a big deal.
Even if it's just me going tothem.
(30:15):
They don't see the wholeoperations of everything.
And then I'm also giving athank you gift for clients that
have made a placement with usthat I.
They're local, so I'm likewe're going to drop off the gift
instead of delivering it.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Nice.
All right, so you had talkedabout the growth.
Part of this is where I'mreally stuck on this.
I think it's going to be anamazing time.
You've got a solid foundationand now you're ready to go out
there and try some new thingsand get going on with that.
You're thinking about the salesteam.
How much have you learned fromyour clients that you're working
with right now to figure outhow you're going to go out and
do this?
Speaker 2 (30:48):
Oh, I love what I do because I get to see all the
mistakes of other businesses totry to learn from them.
Here's what I know All of ushave the same problem, and it's
in sales.
Nobody have the same problemand it's in sales.
Nobody knows how to do it,nobody feels successful at it,
and so, um, if nothing else,it's kind of takes that imposter
syndrome out of the way,because every single person has
(31:09):
this exact same problem.
Um, so am I trying to learnfrom my clients?
Yes, has anyone else?
Has anyone figured it outsuccessfully when you get under
the hood?
No, so we're all just doing thesame thing.
I love that.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
Did you learn?
Yes, I learned that they'rejust as big of a screw up as I
am.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
I love that Cause.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
That's what I think I was thinking, that to myself is
you're right.
The once you find that outyou're like oh, we're all just
trying to figure this thing out,man.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
So it's okay, you get a little grace.
Now I've got comp plan.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Like we know where to find them, but at the end of
the day, like we all have thesame issues, so let's talk about
the talent acquisition wherebecause that's one thing we
didn't bring up and I got togive some props to Alan because
he didn't insert it, so I'llinsert it for him All real
estate agents are the same,especially all commercial real
estate agents are the same.
There's different flavors foreach In talent acquisition.
(32:01):
That's a big swath as well.
Where do you guys find that youplay the best in?
Speaker 2 (32:13):
So a lot of recruiting companies.
They niche down and that's agreat strategy.
It's wonderful we don't, so weactually have.
It could be perceived as aharder job because we don't know
every industry, every job.
What we're really good at ispeople.
So we are a people businessthat just happens to do
accounting, that happens to hire, that happens to write.
So we know how to disarm people.
We know how to get to thebottom of what it is that they
(32:33):
really want, what they'relooking for, and our recruiting
team is not made of recruiters,they're made of business people
who knows how to like,understand the psychology and
the behavior of people, and thenwe just learn the job and what
it is that they need, the clientneeds in their actual job.
So when we first start in arelationship with a client, we
(32:53):
interview that client for 90minutes and we ask them all
sorts of stuff about theirhistory, about their culture,
their values.
Why are their values, the waythat they are?
What are their red flags?
What are their green flags?
Talk to me about your bestemployees.
Talk to me about your worstemployees.
How does this job functionacross your organization?
(33:14):
Are they talking to clients?
What about?
So like we're really learningabout the company and then we
look at the job and say, okay,you need these qualifications,
blah, blah.
When we go through ourrecruiting process we have a
three-step or a two-stepinterview process, but a
three-person team to make surethat when a client is
interviewed or interviewscandidates, these candidates
have been way pre-vetted.
(33:34):
So everybody's in that 90-minutemeeting.
The first person, who's oursourcer, fills the bucket with
people that are interested inapplying or they're going to
find them.
So they're filling the bucketwith candidates.
Our second person her title isrecruiter and she does nothing
but phone screens.
So she's listening forqualifications and technical
ability, along with somecultural things on the phone.
(33:56):
If she likes the candidate,then it goes to our client
relations specialist who does aface-to-face behavioral
interview.
They're not asking anythingtechnical, with the exception of
are you telling me the samething that you just told our
recruiter?
They're asking behavioralquestions to make sure that this
job, this company, is the rightfit.
If they make it through thosetwo people, then the client sees
(34:17):
them.
So we're really getting to knoweach of our clients and making
sure that if they're spendingtheir time to interview somebody
it's because they're a good fitfor that role.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
Again, I think the whole recruiting process is
different for me, especiallywith the handyman and trying to
find guys.
Are you placing mostlysalespeople managers?
Speaker 2 (34:36):
Yeah, it's all admin to executive and anything in
between and we've done justabout everything.
So we don't do any labor or wedon't do anything in
construction unless it'smanagement.
So we don't do any labor or wedon't do anything in
construction unless it'smanagement.
We typically do office jobsadmins, attorneys, paralegals,
IT, cybersecurity, operations,people, all sorts of stuff All
(34:59):
right Now.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
Let's switch gears to the fun stuff marketing.
So you work with some people inmarketing.
It's fun, but she also works,as we talked about, on the
president of NERI here inAtlanta for a year Name dropper.
Yep, I'm going to drop a lotmore.
Watch this and I will beheading out.
Well, by the time this one airs, I will have already gone to
the NERI National Conference, orname dropping, to network with
(35:21):
everybody.
And where is this conference?
It's in Austin Texas.
Nice, yes, it.
And where is this conference?
It's in Austin Texas.
Nice, yes, it's going to be alot of fun, and so I'll have a
lot of big daddy stories afterthat one.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
I'll bet you will.
Yep, you might come back with acowboy hat.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
You know what you should come back with a cowboy
hat I should you know so, my son.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
now we're really going to segue he like bud,
that's like telling all of uswho wear baseball hats here in
Atlanta that you better havebeen playing baseball today.
I said it just doesn't happen solet's talk about marketing
because Gabrielle has come inand really helped us with Nary
Atlanta, do something thatactually is super cool.
It's just fresh off the presses, but I want to give her props
(36:03):
because I wanted to see how shedoes this with her other clients
.
We're a nonprofit.
Her props because I wanted tosee how she does this with her
other clients.
We're a nonprofit.
We're a group of remodelers andvendors who come together 280
of us clients and companies.
So we don't have a huge budget.
We got a small budget formarketing.
It's hard to market anassociation and get name
recognition, but she was able topull off something that the
(36:24):
Braves which is why I wanted toget to the baseball hats was
talking about.
The Braves, it's a big dealhere for us in Atlanta.
Even if you don't like baseballat all, people still identify
if you're in Atlanta with theBraves because they've been very
successful.
Yeah, it's just part of ourculture here.
So now we have got this dealgoing for the next month, where
we're going to have radio adsradio, I mean, sorry, tv ads and
TV spots and digital streamingpromoting the Nary brand.
(36:47):
And she was able to pull thisoff for I mean literally a song
I mean compared to what normalbudgets are, knowing way too
much about how much that wouldhave cost somebody like me to
get it.
It's really cool.
So I'm excited that she cameback and got involved because we
had a meeting.
I was like she has the two kids.
Can you really do all this?
She goes.
If you give me some help, I'llstay.
(37:07):
I'm like, oh, thank God.
And then of course, we get hersome help.
And now the guy's gone, sowe're getting her two more guys
to help.
So there's your two, because Isaid you got to go help
Gabrielle do this.
So you did a great job with usand I want to thank you and give
you some a lot of credit onthat kind of hey, you're solving
the pain point accounting.
Solving that pain point talentacquisition.
Now let me tell you about thisstuff over here.
(37:30):
How do you introduce that Tana?
What have you guys been doing?
Speaker 2 (37:33):
Yeah, so marketing is kind of like a tier or a phased
approach, depending on whatpeople need, where they come in
on the marketing journey.
So a lot of clients they cometo us and they've never done any
marketing at all and we have tostart them with some decent
branding.
So it looked.
Do you have a good logo?
Do you have a good website?
Do you have any social mediaexisting at all?
Speaker 1 (37:55):
I'm not saying so you do do logo design.
Oh yeah, I thought I was beingsmart.
We are a full-scale marketingagency.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
Keep going.
All right, I would knock it outon PowerPoint.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
Yeah, no longer on PowerPoint, no longer on Canva.
Even we're very professionalover here, but yeah, we do it
all.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
Do you use an old-fashioned typewriter too,
ellen?
God, no, that reminds me of mybanker boxes days with
accounting.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
It's like a tick.
No, we're not going back to thedark ages.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
Oh, we lost her.
She's glitching All right.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
So talk about maybe one of the success stories you
had in marketing and how youwere able to come in and help
them with that.
Okay, so we had a um, a clientwho broke off from a large um
hotel company to start thistechnology that will help the
hospitality industry, and theyhad nothing except for the
technology and a couple of pilothotels.
That it's going really well for.
That has been such a fun clientbecause we did all of their
(38:55):
branding, all of their logodesign, all of their messaging,
their website.
We've helped them design theirapp and now that we've gone
through all of that, oh, wecreated a really sick animated
video.
That was so fun.
But now that they've, that hashelped them drive a lot of sales
.
That was already happening, butit just brings them legitimacy
to play with larger players outin the world and they can
(39:17):
compete in the bigger space.
Now and now we're going downthe advertising route.
So now it's if I don't book ameeting, other people can still
find me.
Um, and that's been really cool, Cause we're doing a lot of
things, kind of like what we'redoing with Nary.
That's a lot of more brandawareness rather than lead
generation to get the name outthere.
(39:37):
So and that's that's alwaysreally fun because you have
media spots and advertisingspots and just it's, it's fun.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
That is a lot of fun.
Now how involved will you getpersonally in that, or do you
turn that over to your accountmanagement and your team?
Speaker 2 (39:50):
So for marketing I still stay pretty involved.
I can step out at any time, butI just love it.
So I like to be involved and myteam tells me they really like
my opinions.
I don't know if they actuallydo or not or if they're just
being nice.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
You sign their checks right, right.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
So I still stay pretty involved.
I don't know if they actuallydo or not, or if they're just
being nice.
You sign their checks, yeah,right.
So.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
I still stay pretty involved.
I don't know if they're goingto listen to this one.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
but hey guys, I think she's seeing through it.
If you want to listen to thisone, you can.
But yes, as an owner.
Yeah, when I say a joke in ameeting and everybody laughs and
I know that you know, I know,yeah, and I know I'm not that
funny and that the one whodoesn't laugh is gone.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Yeah, so for marketing I stay pretty involved
, but for all the other ones I'mI'm pretty much just like I'm
here, unless there's a problem,or I'm taking you to lunch, so,
um, and that's, I like beingthere.
There's a.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
We have a lot of clients, so if I were to split
my time across them all, butit's been amazing what a great
growth and a great story havingyou and your mother be able to
grow this business and actuallyemploy I guess what
three-quarters of your family.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
They're not all there now, but yes, they've come in
and out.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
I do have one question because it sounds like
you're wrapping up right?
Speaker 3 (41:00):
I am, and we're getting close to the end.
Can you squeeze me in for justa second Wait?
Let me check with my people.
All right, all For just asecond Wait let me check with my
people, All right.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
All right, you get 36 .
Speaker 3 (41:06):
Earlier you mentioned .
You know how to write a compplan and it's kind of been one
of those things I've been payingattention to in business.
My wife is an accountant andevery once in a while I hear
about there's so many bad compplans and it seems like it
should be a lot easier than itis.
But I see comp plans that aretoo complicated.
I see comp plans that actuallyincentivize the wrong things and
(41:27):
drive poor behavior.
And then I see comp plans thatmay have looked good when you
first roll it out and thensuddenly the company is
begrudging how much moneythey're paying to their
employees.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
Oh, that's the worst.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
Which drives me insane.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
That drives me crazy.
Speaker 3 (41:41):
Because, like hey, they're choking on money,
because they're making you a tonof money.
So can you give our listeners acouple pieces of simple advice
when it comes to just a goodcomp plan?
Yeah, absolutely the firstthing I will say I got a good
question out of Chris.
I just want everybody to know,All right we'll allow this.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
This question will allow, as the moderator says
will allow for.
Speaker 2 (41:59):
no, she can take as long as she wants Cross-examine.
He's just going to edit it outlater.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
No, he's not.
I don't know.
I'm getting ready to write itdown.
Speaker 3 (42:06):
Our heads were twinkling when she said that.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
The first thing is that it depends on the business
it truly, truly does.
Whether you're a B2B, B2C orlike what size deals you are
closing.
The best thing that you can dois to keep it simple and to keep
it lucrative.
You want people to be able tomake money, and a lot of money.
You want your sales team to bemaking more than the managers.
(42:30):
Absolutely.
If they're making more than you, that's fabulous.
Let that be the case.
Put your ego aside.
Speaker 3 (42:35):
Yeah, let that sink in folks.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
That's actually a big one.
Uh, I agree, Cause we have anunlimited comp plan.
That's one of the things I talkabout with my sales guys is
that you can, you can make moreyou can.
Just you can absolutely ton it.
You just got to get after it.
That's the thing.
Speaker 3 (42:49):
So I love that simple , lucrative and don't and don't
begrudge the fact that theystart making no celebrate it
yeah celebrate it.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
I don't know why people, whatever people's egos,
but um so, a couple of baseline,um she was looking, chris.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
She wanted to see what I was looking down like.
Yes, yes, I know, put your egoaside.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
All right, putting it right um you do want to have a
base, but that base needs to below enough for them to still
work.
So you want your commissionside to benefit to largely
outweigh the base.
You don't want you to make yourbase livable and comfortable,
but you can't get away with nobase, you just can't.
And then the other thought wasthere is a very creative way.
(43:34):
There's a lot of different waysto structure how you do
commission.
Something very successful isputting in place accelerators
for different tiers.
So if you meet a certainbaseline or like a certain quota
, you stay within a certainpercentage.
That's awesome.
You keep your job, everyone'shappy.
But if you exceed it by acertain amount, your commission
(43:56):
doubles or is more in some way.
If you get to this tier, it'sthis way.
So it really incentivizes themto move faster and succeed
faster so they can hitaccelerators and make more money
.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
I have been all across the board on this one,
and I took away the acceleratorsyears ago and so I just
introduced another one where myguys get paid on jobs completed
that are profitable.
That's when they get the check.
I don't give them a half checkin the beginning and a half
check after they get paid onjobs that are profitable that
they sold, but I gave them.
If you sold something, if yousold over a hundred thousand in
one month, you're going to get aSPF and you get an extra 500, a
(44:36):
thousand and it's tiered onthat one and we're trying to see
how that's going to go.
And that's exactly where Iforgotten about the tiering and
getting people hungry, aboutgetting that next.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
Yeah, it's, it's a yeah.
You get a lot of salespeoplethat are telling you otherwise,
but they are fine, coasting ontheir base and their normal
thing.
So it is tricky and this iswhere the business nuances come
in of how you get them to wantthose accelerators or your
accelerators.
Sweet enough, but they may notbe motivated by them.
(45:06):
So you got to figure out whatmotivates them and go that
direction.
But you also might have a salesteam that just doesn't care,
which is fine.
Speaker 3 (45:14):
Well, and I want to say one thing about your
business, chris, and theaccelerators.
So the estimator has a piece,or the salesperson has a piece
of the profitability of it,because they have to bid the
right number but they don't havecontrol over the actual
expenses, the costs of the job.
So it could really suck forthem and be a demotivator if
(45:36):
suddenly your crew is notdelivered.
I see your eyes widening.
Speaker 2 (45:40):
For all salespeople.
That's the same way for every.
Speaker 3 (45:44):
So I don't think salespeople should be tied to
the profit.
Speaker 1 (45:46):
So I'm smiling because, back to what Gabrielle
said, she can go out and sellright now because her operations
are tightened up.
Yeah, what I tell the salesguys is, if the operations guys
fall and you didn't help pickthem up when they called you to
say, hey, I got.
I ran into a problem where youdidn't call this out.
Speaker 3 (46:08):
I need this done and you didn't help them get an
add-on, or to keep us up to theprofit, or what if the what If
the guy doing?
The job screws it up.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
It shouldn't, I shouldn't hurt the estimator, so
I do not hit them on that, butthat is that has happened very
rarely compared to I missedsomething in my original
estimate, or the team went outthere, tried to get ahold of you
to find out why you wanted this.
Instead of that, you didn't getback to them.
They did that and the customersaid oh, I wanted this.
Then they get dinged and so Imake it a bigger deal.
But you're right, it's notdemotivating, but it's
(46:33):
definitely a lesson learned,because in our world there's so
many things that change.
But you know another example aguy bids a certain amount of
materials and right now, man,we're fluctuating on the week,
right now it is.
I'm telling you guys, when youtalk about lumber, right now it
is, I'm telling you guys, whenyou talk about lumber, it is all
over the board.
I got one supplier at twodollars difference than another
supplier, and I'm talking aboutI'm not a linear foot, but this
(46:56):
is a 16 footer.
So I hit them with that.
So they've got to have theresponsibility to price it
correctly in the beginning.
Because one thing I will say inmy business, the, the
profitability is established theminute you make that sale.
Right, think about that for aminute, because your maximum
profitability I guess you couldsay it like that, yeah, um, but
(47:17):
yeah, I don't ding them if it's,if it's horribly bad.
But, um, if they misorder a door, um, I make them buy it so they
can go out and resell it, butthey're, they're buying it, yeah
, so um I don't have thosestruggles.
Speaker 2 (47:31):
Yeah, did I did?
Speaker 3 (47:32):
did I mention I wrote down yours b2b recession
resistance is the door that youput in my house, one that you
screwed up on somebody else'shouse I can neither confirm or
deny that.
Speaker 1 (47:40):
No, but I do have.
I tell you what.
I've got some great doors andwindows for both of you.
If you guys want a certain sizeand a certain color, I've got
some really good ones.
I've got a bunch of portholescoming to my house.
Guys, I think we're going tohave to skip these last four
questions unless you're ready.
I'm ready, let's do it.
Speaker 2 (47:58):
I was born ready.
Speaker 1 (47:58):
Give us a book that you would recommend to our
audience.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
Oh my gosh, there are so many.
Um, I love the purpose drivenlife.
Don't know who wrote it, butit's an.
It's an older book, I thinkit's from the eighties or
nineties.
Um, it's so good.
I love that.
That was life changing for me.
Oh, and Brendan Burchard's umhigh performance habits.
I read that sucker like theBible.
It is um absolutely fantastic.
Speaker 1 (48:23):
Give me that one, one more time.
Speaker 2 (48:24):
Brendan Burchard high performance habits.
Speaker 1 (48:28):
High performance habits All right, gold nugget on
that one and purpose-drivenlife, life.
Purpose-driven life.
All right, I'm writing thatdown.
Sorry, you'd think I wasGoogling it to find it out,
because, no, I can't do that.
All right, because I got myphone unstunned.
All right, let's keep going.
What's a favorite feature ofyour home?
Speaker 2 (48:46):
I'm looking for a new home, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:49):
Two kids will do that to you.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
Yeah, we've outgrown it.
I'm going to have changed everylittle bit of it.
I love my high ceilings.
Speaker 1 (48:56):
All right.
So that's when you go for thenew home.
Speaker 2 (48:58):
We're going to have some high ceilings.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (49:00):
Yeah, that's fun, and a pool and stressful and a nice
kitchen.
Speaker 3 (49:04):
But other than that, she's pretty wide open.
Speaker 1 (49:08):
I'm pretty low maintenance other than that?
Oh, did I mention I want agilded gold bidet?
No, I'm kidding, that would becool too.
That would be.
I love this All right.
Next question Alan and Iconsider ourselves customer
service Freaks, Absolutely,because we love customer service
and love making it happen.
When you're the customer andyou're out there getting service
, what do you have the biggestpet peeve on?
Speaker 2 (49:30):
Biggest pet peeve.
Okay, I'm going to be a littlerude here.
Stupid people Can't stand itLike use your critical thinking.
Like I don't.
You don't have to solve myproblem perfectly, you don't
have to be the best person doingwhatever it is, but please show
me that you care to be thereand that, like you're putting
some drive behind your job, yourrole, talking to me, just
(49:53):
critical thinking when itdoesn't happen it drives me nuts
.
Speaker 1 (50:00):
Just give a little effort.
Pretend you want a littleeffort, just a little effort.
Did I mention when I went toMcDonald's and I walked up to
the?
I walked past the kiosk thatyou're supposed to order and
walked up to the counter only tohave her say that it's over
there.
All she did was point and goit's over there.
Speaker 2 (50:13):
Oh see, that's like, come on.
Speaker 1 (50:14):
I was like okay, I just wanted to see what would
happen and it was a test, and Idid go to the kiosk and I did
help another old couple put thestuff in the kiosk, because they
made them do it too.
And I was like, wow, did yourealize what you're doing?
Speaker 2 (50:29):
I mean Chick-fil-A is right there.
You know, you get like the deerin headlights, look when you
ask for something, and it's justlike what?
And I'm like, oh, come on, ohmy least favorite is now.
Speaker 3 (50:36):
You go into fast food and they just look at you and
they don't even say what can Ihelp you with?
And so I.
They have to say the first wordDrives me insane.
And these are yourcustomer-facing, the best
customer-facing people you havein your organization.
The management there sucks.
Speaker 1 (50:53):
Oh my gosh, I could go on for an hour on this
Because I would say, coming outof COVID, I felt like we all
lost manners and we all lost theinterpersonal skills, even
people who are good at it, andsomebody just asked that
question.
If you think that it's stillgoing on, even today, have we
lost our manners and our abilityto talk and communicate with
people and connect?
Speaker 3 (51:09):
my son's a school teacher and it's kind of wild to
hear him talk about how thatcycling through those lost years
they talk about it as the lostyears.
Wow, it's bad yeah so that'sour country's gonna get real
dumb in a minute yeah, I need toretire.
Speaker 1 (51:25):
all right, let's keep going.
All right.
Last one we love DIY nightmarestories, death, dismemberment.
Speaker 3 (51:32):
It's not a contractor , it's not somebody else.
It's your own pain.
Speaker 2 (51:36):
I will tell you Wait, you like what?
Speaker 1 (51:38):
We like DIY nightmare stories.
Speaker 2 (51:41):
Nightmares.
I was like how do we get fromDIY to murder?
I'm so confused, oh, that wouldbe good.
No to murder.
I'm so confused, oh, that wouldbe good.
I was like how do we get a DIYin dismemberment?
Speaker 1 (51:50):
Well, we were close to it.
I will tell you.
You're only 15 feet away fromwhere Chris put a nail right
through his foot, Putting up astructural support beam here to
get the bar up.
Speaker 3 (51:59):
You were pointing to the ceiling and you shot
yourself in the foot.
Speaker 1 (52:02):
No, I stepped down on the nail.
I was waiting for someone tocome help me put this LVL beam.
He was running late.
I was a little impatient, so Isaid I'm going to do it myself
and I jammed it up there andthen I jumped down right on the
board that had fallen, with thetwo by six sitting up, and there
was the nail.
At least it was over quick, itwas right there.
Anything like that.
Speaker 2 (52:21):
Okay, yeah, so anything can you top that one?
No, no, I can't top about oneand I don't even my worst.
That's okay.
No, I don't have a nightmarestory, but my.
I can tell you my favorite diystory um, in my office that you
said was beautiful.
Thank you very much for that.
Every single chair was handmadeby me oh boy every single one.
I think we have over a hundredchairs in there and we got them
(52:43):
all off of like amazon and wherewayfair.
So, yours truly, while duringmaternity leave I had my newborn
two-week-old in that office, Iwas putting together all the
chairs in my office.
Speaker 1 (52:55):
How was the hourly rate on that one?
Speaker 2 (52:57):
Wasn't very profitable.
Speaker 1 (53:00):
The sales guy wasn't getting paid on that one no.
Ooh ding, the sales people.
All right, guys, you've learnedsomething about back office.
It's again, I think, a greatniche, because I had never
really heard of something likethis and somebody who can offer
this many breaths of servicesfor you.
So, Sourced, go check it out.
Gabrielle Mills go check herout on LinkedIn.
She's out there.
You can go check out.
(53:21):
Sourced GetSourcedcom.
Speaker 2 (53:25):
GetSourcedcom.
We're working on sourcedcom.
That's a big one.
Yeah, we're trying Get sourced.
Don't forget sourced I like getsourced.
Speaker 1 (53:30):
Get sourced.
I like that.
It is cool.
And, on that note, go be coolout there yourselves, man, make
it a great week.
Keep doing something good.
Every week matters, everyminute matters, every.
So how do you guys go about that and tell us a little
bit more about how you marketfor new clients.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
So we're actually learning.
I'll answer the question of howwe have done it to this point
for the last nine years.
But we're at a place now wherewhat's worked previously is not
working, moving forward, becausewe've leveled up the business
and our clients are much biggerthan they have been in the past.
So in a lot of ways, I am justlike every other entrepreneur of
I still have to figure it outfrom scratch all over again.
(00:25):
Up until this point, it's allbeen word of mouth and referral.
We do a lot of networking.
We do a lot of chamber meetings, a lot of going out into the
world, our clients basically,our company has survived because
our clients have referred us somuch, because they're so happy
with what it is that we do.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Welcome to the Small Business Safari where I help
guide you to avoid those traps,pitfalls and dangers that lurk
when navigating the wild worldof small business ownership.
I'll share those gold nuggetsof information and invite guests
to help accelerate your ascentto that mountaintop of success.
No-transcript, alan, the choresthat we have to go through just
(01:22):
to put out this great,incredible podcast.
The chores that we have to gothrough just to put out this
great, incredible podcast yetagain.
Another week has gone by andyet again I've been contacted
again by somebody who said hey,man, listen to your podcast.
Got a question for you though.
Oh, I like questions, right,yeah, question if you were to
start over, what would you do?
Do different?
Not this, I said.
(01:43):
Oh, brother, that's a long one.
I said, but hang on, this isnot something I can email.
So I picked up the phone.
We talked for 10 minutes.
I'm like look the handymanbusiness.
It is great on paper, it looksgreat and it's something you can
do and you will be in housesall the time.
I said it's just incrediblyhard to scale because we can do
(02:07):
so many things.
So if I had to tell you what todo is find your niche, stay in
your niche and I equated it tohim.
I just got done telling the Narymembers the same thing about
remodeling and our guestshappened to be there at the same
time, but I said the same thingto him.
That I said to them is you know, in the world of handyman you
can be a lot of things to a lotof people, but you can be also a
little bit of things to a lotof people.
(02:29):
And so what I mean by that is,I know handyman who do nothing
but appliances and replace glassand fix big glass doors All
three of things we don't do hereat the Trusted Toolbox, yet we
call ourselves a handymancompany.
So we found our niche and whatwe did.
Well, and in remodeling it'sthe same thing.
We're not all remodelers here atthe Trusted Toolbox.
I've got a remodeling division,but I don't have a designer on
(02:51):
staff.
I don't have an architect onstaff.
I'm not a design-build firm,but there are design-build but
yet we're all called remodelers.
Crazy, right.
So I think what I told him wasfind your niche, find where you
can make the most money anddon't always chase the shiny
object.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
That's great advice.
You know, as soon as you saidthat, the thought that went to
my mind was I should have givensomebody the kill switch.
And you know how, over theyears, I've talked about having
your own like de facto board ofdirectors, even if you're a
small startup and it's peoplethat you trust.
But really, what I was lookingfor were, yes, men.
I wanted the advice, but I alsowanted people to go.
(03:28):
That's a great idea, alan, dothat.
And I didn't give anybody thekill switch because I was
supremely confident.
I was not used to failing.
I knew I could get people to dowhatever I wanted.
I could sell whatever I wanted.
I had all kinds of managementexperience and sales experience
and I just wanted them to tellme yeah, that sounds good, yeah,
go for it.
I needed to give somebody thekill switch.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
There's enough.
That's another great piece ofadvice.
The gold nugget there is youneed to find the no man.
You need to find the one who'sgoing to tell you that's the
stupidest thing I've ever heard.
Yeah, you need somebody to pushback Right, because all you're
going to hear is okay, so theykind of like it.
Yeah, I'm going to still do it.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
Well, they're wrong, I'm going to do it anyway.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
But you got that right.
And so our guests over heredoing the right thing, just
watching us go back and forth,kicking it back and forth, going
okay, can I jump in?
Can I jump in?
Guys, we're going to let herjump in.
We got Gabrielle Mills here.
(04:31):
Leave, because I, between thetwo of you, I'm not going to get
another word in.
So, nice, nice to see you,that's right.
No, I'm sitting here nodding.
I'm agreeing with you guys.
Alan's gonna.
Alan's gonna have a seat,because um, mills is not her
real name, that's her pseudostage name.
She's Italian, so this is fun.
Oh, so she's a performer.
Yeah, oh, she, you're almostdone.
You're probably not gonna getto talk anymore.
No, I got to meet, uh,gabrielle, oh geez, um, it's
(04:51):
been, it's been a minute, um,but I remember her saying, hey,
do you mind if we can just goget a coffee?
And and as soon as I met her Iwas like, wow, this gal has a
lot going on.
She's chatty, but she reallyknows her business and she you
could tell she had empathy, shecared and she was really good at
business and she talked about.
What was funny at the time wasthat she kept talking about her
(05:12):
business partner and herbusiness partner's name is
Chrissy.
I'm like great, I went on andnow I've known I guess I don't
know, man, it's been a long timeyeah, over 10 years yeah over.
Yeah, it's been a lot longerthan that, and I remember still
meeting at that coffee shop downat Peachtree Corners and it
took me let's call it 10 years Iwould say seven years before I
(05:33):
figured out Chrissy was a littlebit more than just a business
partner.
She's my mama, she's your mama,the whole time, the whole time.
I had no clue.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
And you've seen them in the same room together.
Is there any family resemblance?
Speaker 2 (05:47):
So it depends on who you ask.
Some people say, oh my gosh,you guys are twins.
One of you is blonde and one ofyou is brunette.
I don't know how people don'tsee it.
And then there are people thatwill know us for years and
they're like wait what?
Speaker 1 (06:01):
You're just now dropping this on us.
I had no clue, so so she wentinto business with mama I love
this, so she has a really uniquebusiness model.
I, I, I.
I think people have seen thisother places, but I haven't, and
so why don't you explain thebusiness that you guys started?
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Yeah, so we are a back office services company and
um it's interesting that youguys were talking about niches,
because we didn't Um, and I havea lot of experience about what
that's like we basically startedfive businesses at the same
time.
In the beginning, we have, onthe fractional side of the
business, we have an accountingfirm, we have a marketing agency
(06:37):
, outsourced human resources andfractional administrative
support.
So we support businesses thatdon't need full-time help but
they still need back officesupport.
And then the fifth thing thatwe do is we have a talent
acquisition department servingclients that do need a full-time
person, and we hire for allsorts of jobs.
We're entirely industryagnostic, so we've helped lots
(07:00):
of different businesses do lotsof different things.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
So it's kind of like you know which of these things
belong together and you've gotall these services and then
marketing, which is reallyinteresting.
I don't see, I don't see, yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
It's, but it's still back office Now.
Sales is not In the beginning.
A lot of times people weretrying to have us do sales and
we're like nope.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
But it's a different brain to me.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
It is a little bit.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Yeah, accounting and marketing.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Accounting and marketing totally different
Right side, left side of thebrain?
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Sure, but so you guys , you were in business doing
something.
How did you come up with I'mgoing to do these five things
right off the bat.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
We were not doing this.
We were doing none of this.
So my mom, chrissy, and I knewwe wanted to be in business
together, but we didn't knowwhat we wanted to do.
All we knew is that we wantedto be B2B.
We wanted to have a team ofpeople because we liked the idea
of creating jobs and being thereason that bread was on the
table and creating income forpeople.
We wanted to be as recessionresistant as possible, we wanted
(08:02):
recurring revenue and we wanteda fun business model.
So we brought that to afranchise broker and said find
us everything that meets thiscriteria.
And after six years of probablyannoying the hell out of them,
we didn't find anything that weliked.
So we got through that six-yearperiod I'm still working at my
corporate job and we looked ateach other and we're like okay,
(08:25):
we have a choice.
We could either say mothers anddaughters never have the
opportunity to do that.
That was really fun, that'll bea cool part of our history.
Or we can take this money thatwe were going to give to a
franchise to buy the model,build something, invest it in
ourselves and if we lose it, wewould have lost it anyway and I
would just go get another job ifit doesn't work.
(08:45):
So we threw caution to the windand we said, yeah, let's do
that.
And we didn't know what thatwas.
We still were no closer to abusiness model, even an industry
.
We had no idea.
So we went to as many businessowners that we could talk to and
the internet and we said whereare you underserved?
(09:07):
What do you need?
If you were to do it all overagain, what would you do?
And we have a whiteboard in ouroffice now.
That's like a really, reallybig whiteboard.
It was in my bedroom at thetime because I quit my job
during this story, moved intoChrissy's basement and that's
where this whiteboard lived.
We threw all those answers upon the whiteboard and we said
what's the through line?
And at the time we didn't know.
It was back office support.
We didn't really come up withthat term or be introduced to
(09:30):
that term until about two yearsin, but that's essentially what
it was.
We started with marketing,accounting and office assistance
.
Then we brought on talentacquisition because a client
wanted help hiring, brought iton and then HR came about three
years ago.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
So, in the franchise exploration, what did you learn
from there that you could applyto how you started your biz?
Speaker 2 (09:55):
One.
I learned that it was reallycheap and I didn't want to pay
the yearly fees what they callthose royalty fees.
I wanted to keep all the moneywe made.
I really learned how to likeread financials well and like to
know if an opportunity wasgoing to be good or not.
I learned about the territoriesand what the benefits and risks
(10:17):
are when you have differentterritories and you're sharing
territories.
And I also learned, if you putyour back into your business,
how you could be successfulversus if you're just coasting,
Because you get to see like whata coasting business looks like
and what somebody that reallydoes the grind looks like and
the difference in those numbers.
But I also learned more of thatjust by the School of Hard
(10:41):
Knocks once we started.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
So you guys started to get going.
Did you have a seed client?
Who was your first client?
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Mr Mark Gailey.
Shout out to Mark Gailey.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Look at that.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
Did he know he was your first client?
Speaker 2 (10:54):
He did.
He did so when we decided thatwe were going to and, for those
listening, mark Gailey is along-time family friend.
He did a couple of remodels onmy parents' homes and, gosh, he
knew me when I was in braces andso he was one of the people
that we asked about what do youneed help in your business,
along multiple other people.
(11:16):
And so when we came up with theconcept of Source, of this
fractional back office support,we floated the idea by him and
he said, oh my gosh, I need thatso bad.
And he actually wrote us acheck and we gave the check back
to him and said I am stillworking a job 13 hour days at
corporate.
I actually just accepted mydream job at corporate.
I have to quit first.
(11:36):
I can't do this and still beworking at corporate.
So I, when I turned in myresignation, I killed the lease
on my apartment, I moved intoChrissy's basement and we took
six months to build sourced uh,what it was at the time.
And then we went back to Markand we basically said hang on
for those six months.
And then January 7th was Ithink it was the 7th, maybe the
(11:59):
4th, it was a Monday and wecalled him and we're like okay,
we're ready, and he cut us acheck.
We took a picture of him in ouroffice space and he took a
chance on us.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
So there you go it always it just takes your first
client to get you going.
That's amazing.
Well, that way, with everyother prospect you can go.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Well, most of my clients do this or oh, we were
so grateful for him.
Our second client I don't knowwhat it was about the first two
years of business.
I don't know what it was aboutthe first two years of business.
I don't even think I disclosedhow long we were in business,
because you don't want to whenyou're super new like that.
Everybody and their mother wasasking me how many clients we
had, and I remember coming backIsn't that interesting.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
They can sense it.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
They can and I was like stop asking me.
The second client he asked andlike Chrissy and I were always
like really we didn't want toanswer the questions.
We're like how many do we haveGosh?
We don't know.
There we go.
She says we're not in sales.
I'll have to get back to you onthat.
Meanwhile we have like two yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
We had, let's see, including, so carry the one.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Yeah two.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Yeah, no, you never want to say it.
Nobody ever comes in there andgoes.
You know, this is my firstrodeo, this is my first remodel.
This is the first time I'veever actually cut a fascia board
.
But you had to be the first onesomewhere and they always did.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
I was so frustrated.
I remember months and months ofpeople and I'm like what gives?
Why are people asking me this?
Speaker 1 (13:16):
you're like ask me now, you know after, because you
guys have been in business forhow long now?
Speaker 3 (13:19):
nine years, yeah, so yeah that's it, that's but they
don't ask anymore, and the samething happened to me when I went
into real estate.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Oh, they still ask oh , do they really?
Speaker 3 (13:26):
Yeah, it was weird, they don't ask as much.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
In fact, I just did a sales call before we came in to
do this podcast and I wastelling the guy I'm like you
know, I've been in over 16,000houses, we have 15,000 different
customers.
(13:48):
The way he never asked.
I just had to tell him I'm like, finally I can say something
that's really good, but nobodyever asked.
Now, and when they do, you'relike, oh, let me go.
And when they don't, oh, yeah,let me tell you.
Anyway, that's amazing.
All right, so you guys startedin the basement.
When did you get your firstoffice?
Speaker 2 (13:58):
We actually got our first office.
Well, we had shared officespace for a long time, so we had
the first office before weopened we had shared office
space for a long time, so we hadthe first office before we
opened.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Was that the point?
Speaker 2 (14:09):
where you went, we, we, we've made it, we're moving
it.
No, we, no, we didn't.
We didn't even get our firstclient yet.
We had a shared office spaceand we put a decal up on the
wall so we could take a picturethat had our logo that, by the
way, I made on PowerPoint, andthat's still the logo we use
today, because Canva was not athing.
There was no like it was.
Either you knew InDesign, whichI didn't, or use PowerPoint, oh
(14:32):
my gosh.
And so we put the logo up onthe wall along with our mission
statement and our shared littleoffice space.
We were there until three yearsago and then, at three years
ago, we got our first officewith the build out, with our
look, with our PowerPoint logonow on, like you know, channel
lettering or whatever.
So it looks really good.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
You've got to be kidding me.
Your logo was built by you inPowerPoint.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Yes, sir.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Oh, I think she's got a sixth thing she can start
doing now and that's branddesign for people, because I
never knew that.
Because the sourced name anddesign it does it looks really
good and their office space nowlooks extremely professional.
I mean, you go to the TrustedToolbox.
You know you're walking into ahandyman company no, I'm joking,
but you know it's.
(15:13):
It's a good office space, butthere's definitely it just sings
with.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
You're working with a professional organization, oh,
thank you.
I actually, when I walked intoyour office the first time, I
was like gosh.
I wish we could have an officespace where we've got it's like
built out for us and like youwere like a big inspiration of
like one day we're gonna havethat.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
And then, when we did , I was like my gosh, we're so
legit, we're legit now.
I love it.
Now did you, did you guys comeup with like a, an operating
agreement?
You know, it's family members,it's mother daughter.
What roles we're gonna do?
How are we gonna settledisagreements?
Speaker 2 (15:42):
or do you?
just go, mom yes and no, sowe're both to do.
How are we going to settledisagreements or do you just go,
mom?
Yes and no, so we're both typeA women that are like we're both
very business oriented.
So we knew we needed to haveconversations of who was going
to do what.
That's evolved over time.
We don't have anything set outon paper.
What we do have on paper iswhat happens if something
(16:03):
happens to both of us.
How do those shares getdistributed?
Who gets involved?
What do we do of selling it?
I think we redid our operatingagreement last year and it was
like how about this?
How about this?
How about this?
Okay, good, so we're both verytrusting of each other and we're
always in lockstep of I'm goingto take this, you take this,
(16:24):
you're better at that, I'll dothis part, and so we don't
really have to, but we did wantto make sure that, in case
anything happened, that was inwriting somewhere We've had
another guest on a while ago,Carl Nickpon.
Oh, I love him.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Yeah, and Carl was just doing a speaking engagement
, talking as a panel member.
He was a family business.
He got into his family businessof doing formal wear and tuxedo
rentals and then bridal gowns,and it was family and he was
talking about how difficult itis to work within a family
dynamic and to do it that way.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Well, we had one much more recently, where I mean it
got emotional Because, remember,I mean it was a sibling
situation, that's right, yeah,and that was oh boy.
I don't even know if I want tobring it up, just because we
kind of diverted theconversation, because it got
really emotional.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
It did.
Yeah, you could tell that wasthat was that would hit her
heart.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Can I blow your mind for a second with how deep the
family ties go in Source?
So mother-daughter lead theorganization.
My sister has worked for us forsix years.
I hired my brother-in-law and Ialso hired my aunt, who came in
, then left and then came backin and then left again, and my
(17:41):
other aunt and my uncle areclients.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
Holy cow, I can see the interviews.
How are you related to me?
Okay, you're hired.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Yeah, what I want to know is what's Thanksgiving
dinner like, though we talkedabout that.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
We don't talk about business.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Good, oh, there you go, perfect.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
All right, well, we try not to.
About business Good, oh, thereyou go, perfect.
All right, well, we try not to.
We used to annoy people all thetime when the when the company
was being built, cause we didn'thave anything else to talk
about.
But now we're like nah, we dothis all day long.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Let's start with something else.
Was there ever a time where youwas like I don't think this is
going to work out, let's shut itdown.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
We have, we've call it out and we're like.
You can leave at any time, likeit, we're not.
Family always comes firstperiod.
Work your ass off.
But if that's not what you want, no harm, no foul, all right,
so you got.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
you and Chrissy are in the business and getting
going.
Who's the one who's bringing inthe clients, who's the one
serving the clients, and how doyou guys go about bringing in
new people?
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Yeah, it used to be that I was only in sales and she
was overseeing operations.
I wanted to be in operationsbecause I thought it was fun and
then I realized that I don'tlike it.
So I happily gave it to her tomanage, and as I grew more in
the company, our roles havegotten closer together.
(19:00):
Now her and I have identicaljobs.
Our operations is completelyfully functioning without us,
where we're all in sales, but wealso dip our toes back into
operations when it's needed.
So we call ourselves one reallygood person.
We're just two people doing thesame job.
So we're both bringing in sales,we're both looking at
(19:20):
operations, we're both lookingat financials.
So there's nothing that theother one doesn't do.
Now she's got more of a gift onthe financial side than I do,
and I obviously have more of agift in marketing.
So when it comes to likenumbers, I'm like go to Chrissy.
When it comes to anythingbranding, she's like go to
Gabrielle.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
So is your model.
I mean, do you actually handleall the services in-house or do
you just have trusted vendorpartners that you outsource?
No, we handle it all in-house,but they're all separate teams
all separate teams so, like ouraccounting teams, they're all
staff.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Accountants at least 10 years of experience, have to
have a degree in accounting andwe have a very specific way of
doing accounting.
We've seen it done a thousanddifferent ways.
We've seen all the ways thatdon't work, and so we are very
meticulous about what it is thatwe do those accountants.
They don't touch marketing,they don't touch hiring, they
don't touch HR.
And same with marketers andadmins and our talent
(20:11):
acquisition team.
They're all very separate fromone another.
The only team that blends isour account management staff.
That is over the clientrelationship, and it's their
responsibility to make sure thatquality is happening when there
are multiple services.
But even if it's just oneservice, there's making sure
that deadlines are met andthings like that.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
Okay, so a client can a la carte from the five
different services and then youessentially have a quarterback
that's assigned to them and theymanage that's right.
Okay got it.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Yeah, so they can be one service.
They can be multiple, they can.
Talent acquisition is on a jobbasis, so that can kind of come
in and out, um, so there'sflexibility with whatever the
company needs or how the companygrows over time.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
So I'm still interested in how you guys find
new clients and how do you doyou prospect?
Are you internet campaigns?
Because you're B2B?
And you said I want to be B2Band I want to be recession
resistant.
I love that and I picked noneof that, of course.
So I picked the exact opposite.
I picked the worst one.
Go ahead.
So how do you guys go aboutthat?
And tell us a little bit moreabout how you market for new
(21:15):
clients.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
So we're actually learning.
I'll answer the question of howwe have done it to this point
for the last nine years.
But we're at a place now wherewhat's worked previously is not
working, moving forward, becausewe've leveled up the business
and our clients are much biggerthan they have been in the past.
So in a lot of ways, I am justlike every other entrepreneur of
I still have to figure it outfrom scratch all over again.
(21:36):
Up until this point it's allbeen word of mouth and referral.
We do a lot of networking.
We do a lot of chamber meetings, a lot of going out into the
world, our clients basically ourcompany has survived because
our clients have referred us somuch, because they're so happy
with what it is that we do, andwe've been thrilled that that's
(21:57):
been the case and it still is.
But one I had two kids in thelast couple of years.
I can't network the way that Iused to, so that in one way,
isn't going to be the way thatwe grow the company.
But also, like I said, ourclients are bigger.
They don't network either.
They want to go to the officeand they want to go be with
their family.
So we're now trying to figureout how to get to them because
(22:17):
they're not out in the worldeither.
So we're trying to figure outwhat's the next way.
We at one point had a salesteam.
That didn't really work out forus, but we might try that again
.
We're in a phase now wherewe're doing a lot of internet
marketing, some ads.
We're still too early to see ifit really works for us.
I've been told that servicecompanies do better with a sales
(22:40):
team and like that actuallygoes and hunts out clients
versus internet marketing.
But we'll see In a lot of wayswe're just kind of starting over
on that one.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
So your average client size now, what does that
look like?
Speaker 2 (22:52):
They usually start around 2 million and on the
fractional side they usually goup to about 30 million.
On the talent acquisition sideit goes all the way north of
there.
So, it doesn't really matter.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Yeah, totally different market.
You're right, you're talking 10plus million.
This is not a networking.
Let's just do that.
It's I got to find another wayto get in front of somebody and
prove a value proposition.
Somehow, some way, are youfinding now that you have to do
RFPs?
Before it would just beproposals.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Not yet, but we have been certified for government
contracts and corporatecontracts now, so we are
entering into the RFP world.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
Do most of the clients start with just one of
your services and then juststart adding mine?
Speaker 2 (23:32):
Typically, yeah, they either come in on talent
acquisition or accounting andthen they kind of I mean, we'll
tell them all the stuff at thesales process, but they're
focused on their immediate need,and that immediate need is my
books need to be fixed and theysuck, or I need to hire a person
, and so when they get throughthat initial pain, then they're
like oh, you have other things.
(23:53):
Okay, well, let's try some ofthis other stuff.
And then they usually do liketwo or three services.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
And are most of the accounting clients people who
are trying to do it on their ownand realize that they're in
over their head?
Or are you picking up peoplewho are not happy with their
current service?
Speaker 2 (24:06):
It used to be that they were doing it on their own.
In the last couple of yearsit's picking it up from people
that didn't know, and a lot ofways we grew out of that too.
There's bookkeepers and thenthere are accountants.
We had to learn the differenceand we also thought when we
first started because we didn'thave a background in this that
we hire accountants that had allthe accolades.
(24:27):
We even hired CPAs at one time.
There's a lot of different waysto do accounting.
We had to figure out what webelieved was the absolute right
way and then hold all of theseaccountants to the exact
standards of what it is that wedo.
Now we've learned over time howto how to suss out good
accountants and what they do andtheir practices and things like
that.
But now we're cleaning up a lotof um people that likely didn't
(24:51):
know how to do it correctly.
And then we come in and we'relike, sorry, your books are
really bad.
We need to, we need to fix it,and then we get them back on,
back on track books are reallybad.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
We need to, we need to fix it and then we get them
back on, back on track, so it'sall right.
So in the accounting thing it'susually the pain point is
totally effed up, need to getfixed up.
So you guys, are coming in anddoing the, the save, if you will
, as opposed to the hey, look atall these other things.
Okay, we'll make this, so you'dhave to sell to the pain point
on the accounting side to getyour foot in the door.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
Yeah, typically there is an event that is making them
need to look at their books.
Oftentimes they've hired afractional or a full-time CFO
and they can't do their job withthe reports that they have and
then they don't know how bad itis until we evaluate it.
Sometimes their bookkeeper isleaving, retiring.
Sometimes their bookkeeper isrelated Call it a wife or
(25:36):
something.
They're like I just don't wantto do this anymore and they were
never wife or something.
They're like I just don't wantto do this anymore and they were
never trained or whatnot.
Sometimes they are approachingan exit and they know in three
years or five years, I know I'mgoing to need to exit and I need
to get my books prepared forthat.
So there's usually some kind ofimpetus of I need someone to go
(25:57):
under the hood and at leasttell me what I'm looking at.
Very rarely are they like Idon't want to do it anymore, but
it does happen.
It does happen.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
It is funny how many fractional CFOs have been coming
across here in the last two orthree months.
I don't know if it's me justrunning across them and me
looking for it.
You know the red car theoryAgain when you're looking for a
(26:27):
red car.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
I'm not looking for one, uh, but it just seems like
it have been.
Or do you think the industryhas grown bigger at both?
Yeah, wow, so that may be agreat source for you.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
I get it, thank you, just thought it was one of your
better ones, but oh, I'll acceptit.
Man, I was waiting to.
I waited a whole 30 minutes topull that one off, all right.
So, um, as you guys are doingthis and you're out there, so
you would you say yourday-to-day has evolved now to
more hunting and businessdevelopment and then checking in
on operations.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
By the grace of God, yes.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
So two, we'll call it .
But in the last three to fiveyears it was a 50-50 split and
my God, that was hard.
Find new business, which takesa lot of time, and then you had
fires inside the business thatyou had to fix and then also
make it look like there weren'tfires and figure out how to fix
it and have it never be aproblem again, while
simultaneously being in happyworld so you can bring new
(27:08):
clients in.
Every entrepreneur knows whatthat's like.
That's hard.
It is hard.
My operations team now isstellar.
We have to check in and makesure we learn the trust but
verify lesson a few times.
We no longer have to learn it,so we just check in to make sure
everything's happening as itshould.
(27:29):
But we can pretty much throwthem over and they're well taken
care of.
So I am blissfully just insales world, which is awesome.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Yeah, I remember when I was at the bank, blissfully
just in sales world, which isawesome.
Yeah, I remember when I, uh,when I was at the bank, uh, my
job was commercial loanoperations and also had letters
of credit, and the guy who wasselling all the letters of
credit responsible for all thesalespeople, uh, internationally
letters of credit came out tome and I'll never forget what he
told me.
He says, chris, you have a hardjob.
He said I just have to ask forgood service, you have to
(27:57):
provide it.
So I feel really bad for you.
And he said that.
And then he just unloaded on meand how bad the operations was
that I was inheriting.
So a lot of fun.
But Leon Maba said that to meit's always better to, it's
always easier to ask for goodservice than provide it.
So you're right, the operationsteam, when they make you look
good, helps you in sales, andwhen something goes wrong, you
(28:18):
keep thinking about the onething that went wrong while
you're trying to tell somebodydon't worry, we're going to be
great for you.
Oh, my God, that one thing'sgone wrong.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Well then, we had to learn, like all the while.
We had to figure out, re-lookat our processes.
We had our processes from whenwe started, but we learned a lot
in those years where we neverran into this situation, never
ran into this situation, neversaw this, and so we had to
overhaul all of our SOPs whilesimultaneously fixing all of the
(28:47):
fires that we had andsolidifying what our standards
are moving forward.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
Repairing the ship at sea.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Now we have seen everything.
Now we know our process.
They're immovable.
So now we see something thatwe've never seen before and
we're like we just fall back tothe level of what it is that we
know is going to work, and it'sa lot less painful than it was.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
So when I look at you two here in the room with me,
your businesses are verydifferent in one way.
I mean, they're both servicebusinesses, but you have to be
with the customer.
Chris, you could do yoursentirely remote right, we could,
but you don't, we don't, andthe value of that is, I imagine,
pretty powerful.
(29:27):
So what I mean?
How much FaceTime do youactually give to your clients?
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Me personally or our team, team, team.
So we serve clients all acrossthe country, so a lot of what we
do is remote.
There's two ways that we reallyget in front of clients.
I'm actually seeing one thisafternoon In the accounting
world.
We just check in and sometimesdo a financial review.
We do financial reviews everymonth with our clients.
Sometimes we're like can youcome to us?
(29:54):
We'd love to see you, or we cancome to you and just have a
touch point.
We give Christmas gifts, handdeliver Christmas gifts every
year.
If we can't reach them, then weobviously mail it For talent
acquisition clients.
If they've never worked with usbefore, we're like come on in,
see our office, see thelegitimacy of us.
It's kind of a big deal.
Even if it's just me going tothem.
(30:15):
They don't see the wholeoperations of everything.
And then I'm also giving athank you gift for clients that
have made a placement with usthat I.
They're local, so I'm likewe're going to drop off the gift
instead of delivering it.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Nice.
All right, so you had talkedabout the growth.
Part of this is where I'mreally stuck on this.
I think it's going to be anamazing time.
You've got a solid foundationand now you're ready to go out
there and try some new thingsand get going on with that.
You're thinking about the salesteam.
How much have you learned fromyour clients that you're working
with right now to figure outhow you're going to go out and
do this?
Speaker 2 (30:48):
Oh, I love what I do because I get to see all the
mistakes of other businesses totry to learn from them.
Here's what I know All of ushave the same problem, and it's
in sales.
Nobody have the same problemand it's in sales.
Nobody knows how to do it,nobody feels successful at it,
and so, um, if nothing else,it's kind of takes that imposter
syndrome out of the way,because every single person has
(31:09):
this exact same problem.
Um, so am I trying to learnfrom my clients?
Yes, has anyone else?
Has anyone figured it outsuccessfully when you get under
the hood?
No, so we're all just doing thesame thing.
I love that.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
Did you learn?
Yes, I learned that they'rejust as big of a screw up as I
am.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
I love that Cause.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
That's what I think I was thinking, that to myself is
you're right.
The once you find that outyou're like oh, we're all just
trying to figure this thing out,man.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
So it's okay, you get a little grace.
Now I've got comp plan.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Like we know where to find them, but at the end of
the day, like we all have thesame issues, so let's talk about
the talent acquisition wherebecause that's one thing we
didn't bring up and I got togive some props to Alan because
he didn't insert it, so I'llinsert it for him All real
estate agents are the same,especially all commercial real
estate agents are the same.
There's different flavors foreach In talent acquisition.
(32:01):
That's a big swath as well.
Where do you guys find that youplay the best in?
Speaker 2 (32:13):
So a lot of recruiting companies.
They niche down and that's agreat strategy.
It's wonderful we don't, so weactually have.
It could be perceived as aharder job because we don't know
every industry, every job.
What we're really good at ispeople.
So we are a people businessthat just happens to do
accounting, that happens to hire, that happens to write.
So we know how to disarm people.
We know how to get to thebottom of what it is that they
(32:33):
really want, what they'relooking for, and our recruiting
team is not made of recruiters,they're made of business people
who knows how to like,understand the psychology and
the behavior of people, and thenwe just learn the job and what
it is that they need, the clientneeds in their actual job.
So when we first start in arelationship with a client, we
(32:53):
interview that client for 90minutes and we ask them all
sorts of stuff about theirhistory, about their culture,
their values.
Why are their values, the waythat they are?
What are their red flags?
What are their green flags?
Talk to me about your bestemployees.
Talk to me about your worstemployees.
How does this job functionacross your organization?
(33:14):
Are they talking to clients?
What about?
So like we're really learningabout the company and then we
look at the job and say, okay,you need these qualifications,
blah, blah.
When we go through ourrecruiting process we have a
three-step or a two-stepinterview process, but a
three-person team to make surethat when a client is
interviewed or interviewscandidates, these candidates
have been way pre-vetted.
(33:34):
So everybody's in that 90-minutemeeting.
The first person, who's oursourcer, fills the bucket with
people that are interested inapplying or they're going to
find them.
So they're filling the bucketwith candidates.
Our second person her title isrecruiter and she does nothing
but phone screens.
So she's listening forqualifications and technical
ability, along with somecultural things on the phone.
(33:56):
If she likes the candidate,then it goes to our client
relations specialist who does aface-to-face behavioral
interview.
They're not asking anythingtechnical, with the exception of
are you telling me the samething that you just told our
recruiter?
They're asking behavioralquestions to make sure that this
job, this company, is the rightfit.
If they make it through thosetwo people, then the client sees
(34:17):
them.
So we're really getting to knoweach of our clients and making
sure that if they're spendingtheir time to interview somebody
it's because they're a good fitfor that role.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
Again, I think the whole recruiting process is
different for me, especiallywith the handyman and trying to
find guys.
Are you placing mostlysalespeople managers?
Speaker 2 (34:36):
Yeah, it's all admin to executive and anything in
between and we've done justabout everything.
So we don't do any labor or wedon't do anything in
construction unless it'smanagement.
So we don't do any labor or wedon't do anything in
construction unless it'smanagement.
We typically do office jobsadmins, attorneys, paralegals,
IT, cybersecurity, operations,people, all sorts of stuff All
(34:59):
right Now.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
Let's switch gears to the fun stuff marketing.
So you work with some people inmarketing.
It's fun, but she also works,as we talked about, on the
president of NERI here inAtlanta for a year Name dropper.
Yep, I'm going to drop a lotmore.
Watch this and I will beheading out.
Well, by the time this one airs, I will have already gone to
the NERI National Conference, orname dropping, to network with
(35:21):
everybody.
And where is this conference?
It's in Austin Texas.
Nice, yes, it.
And where is this conference?
It's in Austin Texas.
Nice, yes, it's going to be alot of fun, and so I'll have a
lot of big daddy stories afterthat one.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
I'll bet you will.
Yep, you might come back with acowboy hat.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
You know what you should come back with a cowboy
hat I should you know so, my son.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
now we're really going to segue he like bud,
that's like telling all of uswho wear baseball hats here in
Atlanta that you better havebeen playing baseball today.
I said it just doesn't happen solet's talk about marketing
because Gabrielle has come inand really helped us with Nary
Atlanta, do something thatactually is super cool.
It's just fresh off the presses, but I want to give her props
(36:03):
because I wanted to see how shedoes this with her other clients
.
We're a nonprofit.
Her props because I wanted tosee how she does this with her
other clients.
We're a nonprofit.
We're a group of remodelers andvendors who come together 280
of us clients and companies.
So we don't have a huge budget.
We got a small budget formarketing.
It's hard to market anassociation and get name
recognition, but she was able topull off something that the
(36:24):
Braves which is why I wanted toget to the baseball hats was
talking about.
The Braves, it's a big dealhere for us in Atlanta.
Even if you don't like baseballat all, people still identify
if you're in Atlanta with theBraves because they've been very
successful.
Yeah, it's just part of ourculture here.
So now we have got this dealgoing for the next month, where
we're going to have radio adsradio, I mean, sorry, tv ads and
TV spots and digital streamingpromoting the Nary brand.
(36:47):
And she was able to pull thisoff for I mean literally a song
I mean compared to what normalbudgets are, knowing way too
much about how much that wouldhave cost somebody like me to
get it.
It's really cool.
So I'm excited that she cameback and got involved because we
had a meeting.
I was like she has the two kids.
Can you really do all this?
She goes.
If you give me some help, I'llstay.
(37:07):
I'm like, oh, thank God.
And then of course, we get hersome help.
And now the guy's gone, sowe're getting her two more guys
to help.
So there's your two, because Isaid you got to go help
Gabrielle do this.
So you did a great job with usand I want to thank you and give
you some a lot of credit onthat kind of hey, you're solving
the pain point accounting.
Solving that pain point talentacquisition.
Now let me tell you about thisstuff over here.
(37:30):
How do you introduce that Tana?
What have you guys been doing?
Speaker 2 (37:33):
Yeah, so marketing is kind of like a tier or a phased
approach, depending on whatpeople need, where they come in
on the marketing journey.
So a lot of clients they cometo us and they've never done any
marketing at all and we have tostart them with some decent
branding.
So it looked.
Do you have a good logo?
Do you have a good website?
Do you have any social mediaexisting at all?
Speaker 1 (37:55):
I'm not saying so you do do logo design.
Oh yeah, I thought I was beingsmart.
We are a full-scale marketingagency.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
Keep going.
All right, I would knock it outon PowerPoint.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
Yeah, no longer on PowerPoint, no longer on Canva.
Even we're very professionalover here, but yeah, we do it
all.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
Do you use an old-fashioned typewriter too,
ellen?
God, no, that reminds me of mybanker boxes days with
accounting.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
It's like a tick.
No, we're not going back to thedark ages.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
Oh, we lost her.
She's glitching All right.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
So talk about maybe one of the success stories you
had in marketing and how youwere able to come in and help
them with that.
Okay, so we had a um, a clientwho broke off from a large um
hotel company to start thistechnology that will help the
hospitality industry, and theyhad nothing except for the
technology and a couple of pilothotels.
That it's going really well for.
That has been such a fun clientbecause we did all of their
(38:55):
branding, all of their logodesign, all of their messaging,
their website.
We've helped them design theirapp and now that we've gone
through all of that, oh, wecreated a really sick animated
video.
That was so fun.
But now that they've, that hashelped them drive a lot of sales
.
That was already happening, butit just brings them legitimacy
to play with larger players outin the world and they can
(39:17):
compete in the bigger space.
Now and now we're going downthe advertising route.
So now it's if I don't book ameeting, other people can still
find me.
Um, and that's been really cool, Cause we're doing a lot of
things, kind of like what we'redoing with Nary.
That's a lot of more brandawareness rather than lead
generation to get the name outthere.
(39:37):
So and that's that's alwaysreally fun because you have
media spots and advertisingspots and just it's, it's fun.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
That is a lot of fun.
Now how involved will you getpersonally in that, or do you
turn that over to your accountmanagement and your team?
Speaker 2 (39:50):
So for marketing I still stay pretty involved.
I can step out at any time, butI just love it.
So I like to be involved and myteam tells me they really like
my opinions.
I don't know if they actuallydo or not or if they're just
being nice.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
You sign their checks right, right.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
So I still stay pretty involved.
I don't know if they actuallydo or not, or if they're just
being nice.
You sign their checks, yeah,right.
So.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
I still stay pretty involved.
I don't know if they're goingto listen to this one.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
but hey guys, I think she's seeing through it.
If you want to listen to thisone, you can.
But yes, as an owner.
Yeah, when I say a joke in ameeting and everybody laughs and
I know that you know, I know,yeah, and I know I'm not that
funny and that the one whodoesn't laugh is gone.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Yeah, so for marketing I stay pretty involved
, but for all the other ones I'mI'm pretty much just like I'm
here, unless there's a problem,or I'm taking you to lunch, so,
um, and that's, I like beingthere.
There's a.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
We have a lot of clients, so if I were to split
my time across them all, butit's been amazing what a great
growth and a great story havingyou and your mother be able to
grow this business and actuallyemploy I guess what
three-quarters of your family.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
They're not all there now, but yes, they've come in
and out.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
I do have one question because it sounds like
you're wrapping up right?
Speaker 3 (41:00):
I am, and we're getting close to the end.
Can you squeeze me in for justa second Wait?
Let me check with my people.
All right, all For just asecond Wait let me check with my
people, All right.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
All right, you get 36 .
Speaker 3 (41:06):
Earlier you mentioned .
You know how to write a compplan and it's kind of been one
of those things I've been payingattention to in business.
My wife is an accountant andevery once in a while I hear
about there's so many bad compplans and it seems like it
should be a lot easier than itis.
But I see comp plans that aretoo complicated.
I see comp plans that actuallyincentivize the wrong things and
(41:27):
drive poor behavior.
And then I see comp plans thatmay have looked good when you
first roll it out and thensuddenly the company is
begrudging how much moneythey're paying to their
employees.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
Oh, that's the worst.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
Which drives me insane.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
That drives me crazy.
Speaker 3 (41:41):
Because, like hey, they're choking on money,
because they're making you a tonof money.
So can you give our listeners acouple pieces of simple advice
when it comes to just a goodcomp plan?
Yeah, absolutely the firstthing I will say I got a good
question out of Chris.
I just want everybody to know,All right we'll allow this.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
This question will allow, as the moderator says
will allow for.
Speaker 2 (41:59):
no, she can take as long as she wants Cross-examine.
He's just going to edit it outlater.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
No, he's not.
I don't know.
I'm getting ready to write itdown.
Speaker 3 (42:06):
Our heads were twinkling when she said that.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
The first thing is that it depends on the business
it truly, truly does.
Whether you're a B2B, B2C orlike what size deals you are
closing.
The best thing that you can dois to keep it simple and to keep
it lucrative.
You want people to be able tomake money, and a lot of money.
You want your sales team to bemaking more than the managers.
(42:30):
Absolutely.
If they're making more than you, that's fabulous.
Let that be the case.
Put your ego aside.
Speaker 3 (42:35):
Yeah, let that sink in folks.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
That's actually a big one.
Uh, I agree, Cause we have anunlimited comp plan.
That's one of the things I talkabout with my sales guys is
that you can, you can make moreyou can.
Just you can absolutely ton it.
You just got to get after it.
That's the thing.
Speaker 3 (42:49):
So I love that simple , lucrative and don't and don't
begrudge the fact that theystart making no celebrate it
yeah celebrate it.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
I don't know why people, whatever people's egos,
but um so, a couple of baseline,um she was looking, chris.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
She wanted to see what I was looking down like.
Yes, yes, I know, put your egoaside.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
All right, putting it right um you do want to have a
base, but that base needs to below enough for them to still
work.
So you want your commissionside to benefit to largely
outweigh the base.
You don't want you to make yourbase livable and comfortable,
but you can't get away with nobase, you just can't.
And then the other thought wasthere is a very creative way.
(43:34):
There's a lot of different waysto structure how you do
commission.
Something very successful isputting in place accelerators
for different tiers.
So if you meet a certainbaseline or like a certain quota
, you stay within a certainpercentage.
That's awesome.
You keep your job, everyone'shappy.
But if you exceed it by acertain amount, your commission
(43:56):
doubles or is more in some way.
If you get to this tier, it'sthis way.
So it really incentivizes themto move faster and succeed
faster so they can hitaccelerators and make more money
.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
I have been all across the board on this one,
and I took away the acceleratorsyears ago and so I just
introduced another one where myguys get paid on jobs completed
that are profitable.
That's when they get the check.
I don't give them a half checkin the beginning and a half
check after they get paid onjobs that are profitable that
they sold, but I gave them.
If you sold something, if yousold over a hundred thousand in
one month, you're going to get aSPF and you get an extra 500, a
(44:36):
thousand and it's tiered onthat one and we're trying to see
how that's going to go.
And that's exactly where Iforgotten about the tiering and
getting people hungry, aboutgetting that next.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
Yeah, it's, it's a yeah.
You get a lot of salespeoplethat are telling you otherwise,
but they are fine, coasting ontheir base and their normal
thing.
So it is tricky and this iswhere the business nuances come
in of how you get them to wantthose accelerators or your
accelerators.
Sweet enough, but they may notbe motivated by them.
(45:06):
So you got to figure out whatmotivates them and go that
direction.
But you also might have a salesteam that just doesn't care,
which is fine.
Speaker 3 (45:14):
Well, and I want to say one thing about your
business, chris, and theaccelerators.
So the estimator has a piece,or the salesperson has a piece
of the profitability of it,because they have to bid the
right number but they don't havecontrol over the actual
expenses, the costs of the job.
So it could really suck forthem and be a demotivator if
(45:36):
suddenly your crew is notdelivered.
I see your eyes widening.
Speaker 2 (45:40):
For all salespeople.
That's the same way for every.
Speaker 3 (45:44):
So I don't think salespeople should be tied to
the profit.
Speaker 1 (45:46):
So I'm smiling because, back to what Gabrielle
said, she can go out and sellright now because her operations
are tightened up.
Yeah, what I tell the salesguys is, if the operations guys
fall and you didn't help pickthem up when they called you to
say, hey, I got.
I ran into a problem where youdidn't call this out.
Speaker 3 (46:08):
I need this done and you didn't help them get an
add-on, or to keep us up to theprofit, or what if the what If
the guy doing?
The job screws it up.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
It shouldn't, I shouldn't hurt the estimator, so
I do not hit them on that, butthat is that has happened very
rarely compared to I missedsomething in my original
estimate, or the team went outthere, tried to get ahold of you
to find out why you wanted this.
Instead of that, you didn't getback to them.
They did that and the customersaid oh, I wanted this.
Then they get dinged and so Imake it a bigger deal.
But you're right, it's notdemotivating, but it's
(46:33):
definitely a lesson learned,because in our world there's so
many things that change.
But you know another example aguy bids a certain amount of
materials and right now, man,we're fluctuating on the week,
right now it is.
I'm telling you guys, when youtalk about lumber, right now it
is, I'm telling you guys, whenyou talk about lumber, it is all
over the board.
I got one supplier at twodollars difference than another
supplier, and I'm talking aboutI'm not a linear foot, but this
(46:56):
is a 16 footer.
So I hit them with that.
So they've got to have theresponsibility to price it
correctly in the beginning.
Because one thing I will say inmy business, the, the
profitability is established theminute you make that sale.
Right, think about that for aminute, because your maximum
profitability I guess you couldsay it like that, yeah, um, but
(47:17):
yeah, I don't ding them if it's,if it's horribly bad.
But, um, if they misorder a door, um, I make them buy it so they
can go out and resell it, butthey're, they're buying it, yeah
, so um I don't have thosestruggles.
Speaker 2 (47:31):
Yeah, did I did?
Speaker 3 (47:32):
did I mention I wrote down yours b2b recession
resistance is the door that youput in my house, one that you
screwed up on somebody else'shouse I can neither confirm or
deny that.
Speaker 1 (47:40):
No, but I do have.
I tell you what.
I've got some great doors andwindows for both of you.
If you guys want a certain sizeand a certain color, I've got
some really good ones.
I've got a bunch of portholescoming to my house.
Guys, I think we're going tohave to skip these last four
questions unless you're ready.
I'm ready, let's do it.
Speaker 2 (47:58):
I was born ready.
Speaker 1 (47:58):
Give us a book that you would recommend to our
audience.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
Oh my gosh, there are so many.
Um, I love the purpose drivenlife.
Don't know who wrote it, butit's an.
It's an older book, I thinkit's from the eighties or
nineties.
Um, it's so good.
I love that.
That was life changing for me.
Oh, and Brendan Burchard's umhigh performance habits.
I read that sucker like theBible.
It is um absolutely fantastic.
Speaker 1 (48:23):
Give me that one, one more time.
Speaker 2 (48:24):
Brendan Burchard high performance habits.
Speaker 1 (48:28):
High performance habits All right, gold nugget on
that one and purpose-drivenlife, life.
Purpose-driven life.
All right, I'm writing thatdown.
Sorry, you'd think I wasGoogling it to find it out,
because, no, I can't do that.
All right, because I got myphone unstunned.
All right, let's keep going.
What's a favorite feature ofyour home?
Speaker 2 (48:46):
I'm looking for a new home, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:49):
Two kids will do that to you.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
Yeah, we've outgrown it.
I'm going to have changed everylittle bit of it.
I love my high ceilings.
Speaker 1 (48:56):
All right.
So that's when you go for thenew home.
Speaker 2 (48:58):
We're going to have some high ceilings.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (49:00):
Yeah, that's fun, and a pool and stressful and a nice
kitchen.
Speaker 3 (49:04):
But other than that, she's pretty wide open.
Speaker 1 (49:08):
I'm pretty low maintenance other than that?
Oh, did I mention I want agilded gold bidet?
No, I'm kidding, that would becool too.
That would be.
I love this All right.
Next question Alan and Iconsider ourselves customer
service Freaks, Absolutely,because we love customer service
and love making it happen.
When you're the customer andyou're out there getting service
, what do you have the biggestpet peeve on?
Speaker 2 (49:30):
Biggest pet peeve.
Okay, I'm going to be a littlerude here.
Stupid people Can't stand itLike use your critical thinking.
Like I don't.
You don't have to solve myproblem perfectly, you don't
have to be the best person doingwhatever it is, but please show
me that you care to be thereand that, like you're putting
some drive behind your job, yourrole, talking to me, just
(49:53):
critical thinking when itdoesn't happen it drives me nuts
.
Speaker 1 (50:00):
Just give a little effort.
Pretend you want a littleeffort, just a little effort.
Did I mention when I went toMcDonald's and I walked up to
the?
I walked past the kiosk thatyou're supposed to order and
walked up to the counter only tohave her say that it's over
there.
All she did was point and goit's over there.
Speaker 2 (50:13):
Oh see, that's like, come on.
Speaker 1 (50:14):
I was like okay, I just wanted to see what would
happen and it was a test, and Idid go to the kiosk and I did
help another old couple put thestuff in the kiosk, because they
made them do it too.
And I was like, wow, did yourealize what you're doing?
Speaker 2 (50:29):
I mean Chick-fil-A is right there.
You know, you get like the deerin headlights, look when you
ask for something, and it's justlike what?
And I'm like, oh, come on, ohmy least favorite is now.
Speaker 3 (50:36):
You go into fast food and they just look at you and
they don't even say what can Ihelp you with?
And so I.
They have to say the first wordDrives me insane.
And these are yourcustomer-facing, the best
customer-facing people you havein your organization.
The management there sucks.
Speaker 1 (50:53):
Oh my gosh, I could go on for an hour on this
Because I would say, coming outof COVID, I felt like we all
lost manners and we all lost theinterpersonal skills, even
people who are good at it, andsomebody just asked that
question.
If you think that it's stillgoing on, even today, have we
lost our manners and our abilityto talk and communicate with
people and connect?
Speaker 3 (51:09):
my son's a school teacher and it's kind of wild to
hear him talk about how thatcycling through those lost years
they talk about it as the lostyears.
Wow, it's bad yeah so that'sour country's gonna get real
dumb in a minute yeah, I need toretire.
Speaker 1 (51:25):
all right, let's keep going.
All right.
Last one we love DIY nightmarestories, death, dismemberment.
Speaker 3 (51:32):
It's not a contractor , it's not somebody else.
It's your own pain.
Speaker 2 (51:36):
I will tell you Wait, you like what?
Speaker 1 (51:38):
We like DIY nightmare stories.
Speaker 2 (51:41):
Nightmares.
I was like how do we get fromDIY to murder?
I'm so confused, oh, that wouldbe good.
No to murder.
I'm so confused, oh, that wouldbe good.
I was like how do we get a DIYin dismemberment?
Speaker 1 (51:50):
Well, we were close to it.
I will tell you.
You're only 15 feet away fromwhere Chris put a nail right
through his foot, Putting up astructural support beam here to
get the bar up.
Speaker 3 (51:59):
You were pointing to the ceiling and you shot
yourself in the foot.
Speaker 1 (52:02):
No, I stepped down on the nail.
I was waiting for someone tocome help me put this LVL beam.
He was running late.
I was a little impatient, so Isaid I'm going to do it myself
and I jammed it up there andthen I jumped down right on the
board that had fallen, with thetwo by six sitting up, and there
was the nail.
At least it was over quick, itwas right there.
Anything like that.
Speaker 2 (52:21):
Okay, yeah, so anything can you top that one?
No, no, I can't top about oneand I don't even my worst.
That's okay.
No, I don't have a nightmarestory, but my.
I can tell you my favorite diystory um, in my office that you
said was beautiful.
Thank you very much for that.
Every single chair was handmadeby me oh boy every single one.
I think we have over a hundredchairs in there and we got them
(52:43):
all off of like amazon and wherewayfair.
So, yours truly, while duringmaternity leave I had my newborn
two-week-old in that office, Iwas putting together all the
chairs in my office.
Speaker 1 (52:55):
How was the hourly rate on that one?
Speaker 2 (52:57):
Wasn't very profitable.
Speaker 1 (53:00):
The sales guy wasn't getting paid on that one no.
Ooh ding, the sales people.
All right, guys, you've learnedsomething about back office.
It's again, I think, a greatniche, because I had never
really heard of something likethis and somebody who can offer
this many breaths of servicesfor you.
So, Sourced, go check it out.
Gabrielle Mills go check herout on LinkedIn.
She's out there.
You can go check out.
(53:21):
Sourced GetSourcedcom.
Speaker 2 (53:25):
GetSourcedcom.
We're working on sourcedcom.
That's a big one.
Yeah, we're trying Get sourced.
Don't forget sourced I like getsourced.
Speaker 1 (53:30):
Get sourced.
I like that.
It is cool.
And, on that note, go be coolout there yourselves, man, make
it a great week.
Keep doing something good.
Every week matters, everyminute matters, every.
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